My mom threw me and my kids out of Christmas dinner right after I spent $22,000 this year to keep them afloat. She said my sister deserved it more and slammed the door. So I canceled their mortgage, truck loan, and every payment.
The snowstorm took care of the rest. My name is Louis. I’m 37 years old.
And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about being the dependable son, it’s that dependable means invisible until someone needs money. For the past 12 years, I’ve been the quiet backbone of my family. Not the favorite, never the celebrated one.
Just the one who shows up when the mortgage is due, when Dad’s truck needs fixing, when the utility bills pile up on Mom’s kitchen counter like unpaid sins. $22,000 this year alone. I know because I track every payment, every transfer, every automatic withdrawal that keeps their world spinning.
The spreadsheet on my laptop tells the whole story. January through November. Forty-seven separate transactions.
Mortgage payments, utility bills, emergency car repairs, grocery money when Dad’s disability check ran short, even Amanda’s credit card payment when she temporarily couldn’t make it. The word temporarily had stretched into eight months. Now, my sister Amanda has never paid a single bill for our parents.
Not one. She’s 34, works part-time at a boutique, and spends her weekends posting Instagram stories from expensive restaurants while I wire money to keep Mom and Dad’s electricity on. Meanwhile, I work 60-hour weeks as a software engineer, come home to my twins, Sharon and Brian, and somehow still find time to be the family’s emergency fund.
They never thank me. Not really. It’s always been expected, like gravity or morning coffee.
I remember being 12 years old, watching Mom beam with pride when Amanda won some meaningless school contest. That same week, I’d saved three months of allowance to help Dad fix the washing machine. No parade for Louis.
Just a quick nod, and back to discussing Amanda’s trophy. The pattern never changed. Amanda got the birthday parties, the college tuition, the wedding shower that cost more than my car.
I got the phone calls at midnight when someone needed emergency cash. I got to be useful. Never cherished.
Just useful. The family ATM that dispensed love in the form of bank transfers. Three weeks before Christmas, I’d sat in my kitchen calculating how much I’d spent on them this year.
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