Read The Inheritance (Volume Two) for Free Online Page B

, a record my roommate in college blared every Saturday night. I can’t imagine my father, the uptight, cigar smoking, jazz fan, dancing along to Moonage Daydream but Ashleigh insists it was one of his favorite songs.
    She dances alone, her eyes close as she moves to the moderate tempo. She spins in a slow circle, sways her hips from side to side. As the song approaches the bridge, she reaches for an invisible man, fingers curling around his shoulders before they slip through the air.
    She stops dancing and her eyes pop open, the realization growing in her mind. That’s right, Julian’s dead .
    Ashleigh hangs her head, her chin inches away from her chest as Chris pops up from the couch. “That’s enough of this,” he says, changing the song.
    Starman plays and Neal’s at my side, handing me a glass of bourbon. We sip our drinks as Chris dances circles around Ashleigh, flailing his arms, kicking out his legs, dangerously off-beat. He moves to make her laugh, the faint tears pricking the corners of her eyes disappearing as a bubble of laughter grows in her throat. She moves with him, her shoulder shimmying before they’re dancing together. One step to the left, the other to the right, Chris’s hand on her back as they move in-tandem.
    Neal clinks his glass against mine. “Why don’t you show me the rest of the place?”
    My lips spread across the mouth of my glass. “Don’t act like you haven’t been here before the repass.”
    Neal smiles. “I have. But I’ve never been past the living room.”
    “Are you lying to me?”
    He takes a drink. “Not at this moment. No.”
    My father’s bedroom is on the right side of the condo. Neal walks beside me as we wander down the hall, sloshing ice cubes in our glass as we pass pieces of art that weren’t here the last time I stayed with my father. Large canvas prints with random splashes of paint – neon green, bright pink, the blackest of black – young and modern pieces that must be Ashleigh’s doing.
    His bedroom door is closed, a thick black line hovering beneath it.
    “That’s my father’s room,” I say, taking a drink.
    Neal’s fingers curl around the knob.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Going in your father’s room.”
    “Don’t,” I pull his hand away. “I’m not…” I’m not allowed in there, but is it still true when there’s no one to stop me?
    It takes a moment for me to step away from the door, my fingers pressing into my sweating glass, almost trembling at the thought of going inside. I’m not ready for that. Not now.
    There’s a linen closet full of towels and toiletries, a guest bathroom that smells of bleach and a tiny room that was once used for an office. We walk through the living room, glancing at Ashleigh and Chris who remain dancing, to the other side of the condo where my bedroom sits at the end of the hall.
    I haven’t been in this room for years. As far as I know, it’s no longer my bedroom but a workout room for Ashleigh, or the place my father stored all his files. A new office. A bigger one with a view and the stench of his daughter.
    “This was my bedroom,” I say, pushing open the door.
    Neal follows close behind, the tips of his shoes slamming against my heels when I abruptly stop. A light burn brews in my chest – a dangerous, tightening feeling – the bristling feeling of shock, crackling in my chest like fireworks.
    My father’s kept my bedroom exactly the same as I left it. My lime green sheets are still a mess atop my bed, a ball of linens I never bothered to fold. My desk in the corner carries the weight of my high school reading assignments – The Great Gatsby , Frankenstein , Hamlet – and my mug full of pencils and pens, an old stick of gum Suzanne stole from the Walgreens, a grinning picture of the two of us in Millennium Park.
    My stomach clenches when I open the drawer and find all the poems and letters Justin wrote for me, folded neatly atop cheap but romantic gifts: A teddy bear cradling a heart,