Chapter 5

David

It had been well over a year since my father had passed, yet we kids had not wanted to deal with the bulk of his belongings. Being grown, each of us had our own houses and lives, and finding time to come and go through his personal items wasn’t easy. Missy had been asking me to meet her here for two months now, and each time, I had found better things to do.

But this time, I’d promised, and I knew if I backed out again, she’d chew me out. I showed up at the house and found she’d already gone inside. I walked in and found my nieces running around the sofa in the front room.

“You can’t have both of those! Mom said you have to share!” Tiffany was chasing her sister Macy who had two of Missy’s pom-poms and one of her pageant crowns.

Macy dropped one of the pom-poms and rushed to hide behind me. “Hi, Uncle David. Look, I’m a princess!”

She spun around, and Tiffany came over and hugged my waist.

“She’s an evil princess who won’t share her crown.” Tiffany rolled her eyes and took my hand. “Will you buy me a crown, Uncle David?”

“Tiff, don’t ask your uncle to buy you things, it’s not polite,” Missy said from the bottom of the stairs. She held up another crown. “See, I told you I had more.”

“Sorry, Uncle David.” Tiffany took off to the stairs after her mother, who handed her one of her crowns.

I smiled at her. “Don’t worry about it, kiddo. I’ll keep that in mind for your birthdays.”

Missy shook her head as Tiff put the crown on hers and spun around in a circle. I’d nearly forgotten she’d once been on the pageant circuit.

“Bring back memories?”

“Yeah, but I’m not sure they’re healthy ones. I hated being in pageants. I only did it to please Mom, and then when she died, they were only a source of guilt. I remember telling Daddy that I’d do all the pageants without crying if he could just bring her back. I thought she’d gone away somewhere. I couldn’t understand that she was dead.”

“I’m sorry, Miss.”

“Eh, I knew going through this shit wouldn’t be easy. It not only brings back memories of Dad but Mom, too. It opens a lot of old wounds. I just really want to get it done.”

“Well, it would go a lot quicker if we had more hands. Did you happen to call our baby brother?”

She let loose deep breaths and shook her head. “I tried, but he hung up on me. I’m done. Seriously, I can’t deal with that kid. If you want to invite him, fine, but he’s only going to look for shit to sell since you control his cash flow.”

“I need to check on him, but if you don’t want him around, I’ll tell him I’ll come back over with him next week. He’s got shit here, too, and he’s entitled to some of Dad’s things. If he sells them, it’s just stuff, Miss.”

“Fine, but please, not today. I can’t deal with his shit, and I don’t want him around the girls.”

I hated to know my family wasn’t getting along. “You act like he did something to them. That’s not fair. He’s not going to hurt the girls, and they should know who their uncle is. He hasn’t seen them since they were three. How long are you going to punish him?”

“Don’t start with me, David. I can’t deal with it and all this other shit, too.” She snapped at me so loudly the girls stopped twirling and glanced back and forth between us. “Girls, go grab the shoes out of my closet and toss them in the donation bin.”

“Fair enough, Miss.” I shrugged.

“Fair enough? Look, I tried to call him, okay?” She threw a few old hats into the box in front of her. “What are we going to do with Dad’s suits? He’s got some nice ones, so I hate to just donate them to the thrift shops. I know of this charity that takes suits and donates them to men who are looking for employment. Maybe that would be best.”

“That sounds good to me. Make sure you check the pockets, though. I know Dad liked to keep cash in every pocket.”

“Yeah, cash in every pocket and change in his socks.” She rolled her eyes. “He was really crazy, wasn’t he?” She laughed.

“Yeah, when he wasn’t being a hard ass.”

“He had to be hard. When Mom died, he was left with three kids to raise all by himself. You know Mom was the one who looked after us. He was busy building his fortune.”

“Yeah, but she left us with a two-million-dollar life insurance policy. You’d think that was enough. That he could have spent more time with us and been a little less stressed.”

“I know. But he took that money and invested it, and now, none of us will ever have to work. Not our children, or our children’s children. That’s pretty amazing if you ask me. Besides, I didn’t mind raising you boys. Cooking your dinners, washing your clothes, taking you to school all those years.”

“You earned your inheritance.” Being the oldest, she’d done more than me and Blaine put together. “You know, I always wondered why after making all the money, Dad didn’t sell this house for something more upscale, but now I get it. You know, now that I’m older and want a family.”

“He wanted us to be close to our memories of Mom. And it was a good home.” My sister gave me a strange smile. “I’ve got something if I can just figure out where I put it. I’ll be right back.”

She ran upstairs, and I took the opportunity to call Blaine.

He picked up on the first ring. “What’s happenin’, brother?” Blaine sounded a bit too peppy for a Sunday morning, but at least he hadn’t called me from jail.

“I’m at the house. I was wondering how you are, and if you’d like to meet me some time to come down and go through Dad’s stuff.”

“Maybe. Is there anything left, or did Missy take it all?”

“There’s plenty left, and don’t be that way. We’re going to have to learn to get along. We’re all we have.” I knew my pleas were falling on deaf ears.

“She called me. Can you believe she wanted to know how I was? After avoiding me for four years.”

“She’s worried about you.” I turned my back on the stairs and lowered my voice. I didn’t want her to hear me and flip out.

“Whatever. If you want to get together some time, that’s fine. Do me a favor, will you? Call me if you come across anything important. You know, before it’s all gone?” He was worried we’d pick through everything and he wouldn’t have anything left.

“I promise. I’ll be in touch.” With that, the phone went silent, and Missy came down the stairs holding a big box.

Missy sat on the couch and patted the place next to her. “Remember the year I got that camera I’d begged Dad to buy me?” She’d wanted a professional camera for years, but our dad had thought it was a waste of money with things going digital.

“Right. You begged and begged.” I lowered myself beside her.

“And when I finally got it, I took so many pictures I had to find a place to keep the prints, so I went into the attic and found this box.” She opened it up and pulled out a stack of photographs. “When I came here months ago, I found these. I almost forgot where I put them.” She flipped through them, and then smiled and passed me a picture.

It was a photograph of me and some of the other neighborhood kids. I was about sixteen, but what caught my eye was the pretty blonde in the center. Allison had been about fourteen at the time.

“Look at the way she looked at you. Boy, did she have a crush. I really thought you’d never notice, but I guess I was wrong.”

“Yeah, I noticed. I think she was the only person I could really talk to, you know? When things got really bad here at home, I could go over across the street, and she’d listen.”

Missy made a frustrated sound. “Yeah, I’m sure she hung on your every word. She used to drive me crazy asking me questions about you. The last thing I wanted to do was talk about my bratty little brothers, but she wanted to know everything about you. She once asked me if you had any food allergies. She wanted to bake you some cookies but was afraid you were allergic to nuts. She didn’t want to make you sick. I told her you only liked oatmeal.”

“Your favorite, right? I hated oatmeal, but how was I supposed to tell her?”

“You didn’t eat them, did you?” She laughed, flipping through the photographs.

“I choked those cookies down, but you know, after the fifth or sixth batch of them, I actually started to like them. To this day, they’re my favorite, and I can’t eat one without thinking of her.”

“That’s sweet. You know, her family still lives across the street. You should go over and say hello before you head back into town.”

“I might do that.”

“I really thought you’d end up marrying her.”

“She deserved better than a military husband, and I couldn’t ask her to wait for me while I followed my dreams. Besides, she’s the one who stopped writing me.”

“Wow, you sound like a little kid. You know, she’s divorced now. She’s got a kid, too.”

“Yeah? Wow. Have you seen her?”

“I’ve talked to her mother a few times, asked her to keep an eye over here. They came to Dad’s funeral.”

“That’s right. I was so out of it. I remember seeing them, but I didn’t think to ask them about Allison.”

“She came to the visitation, but I never saw her. I thought you might have.”

“No, she must have slipped in when we were talking with the priest.” I wondered why she hadn’t waited. Perhaps she’d felt like I’d abandoned her, too, by going away. I couldn’t expect anyone to wait for me. The time we spent when I’d come home on leave after her graduation had been special, and even though I knew I wanted her, I kept telling myself I wasn’t good enough. She deserved better.

The conversation lulled, and then the girls knocked over a lamp which brought Missy to her feet. As she went to yell at them, I tucked the photo into the box with the others and got up to go work on some packing.

I spent the next hour going through my father’s suits. I packed a box of his ties for me and Blaine to go through, knowing he’d want to keep a few, too. Then I walked the stuff out to my Jeep, which I’d driven because it had more space than my Cobra, and suddenly, yelling brought my head up. Across the street, a man stood with his back to me, and he was leaning over someone, raising his voice. My first thought was the man was harassing Allison’s parents, and I knew I better keep my eye on things, just in case something happened. Was the man someone they knew? He stepped away and got into his car, slamming the door. And that’s when I saw her. Allison stood with her arms crossed as the asshole backed out of the driveway and drove off. Just when I was about to say hello, a small, blond-haired girl came out and took her hand.

She was a small version of her mother. My heart filled with so much happiness for Allison, yet ached with envy because she had something I’d wanted for ages: a daughter. And she’d done it all without me.