Chương 7
Nothing.
Then Dad’s.
Nothing except a birthday transfer from eight months earlier.
My skin prickled.
I typed back.
What exactly did she tell him?
Jessica did not answer for nearly ten minutes.
When she finally did, the message was short.
That they’ve been covering part of your rent for years.
I read it until the words stopped looking real.
Then one final message appeared.
And Patrick thinks you owe them a lot more money than you know.
I called my father before I could talk myself out of it.
He answered on the fourth ring.
“Hey.”
“Did Mom tell Patrick you’ve been paying part of my rent?”
Silence.
Not confusion.
Silence.
I stood from the kitchen table.
“Dad.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Jessica.”
Another pause.
Then a tired exhale.
“Allison, it’s late.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I know.”
“Have you been paying my rent?”
“No.”
The word came quickly enough to feel real.
I closed my eyes.
“Has Mom?”
“No.”
“So why does Patrick think you have?”
“I don’t know exactly what she told him.”
“You know something.”
He did not answer.
I walked to the sink, then back to the table.
My body had nowhere useful to go.
“Dad, I need you to stop protecting her for five minutes.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“It is exactly what you’re doing.”
“I’m trying not to make this worse.”
“It’s already worse.”
My voice was louder than I intended.
I glanced toward the stairs.
Ethan’s bedroom door remained closed.
I lowered my voice.
“Patrick thinks I owe you money.”
“He’s wrong.”
“How much does he think I owe?”
“I don’t know.”
“Dad.”
“I said I don’t know.”
This time frustration cracked through his calm.
For a second, neither of us spoke.
Then he said, “Your mother has been telling people she helps you more than she actually does.”
The sentence was so plain that I almost missed its weight.
“What people?”
He rubbed something on his end of the phone.
I could hear fabric scraping against the receiver.
“Friends.”
“Friends?”
“People at church.”
My mother did not attend church often enough for that answer to make sense, but I let it go.
“Who else?”
“Your aunt.”
“Carol?”
“Yes.”
“Patrick?”
“Yes.”
I sat down again.
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Allison, I’m not keeping records.”
“Well, apparently somebody is.”
My father sighed.
“She likes to feel needed.”
I stared at the wall.
“That’s your explanation?”
“It’s not an excuse.”
“It sounds exactly like one.”
“I’m telling you what I think.”
“No, you’re giving me a sentence small enough that I won’t get angry.”
He went quiet again.
My whole childhood had been full of those reduced sentences.
Your mother worries.
Patrick didn’t mean it that way.
Let’s not ruin dinner.
She’s had a hard week.
They were linguistic sandbags placed around my mother’s behavior so nobody had to admit the house was already flooding.
“Did you know she told people she paid my rent?”
“I knew she sometimes implied things.”
“Implied.”
“I told her not to.”
A laugh came out of me.
“You told her not to.”
“Yes.”
“And then what?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did she stop?”
“I don’t know.”
I pressed my fingertips against my forehead.
There it was again.
The refuge of uncertainty.
“Why would she do that?”
Dad took so long to answer that I heard his television mute.
“I think she’s embarrassed.”
“Of me?”
“No.”
The speed of that answer hurt anyway.
“Of what, then?”
“Of not being able to help you as much as she wants people to think she does.”
I said nothing.
He continued.
“Your mother has always cared too much about how things look.”
“Patrick got that from somewhere.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No, it’s accurate.”
“He loves you.”
“I didn’t say he doesn’t.”
“You’re making everyone into villains tonight.”
“I’m asking what happened.”
“And I’m trying to tell you.”
“Then tell me.”
The edge in my voice finally reached him.
When Dad spoke again, he sounded older.
“Your mother borrowed money from Patrick.”
I stopped breathing for a second.
“What?”
“Not a huge amount at first.”
“For what?”
“Different things.”
“That means nothing.”
“House repairs.”
“Weird, because you have retirement income and the house is paid off.”
He exhaled.
“Medical bills.”
“Whose?”
Another pause.
“Mine.”
I gripped the phone.
“What medical bills?”
“Nothing serious.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It was a procedure last year.”
“You told me insurance covered it.”
“Most of it.”
I stared at the refrigerator.
A magnet from Ethan’s second-grade field trip held up a faded permission slip I had forgotten to remove.
“How much did you borrow?”
“From Patrick?”
“Yes.”
“About eight thousand.”
That was not catastrophic money to Patrick.
It was catastrophic money to me.
“Why does that connect to me?”
“I’m getting there.”
I waited.
Dad cleared his throat.
“Your mother didn’t want Patrick thinking we needed help.”
“So she told him the money was for me.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Allison.”
“Did she?”
He did not answer.
My stomach dropped.
“Oh my God.”
“It wasn’t all of it.”
“That is not better.”
“No, I know.”
“Does Patrick think he lent you eight thousand dollars because I couldn’t pay my bills?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does exactly look like?”
Dad’s voice became small.
“He thinks some went to you.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know what she told him.”
“Five thousand?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“Ten?”
“It wasn’t ten.”
“You just said you borrowed eight.”
“There were other things later.”
I went cold.
“What other things?”
“Your mother handled most of it.”
The phrase handled most of it made me want to throw the phone.
“How much money are we talking about?”
“Altogether?”
“Yes.”
He hesitated.
“Close to twenty.”
I stood so quickly the chair legs scraped the floor.
“Twenty thousand dollars?”
“Keep your voice down.”
I almost laughed.
There was my father.
May you like
A financial lie had just detonated inside the family, and his concern was volume.
“Does Patrick think I owe him twenty thousand dollars?”
