I walked away from my dad’s will reading with what my stepbrother believed was the least valuable inheritance. Looking back now, I realize that was exactly what my dad wanted us all to think.
The soft hum of the aquarium filter was the only sound in my dad, Daryl’s, study that afternoon. He sat in his worn leather chair, a wool blanket over his knees, watching a small yellow tang weave between the coral.
I sat beside him, 30 years old and still feeling like the little girl who used to press her nose against that same glass.
“They know you’re watching, you know,” I said.
He smiled without looking away.
“They know everything, Danielle. Fish are smarter than people give them credit for.”
“They know you’re watching.”
I laughed quietly, though my chest ached.
Dad had lost weight again. His hands, once steady enough to handle delicate specimens through hours of lab work, trembled when he reached for his tea.
I thought of my mother, Candice, sometimes on afternoons like that. She’d died when I was five, and for a long time, it had just been the two of us. Then came Sally and her son, Billy, because Dad wanted me to have a family again.
Dad had lost weight again.
My stepmother and my stepbrother became part of our lives, and we all pretended we were a family.
We never truly felt like one family.
***
Sally had married my father a few years after my mother passed away. From the beginning, I felt she was more interested in his successful career than in him.
He was a highly respected marine biologist, and to her, that title came with a price tag.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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