“I can’t believe this,” I tell her. “I really can’t believe this. I mean, I know you and dad have done some idiotic things in the past, but—”
“Now hold your tongue,” mom chastises. “I have told you before that I will not be spoken to in this manner, and I will have you know I am quite tempted to show myself out the door right this minute!”
“You’re going to make a public statement,” I tell her. “You’re going to tell everyone I wasn’t involved.”
“Of course, dear,” she says.
Thank goodness for that, at least.
“None of our family was involved in wrongdoing,” she says, looking past me with a glazed expression on her face. I think she actually believes her own lies.
“Even if you get away with the rest of it,” I tell her, “you’re still going down for the student loans. The only way out of that is throwing me under the bus.”
“There are other ways,” mom says. I get a chill that lasts until she follows the daunting statement with a more characteristic, almost naïve, though no less jarring one, “If you can produce the money that we took out in loans, less reasonable amounts to account for tuition, books, and housing, it won’t even be an issue at trial. As for the rest of it, John has assured us that all we’re looking at is the usual witch hunt—you know, for as much as the people of this country love the rich, they seem to enjoy our misery to a disproportionate degree.”
“I don’t know where you think I’m going to come up with that kind of—how much exactly did you get in my student loans?” I ask.
She looks down and away from me, almost shielding her eyes with her hand. “It was a substantial amount,” she answers.
“How much?” I ask. “You’re trying to get me to cover for you with what I’m assuming would be some sort of a money laundering scheme—which, by the way, we are not doing—and I want to know how much you got using my name? In real student loans, I’ve gotten a grand total of about twenty thousand dollars so far. I actually had to write and sign a paper stating that I was completely financially independent and use that to appeal the initial decision to reject any financial aid due to all the cash the two of you have raked in over however long. How did you even get approved?”
“Oh, it’s not difficult when you have the proper paperwork and know what a bank is looking for in an application,” she says. Ironically, it may be the most forthright thing I’ve ever heard come out of her mouth.
“How much did you get?” I ask.
“I don’t have the exact figure,” mom says, looking away again. “Your father would know. He always knows that sort of thing. I’ve never been good with numbers the way your father has. You know, your father is really very sick over how this is going to affect you.”
“I know what you’re doing, mom,” I tell her. “Stop trying to pawn this all off on dad and just tell me.”
She says the number and I ask her to leave.
On her way out the door, mom says, “I know you’ll do the right thing, dear.”
She’s asking me to take the fall for them; maybe not on everything, but on a lot of it. If I hadn’t immediately kicked her out of my apartment, I’m sure she would have gone on to tell me how she and dad were going to make sure that I was taken care of with a good lawyer.
They’ve had close brushes with the law before, and this isn’t the first time one of them has come to me with a similar request. That kind of stuff is why I don’t talk to my parents if I can avoid it as it is.
Now, one way or another, this is coming out and she’s put me in the position where any choice I make is going to be a bad one. Either I can snitch on my parents and definitely send two people to prison who would never make it past the first meal, or I do what my mom wants and probably end up in prison myself.
It was an easy enough choice to make. She says she knows I’ll make the right decision, meaning her decision, but I’ve already made it. They did this to themselves and I’m not going to go down for it.
How stupid do they think I am?
I don’t even want to think about that number.
Mason’s still in the bedroom. I haven’t heard him at all, but there hasn’t been a moment where I wasn’t very aware of the fact that he’s been right there in my room with the door closed this whole time.
I open the door, saying, “I know you must have some questions, and I’m sure you heard at least some of the conversation—”
“All of it,” he says. “I tried to stay as far away from the door as I could, but the two of you weren’t exactly quiet.”
He’s just sitting there on my bed, calmly looking up at me.
“Mason,” I start, but he interrupts.
He says, “I think I’m ready to hear your explanation now.”
Now I get to explain why I didn’t say anything after I got that phone call. Now I get to explain how I knew upon seeing my mom that this sort of thing was going to happen.
Thanks, mom. Thanks, dad.
Oh, and thanks for the nearly $1.5 million in student loans you took out through fraud and forgery. $1.5 million with my name and information all over the paperwork...
Chapter Seventeen
Quagmire and Clarity
Mason
I’m sitting in the waiting room of Dr. Sadler, Psy.D, going over what I want to talk about in my head as I’m waiting for the session to begin.
I got here early. Despite my general lack of respect for the profession, in all the years I went to therapists as a kid, I don’t think I ever showed up late to a session. There’s always been that part of me that holds onto some tiny piece of hope that I might actually get some good advice.
I’m not going to hold my breath, though.
Ash explained what I didn’t already know from overhearing her and her mother that day. Being brothers with someone like Chris, I can’t judge Ash for her parents’ mistakes. What I’m not so happy with is that she never told me.
With everything I’ve been through with Chris since Ash and I have been together, it doesn’t make sense that she would withhold that sort of thing. We might have even been able to bond over how screwed up our families are.
Now, though, the last few times we’ve gotten together, neither one of us wants to say anything that might upset the other. I know the last time we had a problem like this, it was because of things I was doing. Maybe I’m just holding onto some sort of hope that eventually, things won’t be the way they’ve always been. I don’t know.
Right now, though, that’s little more than a pipe dream.
The door to the therapist’s office opens and an older man walks out, carrying his hat in his hands and waving to the receptionist as he goes. It’s a couple more minutes, but finally, Dr. Sadler comes to her open office door and says, “Mason, you can come on in.”
I’d like to say I had some kind of sophisticated screening process when I was looking for a therapist, but really, my insurance chose for me. Dr. Sadler is the only psychiatrist in town I can afford to visit.
Walking into Dr. Sadler’s office, I’m starting to think I’ve made a huge mistake. There are motivational posters covering nearly every square inch of the walls, with the exception of the space dedicated to her degrees.