“Are they mad?”
“Yes.”
She considered that.
“Are you still allowed to stop?”
My throat tightened.
“Yes, sweetheart. I am.”
She nodded, accepting a rule I was only beginning to learn.
The financial consequences arrived gradually.
My parents gave up the country club membership at renewal. They changed their vehicle arrangements. Chloe moved to a less expensive apartment.
None of them became homeless. None lost the education, savings, or belongings they already had.
They had to make choices within their own means.
My mother described those choices as humiliation.
My father stopped making that argument after Rebecca showed him the emergency message I had sent before the party.
He called one evening and said, “I read it again.”
I waited.
“Your mother said the doctors had things under control.”
“I told you I needed you.”
“Yes.”
He sounded older than he had at the country club.
“I should have come.”
