Chapter 2 - The Currency of Prayers
A dead silence stretched through the line. The background noise of my open-concept office hummed around me—the rhythmic clicking of mechanical keyboards, the distant hiss of the espresso machine in the breakroom, the low murmur of someone closing a sales deal three cubicles down. But in my ear, there was only the sharp, shallow intake of my mother’s breath.
“What are you talking about, Craig?” she asked. Her tone wasn’t confused; it was defensive, sharpening at the edges like cheap steel. “I am sitting here in the dark. The router is blinking red, my phone has one bar of service, and I just opened an email from State Farm saying my policy lapsed at midnight! This isn’t a game. Did you miss a payment?”
“I didn’t miss anything, Mom,” I said, keeping my voice level, stripped of any anger or malice. I leaned back in my ergonomic chair, staring out the twelfth-floor window at the grey grid of morning traffic. “I canceled them. All of them.”
“You... what?” Her voice spiked into a high, shrill frequency that made me pull the receiver an inch away from my ear. “Why on earth would you do that? Are you out of your mind?”
“Two weeks ago, at your dining room table, you formally divided your estate,” I reminded her calmly. “You laid out the blueprint for the family. Garrett gets the four-hundred-thousand-dollar home, completely paid off, plus whatever savings Dad left behind. And to me, you gave your blessings and prayers. You looked Sloan and me dead in the eye and said God would reward my generous heart, but Garrett needed the tangible security.”
“Because he does!” she snapped back, not even hesitating. “Garrett is starting a family! Presley wants to settle down, they have wedding expenses, they need a foundation! You and Sloan have great corporate jobs, Craig! You don’t need my money! Why are you being so petty and spiteful over an inheritance when I’m not even dead yet?”
“I’m not being spiteful, Mom. I’m just balancing the ledger,” I said. “For the last seven years, ever since Dad passed, I’ve paid your electric, your municipal water, your trash pickup, your gigabit fiber internet, your car insurance, and the quarterly property taxes on that very house. That comes out to roughly eighteen hundred dollars a month. Twenty-one thousand six hundred dollars a year. Over seven years, that’s over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars of my hard-earned money poured directly into maintaining the asset you just gave entirely to Garrett.”
“That was your duty as my son!” she cried out, her indignation flaring. “You did that out of love! You can’t just put a price tag on taking care of your mother!”
“I didn't mind taking care of you,” I answered. “What I mind is subsidizing Garrett’s inheritance. If the house belongs to him, then the upkeep belongs to him. And since all you gave me were prayers, that’s exactly what I’m offering back to you. I pray your lights come back on soon. I truly do.”
“Craig Alan Miller, you turn those utilities back on this instant!” she shrieked. “I am your mother! You do not speak to me like this! I will call Garrett right now!”
“Good idea,” I said. “He’s the one inheriting the roof over your head. Have him pay for the power beneath it.”
I hung up.
I didn’t slam the phone down; I simply tapped the red circle on the screen and laid the device face down on my blotter. My hands weren’t shaking. My chest didn't feel tight. For the first time in nearly a decade, the suffocating weight of being the ‘reliable son’ had lifted from my shoulders, replaced by a cold, immaculate clarity.
Less than ninety seconds later, my screen lit up again. Garrett’s contact photo flashed.
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I didn't answer. I silenced the ringer, flipped the phone over, and pulled up my morning spreadsheets. The real world was about to introduce itself to my family, and for once, I wasn't going to stand in the doorway to soften the blow.
***
