Chapter 1 - The Screen in the Dust
The damp, rusted iron gate of the backyard groaned against the evening wind as my family stood frozen under the harsh halogen floodlights.
My brother, Julian, stood with his arms crossed over his leather motorcycle jacket, his hair slicked back with pomade, a pair of designer sunglasses hooked into his collar. Beside him stood Selina, my mother, her neck adorned with the delicate gold hummingbird pendant I had bought for Phedra in Vancouver four years ago—the necklace Phedra had worn to the airport the morning she kissed me goodbye through her tears.
Between my boots and their polished Italian leather shoes lay my wife.
Phedra weighed barely eighty pounds. Her shaved scalp was covered in small scabs and patches of dry skin, her hollow collarbones jutting violently through the threadbare collar of an oversized men's work shirt that had been chewed by mice. Her trembling, calloused fingers still clutched three sharp porcelain shards from the broken dinner plate Julian had shattered at her feet ten minutes earlier.
“Damian, put the phone down,” Selina demanded, her voice tight, sharp, and laden with the false authority she had used to govern our home since my father died. “You don't walk into this compound after four years and start recording your family like we’re strangers on the street. If your wife had been a proper homemaker instead of wallowing in self-pity and letting disease rot her body, she’d be sitting inside on the Italian leather sofa your hard work paid for!”
“A proper homemaker?” I repeated.
My voice was low, flat, and hollow as a winter grave. The four years of industrial steel-cutting, sixty-hour weeks in thirty-below-zero Calgary blizzards, and the burns scarred across my forearms seemed to burn with a fresh, radioactive heat under my skin.
I didn't dial 911. I didn't summon an ambulance yet.
I tapped the screen of my phone and turned the display outward, angling the bright rectangular beam directly into Julian’s arrogant face.
Displayed on the screen was not a social media post or an old family photo.
It was an official, certified digital wire confirmation from the Alberta Provincial Workers' Compensation Board and Suncor Heavy Fabrication Systems, bearing the embossed golden seal of the High Court of Calgary.
TOTAL SETTLEMENT DISBURSEMENT: $1,250,000.00 CAD.
PRIMARY BENEFICIARY: DAMIAN VANCE.
DESIGNATED MEDICAL TRUSTEE: TO BE REGISTERED UPON DOMICILE ARRIVAL.
Julian’s eyes scanned the document. The smirk on his lips twitched, softened, and dissolved into pure, slack-jawed shock. His sunglasses slipped from his collar, clattering onto the gravel.
“A... a million and a quarter?” Julian stammered, his Adam's apple bobbing violently. “Damian... what is that? Where did you get that kind of money?”
“Three weeks ago, an overhead gantry crane cable snapped at the yard in Nisku,” I said, keeping my thumb hovering over the banking ledger. “Three tons of structural steel beams pinned me against a concrete retaining wall. I suffered two cracked vertebrae, internal abdominal hemorrhaging, and a shattered femur that required two titanium plates. The corporate insurer settled the negligence claim out of court forty-eight hours after I was discharged from the trauma ICU.”
Selina’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. Her hands flew to her mouth, her previous indignation instantly melting into the ravenous, calculating greed that had defined her entire adult life.
“One point two million dollars...” she gasped, taking a stumbling step toward me, her arms reaching out as if to embrace the son she had berated thirty seconds earlier. “Oh, my sweet boy! My brave Damian! I knew God was watching over you in Canada! You’ve brought a fortune to our house! With that money, we can buy the adjacent parcel for Julian's auto shop! We can pay off the mortgage on the downtown duplex!”
She reached out to touch my arm, but I took one slow, deliberate step back.
Her fingers brushed empty air.
Down in the mud, Phedra let out a small, terrified whimper, shrinking away from Selina’s perfume.
I knelt in the dirt beside my wife. I peeled off my heavy wool flannel coat and wrapped it gently around her shivering shoulders. I took her ruined, bleeding hands into mine, prying the porcelain shards from her fingers and letting them drop into the puddle below.
“Phedra,” I whispered, my voice breaking for the first time. “Look at me, sweetheart. Look at your husband.”
Phedra slowly raised her sunken, dark-rimmed eyes. A single, clear tear carved a track through the grey ash on her cheek.
“Damian...” she rasped, her voice dry as dead leaves. “I’m sorry... I tried to keep the yard clean... I didn't mean to break the plate... please don't let them lock the shed again.”
The words ripped through my chest like a jagged blade.
I scooped her up into my arms. She felt like a bundle of dry twigs, light enough to blow away in a strong gust of wind.
I stood up, holding my dying wife against my chest, and looked straight at my mother and brother.
“The settlement funds are sitting in an escrow clearance account at Royal Bank of Canada,” I said, my voice dead and unyielding. “The funds will be released to a domestic legal fiduciary forty-eight hours from now, on one condition: the primary beneficiary must designate a permanent family caretaker on the trust registry.”
Julian stepped forward, wiping his sweaty palms against his jeans, a desperate, sycophantic smile spreading across his face. “Damian, brother... you know I’ve always been your right hand! Mom and I will handle everything! Let's get Phedra inside, put her in the guest room, and talk about how to allocate the investment portfolio!”
“Phedra isn't stepping a single foot inside that house of thieves,” I said, walking past them toward the rusted front gate where my rented crossover was idling.
“Where are you taking her?!” Selina shrieked, hurrying behind me, the gold hummingbird bouncing against her neck. “Damian! She’s sick! She has stage-three lymphoma! She’ll die in the car! You can’t waste your settlement money on a dying woman when your real family is standing right here!”
I stopped at the open car door, gently laying Phedra across the cushioned rear seat, buckling her in with the utmost care.
May you like
I turned back to Selina.
“My real family was starving in a shed while you wore her jewelry, Mother,” I said, locking my eyes onto hers. “Keep the house warm tonight. Because forty-eight hours from now, every single cent you stole from my sweat will come due.”
