“You didn’t have to say it!” I responded. “You manipulated me, and you made it perfectly clear what you wanted.”
“Look, Jennifer. I understand you don’t want to take the blame. But if my son has suffered this past year, it’s because of one person and one person only, and that’s you.”
“You never cared about his happiness,” I fired back at him. “Not his or anyone else’s, I’d bet.”
“I care about him more than you know.”
“Yeah, right. I guess that’s why your whole family hates you.”
With those words, I’d touched a sore spot, and I couldn’t have been more pleased. And if there was anything wrong with it, I couldn’t see what.
Mr. Ross warned me, “One day, when Jackie leaves you and learns what the real world is like, he’ll thank me for trying to keep you away from him.”
“Oh, like the way he thanked you for what you did to him when he was in high school?”
That had been a big risk: Jack never had told me what had happened back then, and I had no idea how bad it really was. All I knew was that Jack’s father had donesomething, and whatever it was had pushed him into drugs, and that was when everything in his life had changed.
Mr. Ross put a finger in my face. “I don’t know what my degenerate of a son told you,” he began, “but I guarantee you it’s not the whole story. You can’t even imagine all the money I had to give to that school of his to keep them from kicking him out every time he got into trouble. Let alone the times I had to pay his bail because he’d gotten into a fight. If I told you all the money I spent on him in those years…”
“Right, because that’s what matters, isn’t it? Money and what other people think!” I shouted.
“Without everything I did, he’d never be where he is now! He should get on his knees and thank me for all I invested in him! Without me, he’d just be one more loser!”
“Without you, he’d be a normal, well-adjusted guy. I know you think he needs your money to make his dreams come true, but you’re dreaming!”
“What the hell do you know about it?” he yelled.
“Maybe not much, but I do know that what little kids need isn’t money—they need a father who loves them! It’s great that you paid his tuition and his bail, but you what you should have done is sit down with him and try to figure out what was going on in his life that made him end up where he did. You should have tried to understand him! To let him know he wasn’t alone! That’s what a father who loves his son does, not just give him money and then throw it constantly in his face like he owes you something!”
He was momentarily too furious to speak. Then, very slowly, he asked me, in a tone that sounded like a warning, “Are you accusing me of not loving my son, Jennifer?”
“I’m not accusing you,” I said. “I’m telling you. You don’t love him. You only love yourself. Mike and Jack both needed love when they were growing up, and if they didn’t get it, it was your fault.”
“This, coming from the girl who caused him to start taking drugs again?”
That felt like a gut punch, and I couldn’t say anything more. I turned around, ready to go back home, and that was when I found Jack standing there. His expression said something, but it was hard to tell what. He looked desolate, but also enraged, and his stare was frighteningly blank. Had he heard our entire conversation? Had he heard the horrible things his father had said about him? Did he know the truth now about what had happened a year ago?
He didn’t say. All he asked was, “Did you take his check?”
Mary was behind him, staring back and forth between father and son. It hurt me to admit it, but there was no way to get around the truth. “Yes,” I admitted softly.
“Twenty thousand dollars,” Mr. Ross muttered. “That’s how much she thinks you’re worth, son.”
I was in torment, wondering how Jack would interpret that. The subject of money had always irritated him, and the subject of his father even more, and I couldn’t imagine he’d like the idea of what I’d done. But then, to everyone’s surprise, he started to laugh.
Yes, to laugh.
Mary was as confused as I was. Or maybe it was terror in her eyes? She could sense something very bad was about to happen. Jack’s smile was bitter. But still, he put a hand on my shoulder.
“You shook my father down for twenty thousand dollars?” he asked, shaking his head. “Jesus, Jen…just when I thought I couldn’t fall any deeper in love with you…”
He pushed me aside softly and grimaced as he stepped closer to his father. Before he could say anything, Mary jumped between them.
“Jack, honey…” she began, voice trembling. “Why don’t you go back home. I don’t want you to do or say something you’ll regret.”
“Mom,” Jack said, “take a look at yourself. This is the first time ever you’ve jumped in…and you’ve seriously done it to defend him?”
Those words were like a jug of cold water dumped on Mary’s head. Jack continued: “You can’t imagine all the times when I was little and the one thing I wanted was for you to come in and defend me. I always wondered what I could have done so wrong that my own mother could watch how Dad treated me and just let me absorb it. You never did anything for me, Mom, my whole life you stood aside. Well, don’t bother doing anything different now. This is between Dad and me.”
