“Music doesn’t pay the bills. Get a real job.”
“But you played music!”
“And look where it got me.”
On my eighteenth birthday, he handed me a piece of paper.
“Your rent is $250 a month. You’re an adult now.”
I was stunned. I already worked part-time, but now I had to take extra shifts just to afford rent and basic expenses.
At nineteen, I bought a used microphone and recording equipment. I started recording songs in my bedroom until Dad demanded I stop.
“I can’t stand watching you waste your life like I did,” he said.
His words hurt more than I admitted. Eventually, I stopped recording regularly.
By twenty-three, we barely spoke. Every month, I left $250 on the kitchen table, and he took it without a word.
Then, five years after he started charging me rent, Dad died of cancer.
After his funeral, I stood in the hallway staring at his work boots, wishing we’d had one more conversation. Our last exchange had been about a leaking faucet.
