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The afternoon is cold and it's drizzling – which suits my mood pretty perfectly. Given the cool, wet weather, the cemetery is all but empty. I see a few people huddled beneath their umbrellas gathered around a headstone. The long coats and umbrellas seem like overkill to me, since it's not even really raining. It's more of a heavy mist, really.
But, whatever. This is California. People freak out over anything resembling actual weather.
After leaving Roderick's office and finding out that I'm pretty much flat broke, I drove over to the cemetery to visit my father. I don't know why – it's not like I'm going to find out this is all some elaborate prank, and that my inheritance is there waiting for me or anything like that. I'd never be so lucky.
I take a sip of my coffee and sit in front of his headstone, reading the inscription I've read a thousand times already in the two weeks since he took his own life. At the time, I struggled to understand why he'd do it. Why would he lock himself in the garage and gas himself like that?
But now, after meeting with Roderick, it makes a hell of a lot more sense.
“I can't believe you did this to me, Dad.”
If I'd known he was careening down this path toward self-destruction and destitution, I would have done so many things differently in my life. I wouldn’t have gone traveling so much after college. I would have stayed right here with him. But he told me, countless times, that all he wanted me to focus on was getting my law degree. He told me that I didn't have to worry about anything. He wanted me to expend all of my energy on school and getting my degree.
If I knew this was coming, I would have planned and done things so much differently.
As I look at the inscription again, my heart is flooded with grief. It's not just the money, it's the fact that I lost my dad. It's the fact that my dad killed himself. He and I were always close, our relationship always fantastic. He doted on me and made me feel special. He should have been able to come and talk to me. He should have felt comfortable enough to tell me he was in trouble. Together, maybe we could have figured something out. Found a way through the shitstorm.
But no. Instead, he squandered his fortune and then killed himself. The rage I feel isn't about the money – okay, it's not completely about the money – it's that he chose to die rather than just fucking talk to me. Even though I love him and will always love him, that's something I don’t know if I can ever forgive him for.
As far as the money goes, my only genuine anger about him blowing it all is that it puts me in a really precarious position. I just finished my first year of law school. But without tuition money now, and with no way to get a loan, I'm screwed. Beyond screwed, really. Having to get a full-time job to support myself is going to put a big dent into the time I have available for school. It's going to really make finishing it out difficult. At best.
“I knew I should have planned better,” I say. “I should have worked when I was younger, put money back. But you said I didn't have to worry about it. You told me to enjoy being a teenager rather than worry about paying for school. Why did you do that?”
As if the headstone would give me any answers. I let out a long breath and drain the last of my coffee, trying to see through the grief and anger clouding my vision – trying to put together some sort of a plan moving forward. I need to figure out what in the hell I'm going to do, and I need to figure it out fast.
Roderick couldn’t legally tell me, but suggested I'd be wise to go get everything out of the house I want – and to do it quickly. He said he'd only be able to hold the jackals and vultures circling the carcass of my dad’s estate off for a couple of days, but then appraisers would be coming in to carve up all of my dad's things, then putting a value on them that his creditors would then slice up.
Thanks to Roderick, I've got a small window to get whatever I want out of the house, so I need to get on that sooner, rather than later.
I feel like my entire life is falling apart around me. Everything I've ever wanted and have worked my ass off for to this point is crashing down at my feet, like a flaming wreckage. Tears roll down my face and I realize a big part of my grief right now is the loss of the life I've been building for myself. It's the shattering of my dreams and everything I thought I knew about my world. About my father. Like smoke on the breeze, everything I thought I knew has just been swept away.
Thanks, Dad. Thanks a hell of a lot.
Chapter Four
Aaron
Present Day...
“I really never thought I'd live to see the day,” I chuckle.
“What day is that?”
“The day you got engaged and started playing Mr. Mom.”
Nick laughs and shakes his head. “Yeah well, life comes at you fast, hard, and throws some wicked curveballs. You can either roll with it and take a swing, or you can stand there frozen and do nothing,” he replies. “Personally, I'd rather go down swinging.”
We're sitting on the patio of a restaurant in ScottsdaleSanta Barbara and I'm watching him holding his daughter, Phoenix, in his lap. She's only a few months old, but this is the first time I've had time to come up and meet her – and see one of my oldest friends in a while.
Having a rare hole in my schedule that just so happened to coincide with one of his business trips out here, I took advantage of it. I drove up to Santa BarbaraSanta Barbara from LALA to have lunch with Nick Miller, who I've known since we went to Prep and then college together back in New York.
Actually, we're part of a group of five – the Amigos, they used to call us. Rarely was any of us seen without at least one of the others in our pack. We were inseparable back then. Once we all graduated from college, though, life took us all in different directions and scattered us to the four corners. We all still keep in touch regularly, that camaraderie hasn't died, but we don't get to see each other as often as we'd like.
While the others are spread out, Nick is the furthest one away from me, having stayed put in New York after I moved out here to open up Frontline. So, when he comes out on business, I try to take make my schedule match his. Of course, things have obviously and necessarily changed since he got engaged and had a kid. That tends to eat into his free time, so scheduling get-togethers is a bit more challenging, but we manage to make it work when we can.
It’s still strange for me to see him as a family man and a dad. He, like the rest of us, was just never that guy. We all enjoyed the single bachelor life – quite a bit, actually. We were one of the more popular cliques on campus, and most of the other guys at Prep – as well as at college – envied us. We all came from money and had no problem getting girls whenever we wanted.
Even though the other guys despised us, they secretly wanted to be us.
