Kicked Out For My Sister’s Baby I Returned Rich Chapter 20
Two months after the uproar died down, Second Door received a special consultation form.
Under client name, it read Marlene, with the address listed as the cramped rental in Pittsburgh.
She wrote that their landlord was refusing to renew the lease, Gordon was in poor health, Regina had a child, the family had too many belongings, and no one knew how to sort, pack, or transfer the bills.
At the bottom of the request, she added one more line:
I hope the founder can handle this personally. We’re family.
The front desk forwarded it to me and asked whether I wanted to turn it down.
After reading it, I routed it to a team through our standard process.
A quote. A scope of service. A payment schedule. A list of client responsibilities. Every item accounted for.
Less than ten minutes after Marlene received the contract, she called.
“Thea, you actually had someone send me an invoice?”
“You submitted a consultation request to my company.”
“I was asking my daughter for help!”
“Then you shouldn’t have used the business intake form.”
She choked on that for a second, then broke into tears.
“The landlord only gave us twenty days. Your father can’t move heavy things, and Regina has a child to care for. Do you really have the heart to let us sleep on the street?”
Three years ago, they gave me thirty days.
I spent one night sorting out every account and handoff procedure, and by the next morning I was gone, suitcase in hand.
Now, in her mouth, twenty days had turned into an unbearable cruelty.
“The full timeline is in the contract attachment. If you sign and pay the deposit on time, the team can start tomorrow.”
“But the price is too high!”
“That’s the standard rate.”
“You never used to charge for this!”
“You never used to charge for this!”
I held the phone and suddenly remembered what she’d said in my living room that day.
Because you’re the one who’s always done it.
She had treated my labor as an obligation I was born to fulfill, which was why even now she found receiving an invoice more offensive than anything they had done to me.
“I didn’t charge before.”
“That doesn’t mean the work had no value.”
Marlene’s voice went cold.
“Are you really going to keep score this carefully with your own parents?”
“You were the ones who taught me how.”
She fell silent.
I didn’t hurry her, and I didn’t make the decision for her.
By that evening, the system showed that the client had declined to sign the contract.
The next day, Marlene had a relative pass along a message saying I was leaving them to die.
I simply forwarded the certified email receipt from three years ago.
The handoff list. The customer service numbers. The deadlines.
I had already taught them everything they needed to know.
They just never thought they would have to learn it.
Twenty days later, another message came through the relatives.
Marlene had finally hired the cheapest moving company she could find. Because nothing had been sorted in advance, most of their things were just crammed into boxes. At the new place, she couldn’t find the medicine or the insurance papers and ended up sitting in the middle of the boxes, crying in a panic.
For the first time, Gordon didn’t curse my name.
He just opened the boxes one by one and kept searching.
He just opened the boxes one by one and kept searching.
Regina complained that the new place was too small. She fought with them while holding the baby, then moved out to a friend’s place that same night.
Once, they had stood in my living room deciding which of my things to throw away.
Now there was no one left to make a list for them.
And no one left to clean up after them.
At last, they had to live their own lives.