Educated

I was hoarding my paychecks, in case I needed the money for tuition. Dad
noticed and started charging me for small things. Mother had gone back to
buying insurance after the second car accident, and Dad said I should pay my
share. So I did. Then he wanted more, for registration. “These Government
fees will break you,” he said as I handed him the cash.
That satisfied Dad until my test results arrived. I returned from the
junkyard to find a white envelope. I tore it open, staining the page with
grease, and looked past the individual scores to the composite. Twenty-two.
My heart was beating loud, happy beats. It wasn’t a twenty-seven, but it
opened up possibilities. Maybe Idaho State.
I showed Mother the score and she told Dad. He became agitated, then he
shouted that it was time I moved out.
“If she’s old enough to pull a paycheck, she’s old enough to pay rent,” Dad
yelled. “And she can pay it somewhere else.” At first Mother argued with
him, but within minutes he’d convinced her.
I’d been standing in the kitchen, weighing my options, thinking about how
I’d just given Dad four hundred dollars, a third of my savings, when Mother
turned to me and said, “Do you think you could move out by Friday?”
Something broke in me, a dam or a levee. I felt tossed about, unable to
hold myself in place. I screamed but the screams were strangled; I was
drowning. I had nowhere to go. I couldn’t afford to rent an apartment, and
even if I could the only apartments for rent were in town. Then I’d need a car.
I only had eight hundred dollars. I sputtered all this at Mother, then ran to my
room and slammed the door.
She knocked moments later. “I know you think we’re being unfair,” she
said, “but when I was your age I was living on my own, getting ready to
marry your father.”
“You were married at sixteen?” I said.
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “You are not sixteen.”
I stared at her. She stared at me. “Yes, I am. I’m sixteen.”
She looked me over. “You’re at least twenty.” She cocked her head.
“Aren’t you?”
We were silent. My heart pounded in my chest. “I turned sixteen in
September,” I said.
“Oh.” Mother bit her lip, then she stood and smiled. “Well, don’t worry
about it then. You can stay. Don’t know what your dad was thinking, really. I
guess we forgot. Hard to keep track of how old you kids are.”