Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 64337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 214(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 214(@300wpm)
So, I tripled down on building our wealth, trusting that Millie would eventually see that providing for her and Sprout was one of the big ways I showed my love.
She didn’t…
She didn’t, and it eventually destroyed us. But even if I had realized that I was losing her before it was too late, I don’t know if it would have made a difference.
For better or worse, this is the way I’m built.
I grew up feeling like the rug was about to be ripped out from under my feet at any moment. Mom worked her fingers to the bone to provide for my brothers and me, but when we were younger, we struggled. A lot. When my father pulled his head out of his ass and pitched in, we had reliable food and shelter, but when he got swept up in one of his get-rich-quick schemes or hit the road with his dirt-biking buddies for weeks at a time, we skated perilously close to the edge.
I remember nights going to bed hungry and mornings hiding from the bill collectors pounding on the door. If one of my mom’s friends hadn’t stepped in at the last minute to help us cover the mortgage when I was in fifth grade, we would have been out on the street in the middle of winter.
I swore back then, when I was still just a kid washing dishes at a diner after school for two bucks an hour, that I would never fail my family the way my father had failed his.
I would provide for the people I loved, no matter what.
If my high school friends had asked me about robbing the pawn shop that night, instead of tricking me into driving the getaway car without warning, I might have actually agreed to it. Mr. Albert, the owner of the shop, leered at my mother’s cleavage every time she went in to pawn one of her few valuable possessions to keep the lights on or buy my little brother a cheap pair of snow boots. He seemed to get off on her shame. I’d fantasized about punching him in his skeezy face since I was about twelve years old.
I might have willingly signed on to steal a little extra safety for my family from that asshole, and I sure as hell would have planned a better heist than my idiot friends.
That’s why I didn’t bother appealing my conviction, even though my lawyer thought I had a decent chance at having my sentence reversed. He believed that I was an innocent victim who was just at the wrong place at the wrong time, and that was partly true. But if I’d been given the chance to make the right decision, I’m not sure I would have. In my mind, I deserved to serve my time.
Ensuring the people I love were taken care of was that important to me. As a dumb kid, I might have risked going to prison for it. As an adult, I work like an animal for it. And when I was first married, building my nest egg for the future came before anything else.
I would rather my mom be mad at me for missing the family Christmas party than lose the money I made taking a group of hunters out for deer season that Saturday. I would rather leave my wife lonely every night while I snagged an evening shift at the lumber yard than stay home and try to save our marriage. The fear of not having enough set aside to keep my people safe was too strong to do anything else.
Then the car wreck turned my world upside down and money was more important than ever. I needed money to pay for Sprout’s hospital bills, her physical therapy…and to put a deposit down on my wife’s headstone. Millie and I had been separated for three months by then, but until that night, I’d still had hope that we would work it out.
After the accident, I grieved her all the more intensely, knowing she died disappointed in me and the love I’d tried to give her.
My love wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough, and I’m not sure I ever will be, not for anyone who wants a “normal” relationship, anyway.
That’s why it’s better for me to spend my time with someone like Pammy, an older woman who has been through enough shit in her own life to be happy with a low-key, friends-with-benefits situation. We can have fun and support each other as friends without romance getting in the way. We’ll enjoy our connection for as long as things are good, then part ways without drama or pain.
I’ve had enough drama and pain to last two lifetimes.
The thought is barely through my head when Binx cries out behind me. I turn in time to see the edge of the deer trail we’ve been following give way beneath her.