Chapter 4 - For Once, I Said No
The next morning, Mom called at 6:12.
I knew what she wanted before answering.
“Merry Christmas.”
“Morgan, we need to talk.”
“I’m leaving for work.”
“This is important.”
“So is work.”
She paused.
“Your father didn’t sleep.”
“Neither did I.”
“We need a plan.”
“We?”
“Yes. The family.”
I closed my eyes.
“Mom.”
“What?”
“I’m not fixing this.”
Silence.
Then her voice changed.
“I’m not asking you to fix everything.”
“What are you asking?”
“The lender needs forty-eight thousand to bring the account current.”
I laughed.
There it was.
She sounded offended.
“What is funny?”
“You called me before sunrise on Christmas morning to ask for forty-eight thousand dollars.”
“I said I wasn’t asking you to pay everything.”
“That’s almost half my annual take-home.”
“You have savings.”
I stared at the wall.
“How do you know that?”
She said nothing.
“Mom.”
“I’ve made estimates.”
“No. You’ve been calculating what I can give you.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Neither is spending three years treating me like an embarrassment while using me like an ATM.”
Her voice cracked.
“I never thought of you that way.”
“You told Dad Chase was paying bills I paid.”
“I was protecting your brother.”
“From what?”
“His father’s disappointment.”
That answer took every bit of anger out of me.
I was simply tired.
“So his feelings mattered.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“What about mine?”
Silence.
I continued.
“You protected Chase’s image using my money.”
“Morgan—”
“You protected Dad from the truth using my money.”
She began crying.
“And every time I helped, you told me not to mention it because you didn’t want Chase embarrassed.”
I grabbed my keys.
“I’m done.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m not paying the foreclosure amount.”
“You’ll let your father lose his home?”
“No.”
I opened the front door.
“You and Chase put the house at risk.”
“Morgan!”
“I have to go.”
She called after me.
“You’re being selfish.”
I stopped.
For three years, that word would have worked.
That morning, it didn’t.
“I hope you eventually learn the difference between selfish and unavailable.”
Then I hung up.
At the station, Christmas was chaos.
A kitchen fire.
A highway collision.
A six-year-old with a severe allergic reaction.
An elderly man who slipped on ice while hanging lights.
By noon, I had almost forgotten the farmhouse.
Almost.
Then my partner, Luis, found me sitting behind the station with coffee.
“You look terrible.”
“Thank you.”
“Family?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“You volunteered for Christmas.”
“Fair.”
He sat beside me.
“My ex-wife once told me holidays were just regular disasters with decorations.”
I laughed.
“Smart woman.”
“Very.”
He looked at me.
“You want to talk?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
Ten seconds passed.
“My brother stole my father’s retirement.”
Luis nodded.
“Starting strong.”
“And leveraged their house.”
“Still strong.”
“My mother helped.”
He slowly lowered his coffee.
“And you’re the responsible one they expect to fix it.”
I looked at him.
“How did you know?”
“I’m Hispanic. We invented family guilt.”
That got a real laugh out of me.
He became serious.
“Don’t do it.”
“Do what?”
“Rescue them.”
“I’m a paramedic.”
“Exactly.”
He pointed toward the station.
“Somebody calls 911 because they’re trapped in a burning house, you go in.”
He paused.
“But if the same person keeps lighting the house on fire because they know you’ll show up?”
I stared at him.
“That’s different.”
My phone rang.
Dad.
I answered.
“Hey.”
His voice sounded quiet.
“Your mother called you.”
“Yes.”
“She asked you for money.”
“Yes.”
“I told her not to.”
I said nothing.
“I mean it, Morgan.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
There was a long pause.
Then Dad said something I had waited my entire life to hear.
“I failed you.”
My throat tightened.
“Dad.”
“I bragged about Chase because he looked successful.”
He exhaled.
“I dismissed you because your life didn’t look impressive to me.”
I stared at the snow.
“You were saving people while I was impressed by pictures of cars.”
I couldn’t answer.
“I’m sorry.”
He sounded smaller than I had ever heard him.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me today.”
“Okay.”
“I just needed you to hear me say it.”
I swallowed.
“Thank you.”
Then he said, “And don’t pay the bank.”
I laughed softly.
“Mom is going to love that.”
“I’m not interested in what your mother loves right now.”
For the first time, Dad and I both laughed.
May you like
It lasted only a second.
But it was the first good second we had shared in years.
