Words Unsaid

"Did I ever meet grandpa?" Charlie asked.

Sam glanced in the rearview mirror at her daughter sitting in the backseat.

"No," she said flatly.

"Why not?"

"Because," she started quickly but then let the word hang in the air. There were a thousand answers to that question, but none of them seemed like the proper one at that moment. "We didn't talk anymore."

"Will you and dad ever stop talking to me?"

Sam gritted her teeth at the question only children would ever ask. "Of course not, sweetie, don't ask things like that."

"But it happened to you."

"It did." She looked in the mirror again and saw the puzzled look on her daughter's face. The strong urge to continue to protect her from a broken world battled with the innate desire to tell her the truth. "What happened between us was an exception, not the rule."

Sam guided the car off the main road into a mostly empty parking lot. The sun was shining, but she knew the air outside was bitingly cold.

"Where are we going?"

"I told you already, we have to talk to the lawyer about grandpa's things."

"How did grandpa die? Was he old?"

He was old, at least to her. Parents always seemed old. But no, he wasn't old in the grand scheme of things. "It was the virus that got him. Because he smoked cigarettes. They are very bad for you. Always remember that."

Charlie took this information in and nodded solemnly. "Is there going to be a funeral?"

Sam put the car in park and inhaled deeply. She was used to the unending stream of questions, but today they were hitting much closer to home than she would like.

"No, there won't be." And that had nothing to do with the pandemic.

She checked the time on the dash. Right on time.

"Mask on," she chirped before pulling hers over her face.

The two of them entered a lobby built for a time when people did this kind of business in person regularly. Today, there was no one here save for a forlorn looking secretary. Charlie stood and looked around at the empty chairs and the bare table that at one point would have held magazines and periodicals for people to browse while they waited for their appointments. There was a black TV in the corner. The air smelled stale.

"Samantha Haines to see Mr. Livingston." This was the moment that the person behind the desk would have flashed a knowing smile but, if that ritual was still being adhered to, it was hidden beneath the confines of a mask.

"Of course, you can go right on ahead. Through the door just there behind me."

"Come on, Charlie," she said, beckoning to the girl.

Mr. Livingston's office held no surprises. His desk dominated the room and was twice as large as any desk had the right to be. There was a computer crowding one end, two phones sat huddled in the center of the desk, and some knickknacks scattered throughout that she was sure held some value to the older gentleman.

Livingston saw them cross the threshold and quickly pulled his own mask up over his mouth, but his eyes betrayed a glowing smile.

"Welcome, welcome, thank you for coming. I am sorry that our meeting is not under more favorable circumstances, but such is the nature of life."

Samantha nodded, not sure what to say. She didn't set this meeting up, and it took everything in her power not to simply ask what she was doing there.

Her father had owned little and less. He lived paycheck to paycheck when he had a job and unemployment check to unemployment check when he didn't. When he qualified for whatever meager social security money he had managed to accrue over a lifetime of spotty work, he had taken it immediately.

His money had flowed out as freely as it flowed in. Odd jobs would crop up, and so would the cigarettes and the booze and the peculiar people that came with it. Her father never had once for a second thought he was doing anything wrong. In health or in wealth, he was a man whose own actions were unquestionable.

In fact, at this point, she was quite sure whatever the lawyer had for her, it was going to be some kind of debt. A score that needed to be settled. Something that he had done in his life that could not be undone with his death.

"Let's just get this over with," she said, sitting down in one of the two chairs presented. Livingston raised an eyebrow. Charlie took the other chair.

"I know that, under our present circumstances, meeting like this in my office is highly unusual, but the nature of your father's request is also a little unusual. He left you some money, but he left it all in cash. It came with strict orders to not be put into a bank or trust of any kind. Does that make sense to you?"

"He didn't believe in banks," she said, shaking her head. "Never did. I see he carried the prejudice with him to the grave."

"As I said, it is an unusual request but not unheard of. Since we had no way of transferring the cash to a financial institution, I have it here with me now. That is why, and again I want to apologize that you had to come down here in person."

Now she was sure that her deceased father had dragged her across town to distribute to her a nicotine stained wad of twenties.

"Well, how much is it then?" she asked, grabbing Charlie's hand as it reached out for a crystal paperweight that was in her reach.

"Twenty thousand dollars," he said.

"Impossible." The word flew out of her mouth before she even knew it was being formed on her tongue.

Livingston's forehead creased. "I know that sums can sometimes be smaller than we expected, but in many cases, we don't always know the real state of our parent's assets until they are gone."

Sam blinked and laughed, adding to the lawyer's confusion. "Twenty grand isn't small. It is entirely too big. Frank Haines didn't have twenty thousand dollars. Most of the time, he didn't have twenty dollars, period. There must be some kind of mistake."

"There is no mistake. I counted it myself. It is all there to the penny. It is a nice round number, actually, which is also strange. But I assure you that amount is correct. I thought that it might mean more to you than it did to me. He did leave a letter with it. May I?"

Sam gave her consent, and the man cleared his throat and began to read.

"To my beautiful daughter. I know that this sum is not much, but it is all I had. I made sure through everything that I at least kept this safe for you. I want Charlie to be able to go to school someplace nice. Maybe, if I had gone to school, my life would not have ended up the way that it had.

I am sure that she is as beautiful and smart as you. It pains me greatly, now, that I never got to see her. That was my mistake, not yours. I know your memories of me are not fond, but maybe this will help. God knows I don't need it anymore.

"For the last time. I love you, and goodnight."

Sam was stunned, and against every grain of willpower she had inside of her, she began to cry softly. Her tears sliding slowly down and catching on her mask, which was getting wetter with each passing second. She had promised that she would not cry for her father when he died, and now the bastard was causing her to break that promise.

"Mom, are you okay?"

Jerkily she reached over and patted Charlie on the leg. "I'm fine, thank you for asking."

Livingston silently handed her a tissue which she gladly took, and dabbed her eyes. "He also left you this."

The lawyer slid a small black notebook across the desk. It was old and weathered but unremarkable. Sam touched the book carefully as though it might be hot to the touch. "Is that everything then?"

"Yes. I have the money in an envelope here." He reached down and pulled out a padded manila envelope and slid that to her as well. She pulled that across to her and looked inside. There were unequal rolls of cash stuffed inside, each rubber-banded, and none of it done professionally. "Like I said, I counted it myself. If you have any concerns."

"I won't."

Carefully she flipped open the black notebook. She had no designs about what it could be.

The first page held tightly scrawling text that had no flow or poise. He had probably been drunk when it was written.

Dear Samantha, I wanted to say I am sorry. I wanted to say that a thousand times but never could.

Her eyes snapped up from the page. She didn't want to read that. Not now. Possibly not ever.

She flipped to another page.

Dear Hey Samantha, I have written this letter a million times, and here I am writing it again. I love you and -

Another page.

Dearest Sam, today I am thinking about Charlie.

Another.

Sam, today was a bad day. I fear I have nothing in my life save regrets.

Another.

I'm sorry.

Another.

Sorry.

Love.

Regret.

Sorry.

Love.

Pain.

Her soul broke inside of her like it had never done before. She flipped all the way to the last page. The notebook was full. Every page filled with letters written to her and her daughter over a span of time she would never know.

She knew in that moment that she had committed some unspeakable crime. It was a crime that she would have to do penance for the rest of her life.

Her father was a broken man, he always had been, but he had always known it. He had tried to build a bridge to her over a chasm that seemed impossibly wide and unknowably deep. He was never going to succeed at that. But she could have made the bridge from the other side and tried to meet him where he was. She had never even picked up the hammer.

That book was worth more than all the money in the world. The envelope in her lap could have held twenty billion dollars, and she would have traded it for the notebook in a heartbeat.

"What is it, mommy?"

"It is a book of letters," she whispered. "And I am going to read them to you, one a day, and you are going to know your grandfather. I promise."

"Is it a good book?"

"It is everything."