how proud I am of you.”
A tear slipped down his cheek.
“I love you, son. I always have.”
He reached toward the camera.
“Goodbye, buddy.”
The screen went black.
I sat motionless before folding forward and crying harder than I had at his funeral.
Eventually, I opened the drawer beneath the mixing desk.
Inside sat a wooden box containing neatly arranged envelopes.
Each was marked with a month and year.
I opened one.
Two hundred-dollar bills and a fifty.
The next contained exactly the same amount.
There were sixty envelopes.
Every $250 rent payment I’d made over five years.
Fifteen thousand dollars.
On top was a handwritten note from Dad.
“You earned every dollar of this. Don’t waste it the way I wasted my chance.”
I pressed the paper against my chest.
For five years, I’d believed Dad was taking away my future, $250 at a time.
All along,
