Chapter 9 - The Suburban RealityThe small, beige house on Elm Street was exactly as Daniel remembered it, but to Vanessa, it looked like a prison.
They arrived in a yellow taxi, Vanessa holding baby Arthur wrapped in a cheap hospital blanket, her designer bags piled around her feet on the damp lawn. The paint on the wooden porch was peeling, and the small gravel driveway was overgrown with weeds.
"This is it?" Vanessa shrieked, her voice echoing down the quiet, working-class street. "This is where we’re supposed to live? Daniel, my parents are coming to see the baby next week! How am I supposed to show them this?"
"We don't have a choice, Vanessa!" Daniel snapped, his temper finally exploding. He grabbed the keys from his pocket—keys his mother’s lawyer had delivered to him at the office—and pushed open the front door.
The house was clean, but it was simple. The furniture was old, the carpet worn, and the kitchen smelled of pine cleaner and old tea.
On the kitchen table sat a small, sealed cardboard box.
Daniel walked over, ripping the tape off. Inside was the hand-knitted blue blanket his mother had left at the hospital, along with a single, handwritten note:
Daniel,
A home is not built with marble and gold. It is built with respect and love. You have neither. Start from the beginning, and perhaps one day you will understand.
— Mom
May you like
Vanessa walked into the kitchen, her face twisted in disgust. She took the note from his hand, read it, and ripped it into pieces, throwing them onto the floor.
"We are going to sue her," Vanessa whispered, her voice trembling with a dark, desperate fury. "We are going to find a way to prove she’s mentally incompetent. We will take that company back, Daniel. I swear it."
