Chapter 2
“Show me.”
Leah came down the remaining steps.
Monica moved toward her.
“Give me that phone.”
I stepped between them.
“Wait.”
“She’s a child, Isaiah.”
“She’s our child.”
Monica stared at me.
Leah stood close to my shoulder.
I could feel her shaking without touching her.
She opened a photograph.
A shopping bag rested on the passenger seat of Monica’s car.
The store name was embossed in gold.
Inside it was a burgundy handbag with a chain strap.
I recognized the boutique.
Monica had shown me a window display there months earlier.
I remembered saying it was beautiful.
I also remembered her saying she would never spend that much on a bag.
“How much?” I asked.
Leah swiped to another photograph.
A receipt.
$1,250.
I stared at it.
The camera refund was $1,249.
One dollar.
My wife had added one dollar to our daughter’s graduation gift and turned it into something for herself.
Monica reached around me.
Leah stepped backward.
I held out my hand.
“Don’t take her phone.”
“She photographed my private things.”
“You used Ava’s gift.”
“It isn’t that simple.”
I looked at the receipt.
“Make it simple.”
Monica pressed her lips together.
Then she said, “I deserve something too.”
The words landed heavily.
Nobody spoke.
Finally, I asked, “Did somebody tell you that you didn’t?”
She looked toward the camera case.
“All I do is give. Every day. Their schedules, their food, their clothes. You bring home one expensive present, and suddenly you’re the wonderful parent.”
I felt the sting because there was some truth in the workload she described.
There was none in what she had done with it.
“We can talk about what you need,” I said. “You don’t take something from our daughter to get it.”
“You bought it without asking me.”
“I told you I was saving for it.”
“You told me. You didn’t ask.”
“It was a graduation gift.”
“And what was my reward for getting her through eighteen years?”
Leah made a small sound.
I looked back.
Tears were moving down her face.
“Go sit in the kitchen, sweetheart.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You haven’t done anything wrong.”
Monica laughed bitterly.
“Of course she hasn’t. I’m the villain.”
I turned toward her.
“Stop.”
My voice was still quiet.
But something in it made her pause.
Ava appeared at the top of the stairs.
Her eyes were swollen.
She looked at Leah.
Then at the receipt in my hand.
For a moment, nobody moved.
Then she asked, “It was a bag?”
My throat tightened.
Monica lifted her chin.
“Ava, you don’t understand the pressure I’m under.”
“You said the lights would get turned off.”
The room went still.
I looked at my wife.
“You told her that?”
“She was being selfish.”
Ava gripped the banister.
“I offered you my graduation cash.”
I had given her cash too.
So had relatives.
Money for books.
For small things she would need when she moved.
“How much?” I asked.
“Three hundred.”
Monica turned away.
I stared at her back.
The camera had not been the only thing.
Ava came downstairs slowly.
“She said that wasn’t enough.”
Leah began crying harder.
Ava went straight to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
I watched my eighteen-year-old comfort my fifteen-year-old while their mother stood a few feet away furious at being discovered.
Something inside me hurt in a place I could not name.
I had been home.
Not every hour.
Not every evening.
But home.
How had this happened in front of me?
“Where’s the three hundred?” I asked.
Monica did not answer.
“Monica.”
“I used it.”
“For what?”
“Things.”
I looked at Ava.
“Did you know about the return before she took the camera?”
She shook her head.
“She asked where the receipt was. I thought it was for insurance.”
“Did she ask your permission?”
“No.”
Monica spun around.
“I don’t need permission to make decisions in my own house.”
I took a breath.
“It was Ava’s.”
“She lives here.”
“She’s eighteen.”
“She’s still my daughter.”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s why this is worse.”
Monica stared at me.
Ava’s face crumpled.
“I thought I was being selfish.”
I crossed the room.
When I reached her, she leaned against me so suddenly I nearly lost my balance.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
I put both arms around her and Leah.
“You don’t owe an apology for wanting to keep your gift.”
Monica made an irritated sound behind us.
I did not turn.
Ava cried into my shirt.
Leah held tightly to my sleeve.
For several minutes, I could do nothing except stay there.
Then I asked Monica to give me the bag and the receipt.
She refused.
I said we would discuss the money after the girls were settled.
She accused me of humiliating her.
I did not argue.
That night, the girls stayed in the den with me.
We ordered food.
Nobody ate much.
Monica went upstairs and shut the bedroom door.
Around midnight, Ava spoke.
“I was supposed to upload photographs tomorrow.”
“For what?”
“The college scholarship review.”
I looked at her.
“You already got accepted.”
“The program, yes. There’s another award. They invited me to submit a final portfolio.”
“Where are the photographs?”
She swallowed.
“On the card.”
“The card from the camera?”
She nodded.
I closed my eyes.
Monica had returned that too.
Then Leah whispered, “Mom said the scholarship was just another excuse to ask for money.”
Ava looked down.
“I didn’t want to bother you.”
I reached for her hand.
“You are never a bother.”
But as I said it, I knew words alone were not enough anymore.
May you like
I had one night to help recover the photographs.
And much longer to show my daughters they could safely bring me the truth.
