I read the lawsuit documents in my hotel room. I’d checked into a Holiday Inn forty miles away, unable to stomach being near the property, and felt something cold and satisfied settle in my chest.
They’d wanted a lavish wedding.
They’d gotten a national scandal.
The final tally came three weeks later, when all the legal proceedings had been consolidated into a single judgment.
Total liability: $14,075,000. $14,475,000.
My parents didn’t have that kind of money. Nobody in our family did.
The law firm where Tiffany’s new husband worked? They fired him within forty-eight hours, cutting ties before the scandal could contaminate their reputation. His career, built on family connections and Ivy League credentials, evaporated overnight.
My parents were forced to sell the house—the four-bedroom colonial they’d lived in for thirty years, the one my mother had decorated with such pride. The bank seized it for a fraction of its value. Even that wasn’t enough to cover the debts.
They declared bankruptcy.
But bankruptcy doesn’t erase restitution to the federal government. That debt follows you forever, garnishing wages, seizing tax returns, haunting every financial decision until death.
My sister and her husband divorced six weeks after the wedding. The marriage lasted less than two months. She’d wanted a fairy tale. She got a financial nightmare and a humiliation that would follow her for life.
Her influencer career, built on lifestyle envy and aspirational content, was finished. Nobody wanted to follow someone whose wedding was synonymous with public disaster.
I should have felt triumphant. I should have felt vindicated.
Instead, I felt hollow.
The bank officer was efficient and impersonal as he pressed the bright orange foreclosure seal onto the front door of my parents’ house. It made a satisfying thunk as the adhesive caught, officially marking the end of thirty years of Coleman family history.
I stood at the curb, engine running, watching through my car windshield.
I hadn’t planned to come. I’d told myself I was done, that I’d moved on, that watching their house being seized was beneath me. But some curiosity had pulled me here, or maybe it was the need for closure.
One last look at the place where I’d grown up feeling like a disappointing footnote in someone else’s story.
My mother had planted roses along the front walkway. They were blooming now—pink and white—oblivious to the drama unfolding around them. She’d always cared more about appearances than substance.
The roses looked beautiful.
The family inside had been rotten.
The bank officer climbed into his sedan and drove away. The house stood empty now, windows dark, the cheerful yellow paint job my mother had insisted on last summer now looking garish and false.
Like everything else about the Coleman family image: pretty on the surface, hollow underneath.
My phone buzzed. Another message from Amy.
“The university confirmed your start date. August 15th. Congrats, Professor Coleman.”
Professor.
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