I stocked shelves at a grocery store. I chipped in for groceries. I tried to save enough to move out and never look back.
But then my car would need a brake job.
Or my hours would get cut.
Another month. Another $250.
Meanwhile Dad would come home with a case of beer or some new piece of fishing gear, while I knelt in the entryway gluing the soles back onto my work shoes.
I kept a running tally in a notebook of every payment I made him.
By the time I was twenty-three, that notebook said fifteen thousand dollars.
Fifteen thousand dollars, I would think, lying in the dark. Fifteen thousand dollars I could have used to get out of here, and he spent it on cheap beer and a man’s hobbies.
Some weeks we barely spoke, passing each other in the hallway like two strangers who happened to share a water bill.
