I waited until they had all sat down at the table with their coffee before I called my wife’s cell.

“It’s your father!”

She touched the screen.

“Hello dear, how are you this fine morning? I’ve got you on speaker so the girls can hear you too.”

“Great, thank you, Cynthia. Actually, never been better. Good morning to you, Susan and Helen. Susan, will you please go collect the three envelopes just inside the apartment door?”

My elder daughter looked mystified; even more so when she saw the three large legal envelopes on the floor. She took them back into the kitchen.

“There’s one addressed to each of us. Dad, what are these, and how did they get here?”

“Oh, I put them there a while ago, after the last guy left, eight of them, wasn’t it? It’s all pretty self-explanatory. You’ve been served. So long!”

I ended the call and switched off the phone. I still had the cameras and the microphones, so I was able to enjoy the expressions on their faces as they gasped in amazement and then ripped open their envelopes.

They’d taken their meal ticket for granted for so long that they were in for some very nasty surprises.

I’d filed the papers in each folder in the same order.

The eviction notice for Susan and Helen’s apartment, on grounds of unpaid rent, matched Cynthia’s updated mortgage statement for the house, which showed that the bank now owned 80% of the value and 120% of the equity we’d taken years to build up.

Next was the unpaid final reminder for my ex-daughters’ college fees, and the screenshots of the online banking showing a balance of a hundred dollars in the checking account, and the zero balances in the savings, retirement and college fund accounts.

Then the copy of their signed contracts to appear in hardcore pornographic movies, their consent for unlimited release of images in any medium, and their receipt for their full and final fee. Some people never do read documents that are put in front of them for signature; all three had fallen for my story that they needed to have a power of attorney in case anything ever happened to me.

Lastly, the papers for my divorce from Cynthia on the grounds of adultery, incest and immoral behavior, naming Susan and Helen as active participants, and including a few photographs.

My word, I already knew that my ex-daughters could curse, but they hardly repeated themselves in several minutes of profanity as they turned the pages. If words could kill, I’d be stretched out on the floor stone dead by now.

I left them some things to find out for themselves. As their meal ticket, the titles for their cars, the contracts for their smartphones, the lease of the city apartment, the credit cards, all their insurance, everything was in my name, and my name alone. Heck, after twenty-five years of marriage, Cynthia didn’t even have a credit record of her own, neither did the girls.

I’d cancelled everything.

I hadn’t bothered to file the divorce papers; why waste the money?

Yeah, I had one twinge of regret. Cynthia’s folks had always been decent to me, and they were about to have to house three penniless sluts who I wouldn’t have wished on my worst enemy. Still, shit happens.

I couldn’t see Cynthia’s church-going boss keeping her on the payroll once he’d seen the DVD that would be delivered to his office the next morning, so unless they started charging for what they’d so freely been giving away, life was going to be a tad difficult for them.

I thanked my host, the building manager, handed him his envelope of cash, and left the neighboring apartment. He’d oversee the eviction and then remove the cameras and microphones before the next tenant moved in. Four vehicles that had been parked outside two hours earlier were now on their way to used car lots; there was a taxi waiting for me.

I had some planes to catch and a new life to build.