Fifteen thousand dollars, I would think, lying in the dark. Fifteen thousand dollars I could have used to get out of here, and he spent it on cheap beer and a man's hobbies.
Some weeks we barely spoke, passing each other in the hallway like two strangers who happened to share a water bill.
Once, I asked him straight out why he couldn't just let his own son live at home for free like every other father I knew.
He looked at me for a long moment, and something moved behind his eyes that I didn't have the patience to read back then.
"Because every other father won't always be there," he said. Then he went to bed.
I thought it was cruelty.
I used to lie awake and imagine how light the house would feel once I was finally gone.
Five years later, before I ever got the chance to leave on my own terms, Dad died suddenly.
His heart, the doctor said. Quick. He was gone before the ambulance reached the house.
For years I had pictured how peaceful the place would feel without him in it.
Instead, after the funeral, I stood in the entryway staring at his scuffed work boots by the door, and I could not make myself put them away.
That evening, his best friend, Frank, knocked on the door.
He was holding a cardboard box sealed with packing tape.
"Your dad left this with me," Frank said. He set it on the kitchen table. "He asked me to give it to you only after he was gone."
I let out a bitter laugh.
"What, did he save every dollar of rent I ever paid him, just to hand it back as a joke?"
Frank didn't smile.
"I wouldn't make any guesses," he said quietly, "until you see what's inside."
My fingers fumbled with the tape.
I lifted the flaps.
At first I thought Frank had brought the wrong box.
Then I looked closer, and I sank down into my father's chair, sobbing so hard that Frank had to hold me upright.
Chapter 2: What Was in the Box
On top was a bank book.
A savings passbook, the old paper kind, with my name printed on it.
Not his name. Mine.
I opened it with shaking hands.
The first deposit was dated the first of the month after my eighteenth birthday.
Two hundred fifty dollars.
