The Forbidden Seat

On the way to the hospital in my daughter's car, my legs felt cramped, so I adjusted the angle of the passenger seat. A second later, I heard a soft snap from beneath the seat. A toothpick had broken. I jumped in fright as my daughter, Marissa Langford, slammed on the brakes, her face turning pale. "Why would you touch that? Tyler set that seat to a specific position on purpose. He uses it to check whether another man has been sitting in the passenger seat. How am I supposed to explain this now?" Realizing I'd caused trouble for her marriage, I immediately sent Tyler Ashford, my son-in-law, an apology. Hours passed without a reply. Eventually, all I received was a cold laughing emoji. Thinking Tyler was upset, I bought two expensive bottles of wine and personally went over to smooth things over. However, when Marissa opened the car door, I finally saw what was covering the passenger seat. It was a custom seat cover. Embroidered across it in glaring letters were the words: "Tyler's Exclusive Seat. No Old Bastards or Dogs Allowed". My vision went black with rage. Seeing me standing there without moving, Marissa frowned impatiently. "Tyler's just immature. Are you really going to be this petty and hold it against him?" I laughed. "You're right. I am petty. That's why the $20,000 I give you every month ends today. From now on, you're on your own." Chapter 1 I pulled out my phone and called the bank's customer service line right in front of my daughter, Marissa Langford. "Hello, I'd like to freeze the two supplementary cards under my account." After verifying my information, the representative replied crisply, "Done. Both cards have been frozen." Marissa stared at me in disbelief. "Dad, are you serious? That's just how Tyler is. He's immature sometimes. From now on, you can just sit in the back seat, can't you?" I slipped my phone back into my bag and flagged down a taxi. "I'm completely serious. Starting today, your expenses are no longer my responsibility." As the cab pulled away, I caught sight of her in the rearview mirror. She jogged after the car for two steps before coming to a halt. She didn't try to stop me. In her mind, I was just a man in his fifties throwing a tantrum. Three days at most, and I'd come crawling back to apologize. After all, that was how it had always gone. For twenty-eight years, every single time, I'd been the one to give in first. But this time was different. I got home a little before three in the afternoon. I'd barely settled down for a nap when my phone exploded with notifications. Tyler had posted on social media. The photo attached was a screenshot from the checkout page of a luxury boutique. The caption read: "Some people get stingier the older they get. Imagine refusing to buy your son-in-law a simple watch. Maybe it's time for a factory reset." The first person to like the post was Marissa. She'd even left a comment beneath it: "Hang in there, babe. Poor hubby, you've suffered so much." I stared at the post, my thumb hovering above the screen. In the end, I didn't leave a comment. I simply took a screenshot. At eight that night, my bedroom door flew open with a violent kick. Marissa stood in the doorway, her face flushed red as though someone had slapped her. "Dad, are you really doing this? Do you have any idea how humiliating today was for me? When my card got declined at the register, and the sales associate looked at me like that, I wanted to die right there!" Leaning against the headboard, I looked at her calmly. "When your husband put up a sign saying 'No Old Bastards or Dogs Allowed', did either of you stop to think whether I'd be humiliated?" That shut her up for a moment. "That was a joke! Tyler was joking with you! You're the older one here. Are you really going to stoop to his level?" "Fine." I nodded. "Then let me make a joke too. From now on, stop asking me for money and learn to support yourselves." She spun around and slammed the door behind her. I pulled the blanket over myself and closed my eyes, telling myself not to waste my energy arguing with them. By the next morning, I realized I'd been wrong. The Rolex Diane had left me was gone. It had been the last birthday gift she ever gave me. Even while battling her illness, she'd insisted on going to the jeweler herself to have it engraved. On the back of the watch were the words: "To my husband. Every day with you was a gift." I searched the entire house and couldn't find it anywhere. Then I saw the message Marissa had sent at two in the morning. "I took the Rolex. I traded it in for a watch for Tyler. Consider it compensation for the emotional distress you caused him." Attached was a selfie of the two of them. Tyler wore his new watch proudly while Marissa stood beside him, flashing a peace sign at the camera. I went straight to the pawn shop. The owner searched through his system for several minutes before shaking his head. "That watch was pawned last night. The young lady signed an emergency liquidation agreement. If you want it back, you'll need to pay double." "How much?" "$480,000." I clenched my jaw. Chapter 2 Not because I couldn't afford it. But why should I have to? My own daughter had stolen her mother's keepsake to please a man who called me an old bastard, and now I was supposed to spend my own money buying it back for him? I didn't pay. I turned around and walked out. However, I made sure to memorize the pawnshop receipt number. When I got back to my apartment building, I pressed my finger against the scanner. The lock flashed red. Three times, it failed to unlock, the screen lighting up red each time. "Verification failed." Then I entered the six-digit passcode. Wrong again. A moment later, the door opened from the inside. It wasn't Marissa who had unlocked it. It was Tyler's mother, Linda Ashford. She was wearing one of my silk pajamas and casually eating popcorn. "Oh, you're back." She looked me up and down as if she were greeting a guest. "Tyler said you haven't been in a good place mentally lately. He was worried something might happen while you were living alone, so we moved in to help take care of you." I looked past her into the apartment. A girl in her early twenties sat on the couch with her feet propped up, completely absorbed in a video game. The coffee table was buried beneath takeout containers and trash. She was Tyler's younger sister, Chloe Ashford. "How did you get in here?" "Marissa gave us the passcode." Linda smiled. "We're family, aren't we?" I walked straight toward the master bedroom. The moment I pushed open the door, I thought I'd gone into the wrong room. My clothes had been stuffed into black garbage bags and dumped in a corner of the balcony. My desk now held Tyler's computer setup. And Diane's memorial portrait had been tossed beside the trash can outside, one corner of the frame shattered. I bent down and picked it up, slicing my finger on a shard of glass. Blood dripped onto the tile floor one drop at a time. Behind me, I heard Tyler's lazy voice. "Mom's back isn't great, so I gave her the master bedroom. As for the picture… Having a dead person's photo sitting in the room was creepy. I told the cleaning lady to throw it out while she was tidying up." I turned around slowly, clutching the portrait against my chest, as I took a step towards him. "Throw it out?" I raised my hand. "You call that throwing it out?" Before the slap could land, someone grabbed my wrist from the side. It was Marissa. I hadn't even heard her come in. She shoved me hard. I stumbled backward, my lower back slamming into the doorframe before I collapsed onto the floor. "Dad, have you lost your mind?!" She stood protectively in front of Tyler, glaring at me. "Tyler hasn't been in a good emotional state lately! What if you made him sick? Could you take responsibility for that?" I sat there on the floor. Blood from my palm smeared across the hardwood. I looked up at the family standing in front of me. Linda continued munching on her popcorn. Chloe never even looked up from her game. Tyler had an arm wrapped around Marissa. And me? I was sitting on the floor of the apartment I had paid for in full, looking like a stray dog nobody wanted. No. According to the ranking on that seat cover, I ranked even lower than the dog. I called the ambulance myself. When it arrived, not one of them came downstairs. The doctor said it was a mild concussion and some soft tissue injuries. Although it was nothing serious, they wanted to keep me for observation. Three days. A full three days. Not a single phone call or text message. No one came to visit. No one even brought me food once. Meanwhile, the family group chat I'd created years ago—the one I'd named "Our Loving Family"—was busier than ever. The latest message was a long post from Marissa. "Sorry for disturbing everyone, but my dad hasn't been in a good emotional state lately. He's been yelling at and even trying to hit Tyler at home. We had no choice but to send him to the hospital so he could rest and recover. I hope everyone understands and gives him some space so he can focus on getting better." The replies came quickly. "Poor Marissa. You've had it rough with a father like that." "If you ask me, just send him to a nursing home for a few days. That'll teach him a lesson." I left the group chat immediately. Out of sight, out of mind. The next morning, I made a phone call—not to Marissa but to my lawyer, Victor Warren. "Victor, I need a complete list of every asset under my name, including the ownership details of the apartment. "I also want to understand the legal implications surrounding inherited debt after gifted property transfers." Less than two hours after I hung up, the hospital room door opened. Marissa walked in carrying a bouquet of flowers. The same ingratiating smile I knew all too well was plastered across her face. "Dad—" My eyes dropped to the flowers in her hands. They were the kind that they sold outside supermarkets for $10 a bundle. Chapter 3 "I'm not here to argue." Marissa set the flowers on the bedside table and rubbed her hands together awkwardly. "There's actually something I wanted to discuss with you. "Well… Chloe took your car out the other day and got into an accident with a Porsche. Nobody was hurt, but… she doesn't have a driver's license." I closed my eyes briefly. "And?" "The traffic police said driving without a license could mean detention. Since the car is registered in your name, could you go down to the station and tell them you were the one driving?" "Marissa." I cut her off. "You're asking me—a concussion patient lying in a hospital bed—to go to the police station and claim I was driving?" "Dad, she's my future child's aunt! If she gets arrested, Tyler will never forgive me!" I looked at the person standing in front of me. Twenty-eight years ago, Diane had spent sixteen hours in labor bringing her into this world. After Diane passed away, I built my business and raised Marissa single-handedly. The sacrifices I made for her were things she would never truly understand. Now she was standing beside my hospital bed, asking me to take the fall for an outsider who had stolen my car. I raised my hand and slapped her. The sound cracked through the room. "Get out." Marissa covered her face, not saying another word. As she turned to leave, she knocked the cheap bouquet onto the floor and then stepped on it. That night, at nine o'clock, the hospital room door opened again. This time, it wasn't one person. It was an entire group. Tyler walked in first. Behind him came Linda, Linda's sister, Deborah Mercer, and my wonderful daughter, Marissa. Tyler carried a large manila envelope in his hand. He walked over to my bed, opened it, and slapped a document down onto my blanket. "Property Transfer Agreement" Recipient: Marissa Langford. Property: Penthouse Apartment, Emerald Bay Residences, East End. Estimated Market Value: $12 million. "Mr. Gerald Langford." Tyler used my full name. "You don't need to worry about Chloe's situation anymore. I'll take care of the police myself. "But this apartment? You need to transfer it to Marissa. "Consider it compensation for the months of abuse you've put me through: the insults, the hitting, and the emotional trauma." Linda immediately chimed in from the side, her voice sharp enough to cut glass, "Exactly! What kind of father-in-law treats his son-in-law like this?" Marissa stood at the back of the room holding a pen. She stepped forward and placed it beside my hand. "Dad, just sign it. If you do, we'll still be family." "If you don't, then pretend you never had a daughter. And if you die in this hospital, don't expect anyone to collect your body." I'd prepared myself for this, or at least I'd thought I had. But when the moment truly came, the hand holding that pen still trembled. "Marissa, are you really willing to push your own father this far for the sake of a man?" She turned her head away and muttered, "When you froze my cards, you didn't seem to think of me as your daughter either." Tyler tapped impatiently against the bed rail. "So? Are you signing or not? If not, we're leaving. Nobody's forcing you." I lowered my eyes. "Fine. I'll sign." The pen touched the paper. My hand shook so badly that the signature came out crooked and uneven. But I wrote every letter clearly: Gerald Langford. Tyler snatched the agreement away and glanced over it. "Let's go. We need to get this notarized." Linda practically glowed with excitement as she dragged Tyler toward the door. Marissa followed behind them. "See? Things work out when you're reasonable." Then she left. The door closed. Their footsteps and laughter gradually faded down the hallway. I reached beneath my pillow and pulled out the voice recorder. Everything they'd said since that afternoon—Marissa's, Tyler's, and Linda's words… Every single sentence had been recorded. I pressed stop. Then I picked up my phone and sent a message to Victor. "Victor, regarding the Emerald Bay apartment... when will the paperwork for the bridge loan secured against the property become official?" His reply came instantly. "The paperwork is complete. "As soon as the transfer goes through, the debt transfers with the property. The recipient assumes joint liability automatically." I put down my phone and looked at the pen they'd left behind on the bedside table. They wanted my apartment? Fine. Then they could take the $50 million of debt that came with it, too.