Chapter 13 - What Dad Left Behind
Two years after the sleeping bag Thanksgiving, Mom gave me Dad’s old notebook.
Blue cover.
ENGINEERING PROJECTS printed on front.
Inside were family budgets.
Of course.
One page from fifteen years earlier:
DIANE / GIRLS.
Then notes.
Amanda: car insurance shortfall, $1,200.
Claire: declined assistance.
Amanda: tuition extra semester, $8,400.
Claire: scholarship plus work.
Amanda: apartment deposit, $1,500.
Claire: paid own.
At bottom Dad wrote:
Diane worries helping Amanda more means loving Amanda more. Claire interprets help as strings. Need stop measuring daughters by need.
I stared.
Dad had seen.
Mom sat across.
“I found after move.”
“Did he ever tell you?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“That he favored you.”
I laughed sadly.
Of course.
“How?”
“He respected you.”
“And Amanda?”
“I thought he judged her.”
Maybe both.
Then another note:
Claire moved to NC. Diane took as rejection. It isn’t.
I had to put notebook down.
Mom cried.
“I wish I listened.”
“So do I.”
Then:
“I thought if you came home, we would be family again.”
“We were family when I lived away.”
“I know now.”
“Did you really tell people you supported me because you wanted me to come back?”
“Partly.”
Honest.
“If everyone believed you were struggling, I could believe you would eventually need me.”
“That’s manipulative.”
“Yes.”
No defense.
Then:
“I’m sorry.”
I believed.
Not because tears.
Because she named behavior accurately.
Then Dad’s notebook had one more line:
Do not use money to purchase access to children.
He had written after Mom gave Amanda a car and then got angry when Amanda spent Christmas with Brett’s family.
Pattern old.
Mom read.
“I did that too.”
“Yes.”
She smiled sadly.
“Your father was annoying.”
“Yes.”
We laughed.
Then she asked:
“Can I give Noah money for science camp?”
“Ask him? It’s a gift.”
“Can you tell me cost?”
“Why?”
“I don’t want strings. If I contribute, I want understand.”
We discussed.
She gave $300 toward camp.
Not full.
No access condition.
No “after all I paid.”
That was healthy money.
Then Lily lost first tooth.
Mom mailed $5.
No comparison to Madison.
May you like
Progress is boring.
Good.
