Jake laughed again.
"This is a terrible movie."
"Thanks."
"No, seriously. If you pitched this to a studio, they'd tell you it's too stupid."
"I know."
He became quieter.
"Are you going to help her?"
I didn't answer immediately.
Because beneath the absurdity, there was a real question.
I imagined sending five hundred dollars.
Or buying a flight.
I imagined Claire coming home exhausted and grateful.
Maybe she would cry.
Maybe she would tell me she understood what she'd lost.
Maybe we'd spend months repairing things.
Maybe she'd become the person I remembered.
Then I imagined the pool bar.
The dress.
The perfume.
The sentence.
I found someone who actually excites me.
"No," I said.
"I'm not."
Jake exhaled.
"Good."
"I feel terrible."
"That's because you're not a psychopath."
"What if something happens?"
"Then she handles it."
"That's harsh."
"She's thirty-three, Daniel."
He paused.
"She's an adult. She made adult choices."
I stared toward Claire's coffee mug, now clean in the cabinet.
"Adult choices have adult consequences."
"Exactly."
It wasn't that simple emotionally.
Nothing ever is.
For the next several days, Claire kept calling.
When I blocked one number, another appeared.
Hotel phone.
Internet calling service.
Unknown local numbers.
Voicemails.
Texts.
Her requests changed.
First she needed five hundred dollars.
Then three hundred.
Then two hundred.
Then anything.
She needed money for food.
A hotel.
A flight change.
A taxi.
At first, I listened to every voicemail.
Then I stopped.
I could hear desperation increasing.
That made maintaining boundaries harder, not easier.
Four years of conditioning told me to solve her problems.
When Claire's car broke down, I handled it.
When she had trouble with insurance, I called.
When her laptop died the night before a presentation, I stayed awake until three helping rebuild the slides.
Being needed had become part of how I understood love.
Now refusing to rescue her felt almost like refusing to love her.
I had to remind myself repeatedly that she'd ended that arrangement.
Then her mother called.
Linda had always been good to me.
That made it worse.
"Daniel?"
"Hi, Linda."
She began crying almost immediately.
"She told me."
I closed my eyes.
"Everything?"
"I think so."
"I'm sorry."
"No."
Her voice broke.
"I should be apologizing to you."
I didn't know what to say.
"She did something terrible."
Linda continued.
"I'm furious. I don't understand what she was thinking."
Neither did I.
"But she's still my daughter."
"I know."
"She's stuck there."
I said nothing.
"I can't afford the money she needs."
Linda lived on a fixed income.
Claire's father had died years earlier.
"I've tried."
She started crying harder.
"I know I shouldn't ask you."
My chest tightened.
"Please."
There it was.
"Can you just wire enough for her to get home?"
I walked to the window.