Page 62 of Exchanged

The two of us glare at each other for a minute, a silent battle of wills. She wins. I sigh, wipe my hands on a dish towel, and head into the front hall.

The shop is locked up for the night, and the lights are dim. Dad stands behind the desk, frowning at some papers, his face lit by the warm glow of a small lamp, the lines around his eyes carved into shadowed relief. He looks so alone in this big room at the center of this big house. I wonder what will happen to the business if Emma and I both leave town, wonder if he has been planning on passing it down to one or both of us.

“Dad?”

“Yeah?” He doesn’t look up from the papers.

I decide to get it over with as quickly as possible. “I have an audition in a few weeks. For Burton-Clark. The conservatory in L.A.”

He sets the papers down and looks at me. His arms fold across his chest. “You applied after all.”

I try to read the tone of his voice, listening for resentment or anger, but it’s flat and hollow, as if he’s already braced himself against something inevitable. I’d been gearing up for another argument, but he stands there like a silent wall, waiting for me to continue disappointing him. The grandfather clock behind me ticks a dozen or so times in the semidarkness.

“It’s not about you,” I manage. “Me leaving, I mean.”

He swallows. The lines around his eyes sharpen.

“I’m not Mom,” I add. “I’ll come back. I’ll always come back.” I’m not sure what I mean with this promise—that I’ll move home after I graduate? that I’ll visit?—and the words feel empty. He looks hurt, like what I’ve said has made things worse.

“It’s not about your mom,” he says. “Or at least it shouldn’t be. And this shouldn’t be about me, either.”

He pulls open a drawer and removes a manila folder. He slides it across the desk toward me.

“What’s this?”

“Open it.”

Inside I find several pages of detailed budget sheets.

He reads the confusion on my face. “It’s your life, Enz,” he says. “Your decision. Maybe one of the biggest decisions you’ll ever make. And I’ve been making this about me and what I want. And I’m sorry for that.” He gestures at the folder with his chin. “We can make it work.”

I stare at the budget for a long time, at the funds he has shifted around so that I can move away, each digit a sacrifice allowing me to leave this house and town and find something bigger. This, I realize, is his way of telling me he’s sorry. It’s his way of telling me he believes in me.

“Dad…” I trail off because I don’t know what to say. The thought of him sitting up late at night, budgeting for my dream, makes it hard to form words. During these last couple of months of silence between us, he’s been finding his own way of letting go.

He steps around the desk and pulls me into a hug that’s much tighter than he realizes. “You have to give it a shot,” he says. “Of course you do.”

I lean into his hug for a long time, surrounded by the comforting size of him, the scent of Old Spice clinging to his soft flannel shirt. And for a second, I’m an eight-year-old again, pulling in close to the reliability and sureness of him, because even if my mom wasn’t there anymore, he would be. A pain begins to grow in my chest, one that I can’t name. I don’t want him to let go.

But he eventually does, holding me at arm’s length, the ghost of a smile tugging at his beard. “It wouldn’t hurt if you got a few scholarships, though.”

The clock ticks a few more times.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “For wanting to leave.”

He shakes his head. “Don’t be. Irontown—it has to be a choice. You can’t stay here only because it’s the easy thing to do, and spend the rest of your life feeling stuck.”

I thumb the door to the kitchen. “I should probably get back to helping Aunt Liz.”

He nods and returns the manila folder to its drawer. But as I leave him in the dimness of the front hall, I somehow feel less certain about my future than I did before I talked to him.

Dad meant that budget sheet as a gesture and didn’t expect me to pay attention to where the money was coming from. He meant it as a way to show me that my future was possible. He didn’t expect me to see the second mortgage he plans to take out on our house, didn’t expect me to recognize how hard it would be for him to pay it back.

All my life, so many people—my friends and family, my teachers, characters in books and movies—have told me to pursue my dreams no matter how big they happen to be. Go to the best college you can, they’ve told me. Chase the interest you’re most passionate about.

But none of them have ever mentioned what that would cost. I’ve considered the price of every hour I’ll be away from home, the distance I’m putting between myself and my family, the money. It has been tough to fight for this dream with Dad, arguing about why all these sacrifices would be worth the payoff in the end. But now that he’s letting me go, I feel worse. I feel selfish for taking what he’s offering. I thought I’d be freeing myself from my family’s plans for me; instead, I feel like I’m abandoning Dad and Emma and Aunt Liz.

Dad is willing to sacrifice everything for my future.