Chloe gave a bitter laugh. “Laurel, that account was emptied before you even walked across the stage. Graham used it to cover a bad flip on a lakefront spec house that sat on the market for eighteen months. There never was an eighty-thousand-dollar college fund for Blythe. He paid her tuition on high-interest credit cards and second mortgages.”
The realization hit me like a bucket of ice water.
On that sunlit June afternoon beside the garage, Dad hadn’t withheld college money from me because he thought I would fail.
He had withheld it because **there was no money**.
He had given Blythe a leased car he couldn’t afford to keep up appearances, and he had crushed my spirit and cut me loose simply because he couldn’t bear to admit he was broke.
“He called you a loser,” Chloe murmured, looking at me with genuine sympathy. “He made you feel like you were stupid just to protect his own ego.”
I looked out the diner window at my company truck parked near the curb—a new, immaculate Silverado 2500 with our gold-and-green logo on the side.
“He didn’t make me feel stupid, Chloe,” I said quietly. “He just made me stop waiting for him to love me.”
Two days later, my office phone rang.
The caller ID showed an unlisted local number. When I answered with our standard company greeting, there was a long, awkward silence on the other end.
“Laurel?”
It was my mother. Her voice sounded thin, fragile, and stripped of the breezy confidence she used to wear like perfume.
“Hello, Joanne,” I said. I hadn’t called her ‘Mom’ in over three years.
A sharp intake of breath rattled through the receiver.
“Laurel… your father needs to talk to Wesley. It’s an urgent family matter. Wes won’t answer his phone.”
“Wes is on a job site,” I said coolly. “And we don’t discuss business through third parties. If Graham wants to speak to Sutton Environmental, he can book an appointment.”
“Laurel, please don’t be cruel!” Joanne pleaded, her voice suddenly cracking. “We’re your parents! Your sister is in trouble, and your father… your father has had a very difficult year!”
“I’m not being cruel, Joanne,” I said, looking down at the company ledger open on my monitor. “I’m just being realistic. Throwing good money at something doesn’t guarantee you’ll finish it. Isn’t that what Dad told me?”
