Page 117 of The Moment of Letting Go

Sienna

Your father is really upset, Sienna,” my mom tells me as she comes into the living room with an envelope in her hand three days later.

She sits in her recliner and places the envelope, tattered at the top indicating it’s already been opened, down on the end table between us. With my legs drawn up on the sofa, I glance over at her casually, my eyes skirting the envelope.

“I know he is, but he’ll get over it.”

“You know how your father is,” she says, “and I can’t say that I disagree with him. You should’ve come to us first.”

“I did,” I tell her. “A few times actually, Mom, and you both always shoot me down when I try to help.”

“Because our bills are our responsibility,” she says. “How do you think it makes us feel, Sienna? We worked so hard to give you a good life, saved up every extra penny we earned to put you through college. We didn’t spend our lives working so hard just so you can spend your savings to pay our bills—we don’t want you to struggle like we did.”

I glance over.

“I appreciate everything you and Dad did for me, but if you want to know the truth, you gave up too much.”

Her brown eyes slant with confusion behind her thin golden glasses.

I sigh heavily and turn around more on the sofa to face her fully, dropping my feet on the floor.

“Mom, you and Dad never saw each other. My childhood was nights with Mom and days with Dad. The only time I ever remember seeing you two together was on a holiday every now and then.” I lean forward on the sofa, interlocking my fingers and dropping my hands between my knees, my elbows propped on the tops of my legs. “I love you both for giving up pretty much everything for me—I couldn’t ask for better parents—but you and Dad missed so much of each other. Even now, when you don’t have to support me anymore, you still struggle to pay your bills, and when I talk to either of you on the phone, or in person, you sound … tired. I’m gone and you still never see each other.”

I stand up and begin to gesture my hands as the gravity of their situation hits me harder.

“How often do you and Dad go out on that boat?” She starts to answer, but I cut her off because it wasn’t so much a question as it was the beginning of me making a point. “Once, twice a year, maybe?” I say, pacing the carpeted floor. “Uncle Stevie talked Daddy into buying that boat. Took you five years to pay it off and he hardly ever uses it—talk Daddy into selling the boat, Mom.”

“But he likes to go out on the water, Sienna,” she says from the recliner. “When we do get a chance to use it, what will we do when we don’t have it anymore?”

“Rent one for a day,” I tell her without flinching. “You could sell that boat and pay off the car at least, and then that once or twice a year he wants to go out on the water, rent a boat for a day—if it’s not something you do every day, you don’t need it.”

She shakes her head with uncertainty, already knowing that getting my dad to agree to sell the boat will take a lot of convincing.

I’m no expert, but it doesn’t take much to see that my parents need financial counseling. When they finally got on their feet and paid off their house after years of struggling, they thought, Hey, now that we’ve paid off the house, we can take out a loan for another vehicle so we don’t have to share one between us. Then later they went on to say, Hey, since we only have one large payment to make every month, why don’t we take out a loan to get that boat we’ve always wanted? And so they did. And then my dad’s health started failing and the hospital bills began to mount, and then, because they had no other choice, they refinanced the house to pay them. And now they’re stuck with more large payments every month and they’ve driven themselves right back into financial despair.

I take a seat on the sofa again, looking right at my mother with all of my adamant attention.

“I want you and Dad to be happy for once,” I say. “I want you to go on a vacation somewhere—and I don’t mean Texas. I mean somewhere you’ve never been, somewhere beautiful. And I want you to spend what life you have left enjoying it. Doing things you love. And spending time together. Because you deserve it more than anyone I know.”

My mom smirks. “What life we have left together?” she says in jest. “What are you tryin’ to say?” She chuckles and adjusts her glasses on the bridge of her nose.

“Mom, that’s not what I mean.” I smile at her, shaking my head, and then bring the importance of the moment back. “This money-is-the-most-important mind-set is an illusion, a scam. Half the stuff you work so hard to pay for, you don’t need as much as you and Dad need each other—in the end, having each other is all that matters and will be all that ever mattered.” Luke’s words, in a roundabout way, coming out of my mouth.

I pick up the envelope from the end table and retrieve the folded invoice from inside. It’s for one of two of my dad’s hospital bills I paid off with part of my savings. If Dad is upset about that, he’ll really be upset when he finds out I also paid his car payment for next month.

But it is what it is.

“Do you want to talk about it?” my mom asks suddenly, and I know right away she’s not on the financial subject anymore.

I barely look up from the invoice to see her; her long auburn hair, which is just like mine, is pinned behind her head by a black hair clamp; her small hands are folded down on her lap, glistening with the lotion she smoothed on them recently. Freckles are splashed across the tops of her fingers and hands and wrists—she’s where I inherited mine from.

I don’t answer. I look back down at the invoice, now only using it as a distraction.

“Sienna,” she says gently, “you haven’t been yourself since you got back from Hawaii; why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”

The room gets really quiet for a long time; all I can hear is the clock ticking on the wall above the sofa and the occasional bird chirping outside the screened window by the front door.

I didn’t tell my mom too much about Luke when I was in Hawaii. I’ve always been able to tell her anything, but when it comes to guys, I tend to be vague. I never knew why until now: I’ve never really been serious about a guy before like I was with Luke, and unless a guy is important to me, I guess there’s little reason to involve my mom.

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