Rob is my only child. He’s 53 now, a regional sales manager for a medical supply company. He has Walter’s broad shoulders and Walter’s habit of studying his dinner plate whenever a hard thing gets said at the table.
He’s a gentle man. He has never once in his life finished an uncomfortable conversation.
His wife, Vanessa, is 50. She calls herself a “wellness consultant.” She’s glossy and quick, with a voice that stays pleasant the whole time it’s cutting you. She tells people she comes from a family in Oakwood with a boathouse. She likes to joke that she “married down,” and every single time, Rob laughs.
They have four children. Tyler is sixteen. Madison is fourteen. And the twins, Ben and Lucy, are nine.
I see them at Christmas. Sometimes. Vanessa says the kids are “so scheduled.”
The list came three weeks before my birthday.
It arrived in a cream-colored envelope with my name typed on the front. Not handwritten. Typed. It wasn’t a card. I opened it at my kitchen table with my reading glasses on and a cup of tea going cold beside my elbow.
At the top, in bold letters, it said: APPROVED GIFT IDEAS FOR THE CHILDREN.
Tyler: gaming console, $499.
Madison: designer earbuds, $349.
Ben: tablet, $329.
Lucy: tablet, $329.
At the bottom, Vanessa had added it up in her neat handwriting. Total: $1,506.
And underneath that, in her slanted script, one more line.
“Rob and I feel the kids deserve to be treated. Since you don’t do much for them otherwise, this would be a nice way to show up for once. V.”
I read it twice.
Since you don’t do much for them otherwise.
I thought about the mittens I knitted for every one of them, every single winter. The birthday checks. Ten dollars. Twenty, when I could manage it. The four Sundays a year I drove forty minutes through Centerville to sit on the very edge of a white sofa I was afraid to wrinkle.
I thought about Walter. He’d have folded that list in half, set it on the counter and said, “Well, Marnie. That’s a number.”
I didn’t cry. I’d like that on the record.
I set the list down on the table and smoothed it flat with both palms. The same way I’d smoothed a million pay stubs.
Then I went down to the basement.
Ethan Blake is a skilled Creative Content Specialist with a talent for crafting engaging and thought-provoking narratives. With a strong background in storytelling and digital content creation, Ethan brings a unique perspective to his role at TheArchivists, where he curates and produces captivating content for a global audience.
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