Smith and Cash sequestered themselves in a spare room with some butt-ugly wallpaper full of puke-green vines and tacky little flowers.
Cash saw him looking at it and sighed. “I know. It’s a work in progress.”
“Good. I thought maybe you liked it this way.”
Cash grunted, and while Smith opened the envelope and looked through the handwritten letter, Cash held up his hands. “Well, fucknut? Read it out loud. I’m not a mind reader.” Cash gestured to the letter.
Smith took his time, deliberately annoying his older brother.
“I hate you.” Cash grinned, not meaning it.
Smith grinned. “Not as much as I hate you, dickbag.” Then cleared his throat and read the letter out loud:
Riley,
By the time you read this letter, I’m sure I’ll be gone. If I know Meg, she’ll make sure we never meet out of spite. And that’s okay. Because she’s due. If I was more of man, I’d have searched you out already. Instead, I know what I know of you from your aunt.
I truly loved your mother. I always thought you might be mine, but I could never be sure. And Meg made sure to murky the waters.
She’ll tell you things. But you need to know you’re so much better than those you come from. I fell in love with Angela the day I met her. Unfortunately, we were both married to other people.
Life is funny sometimes. Your mother didn’t want to hurt Charles. I didn’t want to hurt Rachel. No matter what Meg might have told you, it was never about money. Rachel was a gentle soul, and I couldn’t bear to hurt her. But my love for Angela—your mother—was so real, so visceral, I couldn’t deny it.
The years passed, and we loved from afar. Then she broke it off to make Charles happy.
I was devastated. I used poor Meg, feeling closer to her and her new baby. A child I suspected as my own. And sometimes, I drove by Angela’s house and saw her boys, and I wondered…
Riley, I think you have a brother. And older boy named Cash. He’s good and strong, and you both look so much like me. You’ll know him. But don’t disregard Reid either. He’s got Angela in him. Not the parts that floated away, but the ones that mattered.
I’m so sorry for all that you’ve been through. That you never knew the love and belonging you deserved. Be better than me. Don’t let weakness stand in the way of true love. Weakness of heart, weakness of character. Because in the end, not being true to yourself hurts you most of all.
I’ve lived with regret, wishing I could undo the past but doing nothing about it.
And now the lung cancer has taken me. I’ve killed myself in more ways than one. Be a better man, love with your whole heart, and leave the past in the past.
Know I always loved the thought of you and your brothers as my true family. Like Angela, I lived a fantasy where we lived happily ever after.
I don’t have much to leave you, as I can’t let Rachel know I strayed. But there are photos of you as children, a secret one we took together, Angela and I, playing pretend.
Leave the past in the past and fly to the future, Son.
And remember, family is what you make of it.
Your father,
Allen
Cash looked out of sorts, frowning and reading the letter over, his hand shaking, so he put the paper down on the bed.
Smith shook out the legal documents, which showed that any tampering with Allen’s envelope resulted in Margaret Ramsey forfeiting her rights to the two-thousand-dollar stipend per month she’d been living on. No wonder she’d given him the letter.
He shook his head, feeling glad he’d let her go without malice, without trying to get any kind of revenge. She’d spend the rest of her life alone and unloved, and what could be a better revenge than that? “You get what you give,” he murmured.
A peek inside showed an old photograph was all that remained in the envelope, and when he shook it out, he stared in shock.
In the photo, a man who looked like Cash and Smith, wearing older style clothes, stood arm in arm with a beaming Angela Griffith. In front of them, three little boys sat laughing as they played together on a picnic blanket, the verdant green bed of grass beneath them and their short-sleeved shirts hinting at spring or summer weather.
On the back of the photo readAngela, Allen, Cash, Reid, and Riley. Our happy family.
