34. Ned #2
“Your mom said you weren’t home yet, so I figured I would.
” Dad picks up the framed picture of Peggy on the desk, taken when she was a good few inches shorter, her face rounder, her smile not yet missing teeth.
Ned keeps meaning to get a new one, and add a few more.
One of him and Abbot, too. They took a couple the other night at their wedding.
Wedding. What a strange word, still. An odd idea to apply to the two of them. Married. Ned’s a husband. Again.
Fucking great. He’s as good at it this time around as he was his first try.
“I’m worried about you,” Dad says in that same, easy tone.
“Me?” Ned laughs. “I’m fine.”
“Yeah?” Dad asks, his voice still light. “Lots of work tonight?”
Ned’s computer has long since cycled through the screensaver and gone to sleep. “Yeah.”
“You’ve seemed off for the last couple days.”
“I’m okay.”
“Wanted to talk to you about something. Mom and I have a bit of money for you.”
“What?” Ned sits up straight. “No.”
“Would have gone to your wedding, if you’d done something big,” Dad says. “Still can, if you want to, or you can use it for something else.”
Ned shakes his head. This is why Dad came here? “No, it’s yours. Use it for traveling.”
“We want you to have it.”
“Go to Italy and Australia both. I’m really okay. You didn’t have to come all the way over here.”
“We’ve been saving, and we talked, and we want you two to have it. We have enough for ourselves, but you and Henry are just starting out.”
No, Ned’s starting over. He started out already, after college, getting married to Jen. Now he’s trying to catch up to where he was, which feels a lot like running in place.
Still, he’s an entire adult with a career. He’ll be a professor at Newbury University. He’s not taking money from his parents.
Not that it wouldn’t help.
“Thank you,” Ned says, as sincerely as he can. “But really.”
“It’s for the two of you,” Dad says. “And I came because I wanted to check in with you. Lots of changes happening.”
“Nothing’s wrong. And you’ve been letting me live at home,” Ned says. “That’s more than enough. Besides, you gave me money when Jen and I got married.” It had gone straight to the house they bought, and like with the ring he’d given her, Ned hadn’t seen a dime of it back.
Ned is such a fuckup with money. Why hadn’t he argued harder for more of their assets? Negotiated for less child support, if she was going to keep everything?
Because of Peggy, he knows now like he did then. Because he’d wanted her to have a beautiful home to grow up in, even if he wasn’t living in it with her, and two parents who could be in the same room, even if they weren’t married.
And he was supposed to be fine. Is fine. Figured he’d earn back the losses, and he will. Eventually.
It seems dumb now, like he’d just rolled over and let Jen take what she wanted.
But would he do it differently, if he could do it over again?
He and Jen get along well enough and would that be true if he’d haggled over finances?
Would Peggy have gotten to stay at that house, near his parents and her school, or would she have had to move across the city?
He rubs his chest. It was worth it, wasn’t it? “Is it a pain having me live at home?” he asks before he knows he will. Is that what this cash is? A gentle but firm nudge out the door?
“What? No, of course not,” Dad says. “Why would you ask that?”
“I thought I’d have moved out by now.” That was the plan he’d made last year. Stay with his parents for a bit while he looked for a place, then get an apartment. But here he is, still sleeping in his childhood bedroom, nearly as broke, unable to move in with his boyfriend.
No. Husband. Dammit.
“You and Henry will get a place soon enough, whether it’s that house or another one,” Dad says. “If he needs to stay with us too while you look, he’s of course welcome to.”
Ned lets out a laugh. Abbot, needing to move in with family? He can rent anything he wants to. Hell, he can buy a place and sell it and buy a different one, from the sound of it. It’s Ned who’s the problem.
“I might need to stay longer,” Ned says. “I know I said I’d move out already, and I meant to, but I don’t think I can.”
“Whatever you need,” Dad says, but he’s not hearing what Ned is saying.
Though Ned isn’t actually saying anything. He’s skirting the issue and hoping Dad will guess what he means, rather than Ned having to put into words the embarrassment warming his face.
“If it’s more than this spring and summer, but into next year,” he makes himself get out. “Or longer than that, really. I know you want the house empty, but is there a chance I could stay?”
“Wait, wait,” Dad says. “Aren’t you and Henry getting a spot together?”
No, Ned needs to tell him, but how to explain that he’s not yet ready to live with the husband he didn’t really intend to marry?
“You’re not?” Dad asks into Ned’s silence. “Mom and I are fun, I know. But you can’t want to stay with us if he’ll be down here.”
“I think it’s a better decision for me.” Ned hates hearing that truth. Hates how small his voice sounds, too. “Um, rather than trying to move anytime soon.”
Dad leans forward to catch his eye, but Ned keeps staring at the desk. “Is something going on between you two?”
“Everything’s fine,” Ned says.
“And you can’t move in with your husband why, exactly?”
Husband. The word feels so heavy. “I’m a mess.”
“That’s why?”
“In general,” Ned says. “But yes. Dad, I can’t afford to move. I have so much debt still.”
There. He said it. His stomach turns. His father bought a house and paid it off and helped Ned through college, and here Ned is struggling to pay for his damn dog.
“So?” Dad asks.
“So I have terrible credit, and I owe so much that I’m lucky you and Mom aren’t charging me rent, and now with Baxter, he needs a bunch of meds—I can stay at home, right?”
“Ned, you can do whatever you need to,” Dad says.
A tremor of relief unspools in Ned’s gut.
“Of course we’re not charging you anything, and I can’t believe Henry would either.”
His stomach tightens all over again. “No, he’s just—he wants to buy a place, and I can’t even rent anything, let alone get together a down payment.”
“So let him pay it.”
Ned laughs. He’s had this conversation before, hasn’t he? “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because.”
“Because?” Dad echoes. “What does that mean? If he wants to buy a place, he can do that with or without you, can’t he? He doesn’t strike me as exactly hard up for cash, and he has his house up in Portland he’ll sell, right? Frankly, you married pretty well, kid.”
“But that’s his,” Ned says. “I can’t just live in his house.”
“You’re married. The house would belong to both of you.”
“Not if he buys it.” It’s like arguing with Abbot again.
“Even if he buys it.”
“It’s not,” Ned says, his voice rising. “That’s just me living there, and I have Peggy, and you know how loud she is and I love her, but she’s not exactly neat and clean. And Baxter’s a magnet for mud. It’ll drive Abbot up the wall.”
Dad scratches his cheek with one finger. “He stays with us, doesn’t he? When he comes over to see you?”
“That’s different.” Of course it is. And it’s not even Ned’s they stay at, it’s his parents’.
Abbot’s a guest twice over, and yeah, he seems to genuinely enjoy the time he spends there, but he’s also too polite to even begin to complain.
Who knows what he actually thinks? And Ned’s seen the way Abbot keeps his own house—it’s clean and tidy and everything Ned’s life isn’t.
“Sure, but is it? Henry’s over pretty often, so if he has a problem with Peggy and Baxter, he’s really doing a lot to spend extra time with them.
Probably, a spot of your own would be quieter, because your Mom and I won’t be around.
Well, much. We’ll invite ourselves over, of course.
With terrible timing. And really frequently, too.
Sorry to say it, kid, but that’s what you have to look forward to. ”
“Dad, I’m serious. I can’t. I need more time. All of this happened so fast.”
“Sure, some time to pay everything off, but you two will work toward that. Mom and I will help, too.”
“I can’t take your help.”
“Why not? Or you and Henry can put some of his down payment money toward debt and rent for a bit, and then look for a place later.”
Ned laughs. “I’m not using his money to pay my bills.”
“It’s your money too, now.”
“It’s really not.”
“Then what Mom and I are giving you is your money,” Dad says. “I don’t really get the problem here.”
“None of it is my money,” Ned says.
“So let it be,” Dad says, as if it’s as simple as that. “Is Henry saying no to sharing finances? That surprises me, honestly.”
“He—no.”
“Have you two talked about it?”
“Yes.” Ned shuts his eyes. “No. Not—not that we can agree on.”
“You gonna?”
“Look, I just can’t, okay? He’s going to offer exactly what you said, and still want to move in together, and just pay for everything. I’d be totally dependent on him and probably end up back living with Pat when he finally…”