Carol nodded.
“I remember.”
“Do you remember what happened after we stopped asking Dad to take us trick-or-treating?”
Richard interrupted.
“You got older. You wanted to go with your friends.”
Michael shook his head.
“That wasn’t why.”
Richard frowned.
“What are you talking about?”
“My brother and I stopped asking because every outing came with a price.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“It wasn’t just Halloween. Remember taking us fishing and telling us we owed you for the bait? Or buying ice cream and reminding us for days that you’d spent money on us?”
“I was teaching you the value of things.”
“You taught us that asking you for something meant we’d have to pay you back.”
Richard looked genuinely surprised.
Michael continued.
“That’s why we started asking Mom instead. Even when we knew you were free.”
Carol sat down.
“I wondered why you boys stopped wanting to go places with him.”
“We wanted to,” Michael said. “We just didn’t want to owe him afterward.”
