just give me a bed; she gave me a reason to stay sober, reminding me daily that while people are fickle, “paper remembers the truth.”
After her passing, I hadn’t disappeared into a haze of substance abuse as they claimed. I had retreated into the solitude of hard work, pulling double shifts at a warehouse in Seattle. I wasn’t running away; I was quietly paying the back taxes and legal fees to secure the property she had secretly deeded to me before her final breath.
Ashley hadn’t wasted any time.
