Chapter 5: What the Money Was For
I knelt down so I was eye level with him. The carpet was rough under my knees.
“No, buddy,” I said. “That’s not true. I’m always going to be your aunt. Nobody can change that. Not Grandma. Not anybody.”
He searched my face the way kids do, looking for the lie. Then his shoulders came down.
“Then why did you cancel the water park?”
There it was. The question everyone would ask.
I didn’t give him the grown-up version. I didn’t tell him about the six chairs, or the pinot, or the line about having nothing else to spend it on.
“Because some grown-ups were being unkind to me,” I said, “and they were using my money to do it. I needed it to stop. I’m sorry it landed on you. That part’s not fair, and I know it.”
Tyler thought about that. “Mom says you’re mad at us.”
“I’m not mad at you. Not even a little.”
Mike made a sound behind him that could have been a laugh or something else. “Ty, go back to the room. Tell your mom I’ll be down in a minute.”
When Tyler was gone, my brother finally came inside. He sat on the arm of the chair by the window and looked out at the water for a long time.
“I should have said something at that door,” he said. “I should have said something at dinner. I just stood there. I always just stand there.” He shook his head. “You’ve been carrying all of us for years, and I let Mom call it nothing.”
“Why are you telling me now?”
“Because I watched my daughter cry on a curb this morning,” he said. “And Jenna said, ‘Good, let Claire see what she did.’ And I realized she was using Ava to get at you, and that’s the same thing Mom’s been doing to you your whole life. Using whoever’s closest.”
I didn’t know what to say. So I didn’t say anything for a while.
Then I said, “I’m not putting the package back.”
“I know.”
“Not for the adults. Not for any of it. If I do, I’ve taught everyone that if they push hard enough, I fold.”
“I know,” he said again. “I’m not asking you to.”
What I did do, I did as the kids’ aunt, not as the family’s wallet.
On Friday morning, I walked to the shuttle stop with Mike and three kids in water shoes. I’d bought three children’s day passes to Splash Cove at the gate price, out of my own pocket, and Mike paid for his own ticket and the gas for his own car. Jenna stayed at the hotel. My mother didn’t come down from her room.
Ava screamed the whole way down the giant yellow slide. Noah fell asleep on a lounger in a wet heap. Tyler and I rode the lazy river eleven times, talking about nothing, which is the best thing you can talk about with a nine-year-old.
My mother left on Saturday, a day early. She didn’t say goodbye. Jenna posted a long caption about “toxic people who keep score” over a photo of the ocean. I didn’t respond. I’d learned I didn’t have to.
The next month, I got a text from Mom.
I’ve been thinking. Maybe I handled things wrong. Can you call me?
I did, eventually. It was stiff and careful. She didn’t say sorry, exactly. She said, “I didn’t know it hurt you so much,” which, from my mother, is practically a cathedral. I said I’d come for Thanksgiving. I said I’d bring a pie. I said I wouldn’t be paying for anything else.
She said, “Well. That’s fair.”
People still ask me about the water park. Mostly online, because I told this story once and it got away from me. You punished the kids. Kids shouldn’t pay for adult drama. Just pay for the children and stop being petty.
And others: Kids aren’t a coupon. Their parents could’ve paid. Being childfree doesn’t mean being everybody’s ATM.
I’ve thought about it a lot. I think the honest answer is that I didn’t cancel the kids’ fun. I canceled my mother’s free ride, and the kids were sitting in the back seat. Their parents had every chance to buy tickets. They chose to make it my fault instead.
I’m going back to Gulf Shores next spring. Same resort. Same suite, 1412, oceanfront, with the jacuzzi.
I booked it for one.
And I already know who’s coming to visit me on the Saturday, because he asked in July and has asked twice since.
Tyler wants to try the jacuzzi.
