Chapter 8 Gone Not Forgotten
CASSIDY
It had been eight years since I left Violence and I couldn’t believe the first time I stepped foot back in my hometown was to meet with a lawyer.
A lawyer who wanted to go over my father’s Last Will and Testament with me because he was gone.
Fucking Tiffany, his stupid wife, hadn’t even bothered to contact me to let me know he was sick.
Then again, I expected no less from her.
She probably thought if I didn’t know, then I wouldn’t be around to contest his Will if he left everything to her.
What she failed to realize was that I didn’t care.
If he left it all to her, then I hope he burned in hell for eternity and that she joined him there one day.
I wasn’t exactly itching to come back to Violence, but that property wasn’t in my father’s family for generations.
It had belonged to my mother’s family and rightfully should have passed to me as her only surviving family member who shared her DNA.
I was angry about losing her legacy, but there wasn’t much that could be done if my father decided to fuck me over yet again for that hag.
“Good morning, Miss Billups. Thank you for coming in. There are a few things I need to cover with you, so if you’ll kindly hold any questions until the end, we can get through this and then go over the finer details.”
I nodded my agreement because honestly, I wasn’t expecting to have questions about how my dad forgot he had a daughter.
“Before your father passed there were sixty acres of land in your family. That will be discussed in just a moment. First, I want to assure you that your father had his services and the wake all planned and paid for out of his account. I handled all the details and arrangements. He wanted it done through me so that Tiffany couldn’t shut you out.
After we learned that she had not gotten in touch with you when he got sick, as he instructed her to do, it felt like the best bet. ”
“He asked her to reach out to me when he was sick?”
His lawyer, William Mathers, gave me a grim look.
Your father tried to find you himself before he got sick.
By the time we were able to track down where you were stationed, he was unable to speak for himself.
He asked that Tiffany get you on the phone for him or get you there in person before it was too late.
” The man took a moment to gather himself.
He looked fit to be tied, as my friend Amberlee would say.
It was clear that Tiffany’s actions angered him.
“So, you’re saying I can attend his funeral and wake with no issues from her?”
“I don’t think she’ll be in attendance at all since she knows you’ll be there and that I planned to tell her about all of this. I think she feared for her safety or some such nonsense.”
I chuckled at that. “Good. Let her live in fear for a while. If that’s everything, I had a long flight and a tedious drive from the airport in Albuquerque. I need a shower and bed ASAP.
“The shower and rest will have to wait a little longer, I’m afraid. We need to discuss the land.”
“Let me guess, he left it all to her?”
Mr. Mathers shook his head. “If he thought he could get away with leaving her nothing, he would have. He finally saw her true colors in the years since you left and things had been going downhill since. They were technically still married but in name only.” When I didn’t have anything to say about that, he continued. “The land was originally-”
“My mother’s,” I cut him off to say.
“Ah good, so you remembered that. Then you will be happy to know that when your mother passed away, she did not leave a Last Will and Testament to be followed. She trusted your dad to do right by you.” I rolled my eyes at that.
“He did.”
“He did what? He certainly didn’t do anything right by me after he met Tiffany. He couldn’t even be bothered to show up to my high school graduation or even give me a ride to it. I had to hitch a ride there so I wouldn’t stink of sweat.”
“I am terribly sorry about that and so was your father, whether you believe me or not. Before he met Tiffany, he did manage to do one solid thing that would secure your future, though. He put half of the property - 30 acres to be exact - into your name. It has been that way since about a month after your mother passed and remains so now.”
“Let me guess, the other half passes to Tiffany.”
Mr. Mathers’ grin turned into a scarily wide smile. “No, my dear. Your half included the house. The dwelling has been in your name this whole time.”
I cocked a brow up in surprise. “Wish I’d known that a whole lot sooner,” I said.
He chuckled. “No doubt that was why your father never told you.” He cleared his throat and then glanced down at the paper.
The other thirty acres that were in your father’s name are being split between you and Mrs. Tiffany Baker Billups.
She gets the five acres that abuts the far western corner near where the local motorcycle clubhouse resides.
The land has no water rights, no well, and is incapable of producing its own water.
” He paused for a moment and looked me dead in the eye.
“That is very important information. The other twenty-five acres were willed to you. There are two wells on that property and another on the property you already owned near the dwelling. You could offer her water rights, if you choose to, but you are under no obligation.”
“So, you’re saying I’ve always owned the house and the property surrounding it. That is without question and was done before my father met Tiffany?”
“At the very least, it was done before he married the woman.”
“So, there is nothing she can do about that?” I asked.
“That is correct. She cannot contest the fact that you have owned that property all along.” He smiled at me again. It was a little off-putting, but then again, he seemed to hate Tiffany on a level I didn’t think I’d ever see from anyone else, so it was all good.
“Does she still live there?”
“She does.”
“Then I might need to hire you to file the eviction notice.”
Mr. Mathers chuckled and threw his head back and devolved into full-on laughter. “Oh, sweet girl, no worries there. The paperwork was already drawn up. Your father and I figured that might be your response.”
“Is there anything else I need to know?”
“She will try to contest the Will and the fact that you got the other twenty-five acres while she only received five.”
“It was all once my mother’s property. She’s lucky she got anything besides my dad’s bank account.”
“That’s the other thing. Your dad did leave her with about $25,000 in a bank account and whatever cash they had at the house.
He left you with an account that still holds the insurance money that came from your mother and you are named as the sole beneficiary on his own life insurance policy.
In total, you will inherit just under a million dollars.
That is before taxes, so don’t get stars in your eyes just yet. ”
“Is the money something the bitch can contest?”
“She has not been made aware of any of it, but no, she would lose very quickly if she tried to contest the insurance money. What came from your mom was direct deposited into that account and has never been touched. In fact, it has earned quite a bit of interest over the years as well. Again, because we can prove where the money came from, she can’t contest a single penny of it. ”
“Good. Is that all this time?”
“It is. Your father didn’t leave a letter or anything for you.
I asked him if he wanted to and he said that you probably wouldn’t want to hear anything he had to say other than ‘I’m sorry,’ and even then, he wasn’t sure you would care.
He loved you very much. I think the man was lost in his grief and made a terrible decision with Tiffany because she made him forget he was drowning for a while.
By the time he came up for air and realized what he’d done, it was too late to course correct.
The day he discovered you’d left for the Army - which was the same day you left, by the way - he came to see me to make sure that no matter what, you would be taken care of if anything ever happened to him. ”
“How did he find out?” I asked. “Do you know?”
“I do. Your neighbors went to see him.”
“My neighbors?”
“Mr and Mrs. Davis, I believe. They sat your father down after they kicked Tiffany out of the house, so she couldn’t be involved, and they told that man just how badly he’d been fucking up with you.
Excuse my language,” he added as he cleared his throat.
I waved it off as nothing and he carried on.
“When they were done reading him the riot act about your graduation, your father went to go get you from your room to apologize again. That was when he came back with the note you left. I don’t think the man stopped crying for a whole week.
Mr. Davis told him about seeing you off that morning and that you were going to leave alone - thinking not a damn person on the earth gave a shit if you left, lived, or died.
Your father was devastated and he would have paid for your college, too sweetheart.
He had money set aside and was waiting for you to tell him where to send the checks. ”
I rolled my eyes. “You know what? Out of everything else you said, that is the one thing I don’t believe. He never once spoke to me about college money.”
“I understand, but he kept your mother’s insurance for exactly that purpose, or for you to open a bakery or whatever it was you decided you wanted to do with your life.
One of his biggest regrets was not telling you sooner, but he didn’t want Tiffany to ever get wind of that money, so I guess he decided to keep it from you as well, in case you ever wanted to throw it in her face. ”
“Once again, he chose that bitch over me and my well-being.”
“And he lived with those regrets until the day he died, especially when you never showed up while he was sick.”
“I never knew.”
“We figured that out a bit too late,” he said as he slid a piece of paper over to me.
“This is the information for the funeral service and the wake that will follow. The service is private, just for you. The wake is where his friends will be if you choose to show up, you might just hear some stories that will remind you that your father did care, even if he lost his way for far too long.”
I wondered if Mr. Mathers was correct and then anger stewed somewhere deep in my belly. Did I lose the chance to reconcile with my father because Tiffany refused his last request to have me brought to him?
I shook that thought off. My father should have reached out before he got sick.
Like, the minute he found out I left for the Army, he should have tried to find me, to get in touch.
At some point, at least when basic training was over, someone could have gotten word to me that he tried to reach out.
I had so many questions and I didn’t think Mr. Mathers had the answers I needed.
The only person who did was dead and couldn’t give them to me anyway.
My heart ached for the missed moments with my father that I could never get back.
Anger simmered with resentment, disappointment, and sadness over the fact that those moments weren’t gone for good reasons.
They were just thrown away, tossed aside, and ignored because my father made a mistake with Tiffany and couldn’t own up to it.
A brief flash of graduation day, when James yelled at me about not being a good friend to Simone - his wife.
I wondered if he was following in my father’s footsteps.
It took me a long time to see it, but Simone was very much like my stepmother.
She chose calculation over angry outbursts as her weapon, but it all ended the same.
Another woman in my life who took and took and took until there was nothing left she could get her hands on.
My dad lived to regret his decision, but not long enough to fix it.
I wondered if the same would be true for James some day?
I hadn’t seen him in eight years, since the day he chewed me out for not being there to stand up beside Simone when she married the boy I had harbored an unrequited love for - for years.
Even if I had found it in my heart - or in stupidity - to forgive her, how the hell could he expect me to be there for her and watch her marry my crush?
That was the epitome of selfish thinking.
I had my father’s wake to attend, and a fight over rights to my mother’s land to deal with because I had no doubt in my mind that the bitch would take me to court to contest the Will, especially after she received that eviction notice.
Luckily, it was buried in the information presented to me that my father had the forethought to have his lawyer go through the house and land with video equipment and take stock of the condition everything was in.
I would make a point to take her to court for everything that ended damaged or missing that shouldn’t have been.
Chances were, she didn’t have a pot to piss in outside of the little bit my father left her, so she would have to fork back over the other five acres of land as payment if she destroyed anything on her way out.