My Dad Started Charging Me $250 a Month for My Room When I Turned 18 — Five Years Later, After His Funeral, His Best Friend Handed Me a Box

I looked at Marcus, then at the empty track waiting on the screen.

“What kind of piano?” I asked.

“The kind that has to be moved before tomorrow morning,” she said, and set the silver case on the threshold.

I moved the last rent scraps out of the kitchen drawer.

Some had faded until the ink looked gray.

Others still showed the date and the amount in Frank’s square handwriting.

I put the old scraps in a grocery bag for recycling, then stopped at the one marked “$250 on the first.”

Marcus leaned against the counter.