CHAPTER THIRTY
Asher
I can’t sleep.
My mind is in overdrive, and my excitement building over my new endeavor has created insomnia. The kind of restlessness that only a good bout of sex with Ledger can seem to fix by tiring me out.
I contemplate texting him. He might still be working since I know he had a conference call with someone overseas that he had to stay up for, but I decide against it.
He might ask more questions about why I suddenly can’t sleep. And I don’t want to have to lie.
Instead, I opt to wander through the house and selfishly admire the changes I’ve been making to the décor to make it more mine.
I’ve been scouring garage sales, estate sales, and online markets for others’ trash that I can make my treasure. It’s taken some time, but that’s okay. I think it would be too hard to change it all at once. That would feel like I’d tried to erase Gran and Pop completely.
Rather, I make a change, get used to it, and then move to the next. Little by little I’ll make it mine while preserving elements of what was once theirs.
The office. I realize I left the desk lamp on, and when I head in to turn it off, I’m met with one more of Pop’s stacks.
I stare at it for a beat.
Just tackle it and get it over with. Clean the slate. Rip the Band-Aid off. Keeping it isn’t going to miraculously bring Pop back to life.
I smile and know I’m right. With a deep breath, I take a seat and prepare to face it.
Within an hour, I have broken the big stacks down into sub stacks.
I’ve gotten it down to a science now: receipts for taxes go in one place, invoices get filed alphabetically, and payroll info by the employee is kept in binders on the shelf.
I have a file for miscellaneous items I’m afraid to throw out in case it’s important but that I’m not quite sure of its relevance yet.
And then there is a stack of silly Pop things that I’m just not ready to part with. A Post-It note that Gran had written “love you” to him on. A ticket stub from the last movie we saw together. I never realized Pop was such a sentimental guy until I started this project.
It makes me love him even more . . . if that’s even possible.
I’m singing out loud to the music pouring from the speakers and doing a little shimmy with it as I add the items to my “Reasons Why I Love Pop” file.
I do one shimmy too many and accidentally drop one of the papers in between the two hanging files.
I reach in between them and scratch my fingers around where I can’t see to try to feel for it.
I find it, touch it . . . but there’s also something stiffer than a receipt there too. Figuring it’s another lost between the crack item, I pick it up to put it in its proper place. But when I pull it out between the drab green hanging files, I’m met with a tan envelope with worn edges.
My heart stops in my chest.
“When Pop came inside after talking with that . . . horrid man, he had something in his hand. A tan envelope.”
I know it’s the envelope without any other proof than its color.
It has to be. For the briefest moment I contemplate letting sleeping dogs lie and not open it.
I already know that Maxton Sharpe was an unscrupulous asshole.
Is there going to be something beneath this seal that paints Pop in a different light?
In my heart of hearts, I know nothing could change my opinion of him . . . and yet I still hesitate.
But curiosity gets the better of me as I move to the desk, take a seat, and slide my finger under the seal. With a deep breath, I remove the lone object from inside.
An uncashed check.
Made out to Pop.
Signed by Maxton Sharpe.
With a date of that fateful night.
Made out for forty thousand dollars.
I stare at the faded blue rectangle and am not exactly certain how I feel. Surprise? Indifference? Disgust?
This is what saving his son from what he felt was a disgrace from dating me was worth to him? This is all he believed I was worth?
Tears blur my eyes, and those damn insecurities Maxton cemented into my psyche that night rear their ugly head. But for all the right reasons. For Pop reasons.
He didn’t cash it.
We’ve always struggled financially. This money would have gone a long way for a family like ours whose ends didn’t always meet.
He sat on it, holding on to it for years, long after the check was invalid.
I think of the college experience I missed out on. The dreams that slipped through my fingers.
He could have deposited it into a savings account. He could have used those funds to help pay for my college.
And what if he had, Ash? How would that make you feel knowing the price of your destroyed self-esteem was what put you through college?
I blow out a breath and lean back in the office chair, trying to process the dueling emotions inside of me. Regret and relief. Time passes. Moments tick by in the early morning hours as I play with the check’s edges. Study the scrawled penmanship. Stare at the name in the memo section—Asher.
Would life have been easier if Pop had cashed this check? Used the money for me? Used it to get better care for Gran? Used it to unburden the finances after the fire?
Of course, it would have been.
But I look around at everything I have—consider the times we struggled that brought us closer. The memories we made because we had to be more creative. The Fields and everything I’m aspiring to make it . . . and I know I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
Did I miss out on a dream?
Yes, I did.
Dreams change. Isn’t that what I told Ledger that first night at Hank’s? The irony is I said it to deflect the conversation. To give an excuse about why I didn’t go to college.
And now I’m sitting here believing it.
Dreams do change.
And I’m damn sure going to make this one a reality come hell or high water. It’s the least I can do to honor Pop for being the man he was. For having integrity. For building me up when someone else tore me down.
For loving me how he did.
After some more reflection, I tuck the check back into the envelope and file it in my “Reasons Why I Love Pop” file. Where it belongs.
And as I trudge upstairs, finally tired and ready for sleep, there’s one question left that’s plaguing me.
To tell or not to tell Ledger about the check.
He’s struggling enough with loving and idolizing a man who hurt him. Do I want to add to that pain, or do I want to keep it to myself?
Both options are wrong.
Now I need to decide which one is the lesser of two evils.