That fall he and Mom opened a savings account for college in my name. They started dropping in whatever was left over at the end of the month.
Some months that was nothing. He was still paying child support for Jonah and Lily at the time.
He never mentioned the account to me once. Mom did.
She told me about it almost by accident, a bank statement left out on the counter one afternoon, my name printed at the top of a modest little balance that had clearly been building for years without a single conversation about it.
“He didn’t want you feeling pressure,” she explained, when I asked why nobody had said anything. “He said money that comes with strings attached stops feeling like a gift and starts feeling like a debt. He wanted you to have this without owing anybody an explanation for it.”
