Chapter 2

Alyssa invited me into her dinner because refusing would have made everyone in the hallway more uncomfortable.

I knew that was the reason because she whispered, “People are staring.”

Mom immediately praised her.

“You’ve always been considerate.”

I was placed at the far end of the table. Someone offered me food, but Mom answered for me.

“She’ll eat anything.”

Then she ordered another plate of shrimp because Alyssa’s was running low.

Ethan sat across from me.

He tried twice to catch my eye.

I didn’t let him.

Halfway through dinner, Mom’s friend asked why I hadn’t greeted my mother properly.

Mom sighed before I could speak.

“She’s always been awkward. Even as a child.”

Alyssa leaned against her shoulder.

“Well, I must take after you.”

Mom kissed the top of her head.

I left while everybody was raising glasses.

Nobody noticed.

After closing, I was walking toward the bus stop when Dad called after me.

“Kathleen.”

I turned.

He stood beside his SUV.

“Your grandmother left some things at my house. Clothes, papers, something in a box. I keep forgetting to give them to you.”

I nearly laughed at the word forgetting.

“Can I get them now?”

“Sure. Follow me.”

He climbed into the SUV.

I reached for the rear door.

Dad stopped me.

“Actually, Robbie finally fell asleep. If you open that door, he’ll wake up.”

I stared at him.

“So?”

“So take an Uber. I’ll text you the address.”

Then he drove away.

I checked the price on my phone and took two buses instead.

When I arrived nearly an hour later, Dad made me put disposable covers over my shoes.

“New carpet.

A small stool had been placed near the entryway.

“You can wait there.”

“I’m not staying. I just want Grandma’s things.”

A door opened behind him.

Robbie peeked out.

He looked at me with sleepy curiosity.

“Are you Kathleen?”

“Yes.”

“Dad says you live with the old lady.”

Dad winced.

Robbie kept going.

“Do you not have a dad?”

No one spoke.

The poor kid wasn’t being cruel. He was seven.

Dad disappeared down the hall and returned with two grocery bags.

“This is everything.”

He handed them to me.

“Grandma said it was important?”

“She was on a lot of medication near the end.” He shrugged. “It looked like junk.”

I carried the bags home.

I didn’t open them.

Not then.

Two weeks later, the condo sold.

Grandma had transferred it into a trust for me years earlier. The attorney she’d used helped me handle the sale properly once I turned eighteen. After the mortgage balance and fees, the money wasn’t a fortune, but it was enough to begin somewhere else without fear.

I packed quietly.

The morning before I was supposed to leave, someone pounded on my door.

Mom and Dad stood outside together.

That alone told me something was wrong.

Dad smiled too broadly.

“We were talking.”

“That must’ve been difficult.”

Mom ignored that.

“We realized you’ll be leaving for college soon.”

Dad looked around the condo.

“What are you planning to do with this place?”

“Why?”

“You’re eighteen,” Mom said. “Real estate is complicated. People take advantage of young girls all the time.”

Dad nodded. “We could sell it for you.”

I said nothing.

They had been arguing in the hallway before knocking.

Dad claimed Grandma’s condo should return to “his side of the family.”

Mom reminded him that Grandma had bought it while they were still married and said she deserved a share.

Neither seemed to remember Grandma taking me in after their divorce, when Mom moved to Connecticut and Dad remarried outside Columbus.

Neither remembered the one condition Grandma had made when they left me with her.

The condo would be protected for me.

“Okay,” I said.

Both faces brightened.

Dad leaned forward. “Okay?”

“Come tomorrow. We’ll talk.”

They arrived at nine the next morning.

Dad walked in without waiting to be invited.

Then stopped.

A couple in their fifties stood in the living room with a tape measure, discussing whether a sofa would fit along the west wall.

Mom frowned.

“Who are you?”

The man lowered the tape.

“Tom Bennett.”

“What are you doing in my mother-in-law’s condo?”

Tom looked confused.

“My condo.”

Dad laughed once. “No. My daughter lives here.”

“You mean Kathleen?”

Mom stepped forward.

“Yes.”

Tom nodded. “We bought it from her.”

Silence.

Dad’s face lost color.

“What?”

“We closed yesterday.”

Mom gripped the back of a chair.

“She sold it?”

Tom’s wife looked between them.

“You’re her parents?”

Neither answered.

The woman’s expression changed.

“Oh.”

It was somehow worse than pity.

She picked up a folder from the counter.

“The agent mentioned Kathleen was moving for college. Northwestern, right?”

My mother blinked.

“What?”

“Full scholarship. She was valedictorian at Hawthorne.”

Dad stared at her.

“No. That can’t be right.”

The woman frowned. “Why not?”

Mom looked genuinely bewildered.

“She never told us.”

Tom gave a slow nod, as if something had just become clear.

“No,” he said. “I guess she didn’t.”

Dad called me.

Mom called seconds later.

I was already on the train to Chicago.

The phone vibrated on the table beside me.

Dad.

Mom.

Dad again.

I turned it off.

Only then did I remember Grandma’s bags.

They were under my seat.

I pulled the first one onto my lap.

Inside were my baby clothes, school pictures, report cards, certificates, even a paper turkey I had made in second grade. Grandma had saved everything.

At the bottom of the second bag was a wooden box.

The key was taped underneath.

Inside were savings bonds, account papers and an envelope with my name written in Grandma’s shaky handwriting.

Kathleen,

If you’re reading this, I didn’t get my wish of seeing you off to college.

There are people in this world who will make you work for crumbs of affection. Don’t confuse hunger with love.

Your parents made choices. Those choices are not your debt.

The condo is yours. The savings are yours. Use them for school, for a home, for travel, or for nothing at all until you know what you want.

Go somewhere you can become yourself without asking permission.

You were never hard to love.

Grandma

I read the final sentence three times.

Then I bent over the letter and cried so hard that the woman across the aisle quietly placed a packet of tissues beside me without asking what had happened.

I had spent years mourning two parents who were still alive.

I finally understood I had also spent those years being loved by someone who had never once made me earn it.