Page 133 of A Dream for Daphne

It wasn’t worth her defending her career. Her mother wouldn’t care and never did.

She wouldn’t understand either.

“Daphne is great at her job,” he said. “She’s always engaged with the kids and teaching them.”

Her mother waved her hand. “No reason to do that. That’s why they go to school.”

She turned her head to Abe and shook it for him to not continue with this.

“Things are different now,” Daphne said. “What do you and Dad have planned for the rest of your time here?”

Might as well change the conversation back to her parents again. They always liked to talk about themselves anyway.

“Not sure yet,” her mother said. “Since Aster isn’t going on a honeymoon, we want to see him to talk. I’d love to drive by and see this new house he’s getting.”

Her brother was closing on his house next week. Lots of things happening at once for them.

Raine couldn’t get the time off as a teacher to go on a honeymoon now, so her brother and sister-in-law would be going over Christmas break.

It’d work out well, as she was going to Florida with Abe to spend Christmas with his mother.

“What is it you want to talk to him about?” she asked, frowning.

She was afraid she knew. Her parents had been a little quiet about what was going on with their house sale.

“We are closing on our house finally next month,” her mother said. “The original buyers backed out because we didn’t have the money to fix the things in the inspection. We got other buyers though and lowered the price. They accepted.”

“That’s good,” she said. “So what is the problem?”

“The place we were going to buy, we lost.”

“You never said anything,” she said.

Her mother shrugged. “It happened last week. We’ve got a short period of time to find a place and it’s not easy. We found one, but we need more money to put down.”

“Don’t even think about it,” she said. “This is Aster’s wedding day.”

“I’m not going to talk to him today,” her mother said, laughing. “Just before we leave.”

“Don’t do it,” she said. “Mom. Enough is enough. You guys got yourself into this and don’t expect Aster to bail you out.”

Abe squeezed her side. “Why don’t we go back in and say bye to everyone?”

She didn’t want to though. She needed to put an end to this.

Maybe it wasn’t the place, but it was time for her to put her foot down.

“No,” she said. “Mom. Don’t do this. Aster isn’t going to give you anything more and you know it. You’re only going to tick him off and then you’ll get mad and you’ll leave here at odds with each other. Is that what you want?”

Her mother seemed to hesitate. “It’s his money. He has enough of it to help us out.”

“You know what?” she said. “I tried. Do what you want. If you piss him off, he’ll have no problem cutting ties completely. Think of it that way.”

That must have been enough to get through to her mother. “How about you?” her mother said. “It’s only four thousand. Your father and I have the other six. We need ten thousand down. You aren’t paying anything to live where you are.”

“No,” Abe said. “Don’t you have any?—”

“Stop,” she said to Abe. “I don’t need you to fight my battles either.”

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