Two days after paying out all my money for my son’s wedding, the manager of the restaurant phoned me and his first words were, “Elijah, please, don’t put me on speaker.”
This is when I realized something was terribly wrong.
Tony Russo managed the Gilded Oak for years. He handled tough CEOs, horror-show brides, and arrogant local politicians thinking themselves to be the rulers of the city. This man did not scare easily. Which is why, when his voice shook on the other end of the line, I listened carefully.
“Mr. Barnes,” he said, “you have to come down right now. But above all, whatever happens, do not tell your wife about it.”
I was sitting in the kitchen having my cold coffee while my wife Beatrice was arranging some flowers in the sink, looking utterly angelic and like a perfect embodiment of the devoted wife that people believed her to be in our small town.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” I promised Tony.
Beatrice spun around and asked, “Who was it, darling?”
“Just the pharmacy,” I lied without hesitating. “Something to do with my blood pressure meds.”
Once at the restaurant, Tony took me down to the security office in the basement, without saying a word. He played me the footage from the VIP lounge just after the reception was done.
The screen displayed Beatrice entering the room. She wasn’t limping at all, completely overlooking the delicate little limp that she always employed when we entered church together. Then came Megan, my new daughter-in-law, still dressed in her wedding gown.
Beatrice filled two champagne glasses.
Megan lifted her glass and toasted, “To the stupidest man in Atlanta.”
Beatrice actually chuckled and replied, “To Elijah—the goose who keeps laying the golden eggs.”
They went on talking and laughed about selling the lake home which I had recently given to my son, Terrence, in order to pay for Megan’s debt and buy a condo in Miami. After that, they started talking about the family trust that would provide millions after the birth of a grandchild.
Megan touched her stomach and smiled. “Terrence believes the baby to be his. He’s such an idiot that he’s not even capable of counting.”
Beatrice told her to make sure I never demand a DNA test. Megan then asked how much longer until I was gone.
“Soon,” my wife said. “I changed his heart medication three weeks ago. I’m putting digoxin powder in his daily smoothies now. Someday soon, he will fall asleep and not wake up again, and we’ll take everything.”
The air went out of the room. Forty years Beatrice was there praying with me, holding my hand in the hospital, and smiling every morning. And every morning she was slowly poisoning me.
But there was one more shock in store. Megan questioned how could Terrace be so naive.
Beatrice chuckled. “It must run in the family.”
Megan looked surprised. “Elijah?”
“No,” she answered. “Terrence is Silas’s child.”
Silas Jenkins. My pastor. My lifelong best friend. The man who wedded us, baptized my son, and had Sunday dinners with us each week.
I could hardly resist destroying the surveillance camera; Tony held me back. “Don’t destroy this,” he told me. “You won’t have any evidence left if you break it. Elijah, this isn’t about your wife and you. This is a crime.”
I knew he was right. Had I reacted angrily, Beatrice could say the drugs were driving me crazy, and I’d appear insane without proof.
I immediately phoned my lawyer, Ms. Sterling. “Start up a protected file,” I instructed her. “Call it Operation Omega. I want every account, property, and trust frozen, and have a toxicologist on stand-by. I need a test for digoxin.”
Then I returned home.
Beatrice was at the kitchen holding a cup of smoothie. “I made you one of your favorites, sweetie,” she smiled. “You left home without having any.”
I grabbed the glass from her hand. I faked a big gulp, but when turned away, I spat the disgusting, ginger-flavored concoction right into the napkin. And then I went to the living room and started acting dizzy. In thirty minutes, I fell onto the living room carpet, pretending to pass out.
Beatrice didn’t scream. Didn’t call 911. She stepped toward me, kicked my ribs with the tip of her foot, and mumbled, “Get up, old man.”
When I didn’t respond, Beatrice took her phone and dialed Megan. “It’s done. He had it. Come over now, bring all the necessary papers. We need the power of attorney and DNR before medics arrive.”
Some time passed and then Terrence came in. He saw me on the floor and fell down on his knees. “Dad! Mom, call an ambulance immediately!”
For one second, I believed that my boy wanted to save me. But then Megan screamed, “No, Terrence! Don’t touch that phone, he has to die!”
Terrence began to cry, but Beatrice outright lied to him, saying I had signed a DNR order. I had not, of course. But Terrence merely released his grip on my arm.
“Okay,” he whispered, wiping away tears. “We wait.”
In that moment, my resolve snapped in two like a cheap plastic toy. I was no longer his father, for it was not that he lacked my genetics; it was his willingness to let me die.
They began crafting their tale, filing out the necessary paperwork. And that is when I made myself cough violently.
The room fell into stunned silence. I flipped onto my back and moaned. “What…what happened?” I wheezed.
Their expressions were priceless. Beatrice recovered first, rushing to hug me. “Oh my God, Elijah! You’re alive!”
“Of course I’m alive,” I mumbled. “More than a fainting spell can take an old trucker.” I let them assume that I was absolutely out of it. After all, I informed them that the heart scare had me thinking about wrapping up my affairs. “Next week, we will hold a gathering in church. Pastor Silas, our attorneys, our board. I want to make sure everyone gets what they deserve.”
I could see them grinning. They really believed they had triumphed.
However, in the seven days that followed, my attorney was as silent and efficient as the grim reaper. The accounts were frozen, deeds seized, and my toxicologist confirmed that there was digoxin on the napkin. Meanwhile, I went through DNA tests. Turns out, my son was 0% related to me, but 99.9% related to Pastor Silas. Moreover, the child Megan carried wasn’t Terrace’s either. Megan even cornered me at a café to threaten me into signing over my power of attorney—and the recorder in my pocket caught every single word.
It was finally time to set the trap.
The church was full on Sunday with relatives, my business associates, and the press, eager to see me surrender my kingdom. Beatrice and Megan looked beautiful, while Terrence sweated like crazy and Pastor Silas watched from the pulpit with eyes that seemed to gleam like those of a saint.
As soon as Pastor Silas ended his sermon, I came forward to address the people gathered there. “You’re here for a transfer of power,” I declared, “but before we do that, let’s look at this.”
Darkness fell, and the Gilded Oak security footage began playing on the screens.
Five hundred people fell silent as Beatrice and Megan’s voices boomed out, praising “the biggest fool in Atlanta” and detailing the precise manner in which they had poisoned my breakfast. After this, I played the recording of Megan’s threats, and then I showed the results of DNA tests, indicating that Terrence was Silas’s child and the baby Megan was carrying wasn’t even Terrence’s.
Absolute pandemonium broke loose, as Terrence leapt towards me yelling, “Dad, forgive me! You’ll always be my father!”
I looked down at my son, remembering him sitting in the middle of my living room, deliberately deciding not to help me in my hour of need. “Your job is to protect your father, Terrence,” I said harshly. “Not put pen to paper in order to seal his fate.”
The moment Megan began screaming, I opened my checkbook and extracted the check, which I had written to myself and had just signed. “It is what I promised—a transfer of power. This is for twenty-five million dollars—I have no other liquid assets.”
Beatrice and Silas’s faces were alight with blatant greed.
“This is being donated in full to the Westside Orphanage, because they are the only children in this city that really need a father,” I said.
Nobody spoke a word as I made my way through the center of the church, walking past my cheating wife, my treacherous best friend, and my son, who left me in the dark.
But as I stepped outside into the sunshine, I knew that I had finally gained something invaluable this week. And that was worth every single penny.
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