The Inheritance (Volume Two)

by Zelda Reed

  “I just want to know how my father died.”

  Martin reaches beneath his desk. He pulls up my father’s urn. Bathed in black and gold, its simplicity manages to carry the weight of gaudiness. I can’t imagine how much my father must’ve spent on it.

  “Your father would’ve wanted you to have it,” he says, pushing the urn towards me.

  I have no use for my father’s ashes. Can you imagine? Me sitting in my living room, staring up at the urn with wide, tear filled eyes, speaking to it as if my father is trapped like a genie. Or how about me passing the urn to my children, their fingertips brushing against mine as I describe my father’s rigid silence, the constant swell of his stomach, his signature scowl. I place it in my lap. I’ll get rid of it later.

  Martin stands and I follow his lead, crossing the shimmering brown tile to his office door.

  “The condo,” I say as his hand wraps around the knob.

  Martin raises his hand. “I’ve already called a realtor. She’ll be by this weekend to take care of everything.”

  “I’ll be gone by then.”

  “Not a problem. I’ll coordinate a time with Miss Ashleigh.”

  A small smile plays across my lips. “Thank you.”

  Martin opens the door. “It’s no trouble at all.”

  I step into the hall, my heels reverberating against the floor. Two steps away, I turn to Martin who’s closing the door behind him. “I’m never going to find out, am I?”

  His head peeks out of the crack. “I’m sorry?”

  “How my father died.”

  A small sigh moves through him, his shoulders dropping further down, eyes cast towards the floor. “The decision to know or to remain ignorant is entirely in your hands.”

  “You can just tell me.”

  Martin smiles. “I’m not the only one who knows how your father died,” he says, closing the door.

  ______

  Outside of the office four newspaper kiosks stand near the sidewalk. Yellow for The City Paper; blue for The Chicago Business Journal; black for the real estate ads; and red for The Chicago Times. I snatch the Times and the City Paper, tucking them beneath my arm as I head for Millennium Park.

  I can’t stand one more moment of sitting in my father’s condo, sucking down bourbon as I try to gather the courage to invade his bedroom, to pick through his things, sorting out what I want to keep (nothing) and what can be given to charity (everything).

  I find a bench away from the clusters of families, holding hands as they wander around aimlessly, chins craned towards the metallic skyline, soaking in the height of the buildings.

  My mother picks up on the second ring. “Where are you?” she says. The television’s on in the background, looped laughter heightening after a zinger.

  “I’ve gotta stay for a few more days. I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier.”

  “Jesus,” the back door opens and slams shut. “I thought maybe this was all some joke and Gina called you out there to kill you.”

  It feels good to let out a laugh, my head tipping back, my hair brushing against the bench. On the other end of the line a chair scrapes against concrete and I can see my mother now, propping her leg on her knee, sliding her cigarettes from beneath her magazines on the backyard table, shoving one in the corner of her mouth as she lights up and inhales.

  “Dad left you some money,” I say.

  She clicks her tongue on the roof of her mouth. “You can have it.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “Well, I don’t want it either. It’s guilt money, that’s all it is. A couple thousand to make us feel validated, loved, so we don’t run off and write a tell-all. But that’s easy. Like throwing crumbs to park pigeons. Apologizing and admitting you were wrong? That’s the only thing I’d ever accept from your father.”

  My father’s urn rattles in my purse. “It’s a little too late for that.”

  My mother laughs. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t holding my breath.”

  A comfortable silence stretches between the pair of us, the soft summer wind brushing against my phone, the sound of Baltimore sirens blaring in my ear. My mother’s flipping through the magazines in front of her. Architectural Digest, Interior Design, Lawns & Gardens, magazines made for creative, older women.

  “Gardenia’s,” she says, testing the word on her tongue.

  “What about them?”

  “You know,” she says, nothing more.

  “When Gina called did she mention what Dad died from?”

  “I told you, it was a cold or something.”

  “Yes but did she tell you that or was that something you made up?”

  I know my mother. I know her elbows are on the glass table and she’s pinching the bridge of her nose, eyes close as she realizes: “I don’t think I was paying much attention after she told me Julian was dead.”

  A small smile tugs at my lips. “So he could’ve died of something else. Something that wasn’t a cold or cancer?”

  “Correct,” she says. Then, “You’ll find out won’t you?” She says it in a bored tone, thumb sliding over her wet tongue, flipping the magazine from one page to the next. I don’t care if you do, but please don’t forget.

  “Of course,” I say.

  “Good.”

  My mother hangs up. No good-bye, no, I love you, though I know she does. It’s just her way. When the conversation is over, there’s nothing more to say.

  I lay the newspapers on my lap and flip through The City Paper. It’s a mess of sex shops, apartment, alternative boutiques, tattoo parlors, and restaurant advertisements, squeezed between nuggets of articles pertaining to underground bands, perverse literature, and local artists craving the mainstream. It’s the sort of paper my mother loves and my father would never read, the artwork crude and unattractive. Rejecting conformity. The sort of magazine I hoarded in college, desperate to transform into the opposite of my father’s approval.

  I head straight to the Finance section of The Chicago Times, my eyes skirting past stocks and chunks of text, to the page dedicated to Neal’s dinner.

  The largest photo is of him, standing on the stage, pointedly gazing at Anthony Serafin as he’s dragged out of the room. The crowd in the foreground stares, open mouthed, Ashleigh and I blurry specks in the background. So, there was another journalist in the room. I’m clearer in the next photo down, smaller and pushed to the right, Neal and I standing outside the building with Chris and Ashleigh, right before I took Ashleigh’s hand and stormed off. I don’t need to read the article to know it’s full of slander. The pictures and the headline – Neal Dietrich Gets off to a Rocky Start – indicative enough.

  The article in the corner, tucked away like bills folded in a wallet, has no photo but a small headline: Lee Geon Speaks Out.

  He isn’t angry. He says he “understands the need for professional growth” and he’s glad “Mr. Dietrich has found it somewhere”, he just wishes “it wasn’t with someone as vile as Julian Wheeler”. There’s a bite to his words, menacing even in print.

  I feel like I’m being watched.

  I look over my shoulder. Behind me tourists trapeze over the bridge, pointing across the street, towards the Museum Campus. A group of teenage boys carrying soccer balls and bright orange cones head down to the wide field, where they’ll play a game or four to the awe of passerby’s.

  I’m being paranoid when I see him. A journalist lurking in the bushes – The bushes! I never thought they actually did that. – his camera hoisted to his eyes, snapping a photo as I gaze his way. He drops onto the ground, out of my line of sight and into the foliage, the bush rustling around him.

  It stills, the camera disappearing within the leaves, the children rushing by undisturbed.

  I wait for his head to pop back up –he can’t stay down there long – but like a boat submerged in water he sunk beneath the foliage and remains.

  ______

  I drop my father’s urn on the coffee table. How did they managed to fit so much of
him into such a tiny confined space? He was a larger than life character, demanding attention, stealing glances and ears, always the biggest personality in the room. It’s different, seeing him so small.

  I fix myself a drink and Ashleigh makes her way out of the guest room. Dressed in sweat pants and a t-shirt, those famed red rings remain around her eyes. She spots the urn immediately.

  “Martin gave that to me,” I say, plopping down on the couch. “You can have it.”

  She cranes her head in my direction, eyes deer-in-the-headlights wide. “You…You don’t want it?”

  I shake my head.

  She wanders over to the coffee table, feet sinking into the now stained rug. She takes a seat on the floor, crossed legs and arms out as she pulls the urn towards her. She’s speechless, staring at it as if she can hear it whispering to her, my father speaking beyond the grave.

  “Thank you,” she says.

  I lay back on the couch. “It’s no problem.”

  The pair of us fall into silence, my eyes fixed on the smooth white ceiling, Ashleigh focusing on my father’s urn.

  Her bottom lip’s pulled between her teeth. She’s been worrying it since the moment we met. I’m surprised she hasn’t broken the skin, a slim purple bruise to decorate the center of her mouth.

  Ashleigh’s the daughter my father would’ve wanted. Captivatingly pretty and feminine in all the right ways – docile, sweet, and fixated on his death. Since his funeral she’s spoken more than once about visiting his tombstone, something I have no plan to do. She wants to lay flowers and a mixtape she ordered on the Internet. All of his favorite songs for him to listen to in heaven.

  She says “heaven” the way small children do when they first learn about it. With wonder and glee and hope. Hope that someday they’ll too reach the magical place where everything is white and good.

  I don’t really believe in heaven (my mother nor my father were particularly religious) but Ashleigh is fooling herself if she truly believes that’s where my father is.

  He never respected any of his wives and had no respect for me. I know fucking college-aged girls isn’t exactly a sin but there’s something creepy and ungodly about it. My father surrounded himself with people who would gladly take a seat at the devil’s table, sucking down the blood of their enemies, swapping stories of how much money is in their bank accounts and what dastardly deeds they committed to get it there. My father is no angel, no saint and he isn’t the sort of man to die from a cold.

  “You found him?” I say, shattering the silence.

  Ashleigh furrows her eyebrows. “What?”

  “At the restaurant you said you found my father’s body on his bedroom floor.”

  She nods. “That’s right.”

  “What happened?”

  Ashleigh ducks her head and shrugs. “I think he stopped breathing in the middle of the night. Or maybe he had a heart attack. I don’t know for sure. The doctor’s wouldn’t tell me anything since I wasn’t family.”

  “But he died here? In this house?”

  “Yes,” she hisses. “How many times do I have to say it?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, sitting up.

  She clutches my father’s urn to her chest, pale arms wrapped around it, cradling it as if it were a child. “Have you cried?” she says, staring up at me. “Do you feel anything at all about your father’s death?”

  I think of the stretch of time I spent in the lawyer’s bathroom, clutching my legs close, pressing my forehead against my knees, my body wracked with sobs, my face dripping with tears.

  “No,” I say. “I haven’t. But try not to hold it against me.”

  Ashleigh lowers her eyes. “I’m just trying to understand why you hate him so much.”

  “It’s complicated,” I say. “And easier if you don’t think about it.”

  Eight

  Before I call Northwestern Memorial Hospital, I call Gina and leave a message: “Hi, It’s Caitlin, I just have a few questions about my dad and thought you could help. Give me a call when you can, thanks.”

  It’s been a few years but I still know Gina. I know she’s sitting at her office job, staring at my name on her phone. One missed call. One new voicemail. Chewing her nails, debating whether or not to call back. She isn’t doing anything important. Answering calls at whatever call center she works at now, reading dully from a script, counting down the hours until she can clock out and go home. Maybe I’ll give her a call on the train, she’ll think, maybe I’ll force her to grab dinner with me.

  The nurse at Northwestern – “Marilyn,” she says between a yawn. – tells me I need to call the Chicago Police Department. The police department tells me I have to come down and provide my birth certificate, social security number, state ID or driver’s license before they tell me anything. I pencil in an appointment for tomorrow, too exhausted to do anything else.

  Ashleigh and I have dinner in Chinatown, five dollar meals with two choices of meat or vegetables and a bowl of rice. Ashleigh speaks to the waitress in flawless Chinese, expertly handling her chopsticks, popping orange chicken into her mouth between large gulps of white rice. I opt for a fork, content not to embarrass myself.

  “My mom’s from China,” she says. “I’m adopted.”

  She tells me about her father, the doctor who lost his job two months ago due to a religious outburst of anger.

  “One of the residents, some mouthy kid with red hair, was like this huge atheist who could not shut the fuck up about how intelligent people couldn’t be Christians. When he found out my dad was religious – and he’s like, really religious, I’m talking church every Sunday, leads a bible study group religious – this kid freaked.

  “All day, all week, he rambles on and on about how much of an idiot my dad must be for believing in this man in the sky, and how he can’t possibly be a good doctor because his belief in ‘magic’ will always trump logic.”

  One afternoon her father had heard enough and, red-faced and foaming at the mouth, he dammed the boy and all who thought like him to hell.

  “And my mom doesn’t work,” she says, between sips of tea. “So they’re living off my dad’s savings and my little brother doesn’t want to go to college or work, and my dad’s ranting about the apocalypse every time I call home and I just. You can see why I couldn’t go back there.”

  Every few moments her cell phone goes off. New message. New message. She glances at it before shoving it in her purse; she’s too polite to answer it at dinner.

  “Who keeps texting you?”

  “Chris,” she says, a faint blush crawling across her cheeks. “He wants to hang out but I’m not…”

  “You’re not ready to date.”

  She nods. “It’s really unnerving how everyone assumes I should be over it by now. But I don’t think I ever will be.”

  “I understand.”

  She shifts in her seat. “I thought so. Who is he?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The guy you can’t get over. The one who won’t let you give into Neal.”

  I shake my head. “There’s no guy.” A flash of Justin’s face lights up in my mind. “I’m just not that into Neal.” It’s a lie I swallow along with my vegetables.

  “I don’t believe you,” Ashleigh says.

  “There’s nothing I can really do about that.”

  A small smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. She pulls her phone from her purse and swipes at the screen. “There’s a party tonight,” she says. “That’s what Chris is trying to get me to go to.”

  “Didn’t he do enough partying last night?”

  “Apparently not. It’s at this club downtown. Really exclusive but he says they’ve got their own table with bottle service.”

  “They?”

  Ashleigh grins. “Him and Neal.”

  My lips press together tightly. This morning I began the process of tucking Neal away, resigning myself to the fact that we would never cross paths again. He’s probably moved on. Pluckin
g through a buffet of girls to bring with him to the club. All of them tall and pretty and willing and uncomplicated. Unlike me.

  “That sounds like fun. You should go.”

  Ashleigh leans across the table. “We should go.”

  I shake my head. “I have too much to do around the condo.”

  She rolls her eyes. “You aren’t selling it for three months.”

  “But I’m leaving on Friday.”

  “Which is why you need to make the most out of your stay. I promise to help with the condo and we’ll get everything done by the time you leave. But tonight? I need some fun and you need some fun, spelled N-e-a-l.”

  I take another drink.

  What’s the harm in going? Neal sees me and decides he would rather not speak? Fine. I can find someone else in the sea of people, someone who doesn’t remind me of my father and whose lies I care less about.

  “Fine,” I say, popping a piece of chicken in my mouth. “But once again, I have nothing to wear.”

  Nine

  “We’re with them,” Ashleigh says pointing over the bouncer’s shoulder.

  The broad chested man wears a single diamond earring sparkling beneath the low purple light of the club. He guards the VIP section like a statue, his body blocking off the second floor balcony.

  The dance floors are packed. Three rooms of alternate music styles - techno, hip-hop, and retro pop - filled to the brim with sweating, dancing twenty and thirty-something's, flinging their neon colored drinks in the air, dousing one another in alcohol, cackling when they're confronted. The atmosphere is thick with the smell of booze and sweat and perfume, an odor that's both sweet and sickening.

  The bouncer swipes down on his electronic tablet. “What's your name again?”

  “Ashleigh Monroe,” she says, flashing a sweet smile. For a moment the bouncer is distracted.

  Ashleigh's stunning in her short dress, hair down in loose barrel curls she whipped up in less than an hour. On our trek through the club she shrugged off the grabby hands of men, eyes fixed on the second floor.

  Chris and Neal lounge on the farthest side of the balcony, backs pressed against the black leather couch as other well-dressed men surround them. They're all young and mildly handsome - Neal light - with the same ambitious glint in their eyes. They lean in close when Neal speaks, hanging on his word, ingesting them.