Chapter 7: The Different Scripts
By the end of the first week of unanswered calls the messages began to split into distinct scripts. My father’s remained focused on the accounts—practical, repetitive, increasingly edged with the frustration of a man who had never needed to imagine the joint structures without my name. My mother’s shifted toward emotional inventory: lists of everything she had ever done for me, framed as debts I was now refusing to honor. Caleb’s messages oscillated between irritation and attempts at triangulation, suggesting that Andrew was isolating me and that “this isn’t who you are.”
I read none of them in real time. Each evening I opened the phone long enough to confirm that no legal or banking notice required action, then returned it to the drawer. The absence of my reply did not slow the volume. It only changed the tone from demand to a more elaborate performance of injury.
