“This isn’t over,” he muttered, reaching for his car door.
“That’s right! Take him to the cleaners!”
“Oh, it is,” I said. “From now on, if you want to support your son, you’ll do it through a lawyer. No more secret meetings. No more poisoning his head.”
Joshua pressed the thick white envelope back against his father’s chest.
“You can keep this one,” Joshua said. “You’re going to need it for your lawyer.”
A couple of the bystanders chuckled.
Mark climbed into his car and sped off, the tires screeching against the pavement.
“You can keep this one.”
I took Josh home. When we got inside, I pointed to the kitchen table.
“Put the phone and the computer there,” I said. “And the bag of money from your room.”
He did it without a word.
“You lied to me, Joshua. You skipped school. You risked your future.”
“I know,” he whispered.
“And you sat there while he called me a cheapskate. You laughed.”
He did it without a word.
“I was playing him, Mom! If I defended you, he would’ve walked away, and we wouldn’t have gotten anything.”
“That’s not how we do things. We don’t keep secrets. We don’t take money that comes wrapped in manipulation and insults. Do you understand me? We don’t sell our dignity.”
His shoulders sagged. “I just wanted to fix things. I hated seeing you so tired all the time.”
“You don’t fix abandonment with cash, Joshua. You fix it with boundaries. And you definitely don’t fix it by becoming a liar yourself.”
He looked up at me. “I’m sorry, Mom. I really am.”
“We don’t sell our dignity.”
“You’re grounded. Indefinitely. The phone and the laptop stay on this table until I decide what to do with them. And tomorrow morning, we are going to see your guidance counselor to figure out how you’re going to make up every single hour of school you missed.”
“Okay.”
“And Joshua? We are filing for that back child support. For real. I’m calling a lawyer this afternoon.” I patted the duffel bag. “And he’s going to pay for it.”
A tiny flicker of a smile touched the corners of his mouth. “So… technically, I still charged him.”
“You’re going to make up every single hour of school you missed.”
continued on next page
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