The Blueprint
Grandpa froze in the middle of a bite. “Wait,” he said. He put his fork down and looked at me.
“You pay your parents rent?”
My fork stopped halfway to my mouth. Across the Thanksgiving table, my mother’s expression tightened at the edges. My sister Claire looked down at her plate as though the mashed potatoes had suddenly become the most absorbing thing she had ever encountered.
Before I could answer, Dad waved one hand in the air between us, the gesture he used to disperse smoke before it became a problem. “Your sister has two kids,” he said. “She needs more help.”
The table went quiet.
Grandpa set his fork down fully. “No,” he said, with the particular quiet of a man who has decided something. “I asked Ethan.”
My stomach dropped.
Dad leaned back in his chair. “Dad, let’s not.”
Grandpa kept his eyes on me. “How much?”
I swallowed.
“Eight hundred a month.”
Grandma repeated the number softly, just to herself, as if she needed to hear it one more time to be sure she had heard it correctly. Mom moved quickly to contain the situation. “It’s not rent.
He’s helping with household expenses.”
“I live in the basement,” I said, before I could weigh whether saying it was worth what would follow. “I buy my own groceries. I pay my phone, my car insurance, my gas, and half the utilities.”
Claire’s head came up.
“You make it sound like we’re abusing you.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you’re sitting there acting like it. I have two children, Ethan. Do you have any idea what daycare costs?”
“You don’t pay for daycare,” I said.
“Mom watches them five days a week.”
Claire’s cheeks went red. Dad tapped the table lightly with his palm. “That’s enough from both of you.”
But Grandpa was no longer eating.
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