“Happy Birthday, son.” Tucker’s voice was loud, she could hear it with her sitting on Archer’s bed next to him.
“Thanks for the week at camp. I’m so excited. I can’t wait!”
“Camp?” Tucker asked. “Which camp is that?”
She saw the smile drop from her son’s face. Typical Tucker couldn’t even play along. “Basketball camp. Mom said you paid for that for my birthday.”
“Oh yeah,” Tucker said. “I forgot. Things have been busy. You get some sleep and put your mother on.”
“I will. Thanks again. I really, really wanted to go and it’s so much better than the one in Durham.”
“You’re welcome,” Tucker said.
Archer handed the phone back to her. She leaned down to give him another kiss on the forehead and left his room.
“Get it off your chest,” she said when she was back in her room. She should have just hung up on him.
“Why the hell would you waste my money on basketball camp? You couldn’t send him to science camp? Or even math camp?”
“If you want him to go to those camps, then you can set it up and arrange it all on your own,” she said. “But you do what you always do. You drop money in my account and say get him what he wants. That’s what he wanted.”
“It will be the last time I do that if you continue to be irresponsible with the funds. What else are you doing with my child support?”
She growled. “I’m not wasteful in the least and you damn well know it. You’re the one who throws money around and alwaysdid. I don’t owe you any explanations on how I spend his child support.”
It’s not like she wasted any of it. Her salary supported them, and the money from Tucker went into a savings account for her son. That was what she used to buy him extra things. Like sports leagues and all the activities he was involved in. Including the Science Fair week last year.
That money went strictly to Archer and it burned her ass he would question her on that when she could use it for whatever she wanted, including food that her son plowed through nonstop.
“You know how I feel about this shit, Farrah,” Tucker said.
“I do know. And if you want to be part of your son’s life, then you should make the time for him. Maybe spend it doing science projects or going to museums. Which we do and if you talked to him more, you’d know that. He’s got a well-rounded education and is smart and doing great. Remember that. Be a father your father wasn’t to you.”
“Whatever.”
She wanted to cringe whenever she heard that word. “Are we done now?”
“Bye,” Tucker said and hung up on her.
She wanted to let out a growl and toss her phone across the room. When she turned around, Archer was standing in the doorway.
“What are you doing up?”
“Dad doesn’t want me to go to basketball camp, does he?”
She hated he’d heard what she’d just said. “Your father has different likes than we do. It’s fine and everyone is entitled to those things.”
“I know,” Archer said. “I should have realized it wasn’t from him but you.”
“It is from your father. He paid for it.”
“But you picked it out. Just like you did for Easter and probably for Christmas.”
“You spent time with your father at Christmas. He got you those gifts. You opened them there. I didn’t do it.”
“Oh,” Archer said.
Just because it wasn’t a lot of what her son wanted or asked for, Tucker at least put the effort in and Archer used the lab kit and had fun with it outside.
