Chapter 4

“I’m sorry, Mom, but marrying an anesthesiologist and living in the suburbs with two kids is never going to happen for me.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it. It takes two people to make a relationship work. You can’t leave all of the heavy lifting to one person.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? You think I didn’t carry my weight with Chris?”

“Scott, come on. Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I didn’t know what was going on with you and Christopher? Stevie Wonder could see what kind of arrangement you two had. He was your…sugar daddy!”

Hearing my mother refer to Chris as my “sugar daddy” should have made me go ballistic, but she’d spat out the words with such disgust that I ended up laughing instead.

“You think this is funny?” she asked.

“No, I think you’re funny. Sugar daddy? Really, Mom?”

“Yes, really. You were a kept man.”

“I was not. I work for a living, you know. Just because Chris paid the bills doesn’t mean I didn’t contribute to the household in other ways.”