MY DAD STARTED CHARGING ME $250 A MONTH IN RENT THE DAY I TURNED 18. FIVE YEARS LATER, AFTER HIS FUNERAL, HIS BEST FRIEND HANDED ME A TAPED-UP BOX AND SAID, “HE WANTED YOU TO OPEN THIS ONLY AFTER HE WAS GONE.”
My dad started charging me $250 a month for my room the day I turned eighteen.
For five years I hated him a little for it.
Then he died, and after the funeral his best friend handed me a box sealed with packing tape and said my father had wanted me to open it only once he was gone.
I opened it expecting an insult.
What was inside dropped me into my father’s chair and broke something open in me that is still, to this day, not fully healed.
Chapter 1: Two Hundred Fifty Dollars
My mom died when I was nine.
After that, it was just me and Dad in a quiet house that never quite warmed up again.
Dad worked long shifts. He kept food in the fridge. He signed my school forms on time.
But he never seemed to care how my day had been.
“Can I get new shoes? These let water in,” I asked him once, holding up a sneaker with the sole peeling off.
“Put on another pair of socks,” he said, not looking up from the table.
I had a father. I just never felt like I had a dad.
On my eighteenth birthday, he slid a scrap of paper across the kitchen table.
On it was written a number.
“Pay me two hundred fifty dollars for your room,” he said. “On the first of every month.”
“You’re charging your own son rent?” I was stunned.
“You’re an adult now.”
I waited for him to laugh. To say he was kidding.
He didn’t.
Dad genuinely expected that $250 on the first of every month, and he got it.
I stocked shelves at a grocery store. I chipped in for groceries. I tried to save enough to move out and never look back.
But then my car would need a brake job.
Or my hours would get cut.
Another month. Another $250.
