Chapter 8 - THE PUBLIC AUCTION
Six months passed.
Spring came to Chicago, melting the ice along the lakefront and bringing bright green leaves to the trees along Lincoln Park.
The scandal that had rocked the upper-crust social circles of Lake Forest had finally reached its ultimate legal conclusion.
Lorraine Whitaker avoided state prison by entering into a comprehensive civil restructuring agreement with the court receiver. She was forced to surrender ninety-five percent of her personal assets, including her dark green jeweled gowns, her antique jewelry collection, her Mercedes sedan, and her five-acre estate in Lake Forest.
On a bright Tuesday morning in May, I stood on the pristine lawn of the Lake Forest mansion.
A large yellow banner hung over the front stone gates: PUBLIC BANKRUPTCY AUCTION - BY ORDER OF THE COOK COUNTY CHANCERY COURT.
Hundreds of buyers, antique collectors, real estate investors, and curious onlookers were gathered on the lawn. Auctioneers in grey suits were setting up microphones near the grand front entrance.
Standing near the fountain was Aunt Evelyn and Cousin Julianne. Both of them looked healthier, happier, and ten years younger than they had six months ago.
Through the court receiver’s distribution order, Evelyn had successfully recovered her late husband’s six hundred thousand dollars with full compound interest, allowing her to purchase a charming, debt-free townhouse in Evanston and pay off Julianne’s graduate school tuition in full.
When Evelyn saw me walking up the driveway, wearing a tailored navy trench coat and sunglasses, her face lit up with a warm, radiant smile.
“Maya!” Evelyn called out, walking over to embrace me tightly.
“Hi, Evelyn,” I said, hugging her back. “How are you holding up?”
“I have never slept better in my life,” Evelyn said truthfully, taking my hands. “Julianne started her master’s program at Northwestern yesterday. And for the first time in twenty years, my bank account is in my own name.”
“Where is Lorraine?” I asked quietly.
Julianne pointed discreetly toward a small silver sedan parked across the street, far outside the main gates.
Sitting in the passenger seat was Lorraine Whitaker. She was wearing a plain beige rain jacket, her unstyled grey hair blowing in the wind, her face gaunt, pale, and completely hollowed out.
Beside her in the driver’s seat sat Elliot.
He was wearing an oversized thrift-store sweater, his posture stooped, his hands resting limply on the steering wheel. He had been blacklisted from commercial banking, was working as a junior clerk at a commercial auto-parts store in South Chicago, and was living with his mother in a rented one-bedroom apartment in Skokie.
They were sitting in their rusted sedan, forced to watch from afar as the court auctioneer hammered down the sale of their five-acre estate to satisfy the debts Lorraine had built.
Elliot looked through his windshield, catching my eyes across the long green lawn.
He didn't yell. He didn't make a scene. He simply stared at me with an expression of pure, soul-crushing regret.
He saw the woman he had tried to trap—standing tall, independent, free, flanked by the very family members he had helped abuse, holding her head high in the warm spring sunshine.
May you like
I didn't smile at him. I didn't glare.
I simply turned my back on them, stepped up to the auction table, and placed a winning bid on a small mahogany writing desk that had belonged to Elliot’s late grandfather—a desk I intended to gift to Evelyn for her new home.
