Part 2: The Rejects

After authorizing the transaction, I put my phone away and made a completely different decision about Aspen. I wasn’t going home to sit alone while my mother performed her perfect family holiday without me; instead, I opened my encrypted contact list and called a private aviation broker I hadn’t spoken to since a government logistics project overseas.

“I need the Bombardier Global 7500. Tarmac in two hours. And send a fleet of black SUVs to the following twenty-five addresses.”

Constance had made one major mistake when she started removing people who didn’t fit her new image. In trying to impress Chad’s politically connected family, she had also excluded the relatives who had actually held our family together for years, including Aunt Sarah, Uncle Mike, and Grandma Josephine, whom Mom had placed in a nursing home while insisting she was too frail to travel.

I sent one message to everyone she had rejected.

“Mom said there wasn’t enough room for you in Aspen. She lied. A car is outside your house right now. Pack for snow. We aren’t just going to dinner. We’re taking back the holiday.”

The response was almost immediate. By the time the SUVs delivered them to the private hangar, their hurt and confusion had turned into disbelief as they stood on the tarmac staring at a seventy-five-million-dollar jet while clutching ordinary suitcases.

Aunt Sarah approached me with wide eyes.

“Briona? Honey, did you… did you win the lottery?”

“Something like that. I work hard, Aunt Sarah. And it turns out the government pays better than Mom thinks.”

Once we were airborne, the atmosphere changed completely. My cousins laughed over expensive food, Uncle Mike relaxed in a leather seat that probably cost more than his truck, and for once nobody at a family gathering was being reminded that they were the less successful branch of the family.

Then my phone vibrated.

Constance had sent another demand.

“Venmo me $5,000 immediately. The rental requires a larger security deposit than I thought. And Brittany wants to book a spa day for the senator’s wife. Don’t ignore me, Briona. You owe us for raising you.”

I stared at the message while the jet cruised toward Colorado. She had banned me from the trip, lied about me being in rehab, given away the seat I paid for, and still assumed I would immediately transfer money because that was the role she had assigned me.

I deleted the notification without replying.

“To family.”

Everyone raised their glasses.

“To family!”

By the time we reached Aspen, black SUVs were waiting on the tarmac. They carried us up a private mountain road until the trees opened and revealed my actual home, a fifteen-million-dollar steel-and-glass estate built into the mountainside.

Uncle Mike stared through the window.

“Who… who lives here?”

“I do.”

The silence that followed was almost comical. For years, they had heard Constance describe me as an unambitious freelancer barely getting by, and now they were standing in a house that made the rental she had chosen look modest.

Inside, I led Grandma Josephine to the head of the dining table.

“You sit here, Grandma. No kids’ table tonight.”

Her eyes filled with tears as she looked around the room.

“Briona, sweetheart, I don’t understand. Your mother said you were struggling.”

“Mom says a lot of things. Tonight, we look at the truth.”

Dinner became everything Constance’s gatherings never were. Nobody was calculating social status, pretending to impress someone important, or treating certain relatives as embarrassing accessories.

Then I raised the automated blinds covering the north-facing windows.

Three hundred yards down the mountain stood Constance’s rental.

I pressed another button, and a massive outdoor LED wall powered on, projecting a live feed of our dinner table directly toward their house. Within seconds, Grandma’s laughing face was glowing across the snow outside their windows.

My phone rang almost immediately.

“What is happening?! Is that you? Are you here?”

“I’m right above you, Mom. Look up.”

From the window below, I saw Constance turn toward the mountain. I raised my glass, and the enormous screen outside mirrored the gesture.

“Turn it off! You’re humiliating us!”

“Am I? I thought I was in rehab.”

“Briona, I am warning you…”

“Enjoy your dinner, Mom.”