2
Travis
“Dad, I’ve been calling you for about ten minutes.”
Abby looked at me with that frustrated look that any twelve-year-old gets when they think they know more than their parents. I had just peeled my eyes open after having that dream again, the one I had become all too familiar with over the last two months or so since I was injured. I had been placed on disability since the incident, and while the investigation into the fire and the events had cleared me of any wrongdoing, I still felt the weight of heavy guilt over what had happened there. I tried to trudge through each day for Abby’s sake, trying to make her last weeks of summer vacation before school started up again a bit better. Of course, she didn’t see it that way at all.
“Dad, are you even listening to me?”
I looked up at Abby and saw her standing there, her shoulder-length red hair moving along with the breeze from the air conditioner in my bedroom. She was already dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, ready for another hot August day, and now she was prodding me on to get me moving for something.
“What’s up?” I asked her as I wiped my eyes clear and pushed myself up out of bed. The wound in my leg and healed nicely, thankfully, and left me with quite a scar and a bit of a limp after surgery and physical therapy. I hobbled a bit, and Abby braced my right arm and helped me through the door and out into the kitchen.
“I said that guy is on the phone again. The lawyer,” she huffed, and she handed me the cordless phone from the kitchen. At this point, I wasn’t sure just what lawyer she was talking about since there had been so many of them over the weeks, so I just picked up the phone and started talking.
“Hello,” I said gruffly into the phone as I went to pour myself a cup of coffee. Abby quickly reached over and poured it for me instead, so I didn’t spill any on the floor or the counter. Thank God for her.
“Mr. Travis Stone?” I heard a squeaky, inquisitive voice on the other end of the phone. He clearly wasn’t the lawyer from the union, the disability company or any of the other lawyers I had talked to lately.
“Yes, who is this?” I said, already losing patience with this. I could hear I was on a speakerphone as the person on the other end was rustling paperwork while talking to me.
“Mr. Stone, this is Irv Rogers, I’m a lawyer here in the town of Canon. I’ve left you a few messages, but I never heard back from you.”
Canon was a place I thought I had put behind me a long time ago. Sure, I still had family and friends that lived there, though not nearly as many of either as I had when I left there to go to college. I was pretty sure I knew why this guy was calling now.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Rogers?” A smile crept across my face after I called him Mr. Rogers as I imagined him sitting there in his red sweater and slip-on shoes. I chuckled as I took a sip of my coffee. Abby looked up at me from the kitchen table like I had two heads, shook her head lightly and sighed, and went back to reading her book.
“It’s still the matter of your father and his estate Mr. Stone. I really need for you to come out here so we can settle everything.”
I sipped some more coffee slowly to clear my head some more. The whole mess of my father passing away had happened just days after the fire, and I had hardly had any time to comprehend it. I had missed the funeral, though I don’t know that I would have gone anyway. My father and I hadn’t spoken since just after Abby was born, and I didn’t really think he had anything anyone could call an estate to leave to someone.
“Isn’t this something we can take care of over the phone, or email or fax or something?” I told him as I placed my cup down on the counter. I heard Abby say, “Who uses a fax anymore?” as she giggled at me. I shooed her out of the room with my hands, and she slammed her book closed and headed to her bedroom down the hall. I sat down at the kitchen table, trying to get a handle on what this guy was saying.
“I’m afraid not Mr. Stone,” he said to me in a shaky tone. “There are papers and forms to sign for legal purposes. Do you think you can get out here?”
I knew I could get out there; it was more of a question of if I wanted to go. I was on disability, more than likely permanently, and had nothing keeping me here in Ridgefield, which, while a lot bigger, sadly, was not much more exciting than Canon.
“Sure, I can be there tomorrow,” I said to him in a resigned tone.
“Oh, fantastic,” he replied. I could hear more papers shuffling. “That’s wonderful. Just come by my office tomorrow then. I am here by 9. My address is 24 Reese Place. Do you know where that is?”
I only spent the first twenty years of my life there buddy, I thought to myself. I took a deep breath before answering him.
“Yeah, I think I remember where it is,” trying not to sound too sarcastic.
“Okay then, I’ll see you tomorrow. Have a good day,” Mr. Rogers told me as he hung up.
I pressed the off button on the phone and laid it on the table. I stood up, groaning a bit as I heard my knee creak. I looked down at my leg and traced the part of the scar that was visible, going up my right leg from my knee and disappearing under the hem of my sleep shorts as it went further up my thigh. I righted myself and walked down the hall towards Abby’s room.
I gently knocked on the door and waited for her to tell me it was okay to enter. This was something I was still getting used to now that she was twelve and demanded a bit more privacy than the days when she begged me to leave her bedroom door open so it wasn’t so dark in there. When she didn’t respond to my knock after about ten seconds, I slowly opened the door.
Abby was sitting at her desk, her earbuds in as she listened to music on her phone. She was typing away on her laptop as I walked up behind her and placed my left hand on her shoulder.
She spun around, looking at me with shocked eyes, and then slammed her laptop closed.
“Dad!” she shouted at me. “You’re supposed to knock before you come in.” She pulled out her earbuds, clutched her laptop, and got up and sat cross-legged on her bed.
“You’re supposed to respond when I knock,” I answered her. Since this wasn't an argument I wanted to get into right now, I decided to just let it go.
“You need to pack some things. We have to go to Canon.” I scanned her room, barely recognizing it anymore. Gone were the little girl adornments that she wanted on her walls just a year or so ago. Now her walls had posters and pictures of music bands. Gone were the Disney princesses, replaced by the faces of female singers, actresses, athletes, and writers I barely recognized.
“Why are we going to Canon? Are we going to see Grandma?” Abby’s eyes lit up at the prospect of seeing my mother. The two were something of kindred spirits, and my mom was really the only female role model Abby has had in her life since she was born.
“Yes, we’ll see Grandma, but I have some other things to take care of there too. We may be there for a bit.”
“How long?” Abby asked. She was already getting her suitcases out of her closet and arranging things to pack.
“I’m not really sure,” I said to her. “We’ll have to see how things go.”
“No problem,” Abby replied. “There’s nothing in this town for me anyway.”
“You’re too young to sound so jaded,” I told her. “I’ll go start packing myself.”
“Fine,” she said to me, walking me to the door. “I’ll be ready in ten minutes.” Abby closed the door on me as I stood there facing the door. I was going to open the door again, but thought better of it and just headed down to my room to start packing. At least going to Canon was going to be easy for one of us.