I raised an eyebrow. The golden child, when denied her gold, had turned on her creators. It was almost poetic.
“And your parents?” I asked.
“Leon had to come out of retirement and take a second job managing a hardware store,” David said, lowering his voice further. “When they thought they were getting a million dollars from you, they went on a massive spending spree. They maxed out their credit cards buying new furniture, booking a cruise, and upgrading Marjorie’s car. They assumed you would eventually cave to the guilt, apologize, and bail them out before the bills came due. Now, the interest rates are drowning them.”
I looked out the café window, watching the golden autumn leaves drift down onto the sidewalk.
“That’s a shame,” I said quietly.
And I meant it. It truly was a shame. It was a tragedy that they had chosen blinding greed over a relationship with their daughter. It was sad that they had valued control over love.
But as I searched my heart, searching for the familiar, heavy anchor of guilt that usually accompanied any thought of my parents’ suffering, I found absolutely nothing. The space where the guilt used to live was empty, clean, and swept out.
They had burned my hypothetical check in that rusty fire pit, and in their arrogant, malicious eagerness to teach me a lesson, they had set fire to their own safety net. They were suffocating in the bed they had so eagerly made for themselves.
David hesitated, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. He looked down at his coffee cup.
“Your mom asked me to give you a message, Maya,” David said softly, looking up at me with a sympathetic wince. “She knows we still talk. She said… she said to tell you that her door is always open. If you’re ready to apologize and act like a family again.”
