Chapter 1 - Seventy-Five Cents
“Daddy… do I cost too much?”
Callum Calder froze beside the kitchen table.
His four-year-old daughter, Sadie, stood in front of his open work bag with three quarters clenched in her fist.
She had been trying to slip them into the front pocket without him noticing.
“Sweetheart, what is this for?”
Sadie lowered her eyes.
“The cookie.”
Callum crouched.
“What cookie?”
“The one after lunch.”
She opened her palm.
“And my bath.”
At the sink, Ivy stopped moving. The dish towel remained frozen in her hands.
Two weeks earlier, they had left Walter and Diane Calder’s house in the middle of the night.
The stay was supposed to last two months while Callum and Ivy waited for their new apartment lease to begin. Callum had grown up in that house. He thought he knew every strange rule his mother had.
No shoes upstairs.
Lights off when leaving a room.
One towel per person.
No snacks before dinner.
Then Sadie reached for a second cookie.
Diane slapped the back of her hand hard enough to make her cry.
Another night, Diane took away Sadie’s bowl of noodles because the child had spilled water and “hadn’t earned dinner manners.”
That was the night Callum finally packed the car.
He had believed distance would fix the rest.
Now his daughter was trying to pay him for a bath.
Callum sat on the floor.
“Sadie, food doesn’t cost you money in this house.”
She looked suspicious.
“All food?”
“All food.”
“What if I’m bad?”
His chest tightened.
“You still eat.”
“What if I use too much water?”
“You still bathe.”
Sadie looked toward Ivy.
“Grandma said every thing has a price.”
Ivy put the towel down.
Callum looked at his wife.
“You knew she said that?”
Ivy’s face changed.
“I knew some of it.”
“What does that mean?”
Sadie suddenly ran from the kitchen.
A bedroom door shut.
Callum stood.
“Ivy.”
“Not in front of her.”
They waited until Sadie was coloring in the living room.
Then Ivy opened a drawer and took out a folded sheet of yellow paper.
Callum recognized his mother’s handwriting immediately.
At the top:
SADIE - WEEK THREE.
Underneath was a list.
Cookie: $0.25.
Bath: $0.50.
Extra noodles: $0.75.
Night-light left on: $0.10.
Crying after bedtime: $1.00.
At the bottom, Diane had written:
TOTAL OWED TO GRANDMA: $7.85.
Callum stared until the numbers blurred.
“Where did you get this?”
“Sadie hid it in her backpack.”
“When?”
“The day before we left.”
“And you didn’t show me?”
Ivy looked at him with exhausted anger.
“I tried to tell you your mother was making Sadie afraid of food.”
Callum remembered.
He had said Diane was strict.
He had said two months would pass quickly.
He had said they needed the free room because moving twice would waste money.
Ivy’s voice broke.
“You kept telling me we could manage your mother until the lease started.”
Callum looked at the little list again.
He had gotten them out.
But not when Ivy first asked.
Not when Sadie first started whispering before opening the refrigerator.
Not when Diane began counting slices of bread.
He had waited until the harm became impossible to call strictness.
His phone buzzed on the table.
A message from Walter.
COME TO THE OFFICE AT 8 TOMORROW. WE NEED TO SETTLE WHAT YOU OWE US.
Callum frowned.
Then another attachment arrived.
A PDF titled:
CALDER FAMILY ACCOUNT - CALLUM.
Balance due:
$86,414.27.
----------------------------------------
The next chapters are on the left side of your screen.
May you like
If you enjoyed the story, bookmark my site: https://metro.treeiq.biz
New stories are posted daily, so check back for updates.
