Your parents announced their decision to divorce a month ago, and visits home have been hell ever since. They eat lunch silently, attempting a semblance of civility for your benefit, until one of them inevitably erupts at a thinly veiled swipe and storms from the table. At least today you have something to send the conversation down a different path.
"I need fifty thousand dollars," you say.
Your mother drops her cutlery to her plate. Your father keeps chewing.
"This for a girl?" he asks through his mouthful of tuna salad.
"Yeah," you say. "She's been kidnapped. They're gonna kill her."
"Why haven’t we heard about this girl if it's so serious," your mother asks.
"It's not serious!" That came out louder than you'd intended.
"Fifty thousand dollars sounds pretty serious to me," your mother says.
"Will you leave him alone?" your father says. "Sooo, she pretty?"
Your mother jumps up from the table. "I am trying to be a mother to him. You're just trying to score points."
Your father stands up to meet her stare. "I am trying to help him to live his life without being tainted by all the shit you're putting him through."
"What I'm putting him through?" She looks like she's about to cry for a second. But she swallows her sobs and her eyes freeze over. "You black-hearted little man. Go on, give your son fifty thousand dollars to blow on some girl he barely knows. You always rescue him before he has a chance to try to do anything on his own. That’s why he’s already 33 and amounted to so little.”
To you she says, “Sorry about that.”
“No problem,” you say. Your mom has been making it clear to you since you were twenty-five that she is completely and utterly disappointed in you. You got used to it after not too long.
“He can't be making a bigger mistake with this girl than I made by marrying such a miserable bore," your mother shouts as she runs from the table.
Your father yells at her back, "Hey you owe the kid. Getting pregnant with him got me to marry you didn't it?!"
Your father sits back down. "Sorry about that," he says.
"No problem." You were nine when you first learned that your conception forced your parents into marriage, and you long ago came to grips with this knowledge.
Your Dad drops his knife and fork on the plate. “This divorce must be hard on you, but it’s for the best. She just can’t get it out of her head that she could have done better than me. Of course she could have! So could I, if I’d bothered, but it doesn’t keep me up at night. With her, though, it really pisses her off. Like there’s someone in particular she thinks she missed her chance on.”
"So can I have the fifty thousand dollars?"
"Lemme write you a check." He takes out his checkbook and begins scribbling.