My father pointed at me across the dinner table and screamed, “Get out!”
My mother said nothing. My sister smirked. The relatives nodded like it was justice. I grabbed my old suitcase, leaving the house I’d spent ten years quietly fixing. They thought they’d finally toss the useless one in work boots; they didn’t know that phrase triggered a secret will. Twenty-four hours later, I held the keys to a twenty-million-dollar coastal mansion. And this time, I was the one pointing at the gate. Dad, get out of my house.
My name is Morgan Clark. I am thirty-two years old, a certified master electrician with North Bridge Electric. My days are spent in the clean skeleton frameworks of multi-million dollar homes in Westport Cove, pulling high-gauge copper for integrated smart systems and climate controls that cost more than my car. I’m the one they call when the architects design something impossible and the engineers shrug. I make things work.
Then I drive home—or rather, to the house I grew up in. The evening gathering was supposed to be a family crisis meeting, which in the Clark household meant a mandatory performance. My parents’ house sits in an older neighborhood, sagging under the weight of deferred maintenance. The vinyl siding is warped, the porch steps groan, and a thicket of coaxial cables and unauthorized extension cords staple the exterior walls like disorganized ivy. It’s a fire trap. I should know; I’ve been trying to fix it in secret for a decade.
Inside, however, was Diane Clark’s masterpiece of illusion. My mother is a woman obsessed with the appearance of family, a curator of a museum that only exists on Facebook. The lighting was dim and warm, hiding the water stains on the ceiling. The table was set with the good china, the one she bought with a bonus check I’d given her two Christmases ago. The smell of a roasting chicken barely masked the damp rot from the leaking shower stall directly above the dining room.
My sister Lena was already recording, capturing the vibe. “Everyone,” she chirped, panning her phone across the table. Lena is an interior stylist and a minor local influencer—a queen of image. Her entire life is content, and every family meal is a potential post. “Sunday dinner with the fam. So blessed to have this support system.”
The story doesn’t end here –
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