The Estate

Chapter 1

The stretch of highway was bleak and black. An endless streak of tarmac, racing forever beyond the reach of my headlights. It was just before dawn, the darkest time of night, and I wasn't sure what lay ahead. Dad always liked to drive at night. Less cars, less hassle. He enjoyed the endless highway, the silent lull of a lonely engine, just us, alone in the world. Like him, I traveled by night. I booked red-eye flights, and midnight trains, waking up dry mouthed and neck sore, squinting against the light. Like Dad, I bore a heavy foot, and night driving was well suited for it. The rental car I picked up outside of Manhattan was a newer model and flew across the slick tar, weightless and humming.

You can still turn back. You can still go home, I kept telling myself to keep me going, like a silent Get Out Of Jail Free card, sitting smuggly in the pit of my stomach. But I wasn't ready to quit just yet.

I hadn't seen my father since the day he boarded the Breezy Escape and waved to me from the boat deck with a sharp two fingered salute. Five eleven, blue shirt, shark logo baseball cap, short hair, dark brown skin. I was fourteen when I helped Mom type up the missing person fliers. The police weren't helping any. To them, he was just another dead beat dad, skipping out on his family without a care in the world. But I knew better. And back then Mom knew better, until she started to believe it too. Doubt does terrible things to people, even the strong ones. It starts like a hairline fracture, paper thin and invisible. But slowly, over time, the weight gets heavy, and the foundation begins to splinter and crack, until one day everything shatters into a million little pieces.

I opened the window an inch and lit a cigarette. I hadn't smoked since the day I turned thirty. That was back when I thought I had my life under control. I was engaged to be married to a man I loved. I lived for my work and the children who came racing into my classroom each day. Smoking seemed like a smear against the perfect life I had created. I quit cold turkey and tossed my last pack in the bin. Being drunk off happiness makes you do stupid things. I remembered this three hours earlier, tearing apart my room in search of a forgotten cigarette, just one, please God, something to calm my nerves and help me think straight. I cursed my younger self, so sure and self righteous, as I ran through the rain to the bodega to buy a pack, flip flops hard on the pavement, feeling shameful and skittish like a fiend begging for his last fix. When I closed my eyes, cracking open the box for that small taste of indulgence, I let the tears fall, hot and heavy down my cheeks, dripping to the tip of my chin until I wiped them away angrily. Even the crisp smell of tobacco and mint sent a fast rush to the head- a neurological jolt of pleasure, and I soon was clear headed again, ready to face the storm.

"Is this Michelea Blackston?" the voice on the other end of the phone had said.

Michelea. No one called me that. Everybody called me Mickie. It's never good news when someone calls you by your government name, Grams used to say. For once in her life, she was right. I wish I ended the call right there. Then I wouldn't be staring into the flesh pink of dawn on an empty highway, chasing down hope at ninety miles per hour, with fear coming up fast behind me.

"My name's Franklin Dardon. I'm the executor for Susanne Davison's estate," the caller said. He had a New England accent and sounded small and far away. "We haven't been able to reach you. Have you received our letters?"

I was sitting in my friend Brianna's apartment in Harlem, sorting through the remains of my life, now reduced to piles at my feet. Ten years in New York City were neatly packed in boxes and suitcases, the rest left to the scavengers on the block. It was two weeks since Jared kicked me out. Or more aptly, two weeks since I packed my things and left our Brooklyn home in a sobbing, hysterical mess. It was a beautiful spring morning, and the buds were finally opening up on the trees, yet that day felt like the darkest in my life. When I showed up at Brianna's door begging for a place to stay, my oldest college friend just smiled and let me inside. She didn't ask questions, just offered me coffee or wine. I chose the latter.