I opened a new document and began typing.
Not a response to their media attack.
Something much better.
A timeline.
Five years of financial support documented with bank statements, receipts, and canceled checks.
The down payment for their house: $47,000 from my home‑equity loan.
The kitchen renovation when Isabella decided granite countertops were essential: $18,000 on my credit card.
Sixty monthly mortgage payments of $2,800 each:
$168,000 and counting.
A quarter of a million dollars.
More than I’d spent on myself in the last decade.
My phone buzzed with a text from a number I didn’t recognize—probably Isabella trying a new angle.
I ignored it and kept working.
By evening, I had everything organized in a manila folder thick enough to choke a horse.
Bank statements.
Receipts.
Photos downloaded from their social media showing off purchases I’d funded.
A printed copy of the newspaper article with my handwritten notes in the margins, documenting each lie and distortion.
I looked at my wall calendar.
December 24th was circled in red—not because it was Christmas, but because it was the perfect day for justice.
According to Isabella’s Facebook events, they were hosting Christmas dinner for twelve people— family, friends, neighbors, members of their social circle.
The kind of people who read the Spokane Review and formed opinions based on what they saw there.
The kind of people who deserved to know the truth.
I closed my laptop and walked to my kitchen where I’d left my good camera—the one I’d bought years ago to document job sites for my business.
Time to put it to work documenting something else entirely.
Tomorrow was Christmas Eve.
Tomorrow, Cody Jenkins and his family were going to learn what happened when you declared war on someone who actually knew how to fight.
Christmas Eve morning dawned gray and cold, the kind of Spokane winter day that made you grateful for warm houses and family gatherings.
Too bad I wouldn’t be welcome at either.
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