Chapter 3 - THE BABY SHOWER WASN’T THE WHOLE STORY
Aunt Lisa called me before I called her.
That told me Evan had already said something.
“Connor, your parents were trying to help me.”
“With one hundred thousand dollars of equity from a house I partly own?”
“It’s not your house.”
I almost admired how quickly everyone memorized the same line.
“What was the money for?”
Lisa sighed.
Her daughter Megan—the cousin whose baby shower my parents attended instead of my wedding—was buying a house.
The family wanted to help with the down payment.
“How much?”
“Eighty-five thousand.”
I stared at the wall.
“You’re telling me my parents skipped my wedding for Megan’s baby shower while planning to refinance a house I was paying for so they could help Megan buy another house?”
“You make it sound ugly.”
“It did not require editing.”
Lisa became angry.
“Megan has a baby coming.”
“And?”
“She needs stability.”
“So did my wife when my parents told me they didn’t approve of her.”
Silence.
Then Lisa said:
“Your parents told me you agreed with the refinance.”
“I didn’t even know it existed.”
That finally changed her tone.
“What?”
“They needed my signature. I never gave it.”
Another silence.
“Robert said you were being difficult because of Natalie.”
I closed my eyes.
Dad had already begun rewriting the story before I knew there was a story.
But that wasn’t all.
The refinance application showed $210,000.
Megan’s planned gift explained only $85,000.
Where was the rest going?
Evan came over that evening.
Natalie ordered pizza.
For the first time since the wedding, my brother sat at our table looking less like a messenger for our parents and more like himself.
“Dad has investments,” he said.
“What investments?”
“He won’t tell me.”
Then Evan admitted something.
He had been helping too.
Not like me.
Smaller amounts.
Groceries.
Car insurance.
Medical copays.
About $700 a month for nearly two years.
“You’ve been paying them too?”
He looked embarrassed.
“They said you stopped caring once you got engaged.”
I stared at him.
While I paid the mortgage and utilities, they had been asking Evan for additional support.
“How broke are they?”
“That’s the thing.”
Evan pulled out his phone.
Two months earlier, Dad accidentally emailed him a bank statement instead of a medical receipt.
Savings account balance:
$146,882.
I stared.
My parents had nearly one hundred fifty thousand dollars in cash while I paid their mortgage.
Evan paid groceries.
And they planned to borrow another $210,000.
Then he scrolled farther.
There was another account.
Brokerage value:
$92,000.
May you like
My parents were not destitute.
They had been preserving their own money by spending ours.
