“I didn’t then,” I reply to Dan’s statement. “But this is now, and before I left for college, you told me if I changed my mind and needed it, the money would be there for me. Well, I’ve changed my mind.”
“I set aside that money for each of you girls. Ten thousand dollars out of my 401k for school, for your future. Dara attended art school and didn’t finish. Jesse”—he throws up his hands—“Christ, I have no idea what she did with it. So what do you plan on doing?” he pressed, his lips thinning in a grim line. “Live off it since you quit a great job with a future? Jesus, Cypress. Out of all my children, you were the one who always had her head on straight, was doing something with her life—”
Anger flares inside me, a hot and, blazing flame. “I’m not talking about Dara and Jesse.” And his accusation isn’t fair. Dara might work at The Rabbit Hole, but she’s a brilliant and passionate sculptor. Jesse’s twenty-four and still figuring things out, but by no means is a secretary at a legal firm not “doing something with her life.” Just goes to show he doesn’t know a damn thing about any of his daughters. “And what decisions I make about my career are mine to make, not yours.”
“What career? You walked—”
“Not talking about it,” I grind out, gripping the couch arms. The need to lash out, to remind him he has as much of a right to have an opinion about my life as my mailman. Hell, the mailman might have more since I see him more often. Dan walked away. Dan was satisfied with a monthly child support check, not insisting on seeing me when I refused to come over to stay with his new wife and stepsons. Dan didn’t attend my college graduation because he couldn’t bring Katherine, since Mom was also attending.
Those were all his choices, so no, he doesn’t now get a vote in the direction of the life he’d willingly checked out of.
All that sits heavily on my tongue like a red-hot poker. But my common sense—and desperation—douses it. Enraging Dan when I need his help is not only irrational, but stupid.
“Look.” I drag my hand through my hair, inhaling a deep breath and focusing on the reason I’m here. Just the reminder of my mother and the stack of steadily increasing bills on the hall table succeeds in erasing the bite from my tone. “You asked what I needed the money for.” I pause, battling down the trickle of bitterness creeping up my throat. “Mom. Her insurance covered a good portion of the bills from the heart surgery and hospital stay, but not all of it. Even though she’s now back at work, there’s no way she can get caught up on what’s left. And then her doctor’s talking about another surgery that is fairly new but is seeing success with giving heart patients a longer life span. But because it’s new, insurance doesn’t cover as much for it.” Even before her heart attack, I’d been helping Mom with her monthly house bills. Without my assistance, she’s struggling just to stay on top of those. “With the ten thousand, I can cover the co-pay for the surgery she needs now, before it’s too late, and pay the remaining debt off.”
It’ll be a start, and the sale of my home in California should cover the rest. Hopefully. But I’ll worry about that later.
“Your mother know you’re asking me for help?” he asks after a moment.
“No.”
But I’m not telling her for the reason he probably assumes. If I informed her he’d given me money for her bills, she’d take that as a sign that he really did love her, and it would send her spiraling into one of her euphoric moods. And when she finally realized he wasn’t returning to her, the crash would be devastating. I’ve endured this cycle too many times to count over the years. So, no, I intend to keep her in the dark about all of this, whether he agrees or refuses.
“I’ll pay you back if that’s what you want. I just need a month or two,” I tack on when he doesn’t reply with an agreement or denial. Desperation skitters through me.
Yet I don’t explain how I’ll reimburse him, something keeping me from disclosing the pending sale of my Los Angeles home. I don’t want to give him any reason to pity me—or reprimand me for my life choices like he did at dinner. Either way, Mom’s situation doesn’t have a month or so. Some of the bills have already been turned over to collections. I need that moneynow. According to the past-due date on the last one I opened, I actually needed it four weeks ago.
Helplessness and the awful, straight-jacket stranglehold of powerlessness twists around me, momentarily trapping me. Against every vow I’d made to myself after I left UHG, I again find myself at the mercy of another man. Instead of my employer holding my job over my head if I refused to fall in line, it’s my father holding my mother’s welfare hostage. And at this point, whatever he wants from me, I’ll surrender it because I need him more than he needs me.
I hate being in this position again. Weak. Brought to my knees.
“I’ll give it to you,” he finally says, and I almost wilt in relief. By sheer force of will, I stiffen my shoulders so I don’t tumble back onto the couch cushion. There’s no holding back the air that bursts past my lips. Or the cool wave that washes over my overheated skin. “I have a couple of conditions, though.”
Anger whips through the relief, crackling like a live wire on rain-soaked ground. Conditions? Really? Yes, Mom is his ex, and evidence of the last thirteen years has proven he very much doesn’t give a rat’s ass about her, but damn, the woman had aheart attack.
Dragging in the breath I’ve just released, I remain silent, seething but trying not to show it.
“One. Send me the bills, and I’ll take care of them,” he instructs.
Okay. I can do that. That he doesn’t trust me because I left what he considered a good job still stings, but whatever. As long as the debt is paid.
“Second,” he continues. “I don’t know for sure if there’s anything going on between you and Jude, but you’re to stay away from him outside of this house. If I find out that you two are involved in any way other than the way a stepbrother and sister should be, then I stop paying the bills. No discussion, no second chances.”
Shock barrels into me, a juggernaut-sized fist to the torso that sends its freezing touch travelling through my veins with icy fingers. I blink, gaping at him, that same cold paralyzing my vocal cords.
He stares at me, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes narrowed just as they’d been earlier at the table. The same suspicious contemplation shadows them, as does resolve. Both have my stomach churning with panic, rage, and fear.
“Are youkidding me?” I rasp out when my throat thaws enough to speak. Only the fact that he assisted in creating me stops the“What the fuck?”from dropping from my tongue.
“No, I’m not.” If possible, his expression hardens, his mouth firming to the consistency of granite, his eyes dark blue flint. “Do you think I didn’t notice the looks that passed between you two? There’s something there that you both aren’t being honest about, I just know it. Are you going to tell me there isn’t anything between you and Jude?”
“Yes,” I practically hiss, lying. But not lying. There isn’t anything between usnow. That one night had been it. I haven’t spoken to him since, and he hasn’t reached out to me, either, not even coming into the bar. “Not that it should matter,” I snap. “This stipulation is”—utter bullshit—“ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not.” He shakes his head. “You don’t know what’s happened to this family the last few months. It’s almost been torn apart. And devastated Katherine. I won’t allow anything else to hurt her. Not if I can help it. And you being involved with one of her sons, one of your stepbrothers, would definitely harm her. No.” He shakes his head once more, more emphatically. “I’m dead serious about staying away from Jude. If there’s nothing between you two, then you’re absolutely correct—it shouldn’t matter,” he says, throwing my words back at me.
I push off the couch, trembling. Rage is a living, breathing, screaming thing inside me, shoving against my skin, demanding to be loosed. But underneath the crimson and black swirl is a thin thread of blue, of reason reminding me that as effed up as this condition might be, I still need his money.
Goddamn.
