My phone rings from where it sits beside me. It’s another unknown number. I know answering it will only cause me more pain.
My dad does this. He disappears for long periods of time, then pops up, calling every day for a couple of weeks. I end up accidentally answering one or two, and after a second of stunned panic, I tell him to leave me alone before hanging up. He’s the last person I ever want to talk to, especially when I’m in the midst of my life falling apart.
Then again, it would feel good to tell someone to fuck off right about now. And not a soul on earth deserves it more than my father.
Against my better judgement, I pick up the phone with blood rushing in my ears.
“Don’t you know how to take a hint? I don’t want to talk to you!”
“Uh… is this Mrs. James?”
My cheeks heat. It’s not my dad.
Whoops.
Clearing my throat, as my heart rate starts to drift back down to normal, I say, “Um… yes. This is her.”
“Hi, my name’s Jeff Keller, your grandmother’s attorney. Do you have a few moments to talk about Sylvia’s estate?”
I sit up straighter. The bag of Doritos falls from my lap, orange crumbs sprinkling across the floor at my feet. Not once in the last few weeks has her estate crossed my mind.
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Great. I’ve sent you a couple of letters in the mail, but you must not have received them. She left you everything, so there’s a lot to go through.”
He says it so casually, like it shouldn’t come as a shock, but I’m not sure I’ve heard him correctly.
“What?”
“You’re her sole beneficiary.”
Shaking my head, I rub my temple as a dull ache starts to form behind my eyes. He has to be wrong. I open my mouth to correct him, then shut it before finally saying, “That can’t be right. What about my dad, or hell, my brother for that matter?”
“No. All of it is yours. She was very specific about not wanting to leave anything to your father. As for your brother, she did say she knew you’d make sure he was taken care of.”
My eyes squeeze closed because I was sure he was wrong until this moment, but that sounds exactly like something she’d say. “I live two hours away. What am I supposed to do with all of it?”
“Well, that’s up to you. It’s yours.”
“No. I know…” Wait. Everything? “By everything, do you mean her house?”
He chuckles softly. “Yes, and everything in it, and her safety deposit box, and her car. Like I said, everything. We will need to set a meeting, and probate may take some time, but she left it all to you.”
After setting an appointment and hanging up, I stare at the wall, unable to totally take in what just happened.
I never planned to go back to that town at all. I sure as hell don’t need a house there. What’s strange is, she never mentioned leaving it to me, and I know for a fact she was teamAsh never sets foot in this hellhole of a town ever again.
I get why she couldn’t leave it to the others, but I’m surprised she didn’t talk to me about it. Although, she didn’t expect to go to bed and not wake up, I guess.
Eventually, I pull myself from the swirling shitstorm in my own head enough to wrap my head around all of it.
How the hell am I going to deal with a whole house in a town I’ve refused to step foot in for six years?
Idial Casey when he still hasn’t shown up twenty minutes after he was supposed to pick up Maggie. As the line rings, I stare out the window above the kitchen sink, watching a squirrel make its way across the top of the wooden swing set. My fingers grip the cool edge of the white counter harder with every second he doesn’t pick up. The warm sun shines through the glass.
“Motherfucker,” I mutter under my breath when Casey’s phone goes to voicemail for the third time. “Jess!”
I toss my cell onto the counter and run a hand over my throbbing forehead.I’m going to kill him.The number of times I’ve had that very thought over the last couple of weeks is alarming. Isn’t it strange how you can love someone so much that you can’t imagine spending the rest of your life without them, only to end up wishing you’d never have to see them again? If I could make him disappear, I just might.
