I’d already been working part-time, but I started taking extra shifts stocking shelves at a grocery store. Between rent, groceries, gas, and my own expenses, there was barely anything left.
Whenever I managed to save a little, something went wrong. My car needed repairs, my hours got cut, or my work shoes started falling apart.
Meanwhile, Dad occasionally came home with beer or new fishing gear.
“Work hard enough.”
“Must be nice having money for hobbies,” I muttered once.
He heard me.
“Work hard enough, and you will too.”
At nineteen, I finally scraped together enough for a used microphone and audio interface. I spent my evenings recording songs in my bedroom, hanging blankets on the walls to improve the sound.
“I’m almost finished.”
One night, Dad appeared in my doorway.
“Turn that racket down. I’ve got work tomorrow.”
“I’m almost finished.”
“I said turn it down.”
I pulled off my headphones.
“You couldn’t stand seeing me do something I actually love, could you?”
“I said turn it down.”
“I can’t stand watching you waste your life like I did.”
That argument ended with me slamming my bedroom door so hard a picture fell off the wall.
Eventually, I stopped recording regularly. My guitar spent more time in its case, though I still played when Dad wasn’t home.
His best friend, Frank, visited occasionally. Sometimes they left together carrying tools or old equipment. I assumed they were fixing something in Frank’s garage.
He never said anything.
By twenty-three, Dad and I barely spoke.
We passed each other in the hallway like strangers, and every month, I left $250 on the kitchen table.
Sometimes I would catch him looking at me. He never said anything.
Five years after Dad started charging me rent, he died of cancer.
Someone knocked on the door.
I’d spent years imagining how peaceful the house would feel without him. But after the funeral, I stood in the hallway staring at his work boots by the door, unable to put them away.
We’d barely spoken during his final week. Our last conversation had been about a leaking kitchen faucet.
Now there would never be another one.
That evening, someone knocked on the door.
“Your dad left this.”
It was Frank, Dad’s oldest friend. He was holding a cardboard box sealed with packing tape.
“Your dad left this with me.”
He set it on the kitchen table.
“He wanted you to open this only after he was gone.”
I let out a bitter laugh.
Frank didn’t smile.
“What, did he save every dollar of rent I paid him?”
Frank didn’t smile.
“I wouldn’t make any guesses until you see what’s inside.”
I tore through the tape and lifted the flaps.
At first, I thought he’d brought the wrong box.
I tore through the tape.
Inside was an old leather vest covered in band patches, backstage passes, guitar picks, and photographs of Dad performing onstage.
Then I found a picture of Mom.
She was standing beside Dad, smiling up at him as he played his guitar. He was smiling back, looking happier than I’d seen him in fourteen years.
I remembered those evenings in our living room, before everything changed.
A key lay beneath the vest.
I sank into Dad’s chair, sobbing so hard that Frank had to hold me upright.
He stayed until I calmed down, then quietly left.
As I put the photographs back, something metallic caught my eye.
A key lay beneath the vest, attached to a small tag with an unfamiliar address.
I grabbed my jacket.
I turned it over, hoping to find an explanation.
Nothing.
I searched the box again, but there was no note.
I grabbed my jacket and car keys.
The address took me to the outskirts of town, past a row of warehouses and an abandoned gas station.
I whispered.
I’d lived in this town my entire life, yet I couldn’t remember ever coming here.
I checked the address on the tag again. It matched.
“What were you doing out here, Dad?” I whispered.
I walked around the building, looking for some indication of what it was used for. There was no business sign, no cars, and nothing visible through the windows.
