Chapter 5 - The Question Jayden AskedJayden’s eyes widened.
“I didn’t mean forever.”
Marcus’s stomach tightened.
“What did you mean?”
Jayden looked toward Tasha.
Tasha looked confused.
“I didn’t know about this.”
Marcus believed her.
That almost made it worse.
“Tell me,” he said.
Jayden pulled at his hoodie again.
“I asked Grandma if your apartment had space.”
Marcus lived twenty minutes away in a two-bedroom townhouse.
The second bedroom had always been called Jayden’s room, even though Jayden spent only alternating weekends and Wednesday nights there.
“You know you have a room.”
“I know.”
“So why ask?”
Jayden looked down.
“Because Mom was stressed.”
Tasha whispered, “Baby.”
“I thought maybe if I stayed with Dad more, groceries would cost less.”
Tasha covered her mouth.
Marcus felt anger rise, but there was nowhere clean to direct it.
A twelve-year-old had turned himself into an expense line.
“Look at me,” Marcus said.
Jayden did.
“You never have to leave a home because you think you cost too much.”
“I know.”
“No. I need you to really hear me.”
Marcus moved closer.
“You do not solve adult money problems by removing yourself.”
Jayden’s eyes filled.
“I was just trying to help.”
“I know.”
That was the tragedy.
Everyone in the room was trying to help.
Tasha had redistributed money.
Jayden had volunteered to sacrifice.
Maya had offered to return her backpack.
Every good intention had become another weight.
Tasha sat beside Jayden.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He gave her the same answer she had given Marcus.
“I was going to fix it.”
Tasha closed her eyes.
Marcus almost laughed at the cruel symmetry.
Instead he said, “That sentence needs to leave this family.”
Tasha looked at him.
“What sentence?”
“‘I was going to fix it before anybody found out.’”
Neither adult argued.
Maya and Eli went upstairs after Marcus promised again that nobody was taking their school supplies.
Tasha made sandwiches because dinner had been forgotten.
Nobody ate much.
Later, Marcus walked Jayden outside.
The late-August air was heavy and warm.
His truck sat beneath the maple tree at the curb.
Jayden leaned against the passenger door.
“Are you mad at Mom?”
“Yes.”
Jayden flinched.
Marcus corrected himself.
“I’m angry about things she did. That doesn’t mean she’s a bad mother.”
“She isn’t.”
“I know.”
“She buys us stuff before herself.”
“I know that too.”
Jayden studied him.
“Then why are you so mad?”
Marcus leaned against the truck beside him.
“Because when somebody tells me money is for one thing, I need it to be used for that thing.”
“Why?”
The simple question surprised him.
“Because that’s how trust works.”
Jayden waited.
Marcus realized that was not the entire answer.
“When I was your age,” he said, “Grandma married a man named Leon.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know much about him.”
Jayden shook his head.
Marcus rarely talked about his stepfather.
“Leon had two daughters.”
“Were they your sisters?”
“Stepsisters.”
“What happened?”
Marcus looked toward Tasha’s house.
“Christmas happened. Birthdays happened. School shopping happened.”
Jayden stayed quiet.
“Leon would take them shopping. New clothes. New shoes. Everything.”
“And you?”
“Grandma did what she could.”
Jayden understood before Marcus finished.
“Oh.”
“I had stuff. I wasn’t starving. But I knew who belonged to who.”
“That sucked.”
Marcus smiled faintly.
“Yeah.”
Jayden stared at the driveway.
“So when you buy me expensive stuff…”
Marcus nodded.
“Maybe sometimes I’m buying it for the kid I used to be.”
Jayden looked at him.
“That’s kind of weird.”
Marcus laughed once.
“Very.”
“Is that why you got so mad about Maya and Eli?”
The question pierced him.
Marcus took his time.
“Partly.”
“But they’re the ones like you were.”
Marcus turned his head.
Jayden did not say it accusingly.
That made it worse.
Maya and Eli were the children watching someone else’s father arrive with money.
Marcus had become Leon from another angle without realizing it.
Not because he owed them what he owed Jayden.
He did not.
But children did not understand legal obligations.
They understood who got the expensive box.
Marcus rubbed his beard.
“You’re pretty smart for somebody who leaves cereal bowls in his room.”
Jayden smiled faintly.
“So what happens now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you taking me away from Mom?”
Marcus looked sharply at him.
“Who said that?”
“Grandma asked if I wanted to stay with you.”
Marcus sighed.
“Grandma shouldn’t have asked you that.”
Jayden nodded.
“I don’t want to choose.”
“You won’t.”
“Promise?”
Marcus thought about the rent notice.
The hidden debt.
The secrecy.
He also thought about Tasha attending every parent-teacher conference, sitting through basketball practices, clipping coupons at midnight, and returning a handbag because guilt outweighed vanity before she even reached home.
“I promise I won’t make you choose.”
Jayden relaxed.
Marcus hugged him.
As they separated, Marcus’s phone rang.
Loretta.
He answered.
“Ma.”
“You find out what’s happening?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And you should not have asked Jayden about moving.”
“I asked because he called me crying.”
“He’s twelve.”
“Exactly why somebody needs to protect him.”
“Tasha protects him.”
Loretta snorted.
“If she’s spending his money on everybody else, I question that.”
Marcus looked through the window.
Tasha was collecting receipts from the coffee table.
“Ma.”
“What?”
“Do not talk about Maya and Eli like they’re the problem.”
A pause.
“I didn’t.”
“You were about to.”
Loretta sighed.
“Marcus, you have spent your whole life giving everybody more grace than they give you.”
“That may be true.”
“Then why are you defending this?”
“I’m not.”
He looked at Jayden.
“I’m trying not to turn one bad decision into a war.”
Loretta went quiet.
Then she said something that made Marcus straighten.
“You might want to ask Tasha what happened to the college account.”
Marcus frowned.
“What college account?”
Loretta hesitated.
“The one you started for Jayden when he was a baby.”
Marcus’s blood went cold.
He had not thought about that account in years.
“What do you know about it?”
Loretta answered carefully.
“I know it was in both your names.”
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Marcus looked toward Tasha’s house.
“And I know it isn’t anymore.”
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