After Spending a Month in the Hospital, I Came Home to Discover My Son Had Given My House to His Wife’s Family!

I tried to kick, to thrash, but my body wouldn’t obey. The stroke had left me slower, weaker, and the fall had knocked the wind out of me. They shoved me into the back seat of my own truck, the leather interior smelling of the vanilla air freshener I always used.

It was a smell of home, now twisted into the scent of a prison cell. Jerry squeezed in beside me, his bulk pressing me against the door, effectively pinning me down. Brandon slammed the driver’s door and locked the central locking system with a loud, final clunk.

I gasped, touching my forehead: “Wait! I need a doctor! I am bleeding!”

“You are fine, Dad,” Brandon said, his eyes meeting mine in the rearview mirror for a split second before darting away. “It is just a scratch. We are taking you where you need to be.”

I reached for my pocket, my instinct screaming at me to call the police, to call Catherine, to call anyone. My hand brushed the familiar rectangle of my smartphone, but before I could pull it out, Jerry’s meaty hand clamped over my wrist.

He twisted it, sending a fresh spike of pain up my arm, and snatched the phone from my grip.

“I will take that,” Jerry grunted.

I shouted, or tried to, but it came out as a croak: “Give it back! That is my property!”

Brandon spoke up from the front seat, his voice calm, rational, terrifying: “It is for safekeeping, Dad. You lose things. You are confused. We don’t want you calling people at all hours and bothering them with your delusions. Hand over the wallet too, Jerry.”

“No!” I protested, pressing my hand against my other pocket. My ID, my credit cards, my life.

Jerry didn’t ask twice. He shoved his hand into my pocket, wrestling the leather wallet free while I swiped feebly at him. He tossed both the phone and the wallet to the front seat.

Tiffany caught them, dropping them into her designer bag with a satisfied click of the clasp.

“There,” she said, adjusting her sunglasses, “now we can focus.”

The truck lurched forward, tires spinning on the gravel as we sped away from the lakehouse. I watched through the tinted glass as my home, my sanctuary, disappeared behind the trees. Buster was still on the porch, barking silently, abandoning me just as my family had.

We drove in silence for a few miles. I leaned my head against the cool glass, the vibration of the road rattling my aching skull. We weren’t heading toward the city hospital. We were heading toward the industrial district, the part of the county where the pavement cracked and the street lights didn’t always work.

Tiffany pulled out her phone. She didn’t whisper; she didn’t try to hide what she was doing. She wanted me to hear. She dialed a number and put it on speaker, resting the phone on the center console.

“Yes, this is Mrs. Wayright,” she said, her voice bright and cheery, a stark contrast to the venom she had spewed earlier. “We are on route, yes, the transport is secured.”

I listened, holding my breath.

“Excellent,” she continued, “we are about 20 minutes out. Is the room ready? Perfect. And the isolation protocols, good. We don’t want him wandering or agitating the other residents. He is very confused. Poor dear. Violent too, he tried to attack my father.”

“Liar!” I hissed, “You are lying!”

She ignored me. “Just make sure the paperwork is ready for Brandon to sign. We want to drop him off and leave immediately. We have a dinner reservation. Thank you. See you soon.”

She hung up and turned to look at me, a cold smile playing on her lips. “You hear that, Gus? You are going to a special place, a place where you can’t hurt anyone.”

“What is Sunny Meadows?” I asked, the name floating up from the depths of my memory. It sounded like a place where dreams went to die.

“It is a facility that accepts state aid cases,” Brandon said quietly. “Since we transferred your assets on paper, you are indigent, Dad. You don’t have any money, so this is the best we could do.”

I stared at the back of his head: “You made me a pauper. You stole my life’s work and now you are dumping me in a state home.”

“It is not a dump,” Brandon said defensively. “It has a roof and beds.”

The sign out front was faded, the letters peeling off: Sunny Meadows Extended Care. It looked less like a care facility and more like a minimum security prison that had lost its funding.

The building was a block of gray concrete, stained with years of neglect. Weeds grew through the cracks in the sidewalk. As Brandon killed the engine, a smell hit me even through the closed windows.

It was the smell of hopelessness—a mix of industrial bleach, boiled cabbage, and stale urine.

“I am not going in there!” I said, panic rising in my throat. I refused to move.

Jerry opened the door and grabbed my arm. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Gus. Your choice.”

They dragged me out. My legs dragged on the asphalt, ruining my shoes. I tried to shout to a passing nurse in the parking lot, but she didn’t even look up, her eyes glued to her phone as she smoked a cigarette.

They marched me through the automatic doors. The air inside was stiflingly hot and humid. The linoleum floor was scuffed and yellowed.

In the lobby, which was nothing more than a few plastic chairs and a television bolted to the wall, sat a row of elderly people. They were slumped over, silent, staring at nothing. They looked like ghosts.

A woman stepped out from behind a glass partition. She was massive, her white uniform straining against her bulk. Her name tag read Head Nurse Hatcher.

She didn’t smile. She looked at me, then at Brandon, sizing us up like a butcher inspecting meat.

“This the admission?” she asked, her voice sounding like gravel in a blender.

“Yes,” Tiffany said, stepping forward and handing over a thick file folder. “Augustus Wayright. He is non-compliant, high-flight risk, aggressive.”

Hatcher nodded, flipping through the papers. “We got the call. Room 4B is open. It is secure.”

She came around the counter. Up close, she smelled of stale tobacco and heavy perfume. She grabbed my chin, turning my head side to side, examining the cut on my forehead.

“Nasty bump,” she muttered. “We will clean it up, but he looks agitated. Look at those eyes.”

I yelled, pulling away from her grip: “I am not agitated! I am being kidnapped! These people stole my house! I need a police officer! Call the police!”

Hatcher didn’t even blink. She looked at Brandon: “See? Delusional, paranoid, common in these late-stage cases.”

She snapped her fingers and two male orderlies appeared from a hallway. They were big, bored-looking men.

“Take Mr. Waywright to 4B,” Hatcher ordered, “and prep a sedative, 10 mg of Haldol. We need him calm for the night shift.”

I screamed as the orderlies grabbed my arms: “No! Brandon, don’t let them do this! I am your father!”

Brandon looked at his shoes. Tiffany checked her watch. Jerry just smirked. The orderlies dragged me down a long, dimly lit corridor.

I fought, I kicked, I bit one of them on the arm. He swore and tightened his grip, twisting my arm behind my back until I cried out in pain. They threw me into a room at the end of the hall.

It was tiny, with four beds crammed into a space meant for two. The air was thick with the smell of unwashed bodies. They pushed me down onto a bare mattress.

Hatcher came in a moment later, holding a syringe. The needle glinted under the flickering fluorescent light.

“This is for your own good, sweetie,” she said, her voice devoid of any sweetness. “Just relax.”

I tried to scramble backward, pressing myself against the cold cinder block wall.

“You can’t do this! I have rights!”

“You have a guardian,” she corrected, nodding toward the door where Brandon was signing a piece of paper, “and he says, ‘You need to sleep.’”

The orderlies held me down. One sat on my legs, the other pinned my chest. I couldn’t move; I couldn’t breathe. I looked past the nurse, through the open door, and saw Brandon handing the clipboard back.

He turned and walked away, Tiffany and Jerry trailing behind him. He didn’t look back, not once. I felt the sting of the needle in my shoulder.

I whispered, my voice fading: “No.”