"Could you?"
I nodded.
"I learned early in life to compartmentalize. I meant nothing to them. They told me often enough, showed it in their neglect."
I huffed out a huge gust of air.
"I had no feelings for them, either. They were the people who paid for things I needed. Our contact was almost always limited to a
discussion of money."
"That's terrible."
"It's the way it was, all my life."
"Neither of them remarried?" she asked after a few beats of silence.
I laughed; the sound was bitter and harsh.
"My grandfather had put a stipulation in his will: if they divorced, my father was locked into an allowance.
My mother couldn't touch the money, so they stayed legally married. My father didn't
care; he had plenty of resources.
He fucked around when they were married, and he continued when they separated.
They settled on a monthly figure, and she lived life the way she wanted and he did, too. A win-win situation."
"And you were lost in the shuffle."
