Chapter 12 - The Conversation We Couldn’t Avoid
My attorney arranged the meeting.
Dad came with his own lawyer.
Mom came separately.
Laura and Eric attended because Dad’s promises had affected them too.
For once, nobody brought the grandchildren.
Dad began defensively.
“I made mistakes.”
Laura interrupted.
“You forged Thomas’s authorization.”
“I was entitled to compensation.”
“For what?”
“Everything I did for him.”
I placed his ledger on the table.
“You charged me five thousand dollars for introducing me to Franklin Dental.”
“That contract made you hundreds of thousands.”
“You were my father.”
“And?”
That single word told everyone what we needed to know.
Dad genuinely did not understand why parenthood should contain gifts that weren’t investments.
Eric leaned forward.
“You wrote down Christmas gifts.”
Dad shrugged.
“Money has value.”
“So does love,” Laura said.
Dad laughed bitterly.
“Love doesn’t pay mortgages.”
Mom finally spoke.
“Robert, stop.”
He turned on her.
“You’re the reason we’re here. You gave Thomas the notebook.”
“No. We’re here because we stole from him.”
Dad’s face tightened.
“We borrowed.”
“Without asking.”
“I was going to replace it.”
“You didn’t.”
Mom’s voice broke.
“And then I helped you lie because I was too ashamed to admit what we’d done.”
Dad pushed back from the table.
I stopped him with one question.
“Why my kids?”
He looked at me.
“At the party. Why make Rebecca, Samuel, and Jacob serve everyone?”
His jaw moved.
No answer.
“Why?”
Finally he said it.
“Because they needed to learn they weren’t special.”
Rebecca was ten.
Samuel was eight.
Jacob was six.
Dad had looked at three children and decided humiliating them would punish their father for becoming too independent.
I no longer needed to understand anything else.
May you like
The money could be calculated.
That sentence could not.
