“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, in his stubborn and deeply misguided way, he’d been trying to give it back.

I looked toward the dark computer screen.

“Thanks, Dad,” I whispered. “I just wish you’d told me while you were here.”