He looked at me for a long moment. Then he nodded.
"And one more thing," I said.
This was the hard one. I had not known I was going to say it until I opened my mouth.
"When it's bad," I said. "When we're short. When it's three hundred and forty dollars and nine days. You have to tell us. Not everything. I know you can't tell us everything. But you can't make us sleep in our coats and pretend it's camping." My throat was closing up and I made myself finish. "Because we knew anyway. We always know. I see the notices under the fruit bowl, Dad. I've been seeing them since I was ten. You're not protecting us from anything. You're just doing it by yourself."
My father didn't answer right away. He looked at his hands on the table. He turned them over, palms up, and looked at those too, as if they belonged to somebody else.
"I don't know if I can do that," he said finally. "I'm going to be honest with you, since that's what we're doing. I don't know if I can. My dad never told us anything. Your grandmother never told us anything."
"That is a slander," said Grandma Ardis, "and also true."
"I'll try," my father said. "That's what I can promise. I'll try, and when I don't, you can tell me I'm not, and I'll try again. Is that good enough?"
It wasn't, really. I think we both knew that. But it was true, which was more than I'd had an hour before, and I'm fourteen, not stupid. I know the difference between a promise somebody can keep and one they're just saying.
"Okay," I said. "That's good enough for now."