I didn’t know he had cancer at the time. Hell, I didn’t even know he was sick until he passed away. We lost touch for only a few months, but apparently, during that time Turner fought a short and intense battle with cancer and lost.
And I didn’t even have a clue until last week.
My gut coils as I think about the day I found out—and all the days after—and I let out a heavy exhale. This past week has not been my finest. And now I’m at the funeral of the only man I ever really considered a father. I didn’t even get a chance to tell him good-bye.
I inhale, slow and steady, and I crack my knuckles. It’s just been a shitty few years, all around.
Through the windshield, my eyes catch on a gray dress walking away from the casket with hips swinging and blonde hair swishing. I almost didn’t recognize Kayla Turner behind those black sunglasses and that cold look she had on. But looking at her now, there’s no mistaking.
She used to visit her dad in the summer, so every once in a while I’d catch glimpses of her inside the house while I was out mowing the lawn. And there are some faces you just don’t forget.
Back then, she was all elbows and knees and freckles. But damn if Kayla Turner didn’t grow up to be a total knockout. There wasn’t a breathing soul in the cemetery today that didn’t openly gape at her. I thought the kid in the front row was going to choke on his own drool, the way he was drinking her in.
I’m surprised she bothered to show up. She stopped coming around a few years ago and I saw how it tore Old Man Turner up. He missed her fiercely, but that didn’t bring her back.
It’s nice of her to finally visit again. Too bad she waited until her father’s funeral to grace him with her presence.
With a clenched jaw, I start the engine, back out of my spot, and pull out of the parking lot. Monique purrs as I drive away from the cemetery and I want to purr right along with her. Cruising down the road eases the pressure in my chest and I feel like I can breathe again. I put the convertible top down and suck in a lungful of fresh air. Much better.
A distant roll of thunder echoes around. I pass a large gated community and a sour taste slips down my throat. Westlake Estates. The place I lived when life was good.
Well, not good exactly. But easier.
Turning onto the road that leads out of town, I head for work. I have two part-time jobs: one at the cell phone store in Copper Springs and one as a stock boy at the Willow Inn Bed & Breakfast outside of town. My job at Willow Inn is the only one I actually like, though.
Willow Inn is fifty miles south of town, in the middle of nowhere off the freeway, but I make the drive every week because of my awesome boss. Ellen owns and operates the quaint little inn and, in her spare time, she’s a guardian angel.
Glancing at the time, I realize I have to be at Willow Inn in an hour and it takes at least that long to get there. Shit. And Monique is low on gas. Double shit.
With a muttered curse, I pull into the nearest gas station—a run-down fill-up place that looks closed except for the blinking neon sign that reads O_EN—and pull up next to a grime-coated gas pump before turning off the engine.
Getting out, I count the money in my pocket with a groan before shoving it back inside. As I start to fill Monique up, my phone beeps and I glance down to see another missed call from Eddie.
Eddie Perkins is the closest thing Copper Springs has to a professional lawyer, and lately he’s been the bane of my existence. He’s left me eight voice mails in the past week, none of which I’ve bothered listening to because I’m sure they’re all about my dad. But ignoring him doesn’t seem to be working.
Stepping away from the car, I listen to the most recent voice mail.
“Hello, Daren. It’s Eddie again. I’m not sure if you’ve received my previous messages but I’ve been trying to reach you regarding James Turner. As I’m sure you know, he’s passed away. A reading of his will is scheduled for tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. at my office, and Mr. Turner’s last wishes specifically request that you be present. Hopefully, I’ll see you there. If not, still give me a call so we can discuss… the other thing.”
The message ends and I stare at my phone. Why in the world would Turner want me at the reading of his will?
Unless…
A thought hits me and it’s almost too ridiculous to grasp.
Could this be about the baseball cards? Would Turner have remembered something from so long ago?
A small smile tugs at my lips.
Yes. He absolutely would have. That’s just the kind of guy he was.
When I was thirteen, my dad gave me a set of collectable baseball cards for Christmas. I remember that Christmas clearly. It was the same Christmas that our housekeeper, Marcella, gave me a copy of the book Holes. It’s about a boy who digs seemingly pointless holes as a punishment for something he didn’t even do wrong. I was obsessed with the book; I must have read it ten times, and talked about it every day.
My mother and father barely paid attention to my interests. I doubt they ever even knew I’d read a single book, let alone one in particular over and over. But Marcella knew. She always made a point to care about the things I cared about. “You are my favorite boy, mijo,” she would say.
She always called me mijo.
Son.
That Christmas, she’d wrapped the book in a green box with a red ribbon. I remember because that was the same box I decided to keep my collectable baseball cards in.
I brought the box to Turner’s house one day to show off my new cards and proudly informed him that I had looked up the value of each one and knew I could sell the lot for at least a hundred dollars. Money was important to me back then. Money was all that mattered. My dad taught me that.
But later that day while I was mowing his lawn, Turner took my box of cards because, according to him, I was “too spoiled to appreciate them.”
He was right, of course, but at the time I didn’t care. I was furious, convinced he was going to sell the cards himself so he could have the money. But because I was just as spoiled as he’d claimed, I only stayed mad until my father bought me more baseball cards a few days later.
That’s how things worked in my family: My parents bought me whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, as long as I stayed out of their hair. I was an only child and I’m pretty sure I was a mistake. If my parents had planned to have me I’m sure they would have put a little more effort into… well, me. But I was an accident and, therefore, an inconvenience. An inconvenience easily soothed with a few new toys.
When I announced to Turner that I no longer cared about my stolen box of baseball cards, he laughed and said, “Someday you might.” Then he promised that, someday, he’d return them to me.
I stare at my cell phone where the voice mail screen blinks back at me. Maybe this is Turner’s way of coming through on that promise, after death.
The pressure starts to wind its way around my chest again, thick and tight, and I feel the air seep from my lungs. I can’t believe he’s gone. Really gone.
A clanging noise startles my thoughts and I whip around to see a tow truck backed up to Monique and hauling her onto its bed. My eyes widen in horror.
“Hey!” I shout at the overweight truck driver, who’s got a toothpick in his mouth and a handlebar mustache. “What are you doing?”
He barely glances at me. “Taking her in. Repo.”
“Repo?” I start to panic. “No, no. There must be some mistake. A year’s worth of payments were made on that car. I still have until next month.”
He hands me a crumpled statement stained with greasy fingerprints and an unidentifiable smudge of brown. “Not according to the bank.”