Page 69 of An Adventure For Aster

She liked how they made such a great team.

Most people she knew just made their plates with the food in the kitchen, but she was old fashioned and liked to put it all on the table and have everyone sit down. Maybe it was because of how she was raised.

Aster never said a word about it and just followed her lead.

“I will,” he said. “Will that bother you if she moves in with me?”

“No,” she said. “Why would you ask that? Family needs to be there for each other.”

“But it might be awkward having you stay the night there if she’s around.”

She grinned. “Aster, I’ve got my space here too. It’s not a big deal.”

“I said that to her. Maybe it would help if you did when you talk to her next.”

She stood up and moved over to kiss him on the cheek. “I will. You’re a great big brother. I’m sure you offered to help her if she wanted to stay in Texas too, right?”

“I did. She won’t take it. I feel horrible for her. She has money put aside if she needs to move out, but the cost of living there, with as hard as she works, everything will go right into that. If she has to get a new car or anything and add that payment, she won’t be able to do it and will be dipping into her savings monthly until it’s depleted.”

“Trust me,” she said, “I know that. I lived at home for a long time after I was working to build up my savings and get my salary to raise some. I bought things little by little for the day I would move out so it wasn’t such a big hit to my savings. I budgeted and knew what I could afford. I had a part-time job too for a period of time.”

“How old were you when you moved out?”

She twirled her spaghetti on her fork. “I think twenty-seven, maybe twenty-eight. My parents’ house isn’t big. Living there, I didn’t have rent to pay, but I have student loans and my goal was to get them knocked down as fast as possible. I was able to put a huge dent in them and refinance the balance for a lower payment with the same remainder of time. Maybe it wasn’t smart to do that and I should have stayed to pay them all off, but I couldn’t live there another day. Not that my parents aren’t great.”

“You wanted your own space,” he said. “That is how Daphne feels but also feels trapped.”

“I got to the point where I knew I could afford it. I’m not rolling in it. When I’m off in the summer, I normally teach summer school so I still have an income.”

“There is a summer school in elementary?” he asked, grinning.

She loved that in the past month he was more loose and free with his emotions. He grinned and he smiled so much more. Even joked so that she wasn’t left guessing.

“Not much,” she said. “But kids transitioning to middle school need it. Or parents want to help those who might have fallen behind. I’m doing more of the higher grades then. Not many of the older teachers want to work in the summer. But I need the money. I would have had to find another job anyway and this lets me do what I enjoy but not full time. It’s half days for most of the summer.”

“I didn’t realize that,” he said. “I’m glad Daphne is coming here. She wanted me to go visit her and I figured I’d go this summer when you were off and we could have gone together.”

“Ohhh,” she said. “I had no idea. I do have some time off. We can do that if you want.”

“I’d rather not,” he said. “Trust me. I’d only go to see Daphne.”

She found it odd that he had such a negative opinion of his parents still when they seemed somewhat nice on the call a month ago.

But she shouldn’t judge because she didn’t know it all. Even Daphne had made some comments like Aster in texts so there had to be more going on that she couldn’t put her finger on.

“Now she will come here. I’ll work on her to get her to stay if you want it.”

“I do,” he said. “But it has to be what she wants. She’s worried about money and about depending on me. I know she’ll find work somewhere. She’s not fussy. And, sadly, she feels she has to do that and not find what she loves, but I understand the need to just survive too. Just like you said before. I survived and didn’t live. Daphne is doing that too. I’m pissed now that I know how much she was paying my parents to live there.”

“She had to pay your parents rent?” she asked. “I know people who have had to do that but then later their parents gave them the money that had been put aside. Like a savings they didn’t know about but in the process helped them learn to budget.”

“That would never happen with my parents,” he said, letting out a snort. “They use that money as they get it. Daphne even said they have to go smaller with their next place because they won’t have her paying half their mortgage. Plus she paid for most of the food and other things. I know the washer broke a year ago and she bought a new one because my parents wouldn’t. They were going to the laundromat and Daphne didn’t have the time.”

“Do you think your parents did that on purpose hoping she’d buy it?”

“I don’t want to even guess because it’d piss me off if that was the case. My father wears a uniform to work and the business cleans them, so he wouldn’t have cared all that much. My mother never thought much of wearing clothes a few times before she washed them.”

She laughed at the way he cringed. “I do that,” she said. “Not clothes to wear out. Well, not true. I wear jeans a few times before I wash them. That is normal. Even recommended by some brands. But I only wear them a few hours half the time too. Mostly I’m just wearing sweats around the house when I get home for a few days before I wash them.”

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