Read Online The Inheritance (Volume Two) by Zelda Reed - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Zelda Reed
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the room. I’m clearer in the next photo down, smaller and pushed to the right, Neal and I standing outside the building with Chris and Ashleigh, right before I took Ashleigh’s hand and stormed off. I don’t need to read the article to know it’s full of slander. The pictures and the headline – Neal Dietrich Gets off to a Rocky Start – indicative enough.
The article in the corner, tucked away like bills folded in a wallet, has no photo but a small headline: Lee Geon Speaks Out.
He isn’t angry. He says he “understands the need for professional growth” and he’s glad “Mr. Dietrich has found it somewhere”, he just wishes “it wasn’t with someone as vile as Julian Wheeler”. There’s a bite to his words, menacing even in print.
I feel like I’m being watched.
I look over my shoulder. Behind me tourists trapeze over the bridge, pointing across the street, towards the Museum Campus. A group of teenage boys carrying soccer balls and bright orange cones head down to the wide field, where they’ll play a game or four to the awe of passerby’s.
I’m being paranoid when I see him. A journalist lurking in the bushes – The bushes! I never thought they actually did that. – his camera hoisted to his eyes, snapping a photo as I gaze his way. He drops onto the ground, out of my line of sight and into the foliage, the bush rustling around him.
It stills, the camera disappearing within the leaves, the children rushing by undisturbed.
I wait for his head to pop back up –he can’t stay down there long – but like a boat submerged in water he sunk beneath the foliage and remains.
______
I drop my father’s urn on the coffee table. How did they managed to fit so much of him into such a tiny confined space? He was a larger than life character, demanding attention, stealing glances and ears, always the biggest personality in the room. It’s different, seeing him so small.
I fix myself a drink and Ashleigh makes her way out of the guest room. Dressed in sweat pants and a t-shirt, those famed red rings remain around her eyes. She spots the urn immediately.
“Martin gave that to me,” I say, plopping down on the couch. “You can have it.”
She cranes her head in my direction, eyes deer-in-the-headlights wide. “You…You don’t want it?”
I shake my head.
She wanders over to the coffee table, feet sinking into the now stained rug. She takes a seat on the floor, crossed legs and arms out as she pulls the urn towards her. She’s speechless, staring at it as if she can hear it whispering to her, my father speaking beyond the grave.
“Thank you,” she says.
I lay back on the couch. “It’s no problem.”
The pair of us fall into silence, my eyes fixed on the smooth white ceiling, Ashleigh focusing on my father’s urn.
Her bottom lip’s pulled between her teeth. She’s been worrying it since the moment we met. I’m surprised she hasn’t broken the skin, a slim purple bruise to decorate the center of her mouth.
Ashleigh’s the daughter my father would’ve wanted. Captivatingly pretty and feminine in all the right ways – docile, sweet, and fixated on his death. Since his funeral she’s spoken more than once about visiting his tombstone, something I have no plan to do. She wants to lay flowers and a mixtape she ordered on the Internet. All of his favorite songs for him to listen to in heaven.
She says “heaven” the way small children do when they first learn about it. With wonder and glee and hope. Hope that someday they’ll too reach the magical place where everything is white and good.
I don’t really believe in heaven (my mother nor my father were particularly religious) but Ashleigh is fooling herself if she truly believes that’s where my father is.
He never respected any of his wives and had no respect for me. I know fucking college-aged girls isn’t exactly a sin but there’s something creepy and ungodly about it. My father surrounded himself with people who
The article in the corner, tucked away like bills folded in a wallet, has no photo but a small headline: Lee Geon Speaks Out.
He isn’t angry. He says he “understands the need for professional growth” and he’s glad “Mr. Dietrich has found it somewhere”, he just wishes “it wasn’t with someone as vile as Julian Wheeler”. There’s a bite to his words, menacing even in print.
I feel like I’m being watched.
I look over my shoulder. Behind me tourists trapeze over the bridge, pointing across the street, towards the Museum Campus. A group of teenage boys carrying soccer balls and bright orange cones head down to the wide field, where they’ll play a game or four to the awe of passerby’s.
I’m being paranoid when I see him. A journalist lurking in the bushes – The bushes! I never thought they actually did that. – his camera hoisted to his eyes, snapping a photo as I gaze his way. He drops onto the ground, out of my line of sight and into the foliage, the bush rustling around him.
It stills, the camera disappearing within the leaves, the children rushing by undisturbed.
I wait for his head to pop back up –he can’t stay down there long – but like a boat submerged in water he sunk beneath the foliage and remains.
______
I drop my father’s urn on the coffee table. How did they managed to fit so much of him into such a tiny confined space? He was a larger than life character, demanding attention, stealing glances and ears, always the biggest personality in the room. It’s different, seeing him so small.
I fix myself a drink and Ashleigh makes her way out of the guest room. Dressed in sweat pants and a t-shirt, those famed red rings remain around her eyes. She spots the urn immediately.
“Martin gave that to me,” I say, plopping down on the couch. “You can have it.”
She cranes her head in my direction, eyes deer-in-the-headlights wide. “You…You don’t want it?”
I shake my head.
She wanders over to the coffee table, feet sinking into the now stained rug. She takes a seat on the floor, crossed legs and arms out as she pulls the urn towards her. She’s speechless, staring at it as if she can hear it whispering to her, my father speaking beyond the grave.
“Thank you,” she says.
I lay back on the couch. “It’s no problem.”
The pair of us fall into silence, my eyes fixed on the smooth white ceiling, Ashleigh focusing on my father’s urn.
Her bottom lip’s pulled between her teeth. She’s been worrying it since the moment we met. I’m surprised she hasn’t broken the skin, a slim purple bruise to decorate the center of her mouth.
Ashleigh’s the daughter my father would’ve wanted. Captivatingly pretty and feminine in all the right ways – docile, sweet, and fixated on his death. Since his funeral she’s spoken more than once about visiting his tombstone, something I have no plan to do. She wants to lay flowers and a mixtape she ordered on the Internet. All of his favorite songs for him to listen to in heaven.
She says “heaven” the way small children do when they first learn about it. With wonder and glee and hope. Hope that someday they’ll too reach the magical place where everything is white and good.
I don’t really believe in heaven (my mother nor my father were particularly religious) but Ashleigh is fooling herself if she truly believes that’s where my father is.
He never respected any of his wives and had no respect for me. I know fucking college-aged girls isn’t exactly a sin but there’s something creepy and ungodly about it. My father surrounded himself with people who
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