Chapter 3 - Total Meltdown at the Homestead
According to the chaotic text chain—and a frantic voicemail from my cousin-in-law Tyler, who actually had a soft spot for me—my absence had triggered a total domestic catastrophe at my in-laws' house.
It started at 11:00 AM when Diane realized the folding tables were still locked inside the church storage room, and nobody had the key except me (because Diane had casually assumed I would pick them up on Friday night). With Robert’s truck dead in the driveway and Mason refusing to drive thirty minutes out of his way because he was “busy setting up the sound system,” my mother-in-law had to frantically borrow a neighbor’s compact hatchback and make three separate awkward trips, scratching the interior and hauling heavy wooden tables all by herself while sweating through her dress.
Worse yet, disaster struck the patio electrical outlet that I had been asked to fix.
Mason, trying to prove he could handle the outdoor party speakers and the slow-cooker at the same time, plugged both into the faulty, spark-prone outlet. There was a loud pop, a shower of blue sparks, and half the house lost power—including the refrigerator holding the catered brisket and the central air conditioning unit on a humid, eighty-five-degree Cincinnati afternoon.
By one o'clock, the party was a nightmare.
Guests were arriving to find no working AC, a sweltering patio, half the food spoiling in a warm fridge, and Mason standing by the dead grill looking like an absolute fool with a smoking pair of pliers in his hand, having tried and failed to fix the burner connection.
My phone vibrated with a desperate text from Claire:
Ethan, please pick up. The patio outlet shorted out the kitchen. Dad is screaming, the AC is dead, half the food is ruined, and Mason broke the grill worse. Where are you? We desperately need you.
I looked at the message, sitting in the quiet, air-conditioned comfort of a local diner where I was calmly eating a turkey club sandwich to celebrate finishing my exam.
I wiped my mouth with a napkin, typed a brief reply—Sorry, I'm busy. Call an electrician—and hit send.
Back at the house, things were reportedly reaching a boiling point. When Uncle Robert demanded to know why nobody had hired a professional or made sure the house was ready, Mason tried to deflect by making another one of his famous sarcastic jokes about me.
“Don't worry, Uncle Bob, we can just ask Nate to fix it—oh wait, the invisible man ran away!” Mason laughed nervously.
May you like
This time, nobody laughed.
According to Tyler’s private message to me, Diane burst into tears right in front of the retired city supervisor, Claire openly yelled at Mason to shut his mouth, and Robert slammed his beer bottle down so hard it cracked against the patio table. The entire party was a public disaster, and the underlying rot of their family dynamic was laid completely bare for all twenty-six guests to witness.
