Read Online Everything You Want by Barbara Shoup - Free Book Online Page A

always imagined we’d have. If I’d have been different. Better.”
    “Jules and Emma are great kids,” Dad says. “I don’t see how growing up in a different house could have made them any better. It wouldn’t have made life perfect.”
    “I know that,” Mom says. “I know. I just—worry about them, that’s all. Julie all by herself in New York. And Emma’s been so miserable in Bloomington. Sometimes I want to tell her, ‘Just come home.’ I can’t stand to see her feeling so lost. So not like herself. But she has to—”
    This is the trouble with eavesdropping, I think. I can’t say, “What ? I have to do what?”
    Still, I know. I have to grow up, is what she means. I have to learn how to have a life away from them.
    “She’ll be fine,” Dad says. “She’ll figure out what she wants to do and do it. And making a living isn’t a factor anymore, so she can do anything.”
    “Mac,” Mom says. “Can’t you see the money makes it harder ? I mean, it’s hard enough just being young. Trying to figure out who you are. But to have no limits! To be able have anything you want, do anything you want?”
    “It’s a high class problem,” Dad says, dryly.
    Which would be funny, except Mom suddenly bursts into tears.
    “Abby,” Dad says, alarmed. “Jesus. Abby .”
    “It’s just so confusing ,” she wails. “Ever since we got the money, it’s like I can’t remember who I am. I don’t know what to do with it. Or myself.”
    “Listen,” Dad says. “We just have to make a few decisions together in the next few weeks, that’s all. Then I’ll do the money like I always have. Just think of me as your Yoko Ono, okay? She managed John Lennon’s money, why can’t I manage yours? What’s the big deal here?”
    “I hate being stupid about money,” Mom says. “I hate it that you just assume I can’t—”
    “I don’t assume you can’t understand money. If you decided you wanted to understand it, I’m sure you could. But—”
    “But I’d rather go back to work on Monday,” Mom interrupts. “Like a crazy person.”
    “Whoa!” Dad says.
    Instinctively, I take a step backwards. My body wants me to keep going, every muscle is telling me I don’t need to hear this. I shouldn’t hear it. But I keep listening.
    “You lost me, Abby,” Dad goes on. “What are we talking about here? What do you mean, you’d rather go back to work like a crazy person?”
    “Crazy as in, ‘Anybody who wins fifty million dollars and doesn’t quit his job is crazy,’” she says. “You said it. The day we won the money, you said it to the guy in the lottery office.”
    “I didn’t mean you ,” Dad says. “Jesus, I was just talking to the guy. Joking. We’d just won fifty million dollars. How the fuck did I know what I was saying?”
    “Well, you said it.”
    “Fine, okay. I said it. What I don’t understand is why you’re bringing it up now. I just meant—come on, Abby, you know what I meant. I liked practicing law. I was good at it. But it was never anything but a job to me, a way to make a living. Teaching isn’t like that for you. It’s all hooked up with your painting, all of a piece. All I’m saying is you didn’t choose your work based on how much money you would earn doing it.”
    “ Oh ?” Mom says. “Like you had to do to support us?”
    “Abby,” Dad says. “This is getting to be a really stupid conversation.”
    It’s quiet a long time. I really should retreat now. I shouldn’t have stayed as long as I have. But I can’t not listen. And when Mom finally speaks, her voice low and full of tears, I take a step closer to the living room so I can hear her.
    “I just keep thinking about what you said to the guy in the lottery office, and the more I think about it the more I think you were right. I mean, I can do whatever I want, and I’m going back to school on Monday morning? It does seem crazy.”
    Dad wisely doesn’t comment on that.
    “There must be something I’m