Page 39 of The Serpent King

“I think you should spend it on yourself,” Dill said.

“There isn’t anything I want.”

“Get some of your favorite candy or lotion or something.”

She thought for a second. “Maybe we’ll go for an ice cream.”

“I really wish you’d spend it on yourself. It’s your present.”

“We’ll see.” They sat silently and ate their cake. Dill finished his first. It was delicious. And as they sat there, something came over him. It seemed as good a time as any to bring it up.

“While we’re talking about money, what if there were a way for me to make us a lot more money than I’d make at Floyd’s, even as a manager? What would you think about that?”

She gave a rueful laugh through a bite. “Oh, that’d be great. As long as you aren’t proposing to sell drugs.”

“No. But what I’m talking about would mean that we still have to spend a few more years with me not making as much as I’d make full time at Floyd’s.”

She took another bite of cake. “I’m not following,” she said, but her eyes said I hope I’m not following.

“I’m talking about what if I were maybe to go to college. People who—”

She shook her head and put up her hand. “No.”

“But Mom, listen to me. You didn’t let me finish.”

“No. No need. I know what you’re going to say and what my answer will be.”

“Mom, I talked with Lydia, and she told me about how much more money college graduates make over non–college graduates and—”

“Oh Lydia, of course. She sure does say the things that are easy for her to say, doesn’t she?”

“But she has a point. If we sacrificed a few years so that I could go to college, I could get a better job and help you more. It’d be like”—Dill racked his brain for some Bible analogy that would encompass the idea of short-term loss in favor of long-term gain—“how we sacrifice the opportunity to do certain sinful things, so that we can live in heaven with Jesus.”

“Sin is not an opportunity. Following Jesus isn’t a sacrifice. He did all the sacrificing.”

“I was trying to come up with something to compare it to.”

“Come up with something else.”

“Think of all I’d learn in college.”

“You’d learn that you’re too good for God. That we came from monkeys. You’d learn a lot.”

“College would give me more options in life.”

“You don’t need options in life. You need Jesus. Options are fine if you’ve got them, but we don’t. We don’t have the money.”

“I can get financial aid.”

“Oh great, more debt. That’s what we need. I could use another few holes in my head while you’re offering.”

“You always say ‘our debt.’ I didn’t rack up this debt. You guys did. Why should it fall on me?”

“Because we’re a family. And families go through hard times together, that’s why. They don’t run off by themselves and leave the others alone to fend for themselves. I dropped out of high school to marry your father and have you. I bathed and fed you. I’ve worked six days a week cleaning motel rooms by the highway and six nights a week at a gas station to give you the best life I could. And it’s not much. But we have each other and we have Jesus.”

“I want more.”

“That’s greed and pride talking.”