“That sounds incredibly stressful,” I said evenly. “I really hope you guys can figure it out.”
The silence on the other end stretched so long I pulled the phone away from my ear to check if the call had dropped. It hadn’t. Patrice simply had no programming for a version of her daughter that didn’t immediately reach for a checkbook. She sputtered a clipped goodbye and hung up.
Two days later, she tried again. This time it was a sob story about a devastating electric bill. I gave her the exact same response: That’s tough. Call the utility company and ask for a payment plan. I would be lying if I said it felt entirely triumphant. I felt physically ill. When your entire identity in a family is built on being the designated fixer, stepping out of that role feels dangerously like abandoning your post. But Deanna kept me anchored. Every single morning, my phone would light up with a text from Springfield: Day 12. You are not an ATM. Keep going. Since the money had stopped flowing, Patrice realized she was losing her grip. So, she deployed her flying monkeys.
First came the voicemail from my Aunt Gail. She rambled for four agonizing minutes about how “family helps family,” and accused me of being a selfish, ungrateful daughter. This was rich coming from a woman who had never attended a single one of my school plays. Then came a call from Barbara, my mother’s church friend—a woman I had once watched steal a floral centerpiece from a charity luncheon—calling to lecture me on the “Christian example” I was setting for my children.
I ignored them all. I was holding the line.
Until a rainy Tuesday afternoon, when the collateral damage finally hit the one person I had been trying to protect.
I was standing at the stove browning ground beef when Theo shuffled into the kitchen. He climbed up onto a barstool, swinging his legs, opening and closing his mouth like a guppy trying to find oxygen.
“Mama?” he whispered, staring at his sneakers. “Am I bad?”
I froze. I slowly set the wooden spoon down on the counter and turned off the burner. “Why on earth would you ask me that, baby?”
He looked up at me, his eyes brimming with heavy, wet tears. “Because Grandma doesn’t like me. She didn’t want me at Easter. So I think I’m bad.”
