I stopped immediately.
“Don’t look pleased.”
“I’m not, dear.”
“Don’t look pleased.”
“You are.” I spat it right back at him.
He sighed. “Maybe a little.”
For several hours, we talked about my mother.
About her singing badly while doing dishes.
Her driving 40 miles back to a gas station for a forgotten purse.
The way she tied my shoes twice because I always kicked them loose.
For several hours, we talked about my mother.
For years, Mom had existed in my head as fragments.
Thomas gave me pieces I didn’t have.
On the fourth day, I finally asked why.
“Why did you leave me there?”
Thomas stared toward the window.
For a long time, he said nothing.
Then, “Because I was a coward.”
I waited.
“Why did you leave me there?”
He swallowed.
“After Annie died, I remarried. It was new. Fragile.”
“So?”
“I told myself foster care would be temporary.”
I looked away, flexing my fingers into a fist.
“I told myself professionals could handle what you’d been through better than I could,” he added.
“That’s convenient.”
“I told myself foster care would be temporary.”
“Yes,” he acknowledged. “I chose the easier life.”
The sentence hurt more because it was honest.
“I thought I’d fix it later.”
“Did later never arrive?”
Thomas looked at me.
“Every year that I waited made approaching you harder. Then you aged out, moved away, and I lost track of you. By the time I finally started looking, you were gone.”
“I chose the easier life.”
I laughed. “Poor you. I didn’t die.”
“Sus…”
I stepped away. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
By the fifth day, I was helping adjust his pillows.
Caroline made sure it stayed that way.
She was always nearby.
Always watching.
On the sixth afternoon, she caught me alone in the hallway.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You’ve been here six days.”
I looked at her.
“Congratulations. You can count.”
She drummed her fingers against her hip.
“Dad asks for you every time he wakes up.”
“That’s not my fault.”
“Really? You show up out of nowhere and suddenly you’re the only one who matters.”
I stared at her.
“Dad asks for you every time he wakes up.”
She poked a finger against my collarbone. “What exactly are you expecting when he dies?”
“The same thing I’ve gotten from him my entire life.”
Her gaze turned cold.
“Which is?”
“NOTHING.”
With that, I walked past her.
That evening, Thomas was worse.
I sat beside him while rain tapped against the windows.
“What exactly are you expecting when he dies?”
He reached for me.
This time, when he pulled me closer, I let him.
“I know you hate me,” he whispered.
“Sometimes.”
A weak smile touched his mouth.
“Fair.”
Then his face crumpled.
“Soon you’ll understand everything.”
I pulled back.
“What does that mean?”
His eyes filled.
“Thomas?”
“Soon you’ll understand everything.”
He tried to speak.
Nothing came.
I called for the nurse.
Those were the last words my father ever said to me.
A few hours later, he died.
The funeral passed in pieces.
People telling me Thomas had spoken about me often.
That made me angrier than silence would have.
Those were the last words my father ever said to me.
Afterward, I packed immediately.
I was closing the zipper when David appeared in the doorway.
The same lawyer who had brought me to Thomas in the first place.
“Susan.”
“I’m leaving.”
“I know.”
He stepped inside holding a thick envelope.
I looked at it.
“No. I don’t want…”
“You don’t know what this is,” he cut me off.
He stepped inside holding a thick envelope.
His look turned sharp.
“Did Thomas ask you to stay for his final week?”
I frowned.
“Yes.”
“And you stayed willingly?”
“Why does that matter?”
David set the envelope on the table.
Then looked at me.
“Susan… you walked straight into your father’s trap.”
“And you stayed willingly?”
My hand stopped over the envelope.
“What trap?”
David slid the envelope toward me.
“He left very specific instructions.”
I didn’t touch it.
“And he knew exactly what you would do once you came here.”
My voice dropped.
“What? I don’t understand.”
David rested one hand on the envelope.
“He left very specific instructions.”
“He made sure you couldn’t reject what he set in motion without seeing it first.”
I finally opened the envelope.
The first page wasn’t a check.
It wasn’t a deed.
It wasn’t even addressed to me.
It was a board resolution.
I looked at David.
“What is this?”
“He made sure you couldn’t reject what he set in motion without seeing it first.”
“The moment you completed the seventh day here willingly, the transfer became irrevocable. Most of Thomas’s estate now belongs to the foundation.”
I stared at him.
“Because I stayed?”
“Because you stayed.”
“And Caroline?”
“Caroline is provided for.”
I kept reading.
A charitable foundation.
A residential transition program.
Scholarships.
Employment support.
Housing assistance.
“Because I stayed?”
I stopped.
“What does this have to do with me?”
David pointed to one paragraph.
“Thomas left one board seat vacant.”
“No,” I gasped.
“You haven’t heard the rest.”
“I don’t need to.”
I shoved the papers back.
“He doesn’t get to abandon me and then assign me homework from the grave.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
David nodded. “He knew you’d say that.”
That made me angrier.
“Then find somebody else.”
“They can.”
I blinked.
“He never made acceptance mandatory,” David said.
“Then where’s the trap?”
He looked toward the window.
