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Oct. 18th, 2008 03:42 pmHaven’t written, really written anything in a while. My mind’s a blank.
It’s Robin’s 14th birthday tomorrow and I can’t even afford to buy him a birthday present. He wants a Playstation 3 which runs about $400. If I had $400 I’d use it to pay the rent on the house we live in which is now two weeks overdue. Or maybe I’d pay rent on the store which is something like 5K in arrears. I might even try and pay down the balance on my Capital One Visa, my last remaining credit card, the only one I haven’t defaulted on. We’re close to destitute. Suspect Ben realizes this though we very pointedly Don’t Talk About It.
Robin, however, does not.
All Robin knows is that one day last summer I shook him awake – relax, it was after twelve, given his druthers the kid would stay up all night and sleep all day – loaded him up in the car, drove him down to the bank so he could close out his $214.73 savings account. (Not that he’d ever willingly deposited anything in it.) Robin doesn’t know that I used the money to keep our electricity from being turned off. All he knows is that it was his money and I took it.
“Have you bought me anything for my birthday yet?” he demanded Thursday night.
“Not yet,” I sighed.
“The only thing I want is a PS3!”
“Robin. Robin. I wish – I don’t think –“
He turned on me furiously. “You lied to me,” he hissed. “You promised you would buy me a PS3 and you didn’t. You owe me two hundred dollars.”
I was flabbergasted. That he would speak to me like that! It wasn’t the disrespect in his voice – although I suppose a good parent would have been indignant over that. No, it was the sneer. The coldness. The contempt. I’ve been working so desperately hard to keep it all together – nobody will ever know how hard I’ve worked. But I can’t keep it together. I’ve failed.
I felt desperately, desperately hurt. Mortally wounded.
There’s no way out of this mess, is there?
I’ve been thinking of killing myself.
It’s Robin’s 14th birthday tomorrow and I can’t even afford to buy him a birthday present. He wants a Playstation 3 which runs about $400. If I had $400 I’d use it to pay the rent on the house we live in which is now two weeks overdue. Or maybe I’d pay rent on the store which is something like 5K in arrears. I might even try and pay down the balance on my Capital One Visa, my last remaining credit card, the only one I haven’t defaulted on. We’re close to destitute. Suspect Ben realizes this though we very pointedly Don’t Talk About It.
Robin, however, does not.
All Robin knows is that one day last summer I shook him awake – relax, it was after twelve, given his druthers the kid would stay up all night and sleep all day – loaded him up in the car, drove him down to the bank so he could close out his $214.73 savings account. (Not that he’d ever willingly deposited anything in it.) Robin doesn’t know that I used the money to keep our electricity from being turned off. All he knows is that it was his money and I took it.
“Have you bought me anything for my birthday yet?” he demanded Thursday night.
“Not yet,” I sighed.
“The only thing I want is a PS3!”
“Robin. Robin. I wish – I don’t think –“
He turned on me furiously. “You lied to me,” he hissed. “You promised you would buy me a PS3 and you didn’t. You owe me two hundred dollars.”
I was flabbergasted. That he would speak to me like that! It wasn’t the disrespect in his voice – although I suppose a good parent would have been indignant over that. No, it was the sneer. The coldness. The contempt. I’ve been working so desperately hard to keep it all together – nobody will ever know how hard I’ve worked. But I can’t keep it together. I’ve failed.
I felt desperately, desperately hurt. Mortally wounded.
There’s no way out of this mess, is there?
I’ve been thinking of killing myself.
