Chapter 6: The Long Winter of Bayside Heights
We moved into a small, clean two-bedroom cottage near the harbor, rented under Marcus’s corporate name so my family couldn't trace the address.
For the next four months, I didn't work. I spent every hour of every day being a father and a husband. I watched Jamie's cheeks grow round and pink as he ate proper meals. I held Sarah through the night when she woke up screaming from nightmares about being locked in the service kitchen. Slowly, piece by piece, the life came back into their eyes.
Meanwhile, the mansion at Bayside Heights was undergoing its own transformation.
Without my monthly infusions of cash, the realities of owning a three-million-dollar estate hit Gertrude and Prudence like a freight train.
First went the water. The local utility company, unpaid for ninety days, turned off the supply to the estate. Prudence was spotted by neighbors carrying plastic buckets of water from the decorative garden fountain just to flush the toilets inside the house.
Then went the reputation. The story of the "Starvation Mansion" had become a permanent legend in the local community. The wealthy friends who had once drunk my vintage Merlot refused to return Gertrude’s calls. When Prudence walked into the local country club, the other members stood up and moved to the far side of the dining room. They were completely toxic.
By December, the temperature in New York had dropped to fifteen degrees.
Gertrude’s trust, completely broke and unable to sell the property due to my Lis Pendens lawsuit, defaulted on the secondary land loan. The bank didn't care about family history or high-society names. They began foreclosure proceedings.
I received the final call from Arthur Pendelton on a snowy Thursday afternoon.
"Julian," the old lawyer said, his voice entirely broken, stripped of all its former arrogance. "Your mother is eighty years old. She’s sitting in a house with no heat, wrapped in five coats, cooking canned soup over a camping stove in the living room. Prudence’s car was repossessed this morning. They have nowhere to go. Please... sign the settlement. Let them sell the house so they can buy a small condo in Florida."
I sat by the window of our cottage, watching Jamie build a snowman in the front yard with his mother. He was wearing a thick red winter coat, his laughter ringing out clear and bright through the cold air.
"I’ll sign the settlement under one condition, Arthur," I said.
"Anything," Pendelton begged.
"The title transfers back to me for one dollar," I said. "They leave the property with nothing but the clothes on their backs. No jewelry. No silver. No family heirlooms. If they take a single spoon from that house, I proceed with the criminal grand larceny charges for the power of attorney forgery."
A long pause stretched over the line. I could hear Pendelton breathing heavily.
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"They'll be homeless, Julian," he whispered.
"They have their blood," I said. "Let’s see how much it’s worth when it’s cold outside."
