Dad had been boxed and buried for two weeks, but the flowers in my stepmother�s apartment were fresh. There hadn�t been half as many floral arrangements at the service. Linda�s face was partly hidden by flowers and by the black veil on her pillbox hat as she sat down across from me in the living room.
�How�s your mother, Dan?� she asked.
Mom had come with me to the service and reception, even though I told her I�d be fine on my own. Her white suit had stood out among the black of the other mourners, and her laughter had risen above their murmurs. In response to my stepmother�s question, I nodded and looked around the room. The mantle above the fireplace displayed a series of �With Sympathy� cards, lined up in a row.
�Your father was a well-liked man,� Linda said.
�I got what I wanted from that bastard years ago.�
While she had been eager to accompany me to the service, Mom had refused to come with me to visit Linda. We had known that Mom wasn�t going to be in Dad�s will, and we had assumed that Dad hadn�t mentioned me in it either, so neither of us had gone to the reading. His lawyer had called us up afterwards, however, to inform us that Dad had left me something. They had first been searching for another person, since Dad left something to his son �Davey,� but they couldn�t find any evidence of another son.
�The little f---er,� Mom had said after getting off the phone with Dad�s lawyer. �He called you Davey, even in his will, when he knew your name. He still couldn�t get over not getting his way with your name.�
The name mix-up had been solved. The will didn�t state what Dad had left me, however. It only told Linda where to find my inheritance in their apartment.
Linda dabbed at her eyes, which were the color of dirty fish water. Her thin, frizzy hair was becoming gray faster than Mom�s, and the fourth finger on her right hand was permanently bent down towards her palm. She wasn�t younger, thinner, or prettier than my mother, and yet she was the one for whom Dad left us.
Mom did get a lot out of Dad, though. All he managed to carry out of the house was a dark green leather suitcase with brass trim on its edges. Everything else stayed with Mom and me. I remember staring at the suitcase in the foyer while my parents screamed at each other in the next room. I had tried to hide it, because I had figured if Dad couldn�t find it, he wouldn�t leave. I hadn�t been a strong ten-year-old, however, and had barely dragged it across the floor a few inches before Dad came, took the suitcase, patted me on the back and left.
�Goodbye, Davey,� he shouted. I didn�t understand why he had to shout, when I was standing right there, and why he called me by the wrong name. It was Mom who wasn�t there.
Twelve years later, though, he had remembered me in his will. Maybe he wasn�t as big a bastard as Mom thought he was, and as she had taught me to think.
�Have some cheesecake. Your father loved cheesecake.�
�No, thanks. I�m having dinner at Mom�s before heading back to school.�
Linda reached over and fiddled with the picture frames on the coffee table. They were all of Dad and his jazz record collection. This seemed odd, because I remembered that Dad had hated being photographed.
�Would you like to see some photos of your father when he was younger?�
�I�d really like to get back to school sometime tonight.�
What could Dad have left me? What did he have that Mom hadn�t kept? It was somewhere in the apartment. I looked around at the flowers, the photographs, and the sympathy cards. I didn�t see him anywhere. Then again, I didn�t know what to look for.
�You look so much like him,� Linda said.
Mom had always looked at photographs of me with our extended relatives at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners and thanked God that I took after her side of the family.
Maybe he left me his record collection. I wondered if I could sell it. I wondered if any of it was valuable.
I excused myself to use the bathroom and hoped that she would take that time to pull out whatever Dad had left me. The toilet cover had been pulled down and a heap of clothing sat on top of it. I picked up one of the pieces. It was a fuchsia-colored blouse. I backed out of the bathroom and looked down the hallway. Linda�s back was to me, but the dress she wore was black.
I remembered that as we had left the funeral, Mom had congratulated Linda.
�You�re better off now,� she had said and walked off.
Linda and I had stared at her retreating figure, and then at each other. I had managed a weak smile.
�I�m sure you and Dad were very happy together,� I had said, looking away. I was surprised my voice didn�t break.
�You think so?� she had said.
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