Chapter 5 - The Envelope and the Eviction
At precisely 10:00 AM the following day, the elevator bell chimed on the penthouse floor.
Eleanor led the way, leaning heavily on her ebony cane, followed closely by Arthur, Valerie—who was visibly pregnant and wearing a silk dress worth thousands—and a beaming Leo.
“I told you, Arthur, a fresh start is exactly what you needed,” Eleanor was saying grandly as she unlocked the front door. “Getting rid of that cold, barren woman was the best decision—Good heavens!”
Eleanor stopped dead in her tracks, her cane clattering against the bare wooden floorboards.
The silence that hit them was deafening. There were no plush rugs to absorb their footsteps, no crystal chandeliers casting warm light, no designer furniture to welcome them. The apartment was a cavernous, desolate wasteland of empty rooms.
“What… what is this?” Valerie shrieked, her hands flying to her face. “Where is the furniture? Where are the couches? Where is the bed?!”
Arthur stumbled forward, his face draining of all color until he looked like a corpse. He spun around, his eyes wide with rising panic. “Sarah! Sarah, where is everything? What did you do?!”
There was no answer, save for the hollow echo of his own voice bouncing off the bare walls.
Then, Leo spotted it. Lying alone in the middle of the vast expanse of the dining room floor was a single white envelope with Arthur’s name written across it.
Trembling, Arthur rushed across the room, tore open the envelope, and pulled out a stack of documents. As his eyes scanned the pages, his knees buckled. He dropped to the floor, gasping for air.
“Arthur! What does it say? Who did this?!” Eleanor barked, stabbing her cane into the floor.
“It’s… it’s the lease,” Arthur whispered, his voice cracking into a high-pitched panic. “She… Sarah was paying the rent. For four years, she paid the $9,800 every month. The lease was in her name. And… and she cancelled it. She terminated the guarantee.”
Eleanor’s jaw dropped. “Cancelled it? But you’re the man of the house! You own this success!”
“I never owned anything!” Arthur screamed, finally snapping under the crushing weight of reality. “My company went under four years ago! Everything we had, everything we ate, the clothes on your back, the roof over our heads—it was all Sarah! And she just threw us out!”
Before Eleanor could process the catastrophic collapse of her entire world, a sharp knock echoed at the front door. A man in a sharp gray suit stepped inside, holding a clipboard and an official notice.
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“Mr. Arthur Vance?” the man asked coldly. “I’m representing the building management. Since the lease was terminated yesterday and the account balance is currently zero, you and your family have formal notice to vacate the premises within twenty-four hours. Furthermore, past-due maintenance fees for unauthorized alterations total over fifteen thousand dollars. Payment is due immediately.”
Eleanor clutched her chest, staggering backward as the reality of their utter ruin crashed down upon them like a tidal wave.
