Free The Love Wars by L. Alison Heller Page B

glad you’re not in this business.”
    “I promise you, Dad. My business is not so different.” I imagine presenting one of my clients with a comped Cornish game hen.
Roast this with butter and garlic, and I swear you’ll forget all about that pesky restraining order against you!
    He rakes his hands through his light brown hair. “Trust me. Law school? A profession? Smartest thing you could’ve done.”
    “All right, Dad,” I say, to end the conversation. I don’t want him getting teary-eyed about the Bacon Payne benefits package again.
    He reaches behind his glasses to rub his eyes and blinks at the TV. “What are we watching?”
    “Not sure.” I look at the screen for a few seconds. “Oh,
Teen Mom
.”
    He snorts. “What?”
    “It’s about teenagers who get pregnant.”
    “You’re kidding me.” He shifts uncomfortably.
    “Hey, you and Mom could’ve starred on it,” I say, lifting my eyebrows with mock excitement.
    “Yeah, that would have made for great TV.”
    “You know,” I continue to goad him, “isn’t it weird, when Mom was my age, she had an eleven-year-old? Can you imagine me with an eleven-year-old?”
    He shudders. “I would kill you if you got pregnant.”
    “Dad! Are you kidding? I’m twenty-nine. Most people are of the opinion that it’s acceptable and safe to procreate by then.”
    He stops and stares, his green eyes boring into mine in a way that reminds me of being sixteen and having to tell him that I crashed the family car into a parking meter. “Are you trying to tell me something, missy?”
    “No, no. Just teasing.”
    “Thank God. Listen up, Molls. You’re doing everything right. Get as established as you can before you get bogged down with everything else.”
    “Okay.” I raise my fist in a power salute.
    “And after that near heart attack, I’m done for the day. Good night, kid.”
    “’Night.”
    I go over to his canvas bags and sort lazily through the new offerings. Shoved down to the bottom of the bag, between a tin of Moravian spice cookies and a bag of peanut brittle, is the day’s mail.
    I’m putting a uniform stack of letters on the buffet when I see the envelope from United Bank. I open it: the minimum payment on their home equity loan is two months past due. I slip the bill in my pocket, knowing that I can pay it without a confrontation; my parents are hard workers, but they do seem to lose track of the details. I’m not sure whether this is a side effect of constantly scrambling or simply being in denial.
    Whatever the case, it has allowed me to quietly pay off quite a few of their bills without being detected. My dream is that in twenty months—after receiving the Payne-ment—I’ll be able to wipe out their entire loan, silently. I never used to understand the anonymous donor thing, but now I do: no awkward scenes, uncomfortable expressions of gratitude or rebukes about how the money should have been spent. Everyone just walks away breathing a sigh of relief.
    I flip around the channels until I land on an
Elf
marathon. For some reason—maybe the poignancy of an overgrown Will Ferrell reuniting with his dad, maybe the newfound realization of just how little my dad wants grandkids—I catch myself thinking about Fern Walker, who is missing yet another Christmas with her children.
    Before I can stop it, my mind moves to Karen Block. As always, when I think about her, I am almost suffocated by a queasy comprehension of the world’s failings.
Elf
takes on a sinister pall. How have I never realized how tragic this movie is? A special-needs man-child is abandoned by his mother and then shunned by his father.
    I press the remote until I get to MTV. Better. It’s one of thosemindless reality shows about a teenager named Ashleigh with a manufactured problem: she is athletic, but she longs to wear heels and a tiara.
So wear frigging heels and a tiara,
I think, forcing my mind away from Karen Block, from Fern. It’s not my problem; I’m sure her lawyer