The first line said, “Your father knew he was dying six months before anybody else did.”
I just stared at it for a minute because my dad collapsed at work. That’s what everybody always said happened. Massive heart attack. No warning.
But inside the envelope were appointment records from a cancer clinic two counties over. My stepmom had driven him to most of them herself. There were receipts for motel rooms near the hospital and pharmacy printouts with his name on them.
Apparently he refused treatment after a certain point because the insurance deductible would’ve wiped them out financially.
That part hurt enough already.
But then I got to the photos.
My dad had been selling things for months before he died. His fishing boat. His tools. Even his Mustang. I always thought my stepmom forced him to do it because she liked money. That’s what my aunt told everybody back then.
Turns out he was quietly paying off my student loans before I even graduated high school.
The reason my stepmom left the day after the funeral wasn’t because she didn’t care.
She was already three months behind on the mortgage and my father’s family had started threatening to contest everything before he was even buried.
Her son finally told me she cried so hard after leaving our house that she had to pull over twice on the interstate because she couldn’t see the road.