My Parents Are Ruining My Relationship

I write to you now as the daughter of felons. The girlfriend of liars. The most unimaginative of bloggers because I can't even come up with a third descriptive line.

The FBI picked up my parents at the airport a few hours after they'd left. It took four days for my phone to ring, their attorney informing me of their detainment. My first thought, upon hearing the news, was to wonder whose plane, whose friendship, they had used. Just as quickly, I discarded the thought. It didn't really matter who they had implicated in their attempt to escape. Whoever's plane it was knew what they were getting into, knew the risks. Then again, my parents always were great at deception. I'd been really gullible for a really long time.

So. Four days since they were arrested and flown back to Florida, and no calls. If they were given phone privileges in jail, they made their calls to someone else.

Do they think that I turned them in? If they thought I was a daughter who'd snitch, they wouldn't have come by to say good-bye. And they certainly wouldn't have told me their plans, Dad pulling me aside to whisper out their itinerary, which included a stop at a friend's house in the Hampto—my mind stalled. The Hamptons are northeast of the city, not south. And my parents were picked up, according to the agent, shortly after they met me. So…

It took me longer to connect the dots then it should have. For the last two hours, my mind had just conveniently skipped over the fact that my father completely lied to me about their itinerary. Either as a safety measure in case I ratted, or as a way to throw the cops off their trail in the expectation that I would rat. Either way, it was a pretty dismal sign of my parents' faith in me.

I wasn't sure whether to feel offended or vindicated. Then again, I probably did cause their arrest, the FBI tipped off by my boyfriend's mother's private investigator. Say that three times fast.

"Are you mad?" That'd been Carter's first question, after he'd told me about the investigator.

I had been mad. Mad and hurt, another snub by the frustrating Mrs. Faulk. But I'd also been scared for my parents, worried by what the guy would find, not just the skeletons in my parents' closet but my own.

I had swallowed and met his eyes, asking my own question in response.

"What happens if she doesn't like the investigator's report?"

He kept his eyes on me. "If she doesn't like you, I lose my trust fund." The words came out matter-of-factly, as if his whole future — our whole future — wasn't tied up in their vowels.

Inside, a part of me laughed. Because, when you really step back and look at it, I might have fallen in love with a poor man after all. And I might be the reason he loses everything.