“Don’t embarrass us,” my mother hissed as we walked through the courthouse doors. “Just stay quiet and let the real lawyers handle this.”
I didn’t respond. I just kept walking, my heels clicking against the marble floor with a confidence I’d spent years building.
My father wouldn’t even look at me, his eyes fixed on some point in the distance, like I was a stain he couldn’t bear to acknowledge. Nothing new there.
My name is Anna. I’m 31 years old, and for most of my life I’ve been the family disappointment. The dropout. The failure. The one they pretended didn’t exist when relatives asked about their children.
We were at the courthouse in Omaha, Nebraska, because my parents were trying to evict their tenant, a woman named Clare, who’d had the audacity to ask for repairs before paying rent on a building that was falling apart. My parents owned three rental properties, all inherited from my grandfather, and they ran them like feudal lords collecting taxes.
Clare had been living in one of their apartments for two years, always paying on time, until the ceiling started leaking and black mold appeared in her daughter’s bedroom. She’d withheld rent and asked for the repairs to be done first. My parents responded by filing for eviction.
“She signed a contract,” my mother had ranted over the phone two weeks ago. “She doesn’t get to just stop paying because she’s picky about a little moisture.”
A little moisture. That’s what she called black mold.
I’d heard about the case through my younger sister, Melissa, who still lived at home despite being 28. She’d mentioned it casually during one of our rare phone calls, not knowing I’d spent the last seven years clawing my way through law school. Working three jobs. Sleeping in my car more times than I could count. Finally passing the bar exam.
I’d done it all alone, without a single dollar or word of encouragement from them. They didn’t even know I’d gone to college, let alone become an attorney.
The day I’d walked out of their house at 19, my father had thrown my belongings onto the front lawn.
“You’re nothing,” he’d shouted. “You’ll never amount to anything without us.”
My mother had stood in the doorway with her arms crossed.
“Don’t come crawling back when you fail.”
I hadn’t. Even when I was sleeping in my car behind a grocery store, surviving on vending machine snacks, I didn’t go back. Even when I was so exhausted from working overnight shifts that I could barely stay awake in class, I didn’t ask them for help. I’d rather eat nothing than swallow my pride and beg from people who’d made it clear I was worthless.
Now, as we walked toward the courtroom, I watched my mother smooth down her expensive blouse and adjust the pearls around her neck. She’d always cared more about appearances than anything else. My father walked beside her in his tailored suit, the picture of respectability.
They’d told everyone at their country club that they only had one daughter: Melissa, who worked as a receptionist at their dentist’s office and still let them control every aspect of her life.
“I don’t know why you even came,” my mother muttered as we approached the courtroom doors. “This doesn’t concern you.”
I smiled, but said nothing. Let them think I was just here to watch. Let them think I was still the broken girl they’d thrown away.
Inside the courtroom, the air was thick with tension. Clare sat at the defendant’s table, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. She was a small woman in her forties, wearing a dress that had seen better days. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and I could see the exhaustion etched into every line of her face. This wasn’t just about an apartment to her. It was about keeping a roof over her daughter’s head.
My parents took their seats on the plaintiff’s side, and my mother gestured for me to sit in the gallery behind them. I walked past her without acknowledging the command and headed straight toward Clare’s table. I could feel my mother’s eyes burning into my back, could practically hear her mind racing to figure out what I was doing.
“Excuse me,” I said quietly to Clare. “I’m your attorney.”
Her eyes widened.
“I… I couldn’t afford an attorney. I was going to represent myself.”
“Consider this pro bono,” I said, setting my briefcase down. “I’ve reviewed your case, and you have every right to withhold rent until those repairs are made. Your landlords violated the implied warranty of habitability.”
Behind me, I heard my mother’s sharp intake of breath. My father’s voice came next, low and furious.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
I turned to face them, and for the first time in 12 years, I looked my parents directly in the eye.
“I’m doing my job.”
My mother’s face had gone pale, then red.
“You can’t be serious. You’re not a lawyer.”
“Actually, I am.” I pulled out my bar card and held it up. “I passed the bar exam two years ago. I’ve been working at a firm downtown, mostly handling tenant-rights cases. This is exactly my area of expertise.”
My father stood up, his hands clenched into fists.
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