My Stepdaughter Thanked Me for Buying Her Dining Chairs—Then a Bank Alert Showed a Gift I Never Agreed to Give
PART 3
Sharon did not open the eight transfers until they were home.
That restraint felt noble for approximately four minutes and then merely strategic.
Tom drove. Sharon watched the highway lights slide across the windshield and kept her phone face down in her lap.
At home, he hung his coat, loosened his collar, and said, “Before you turn this into an audit—”
“I am going to look at the account.”
“I know. I’m asking you not to treat every birthday and dinner like evidence.”
“That depends on whether they are evidence.”
Tom closed his eyes.
Sharon sat at the kitchen table and opened the first transfer.
$85 to Paige. Memo: dinner thank-you — Sharon.
She remembered that dinner. Paige had helped Sharon host Tom’s birthday after Sharon got stuck at work. Sharon had thanked Paige by text. She had not sent money.
The next transfer was $120. Memo: planter / Sharon.
Sharon looked toward the blue ceramic planter on the windowsill.
“Paige gave me that planter.”
Tom said nothing.
“She brought it over on my birthday and said she saw it at a shop in Oakley.”
“She did.”
“Then why did we send her a hundred twenty dollars?”
“She had spent more than she meant to.”
“Did she ask us to reimburse her?”
“No.”
“Did you?”
He rubbed his face.
“I told her you didn’t want her spending that much on you.”
Sharon stared at him.
“I never said that.”
“You would have.”
“That is becoming a dangerous phrase.”
She clicked the next transfer.
$60. Christmas supplies — from Sharon.
$175. birthday dinner help — Sharon.
$95. nursery shelves — Sharon.
The memos were not consistent enough to look like a financial scheme. That almost made them worse. They looked like a habit.
Sharon took out a notepad.
Tom laughed once without humor.
“Of course there’s a notepad.”
“I remember words better when I write dates beside them.”
“You are proving my point.”
“What point?”
“That this is why I handled it.”
Sharon put down the pen.
“Say that again.”
Tom hesitated.
“Paige doesn’t like feeling managed. You don’t like feeling taken advantage of. I made small things easier.”
“By telling each of us things the other one did not say?”
“I translated.”
“No. I translate for a living. This is not translation.”
Tom opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of water.
Sharon looked at the transaction dates and remembered the gestures attached to them.
The planter.
A reservation Paige had supposedly insisted on making for Sharon’s birthday dinner.
The morning Paige had dropped off shelves for the small herb garden Sharon kept behind the garage.
All those moments had contained tiny hesitations Sharon had interpreted as personality.
Paige was warmer than Sharon but less direct. Sharon was direct at work and oddly careful in family life. Tom filled conversational space faster than either of them.
Sharon picked up her phone.
“I’m calling Paige tomorrow.”
Tom turned.
“About what?”
“About the chairs.”
“I already told you I’ll replace the money.”
“That fixes the account. It does not fix what she thinks I chose.”
“Please don’t make one weird gift into a summit.”
“I’m not making it anything. I’m asking the person involved what she understood.”
He looked suddenly tired.
“Sharon, she likes you.”
The sentence surprised her.
“I hope so.”
“She does.”
“That is not the issue.”
“It is to me.”
Sharon watched him.
The next morning, she called Paige while standing in the laundry room folding towels.
Paige answered on the third ring.
“Are we in trouble?” she asked.
“No.”
“Dad sounded weird when he texted.”
“What did he say?”
“That you were upset about the chair gift and he was fixing the account.”
Sharon closed her eyes briefly.
“I’m not upset with you. I need to ask something awkward.”
“Okay.”
“Did you think I asked Dad to send you money for the chairs?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say I chose the amount?”
“He said you thought the nicer set was worth it and wanted to cover the difference.”
Sharon put one folded towel on top of another.
“I did not know which chairs you were buying.”
Silence.
“Oh.”
“I’m not telling you that so you return anything. Tom is replacing the household money himself. I’m telling you because I don’t want you thanking me for a choice I didn’t make.”
Paige was quiet for several seconds.
Then she said, “Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“Did you really ask me to pick the blue planter for your birthday?”
Sharon sat down on the edge of the dryer.
“No.”
Another silence.
“Dad said you liked the one in the store window but felt weird asking me because it was expensive.”
“I had never seen it before you brought it over.”
“Oh my God.”
“What?”
“I thought you were disappointed.”
“In the planter?”
“In me. Because you thanked me like I had brought you a candle from the gas station.”
Sharon almost laughed, then heard the hurt underneath.
“I was surprised. I thought you had chosen something much more expensive than our relationship usually is.”
Paige made a small sound.
“I thought you had asked for it.”
Sharon looked at the laundry basket between her feet.
Neither woman spoke for a moment.
Then Paige said, very carefully, “How many things do you think we’ve been thanking each other for that neither of us actually chose?”
