“No.”
“Or how to raise the children.”
She smiled thinly.
“You did have opinions.”
“I still do.”
“I know.”
Her expression softened for half a second.
Then she continued.
“The problem was I blamed you for the fact that we kept accepting.”
I sat back.
That was more honesty than I expected.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because then I would have had to tell you to stop helping.”
“And you didn’t want that.”
“No.”
There it was.
Ugly.
Clean.
Real.
Jennifer’s eyes filled.
“I liked what the money gave us. I hated what accepting it made me feel.”
“So you punished me for giving you something you kept taking.”
“Yes.”
I appreciated the lack of defense.
She looked toward the window.
“And Christmas was worse because Michael told me he was afraid you’d say something in front of Thomas.”
“I know.”
“He told you?”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“I said you didn’t fit because…”
Her voice faded.
“Because what?”
She looked at me.
“Because saying the truth would have made me look pathetic.”
“What truth?”
“That I was embarrassed for people to know how we lived.”
I thought of Jennifer’s carefully arranged house.
The wine glasses.
The matching Christmas stockings.
