Mr. Harrison pronounced the words of dismissal. He declared that from that moment on, Mark was fired from the company in disgrace. He also stressed that the company’s legal team would immediately proceed with a criminal complaint for the embezzlement and fraud Mark had committed. Mark not only lost his job, but he would be blacklisted throughout the industry. His name would be tarnished, and no company would ever hire him again.
Mark’s ruin was completed when his cell phone in his pants pocket began to ring loudly. It wasn’t the ring of a normal call, but the sound of an avalanche of message notifications. Mark took out the phone with trembling hands. His face turned even paler as he read the screen. They were threatening messages from online lone sharks. To finance his lavish lifestyle and please Jessica, Mark had gone into debt with several illegal loan apps. He had borrowed money at sky-high interest rates, relying on his large salary and promotion bonus to pay the installments. But now his source of income was completely cut off. He had no salary, no bonus, no severance pay due to his dishonorable discharge.
Those collectors seemed to have a sixth sense. They attacked exactly when Mark had fallen to his lowest point. The phone kept ringing. Calls from unknown numbers started pouring in. Mark panicked. He threw the phone to the ground, smashing it as if to silence the bitter reality that was haunting him. But breaking the phone wouldn’t make the problem go away. The debt was real, and now he had to face it alone without a cent in his pocket. Mark’s colleagues, witnessing the complete destruction of their former boss, began to leave one by one. They no longer wanted anything to do with him. They looked at him with disgust and contempt.
Some even spat on the floor as they passed him, a sign of disdain for his immoral attitude towards his wife and mother-in-law. The guests left without saying goodbye to Mark. They only nodded respectfully to me and Mr. Harrison before hastily exiting the house, which now felt like hell for Mark. Mark was alone, truly alone, in the middle of the messy living room. Jessica was being held by a bodyguard in a corner of the room, too busy lamenting her own fate to worry about him. I no longer felt small, but stood tall with pride. I felt strong. I had seen the villain of my life crumble due to his own actions.
Karma had arrived quickly, instantly, and painfully. I looked at Mark one last time, and then turned my back on him. I walked to my mother’s photo, which still hung on the wall. I caressed the frame, whispering in my heart that justice had been done. There was nothing left that could harm us. But Mark’s punishment was not yet over. Mr. Harrison signaled to his head of security, “It was time to take out the trash from this house. Mark no longer had the right to be here. This house was mine, inherited from my mother, and I did not want to share the same roof with the man who had desecrated our sacred marriage.
The eviction was about to happen, and Mark was going to feel what it was like to be discarded like a useless piece of junk. Just as he had wanted to discard the memory of my mother from this house that very morning, the sky outside began to darken with gathering storm clouds, as if nature itself was ready to greet Mark with a cold storm, as cold as the fate that awaited him on the street. The sky outside had turned a lead and gray, as if the universe were echoing the tension in our living room. The echo of Mr. Harrison’s voice firing Mark still reverberated off the walls, creating an atmosphere that was suffocating, yet for me liberating.
The last of the guests had hastily departed, heads bowed, leaving only Mark and Jessica, cornered like rats discovered in a granary. I stood tall beside Mr. Harrison, watching with an empty gaze as Mark remained kneeling on the floor. His shattered cell phone lay beside his knee, a dead object that was a silent testament to his financial ruin. But the social and economic punishment was not enough. There was one matter left to resolve, one final possession that had to be stripped from him for my victory to be absolute and complete. It was this house, the house Mark had proclaimed as his palace, the place where he had acted like a king with absolute power over my mother and me.
With the last shreds of courage he could muster from the rubble of his shattered pride. Mark tried to stand. His legs trembled, but he forced himself to look at me. His eyes were red, swollen, and revealed absolute panic. He knew he had lost his job. He knew he had lost his reputation, but he still believed he had a place to stay. In a hoarse voice that tried to sound firm, Mark pointed to the exit and yelled at me. He was kicking me out. He said that if I really wanted to break up with him and side with Mr. Harrison, I had to leave his house.
Mark loudly proclaimed that this house was the fruit of his labor, his home, for which he paid the mortgage every month, and that I had no right to stay if I didn’t obey him. He yelled that I could keep all of my mother’s inheritance, but this house was his. I looked at him with profound pity. How pathetic was the man before me. He had lived so long in the fantasy he had created for himself that he had forgotten what was real and what was a lie. I didn’t respond to his shouts. I simply turned slowly towards Mr. Harrison, signaling that it was time to play the final card.
Mr. Harrison nodded understandingly. He once again took a folder from his secretar’s briefcase. This one dark blue, different from the one with the will. Mr. Harrison tossed the folder onto the table in front of Mark. The folder slid smoothly and stopped right in front of a panting mark. Mr. Harrison ordered Mark to open the folder and read it carefully before daring to kick out the rightful owner.
Mark’s hands trembled violently as he took the folder. He opened it abruptly, nearly tearing the papers inside. His eyes scanned the written lines. It was the property deed for the land and building of this house, and on it the name of the legal owner was clearly listed. Eleanor Vance. My mother’s name, not Mark. Mark’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open in disbelief. He flipped through the pages of the deed, searching for his name, for any proof of his ownership, but it was in vain. His name appeared nowhere. I stepped forward and approached Mark. My voice was calm, but it cut into his conscience. I explained the truth my mother had hidden all this time to protect her son-in-law’s pride.
I told him that the mortgage money he gave me each month was laughably small for paying off such a large house in this upscale neighborhood. The money he gave me barely covered our daily food expenses if my mother hadn’t secretly supplemented it. This house had been bought by my mother 10 years ago, long before I married Mark, paid for entirely in cash. My mother had let Mark feel like he was the owner of the house. She had let him boast about the renovations, even though the cost of changing the wallpaper had been reimbursed by my mother through the expense money, just so Mark could feel like a respected head of the family.
But today, because Mark had trampled on my mother’s honor, the truth had to come out. Mark shook his head violently, refusing to believe it. He screamed hysterically that it was impossible, that he had invested a lot of money in this house, but his shouts were useless. The legal proof was right before his eyes. He was nothing but a freeloader who didn’t know his place. He had lived in the house of the mother-in-law he insulted. He had eaten with the money of the mother-in-law he belittled, and now he was trying to kick out the owner’s own daughter. Mr. Harrison looked at Mark with manifest disgust. He said in a booming voice that Mark didn’t have a single inch of right to this land, and since Mrs.
Vance had bequeathed all her assets to me, the sole owner of this house was now me. With absolute power in my hands, I pointed to the front door, which was wide open. The night wind was beginning to bring a gust of cold air, as if signaling to take out the trash quickly. I said the word I had wanted to say for so long. Get out. The word left my mouth lightly, but with a devastating weight for Mark. I didn’t shout. I spoke with the firmness of a queen giving an order in her own domain. I told Mark and Jessica to get out of my house immediately.
I never wanted to see their faces again. I didn’t want the air of the house my mother had left me to be further contaminated by their breath. Mark tried to resist. He stood up and tried to grab my hand, perhaps to plead or to threaten. I don’t know. But before his dirty fingers could touch my skin, Mr. Harrison’s two bodyguards moved swiftly, grabbing both his arms, twisting them behind his back, and restraining him forcefully. Mark thrashed like a madman, shouting and insulting me, calling me an ungrateful wife, but his screams only sounded like the barking of a trapped dog. The bodyguards dragged Mark by force towards the exit.
Mark’s shoes squeaked as they scraped against the tile floor that I had mopped with tears that very afternoon. This time, that floor was a silent witness to the expulsion of the parasite that had been eating away at my happiness. Seeing Mark being dragged away, Jessica tried to take the opportunity to slip away, but I wouldn’t let her escape so easily. I called her name loudly. Jessica froze, her body tensed. I ordered the bodyguard to make sure Jessica also went out the door of my house and that she took nothing but the clothes on her back. The handbag, phone, and jewelry bought with fraudulent money had already been confiscated.
Jessica looked at me with pleading eyes, but I turned away. She had to feel what it was like to have nothing. Just as she had tried to trample on my dignity earlier, Mark and Jessica were pushed out the front door, stumbling onto the front yard. The sky, which had been holding back, finally broke. The rain began to pour down in sheets. Not a drizzle, but a deluge that soaked them in an instant. The rainwater mixed with Mark’s tears. He got up, drenched. His hair, once neatly styled, now hung limply over his forehead. He ran back to the porch, banging on the glass door that the bodyguards had locked from the inside.
He screamed my name, begging for forgiveness, saying he had nowhere to go. He said his wallet was left inside, and he didn’t have a single dollar in his pocket because I had told the bodyguard not to give it to him. I stood behind the large living room window, watching the scene outside with an empty heart. The porch light illuminated Mark’s pathetic figure. He pounded on the glass, his face pressed against it, distorted by the streams of rain. He looked like a ghost from the past, trying to haunt me. But this glass now separated us. Behind Mark, Jessica stood shivering from the cold. Her mascara had run, staining her cheeks and making her look like a weeping clown.
Mark turned to Jessica, hoping his mistress could help him. He asked her to take him in her car to let him sleep at her place. But the drama in the yard was not yet over. Jessica, realizing that Mark was now a useless beggar who had also dragged her into legal trouble, flatly refused in the pouring rain. Jessica’s screams could be heard as she pushed Mark, causing him to fall into a mud puddle. Jessica yelled that all this misfortune was Mark’s fault. She called him a man of bad luck, a scammer, an idiot. The couple who had been feeding each other cake in my party now pushed and insulted each other in the mud of my yard.
The neighbors, drawn by the commotion, began to come out onto their porches. They watched the free show with mocking glances. Mark’s reputation in this neighborhood had completely collapsed. Now everyone knew his true face. Finally, ashamed of being seen by the neighbors and chilled to the bone, Jessica ran off in the rain, leaving my yard without a backward glance at Mark. She left him alone, lying in the mud. Mark tried to follow her but slipped. He fell and got up, stumbling towards the gate that had opened automatically. Mr. Harrison’s bodyguard, after making sure Mark had crossed the threshold of the gate, pressed a button on the remote.
The sturdy, tall iron gate closed slowly, forever separating my world from Marks. Mark was left outside the gate, clinging to the cold bars, looking at this house that now shone warm and bright. He realized that the gates of the paradise he had been living in had closed forever. And now he had to face the earthly hell he had created for himself. I turned and walked away from the window. I didn’t want to see him again. I took a deep breath, inhaling the air of the room that now felt more spacious, though still messy. Mr. Harrison gave me a gentle pat on the shoulder and a paternal encouraging smile.
That night, with the sound of rain hitting the roof, I felt truly alone, but not helpless. I felt free. This house was my mother’s and mine again. One month had passed since that stormy night. Time had flown, bringing drastic changes to my life. This morning, the sun streamed brightly through my bedroom curtains, greeting a new day with a different kind of warmth. There were no more of Mark’s shouts rushing me to make breakfast. There was no more fear of saying or doing the wrong thing. The large house my mother had left me now felt silent and peaceful. I woke up with a light heart, said my morning prayers, and prayed for my mother’s soul to rest in peace…………
