Peeking around the busy post office, I decided not to open the envelope for fear I might burst into tears in front of these people. I stuffed it into my bag and headed back to my apartment.
I looked at the rest of the mail as I walked home. Three credit card offers were tossed into the first trash can I passed. Dad had counseled me to never get a credit card. He said you can end up paying double—even triple—the amount for something when you figure in all the interest.
There was also an invitation to join the Lubbock First Baptist Church. I looked sourly at it; it was the eighth missive this year. My father had been a member of that church, an infrequent attendee, but still a member. And Dad made me go along with him on most of those occasions. I just wasn’t a fan of sitting and listening to anyone talk on about a book.
It confused me that so many people had different interpretations of what the words in the Bible meant. Why would anyone need another person to decipher the written words to them?
I didn’t need it. And I didn’t like to waste an hour or two listening to anyone do such a mundane thing.
Tossing that letter into the next trash can along my walk, I thought about how no one from my father’s church had reached out after Dad died in an oilfield accident. No one came around at all. Not even when I was forced to leave our house because of foreclosure. Not even when Dad’s truck and my car were repossessed.
All Dad had in his bank account when he died was a couple of thousand dollars. The bank let me have it after a month of waiting. I paid our bills for that month and bought some food, but that was it; there wasn’t any more money coming in after that.
I had to find a job—a thing my father tried so hard to keep me from doing. He wanted me to go to school and focus completely on my education. And I was successfully doing that up until my third year of college, when Dad was killed by an exploding oil well. Afterwards, things changed for me.
He’d made contributions to my college fund with each paycheck. I wouldn’t have had a problem at all if he’d survived. But he didn’t, and here I was.
With no mother in the picture, I was all alone. I had no memories of her. She left my father before I’d turned a year old—and she never came back.
While working evenings at a nearby Dairy Queen, I walked to and from my childhood home until the bank came to lock it up. Luckily, my coworker Margo needed a roomie, and she let me stay in her little one-bedroom apartment.
During that time, I made her couch my home and tried not to get in her way. Eventually, together we made the move into a two-bedroom, splitting the bills. It worked out okay. She and I got along well enough.
Arriving to the front door, I held onto the only piece of mail left: the bank statement. Pausing a beat before opening the door, I looked up and said, “Please let this be good news.” I didn’t care for church, but I did believe in God.
The door flew open, and Margo nearly ran into me as she walked out. “Whoa! Aspen, I didn’t know you were right here.”
I stepped to the side. “Yeah. I went to get the mail.” I held up the envelope. “My college bank account statement has come in, and this time I’ve got to see how much is left. I can’t throw it away without looking at it. Not with next semester’s classes coming up in a few months.”
Clucking her tongue, she started walking away from me. “Didn’t you say that you needed about twenty grand for them?”
“Yeah,” I muttered. I was fairly positive I wouldn’t see anywhere near that amount left in the account.
“I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.” Unlocking the chain from her bicycle, she hopped on. “I’ve got a double shift at the Queen today. And afterward, I’m going out with a couple of girls. If you want to join us, you’re more than welcome, Aspen.”
She knew what my answer would be before I even said it, “No thanks.” I walked into the small apartment, not loving the fact that it felt just as stifling as outside.
We only used our air conditioning at night when we slept, and it was turned off as soon as we got up. Being poor meant not using any unnecessary anything. That included electricity, food, water, and even shampoo and soap.
My life changed so drastically after Dad died. He’d made great money in the oilfield, but the thing about working in that field is that the people tended to buy a lot of things on payments.
Sure, he had a very expensive four-wheel-drive truck. And that truck had hefty payments that couldn’t be made without his income. Everything was that way. One by one, I lost it all, even the furniture that filled our three-bedroom brick home. Everything had been financed; nothing was paid for. I found it a bit hypocritical of my father to tell me never to get a credit card when he financed everything he’d bought.
Flopping down on the couch, I stared at that envelope for a long time before finally opening it.
Okay, let’s just do this.
The first page greeted me and thanked me for being a loyal customer of Friend’s Bank in Lubbock, Texas.
My cell rang, and I stopped what I was doing to pull it out of my pocket. Flipping it open—I couldn’t afford a smartphone—I answered, “Hello?” The writing on the miniature screen was too small for me to read without my reading glasses, a pair I’d picked up at the dollar store a few months back.
“Aspen, hi,” my boss said. Mrs. Pepper had always been very good to all of us. She didn’t pay well, but she was very nice to everyone who worked for her.
She didn’t call me often. I immediately assumed she called to ask me to come into work even though I wasn’t scheduled.
“Did you need me to come in, Mrs. Pepper? I’m not busy. I can if you need me to.”
“Um…no,” she hesitated before going on. “You see, Aspen, I’ve got some news. I’m telling every one of you girls who work here about this today. Since you’re not scheduled to come in, I didn’t want to make you walk down here to hear what I have to say.”
My heart was sinking. This news was not going to be good. “Thank you for that consideration, Mrs. Pepper. So, what’s this news you have for us?”
“You remember my son, Gerald, right?” she asked.
I barely recalled his name. “Sure, I do.”
“Well, he and his wife just had triplets,” she went on.
Maybe she’s taking a little vacation. “Oh, wow. Well, congratulations on becoming a grandmother,” I offered. Things didn’t seem so glum then.
“Thank you, Aspen,” she continued. “So, you can imagine how hard things are going to be for him and his wife with three brand new babies, right?”
There’s that sinking feeling again. “Right.”
“And they live outside of Dallas. That’s a pretty good ways from here. A bit too far for me to keep up with this place.” She cleared her throat readying herself to hit me with the news I now assumed was going to be very bad.
“Okay,” I whispered, knowing the wind was about to be knocked out of me. “And just what does that mean, Mrs. Pepper?”
With a huff, she told me exactly what that meant. “Okay, here it is. I’ve gotta go out there tomorrow. I’ve already talked to a realtor who is going to put the building on the market and sell it for me. I’m closing down the Dairy Queen effective at nine o’clock tonight. I’m sorry, honey, I am. I’ve already written each of you glowing letters of recommendation. It’s all I can do. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” was all I could say. “Can you send mine with Margo, please?”
“I will,” she said happily like she hadn’t just messed up my world. “Good luck, Aspen. I’m sure you’ll be fine. You’ve got that great education going for you. Don’t sell yourself short. Apply for the jobs that you need that degree to get, honey.”
“K. Bye.” Flipping my phone closed, I went ahead and looked at the second page of the bank statement. “Fifty-six dollars and thirteen cents.”
Fuck my life.
Chapter Three
Ransom
Lubbock, Texas – May 11th
Weird noises me
t my ears as I entered my grandfather’s bedroom suite. The first room, much like a living room and filled with leather furnishings, was empty. The door on the far wall led to his bedroom. Behind that, I heard what sounded like Darth Vader-breathing.
Giving the door a knock, I asked, “Grandad, you in there?”
After some shuffling sounds, the door opened. And there stood a young woman wearing lilac scrubs. “I’m afraid you’ll have to come back later. Mr. Whitaker is doing his breathing treatment at the moment. Give us thirty minutes, please.” Then she just closed the damn door in my face.
I knocked again then twisted the doorknob to find it locked. “What the fuck?”
Spinning on my heel when I heard footsteps behind me, I found my grandfather’s assistant coming in the front room. His eyebrows went up when he saw me. “Good, you came.”
I rubbed my brow as frustration swelled inside of me. “Mr. Davenport, what in the name of all that’s holy is going on here?”
“Have you been able to see him?” he asked, instead of answering my question.
“No. That woman wouldn’t let me in. And she’s locked the door.” I threw my hands in the air. “What’s going on? Just tell me already.”
His light blue eyes looked pleadingly at me. “I wish I could. Unfortunately, I’ve been told not to say a thing to you.” He wrung his old, wrinkled hands as he looked down at the floor. “Please, don’t tell him that I called you. I’m afraid he’ll fire me if you do. He was adamant that no one tell you a thing.”
“Fine.” I sat on the sofa, wondering what was happening. “I know how he can be.” My heart felt so heavy I thought it might fall out of my chest. “He’s all I’ve got, you know. After Mom and Dad were killed on their yacht off the African coast, he came to my boarding school to give me the horrible news. I went home with him, and he became both my mother and my father to me. I don’t know what I would do without him.” I looked at the man who’d been in my grandfather’s employ ever since I could recall. “Is this life-threatening?”
“I’m not saying another thing, Ransom. I can’t. Soon, you can talk to him and let him tell you what he wants to.” Mr. Davenport turned and left me sitting there alone, wondering what I was about to hear.
Closing my eyes, I remembered when my grandfather showed up at my dorm at boarding school. I was fifteen and never imagined he was there to bring me terrible news at all. He would come by unexpectedly on occasion to take me out to dinner or to see a movie.
That day he looked different. Pale, shaky, weak—not like my grandfather at all, really.
“Ransom, I’ve got terrible news to tell you, boy.”
I’d taken a seat on the edge of my bed. “Yes, sir. What is it?”
“My son…” he stopped talking and put his fist tightly against his mouth. Then he cleared his throat before going on. “My son was murdered. Your father and mother have been killed. Their bodies were found full of bullet holes off the African Coast. Their yacht has been taken. Pirates are believed to have done the evil deed.”
It was hard to believe the news he’d delivered to me that day. The sun was shining outside my window; the birds were chirping merrily. Shouldn’t it be storming outside? Didn’t the entire planet know my parents had been killed?
As I sat there waiting to see the old man, lost in my memories, I knew my grandfather would deliver his news much the same way as he’d done back then, fifteen years earlier—straight and to the point.
Internally, I prepared myself to hear it. I had never allowed myself to think about a time that would eventually come—the time when I would find myself alone in the world.
I prayed like crazy that I wasn’t about to find out that the time had come much sooner than I’d ever thought it would. I wasn’t ready to be alone yet.
Sure, I stayed away from home more often than I stayed at home. But I called my grandfather all the time, and he called me too. When I was home, we would do things together. But since I graduated from college, our outings grew more infrequent. Until suddenly, they dried up entirely.
I’ve wasted so much time.
Putting my face in my hands, I fought the urge to cry. I wasn’t the kind of man who cried. I laughed. I joked. I played around. I didn’t cry.
But those tears were burning the backs of my eyes so badly, I thought they might burst free for the first time since I’d lost Mom and Dad.
About a year after their murders, the last of my tears were shed, and I never cried again. And now here I was, trying to hold them back, even though I had no idea what kind of news my grandfather was going to give me.
Pulling my head up, I shook off my feeling of impending doom. I had no clue what I was about to be told. Why start mourning the man now?
The door to his bedroom opened, and the lady in the lilac scrubs came out. “You must be Ransom. Your grandfather has told me so much about you.” She smiled at me as she extended her hand.
I shook it. “He’s told me nothing about you.”
With a light laugh, she said, “I’m sure he hasn’t. I’m Daphne, his attendant. I’ll let him tell you the rest.” She walked away to leave us alone. “I’ll be back in thirty minutes or so. Don’t leave him unattended, please.”
“And why is that?” I asked her.
She didn’t answer; she just closed the outer door behind her, leaving me alone with my grandfather. I turned to walk into his bedroom, worried about the state I would find him in.
He lay in his large, oak four-post bed. A white comforter billowed around him making him look small and slight in the bed.
“Ransom?” he croaked.
“Yes, sir. It’s me.” I came to the side of his bed as he didn’t sit up.
His blue eyes were sunken back into his skull. It had only been a little over a month since I’d seen him last, and he’d lost a fair amount of weight in that short time. And much of his white hair was gone too.
When he pulled his hand out from under the blanket, I could see multiple bruises on top of it. At some time or another, he’d must’ve had IVs stuck in it. And he’d never told me a thing.
“Ransom, sit down.” He patted the bed beside him.
I took a seat on the edge, looking at him and hating what I saw. “Grandad, what’s happened to you? Did you have a stroke or something?”
He nodded, and it made me feel like crying again. “Yes, I did.”
“Why didn’t you have someone call me?” I couldn’t understand why he would do this to me.
“Ransom, I wanted you to come see me, but I didn’t want it to be because I was ill.” He ran his thin fingers over the back of my hand. “You’re always going, going, going. You need to put down some roots, my boy.”
“I’m good, Grandad. I’m really good. I have lots of fun,” I told him, hoping he could understand that I didn’t want to live the way he did, tied down to this place.
“Fun,” he said then harrumphed. “Fun has its place and time. But fun isn’t a way of life, boy.” He shook his head. “No—not, boy. Man. You are a man. Thirty years old now. I thought you might call or come by on your birthday. But you didn’t bother. You didn’t want to spend that special day of yours with your blood. I suppose you were with your cronies—your posse or whatever you call them.”
“I was.” I had to get up and walk around a bit. Seeing him in that weakened state was getting to me. Making me feel things I didn’t want to feel. “And usually you call me on my birthday, not the other way around. I haven’t spent my birthday with you for years now.”
“You think I don’t know that?” he asked. The force of his reply started him coughing.
Turning to look at him, I waited for the coughing fit to subside before asking, “This is more than a stroke, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “This is lung cancer.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to feel.
The man wasn’t dead. Mourning him wouldn’t be the right thing to do. But every fiber of my being to
ld me I should be doing just that.
“What are they doing to treat it?” I finally managed to ask before I staggered to take a seat in a chair, so I wouldn’t fall down.
I’m going to be all alone!
“Chemo.” His eyes went to stare at the ceiling. “Radiation. No surgery can be done. The mass is inoperable. It’s slowly closing off my trachea.”
Getting up, I rushed over to his side, taking his hand in mine as I could hear the fear in his voice. “The chemo and radiation will fix it, Grandad. You’ll see. You can beat this.”
The way his eyes clouded told me he didn’t share my desperate optimism.
“I hope so. My biggest fear is that the tumor will close off my windpipe and I’ll suffocate. I don’t want to go that way, Ransom. I don’t.”
I couldn’t take this. I was about to burst into tears. But my grandfather had always been strong for me, and now it was my turn to be that for him.
“I wouldn’t worry about that, Grandad. Give the medicine time to heal you. You’ve got the money to get the best medical help in the whole world. If these medicines fail, then we’ll go alternative. I don’t want you to worry.”
“I don’t want you to be alone, Ransom.” He gripped my hand. “That’s why I’ve done what I’ve done. Not because I hate you. Not because I’m trying to ruin your life. It’s out of love I’ve done this.”
Confusion riddled me. “What are you talking about, Grandad?” I really had no clue at all what he was going on about. “What is it that you’ve done?”
“My will. I’ve made a change to it.” He had to take a second to catch his breath, and the sounds his throat and chest were making were scaring me.
“Grandad, are you okay? Should I get that lady?” I asked as I watched him carefully as he gasped.
Finally, he closed his eyes then his breathing became normal again. “Damn tumor.”
I had no idea what had just happened, but I knew it didn’t feel good to him at all. “So, what is it that you’ve done?”
“I’ve added a stipulation to the will. If you don’t produce an heir before I pass on, then my entire estate will go to charity instead of you,” he said with no qualms at all.
The Virgin's Baby_A Forced Marriage Romance Page 2
