At dinner, my parents told me to apologize to their golden son or lose my education. I said, “Alright.” By dawn, my bags were packed. My brother went white. “Please tell me you didn’t send it.” Dad froze. “Send what?”
It began when my father slid a printed email across the dinner table as if it were a court order. “Sign it,” he said. Parenting
My fork stopped above the mashed potatoes. My mother kept smiling at the roast chicken, because in our house, denial was basically served with dinner. My brother Brandon leaned back in his chair, ankle resting on his knee, wearing the lazy golden-boy grin that had saved him from every totaled car, bad check, and screaming ex-girlfriend since high school.
The paper said I was voluntarily deferring my fall semester at Ellison University.
Voluntarily.
