Page 68 of A Home for Harmony

She was buttering him up and it was overkill.

Rather than ask her what was going on, he quietly made his plate and ate.

“How is it?” his daughter asked.

“Good. It always is when I don’t have to cook.”

“I thought you’d like it,” Scarlet said, grinning and taking a big bite of her burger. She was staring at him. Like she knew he’d ask her first what was going on.

He realized she got that trait from him and he couldn’t be annoyed about it.

And since he didn’t want to spend his entire night here at the table trying to get her to talk, he’d be the adult in the relationship. Like he should be.

“What do you want that your mother isn’t letting you have?”

“Mom said yes,” his daughter said, smiling bright. His shoulders dropped. That meant she knewhe’dbe the one to say no and she went to the first parent that caved.

“Great. Are you trying to cause a fight between your mother and me?”

“No,” Scarlet said. “Mom caused enough of them when I was younger.”

He sighed. Every once in a while she brought this up.

“I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s on Mom. Dad, I’m not stupid. I was young, but I remember. She’d start yelling at you the minute you walked in the house. Then when you were home, she left. She blamed you and you never blamed her. I remember who started the fights and it wasn’t you.”

“You’re too young to have those memories.” He hated that for her. It was why he threw in the towel. He couldn’t put his daughter through it any longer than he could himself.

“I’m not and we don’t need to go down that road. I don’t think you’ll have a problem with what I want, but I knew she didn’t and I was there this weekend so asked her first. I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow to ask you.”

She could have called, but she was smart enough to know doing things in person was better.

“Hit me with it,” he said, sighing.

“I want to get a job.”

“A part-time job now or over the summer?”

“Now,” Scarlet said. “You shouldn’t have to pay for the gas in my car all the time and I like to have things and Mom doesn’t give me money.”

“I don’t put gas in your car,” he said. “You get an allowance that you earn and that puts gas in your car.”

She cleaned his house and cooked, and he didn’t even ask her half the time.

Trinda bitched that Scarlet didn’t do those things at her house, but he wasn’t getting in the middle of it anymore.

There was more push and pull between his ex-wife and his teenage daughter. Yelling at Scarlet never got things done.

Just one more disagreement he and Trinda had in their marriage and family.

They approached everything from a different side.

“But it’s your money,” he said.

“I’ll still get it if I get a job, right?”

“You’re negotiating with me?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow.