You could afford it.”
I watched Mom’s face.
She didn’t correct him.
That hurt more than Eric’s words.
He had always been the golden child because nothing was ever truly expected of him.
A missed payment became a rough patch.
A broken-down car became bad luck.
Months without contributing became him “finding his footing.”
When I carried the family, it became evidence that carrying them was easy for me.
Dad finally spoke.
“This meeting is getting out of hand.
The will has nothing to do with the mortgage.”
“It has everything to do with the mortgage.”
“No,” he said sharply.
“A will concerns what happens after we’re gone.
This concerns what happens now.”
“Exactly.”
I pulled the will closer.
“Right now, you expect me to keep paying for an asset I majority-own while planning to hand everything else to Eric because I’ve supposedly already been ‘provided for.'”
Mom flinched at the phrase.
Dad’s expression hardened.
“That sentence was not meant as an insult.”
“Then what was it meant as?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
Eric did.
“It means you’re fine.”
I turned toward him.
“I’m fine?”
“Yes.
You have a career.
You have savings.
You own part of this place.
I don’t have what you have.”
For the first time that evening, I understood their logic completely.
It wasn’t that they had forgotten what I contributed.
They had counted on it.
My competence had become the reason I deserved less.
Eric’s dependence had become the reason he deserved more.
Mom tried to soften her voice.
“Honey, your brother needs security.”
“And I didn’t?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“You didn’t have to say it.
You wrote it down.”
The room went still again.
Dad pushed his chair back slightly.
“What do you want?”
It was the first useful question anyone had asked.
I folded my hands.
“I want the arrangement to stop pretending to be something it isn’t.”
Eric frowned.
“What arrangement?”
“The one where I pay and everyone else decides.”
Dad’s face changed.
He understood before Eric did.
