Free Carry Me Home by Rosalind James

dialed.
    “Santangelo.”
    He always answered the same, even in the age of caller ID, when he could see it was her. That had always sounded so professional. But today she wished for something else.
    “Hey, Dad.” She tried to inject some energy into her voice. “How are you? Working?”
    “When you love what you do, it isn’t work.”
    She’d heard that one a lot . “What on?”
    “I’ve got a grant proposal due Monday. Going to have to cut one of my RAs loose, because I’m going to spend the whole day fixing this. Well, my own fault. Should have known he didn’t have what it took, but I gave him a chance.”
    “Oh, that’s too bad. For both of you.”
    “Too bad for me, but a good lesson for him. I gave him a chance; he didn’t make the most of it. That’s life. You’re working, too, I assume.”
    “Yep. Of course. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” she tried to joke.
    “Something special you wanted to talk about?” Get to the point.
    “Um . . .” She closed her eyes, rubbed her hand over her forehead. “I went into the ditch with my car this week. Skidded on some ice. And I . . . I wondered,” she finished in a rush, “if I could borrow three hundred dollars until the end of the month. Just for ten days or so, for the repair bill.”
    “Zoe.” She could hear the sigh, and her stomach twisted. “You need to budget for emergencies.”
    “I know. Of course.” She’d known this would happen. As soon as she asked him for money, she invited him to examine her finances. That was how it worked. “But moving was expensive, and first and last month’s rent, student loans . . .”
    “Maybe you should have rented a cheaper place. And as for the loans, we’ve talked about this. I paid half of everything, all the way through the PhD. That’s more than fair. This is the struggle everybody goes through, because you don’t value what comes too easily. Everybody was poor once, at least anybody worth knowing. I ate tomato soup and scrambled eggs and rice every day through graduate school.”
    She’d heard that before, too. “I’m not asking for anything different,” she said. “I’m just asking for a loan for ten days. I know how to be poor. I’m being poor. And you only ate those things during graduate school,” she couldn’t resist pointing out. “Not once you were teaching. Times have changed. This job pays less than being a high school teacher in California.”
    “I thought you said you were doing some consulting.”
    “I am. Union City hired me to look at their groundwater table, the job I told you about. That’s when I skidded on the ice, coming back from a meeting. And I’ll get paid for that in another month or so, and it’ll help a lot. But meanwhile . . .”
    “All right,” he said. “I’ll put the money into your account today. You can put it back into mine on the first. But be more careful in the future. Driving and budgeting.”
    “Sure,” she said with relief. “Thanks.”
    “And remember,” he said, “that’s exactly why you’re working so hard. To move up and out of there, to get the job and do the research that will bring you the consulting contracts. There’s your motivation. That’s what life’s all about, working toward that goal.”
    “I know. I know it is. And actually, it’s really nice here.” She looked out the sliding-glass door opposite her tiny living/dining room into the backyard. Nothing special, but the trees were pretty, lacy branches mostly bare against blue sky, and the sun was shining. She’d take a walk later to the university pool, go for a swim, give herself a reward for getting her work done. “It’s peaceful,” she went on. “It’s like a real community, you know? Where they have Girl Scouts and 4-H and county fairs. There’s a real downtown where people shop, and kids around after school playing in their yards, skateboarding at the park. And babies in the baby swings in their snowsuits. Everybody’s not