“Mom is broke,” I ground through my teeth, getting back to the reason I called. “I have sent all that I can. Dad, please. I’m begging you. Please help her. Just until she can get back on her feet.”

“She never will if she gets a handout from me or you or anyone else, Clay.”

I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Unbelievable.”

“Look, you can call me an asshole and think I’m evil if that’s the picture you want to paint. But let me tell you the truth, son — she is an addict. She has been for years. She finds a man who can take care of her and give her all the drugs she wants and she’s happy. The second he’s gone, she’s destructive. She doesn’t have it in her to work for herself.”

“Like hell she doesn’t!” I screamed. “She raised me! She raised me — not you. She was there, every night, cooking dinner for me using whatever we had in the pantry even when it wasn’t much, all after working all day — sometimes double shifts.”

“And how do you think she had the energy to do that, hmm? Why do you think there was barely any food in the house, yet she always had money for what she needed to get by?”

I ignored the insinuation, even though my throat stung with the possibility that he was right. “You’re a monster,” I breathed. “You’re selfish and you can’t think of anyone but yourself. You never have.”

“I used to be just like you,” he shouted over me. “I used to bend over backward for her and everyone else in my life. But one day, it was too much. I didn’t want to be the fucking rug everyone stepped on anymore. And trust me, you’ll get there, too. Or, at least, I hope you do. Because living a life where what you put in isn’t reciprocated is no life at all.”

I shook my head, tuning out most of his lecture. “So, you won’t help.” It wasn’t a question. It was a fact, one I knew before I made the call.

“It wouldn’t be help. It would be enabling. And no, I won’t do that.”

I swallowed the knives in my throat, nose flaring. “So what am I supposed to do?”

“You are supposed to play football,” he said, his voice calmer now. “And get your degree. Date pretty girls and get into trouble with your friends. Be a kid, for Christ’s sake. Your mom is a grown woman. She can take care of herself.”

“Clearly.”