The notice is from Ragar, the city official who oversees dues, services payments, and tax liability for her city ward. It’s not surprising he left it for me rather than her, only humiliating that he’s all too aware of our circumstances.
She doesn’t take the note. She doesn’t even look at it before she rises from her chair and walks off toward the kitchen.
“Ma,” I call after her, but she just waves a hand in the air.
“It slipped my mind, that’s all.”
I stand and force myself to take a deep, steadying breath before I follow her. “Ma. What do you mean it slipped your mind?”
“There were other bills I had to pay.”
A lie, but I breathe in again and do my best to rein in my irritation. “What bills? I made sure you had enough to last until the end of the month.”
She won’t meet my eye as she fiddles with the kettle, with the canister of tea, with the cups she takes from the counter.
“There were just a few things I needed,” she hedges. “And it’s not a crime to want to go out and have a little fun every now and again.”
“I know it’s not a crime, but that money was for the bills. It was to make sure—”
“I’m not going to be lectured by my son on how I spend my money.”
It’s not your money, it’s the money I made. The money I gave you so you wouldn’t go hungry or lose your home.
The words stick on my tongue. Saying them won’t help the situation in the slightest.
It won’t change her in the slightest.
I sigh. “I’ll take care of it. I can stop by Ragar’s place and pay him for—”
“It’s not up to you to take care of me.”
I bite back a retort, but she’s not done. She takes the spoon she’s using to stir the tea and points it at me.
“It’s not, Callum. I know you think it is, but you get so… so… controlling with all of this.” She throws her hands dramatically in the air. “It makes me wish you’d just stop. Leave me be.”
“And then what?” I ask, fully unable to keep my tone even any longer. “I’m supposed to just stand by and let you lose this place? Where would you go, ma? What would happen to you?”
Her eyes cloud with tears, and I immediately feel lower than an insect for hurting her.
Only… I can’t take any of it back.
All of it’s true.
She’s got nowhere to go. No money saved. Da made sure of that. He took every last cent with him when he ran out on his debts and his family. And then he had the audacity to die and leave even more debt behind that fell squarely on her shoulders because he never had the courtesy to divorce her, either.
My father’s debts are taken care of thanks to my contract with Myron, but the bills keep coming, and this precarious security we’ve managed was won at the cost of her home being held as collateral until my contract is complete. Now it’s up to me. I’ll pay down the debt which now sits squarely on my shoulders, keep ma’s bills paid, hold it all together for Goddess knows how long.
“I’ll figure something out,” she says in a small, trembling voice, and I wait for the sympathy, the quick reassurances to rise to my tongue.
They don’t come.
All I feel is that same hollow, purposeless anger. For my father, yes, but also—surprisingly—for her.
She never held da’s feet to the fire. She never stood up to him. She never pushed back when he went on his benders.
She never took us away from him.
While the more charitable part of me can understand the stress she was under, the exhaustion and misplaced loyalty, that part isn’t the loudest right now.
