Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 107673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Ten minutes later, we were out on the other side of the tent with a to-go box big enough to feed a family of ten.
Ten. Ten.
Dasham.
Dash.
In an instant, Dash’s smiling face appeared vividly in my mind. My beacon in an otherwise lonely, lost life. Dash’s piercing blue eyes gave me a source of solace from the moment I was whisked away by my father.
After all these years, Dash still mattered. I wondered now if I could finally let him go.
One Week Later,
Birmingham, Alabama
“What about any of this?” I glanced over my shoulder toward Scott Lee who had his head stuck inside my father’s crappy old refrigerator. With the loud knocking the condenser made every time it came on, I was certain it was on its last leg. “It looks foul in here.”
“Go in careful,” I cautioned, lifting from the backbreaking work of scrubbing the grimy, crumbling forty-year-old linoleum floor. “There might be botulism inside there.” I raised then wiggled my yellow plastic gloved fingers to encourage him to grab a pair before diving in. “Glove up. Masks are over there too.”
Scott’s head peeked over the door; his eyes narrowed as he assessed my level of seriousness. I grinned and nodded my certainty at how disgusting it could get, then cocked my head toward the disposable hazmat suit I’d bought as a precaution.
“I ain’t scared of nothin’,” he declared boldly and bravely, and swung the single door open wide so I might better see the contents. As if on a death wish, he reached an arm boldly inside, swiping all the old, rotting groceries off the top shelf into the trash bag in his hand. “Your dad’s gross,” he added. A second swipe resulted in even more clanking and crashing.
“How did your father manage to buy two houses?” Scott grumbled; his head stuck inside the box.
“I don’t know, but we’re nearly finished with the kitchen.” I told the lie I’d been using all week to convince myself to continue going. It was losing some of its motivational power. However, this time, we were in fact closer to the end. “You don’t have to stay. You’ve done more than enough.”
“I got four days before I go home. Lauren’s havin’ a baby shower this weekend. I’m not goin’ anywhere around there, or I’ll get roped into being a part of that female fest. You’re stuck with me until Monday morning. Quit trying to toss me out.”
“It’s weird you’re havin’ a baby.” A massive understatement but still true. More than that, Scott was genuinely excited about being a dad. Throughout all the years of our friendship, close to twenty now, neither of us wanted to have children.
“Yeah,” Scott replied, using his index finger and thumb to carefully remove each bottle of condiments to drop into the trash with a louder clank. “With Lauren. She was supposed to be your girlfriend.”
Hmm. I considered the different angles such a statement might mean—none were good—and lifted to visually gauge where Scott was headed. He winked at me.
Okay, another puzzle. Who knew what the wink meant, but I didn’t pursue it either.
“She was never gonna be my girlfriend,” I said, leaving it there as I surveyed my work on the kitchen floor. The only area remaining to be cleaned was where the refrigerator stood and the dirty section of tile surrounding it.
“Why’s that?” Scott prodded.
Well hell. I furrowed my brow at the question I didn’t want to answer. My instincts had me tumbling backward into my old self and clamping my lips shut. The bucket of water I used to scrub the floor was a good enough distraction, allowing me time to figure out a reasonable response. I rolled to my feet, grabbed the bucket’s metal handle with my fist and headed for the backyard.
Frustratingly, Scott followed me out with the trash bag in hand. How did he not know I was in the middle of a crisis and needed time? And would he now press the issue for an answer?
He trotted down the few concrete steps to the ground, right on my tail. Fuck, warmth spread from my neck to my face even in the chilly weather. Anxiety built swiftly making me feel preyed upon, and unusually vulnerable. I regretted saying anything about Lauren. My defenses lowered too soon with Scott. Luckily, I went one way to toss the dirty water into the overgrown yard. Scott headed in the other direction toward the trash bins.
The precious seconds of alone time allowed me to pull forward my tried-and-true coping mechanism. A practiced tunnel vision to shut out the rest of the world, leaving only the work on this house, and what was going to happen to my mom as my sole focus. The manic thoughts calmed instantly.
As it turned out, my crappy father passed away without updating his will. The only one in place was the one my mother had convinced him to make years ago. I inherited half of his estate that consisted of two properties, investments, and a lot of money he’d saved. The other half went to my mother. Over the last few weeks, I’d developed another new coping mechanism: Enjoying the fact that my shitty old man was rolling in his grave, fist-fighting angry for leaving such a glaring oversight undone.