Page 6 of Trailer Park Billionaire (Distinguished Billionaires #3)

“Okay.” She puts something on the bedside table. “This is my personal number. You need anything, you call. Day or night, alright?”

“Right,” I answer absentmindedly as Sienna leaves the room and closes the door behind her.

Slowly, I regain control over my senses.

I’m burning up.

I close my eyes and try to focus on my breathing.

There’s nothing but black.

Just darkness.

I don’t see any paintings before my eyes.

I don’t see anything.

I take another jagged breath, trying to steady myself.

After a while, I open my eyes back up and look around.

Not an inch of wallpaper is visible anywhere.

Instead, every surface is covered in art.

Mostly paintings by artists my grandpa admires…

admired. Some are his own paintings that he kept hanging to see if they were finished yet.

And then there’s probably every single painting I ever made for him.

My first ‘abstract’ painting, as he called it, from when I was one year old.

A weird drawing of what appears to be a four-legged potato, which he always claimed ‘really makes you think’ .

A painting on a single sheet of paper that I gave to him when he went to prison—because that was all he was allowed to take with him.

It almost feels like a museum in here. It’s just as quiet, too. The kind of quiet that feels like being submerged underwater—deep, thick, weighing heavy on your chest. The kind that crushes you underneath the stillness of it all.

I wipe some tears off my face, and drag in a short breath, then another. When I open my eyes, I stare straight at a blurry pair of tits. Not the avian kind, either. It’s a tiny canvas hanging next to his bed. On any other day, it would probably have made me laugh. Today it leaves me cold.

Which is ironic, I think and take his hand back into mine. It’s still warm.

They’re old and sagging.

I look at the dead body next to me.

Old and sagging too.

It still doesn’t look peaceful.

Am I supposed to say something in a situation like this?

Maybe I should. On the off-chance that he’s still here. Still listening.

I swallow another lump in my throat. “Thank you,” I croak, while more tears drop to the ground, “for being a great grandpa.”

I sit there for a couple of minutes, just staring at him and the art around us.

Then I get up and do the only thing that is left to do: our birthday mug portraits.

I grab an easel and a canvas and set it up next to the bed.

There’s some willow charcoal on his desk, which I use to start drawing.

The obligatory height marker.

Him next to it.

Him not looking peaceful.

It takes about an hour, and it looks…

how I feel.

“Well… fuck,” I say, staring at the sad drawing and then at my grandpa. “This sucks.”

He doesn’t respond.

“I blame you.”

Still nothing.

“Guess I’ll have the last word from now on, huh?”

Nothing.

Bright colors, I think. This calls for bright colors. He would have wanted bright colors.

“This might be the worst birthday we’ve had so far. Although the one where you got stabbed is probably a close second.”

Dada stays dead with what I assume is silent approval when I dig out his set of neon acrylics from the desk drawer.

“Then there were all those birthdays I had to visit you in prison. Those weren’t all that great either. Or those where you had to visit me. Not much better.”

I add a colorful party hat and one of those party horns in his mouth. In the painting, it’s being blown one last time. From where I’m standing, it’s pointing straight at the tits on the wall.

He would have liked that.

When I’m done, I clean the brushes, put them away, and eventually look at the finished painting on the easel.

It’s a good painting.

He really would have liked it.

The black, the splashes of color.

It’s whimsical.

Tragic.

I sigh.

Then I put my fist through the canvas.

The easel falls over. The painting goes flying and lands on my grandpa.

“You don’t give a shit anymore, do you?”

I look at him as the tears refuse to roll down my face, and anger keeps building in my belly.

Then I place one last kiss on his forehead and leave.

Down in the lobby, Sienna, Robyn, and Paul are waiting for me. Sienna asks if she can take me home, but I brush her off. A walk will do me good right now. So I head past them and out the doors. The rain from earlier, that had turned to hail, is now thick, wet snow. The cold is a relief.

I start walking briskly, with no place in particular in mind. I just walk. And walk. And walk. Until I run into a group of people coming out of a restaurant.

The party.

I forgot about the birthday party.

It’s 8:10 PM now. My grandpa’s friends were expecting us ten minutes ago.

I could call them, but this feels like an in-person sort of news. So I head in the direction of the bar that they’re gathered in. It’s maybe another ten minutes by foot from where I am.

The snow is blowing from behind, so I make it in seven.

When I throw open the door, all heads turn to me and, instinctively, everyone starts cheering.

At least until they notice that the birthday grandpa isn’t here.

The heavy door creaks shut behind me. My clothes are drenched, as is the hair clinging to my face.

Before anyone can ask, I begin to speak. “Thank you, everyone, for coming.” I look around. They’re all here. All his friends. “I don’t really know how to say this…”

The expression on my grandpa’s face appears before my eyes.

Not peaceful.

“So I guess I’ll just say it. Uh, Ed passed away earlier today.

” Everyone goes even more quiet immediately.

Only the jazz music keeps blaring softly from the speakers in the background.

“Heart attack. Didn’t suffer.” I omit the amount of suffering and look around.

Everyone seems stunned. Of course they are.

“The tab is paid for. So please have a drink on me.” I discover Arthur Chokane, my grandpa’s old cellmate, who is standing closest to me.

“Oh, hey, Artie the murderer.” All eyes shoot to him.

“In the game. He would have been the murderer in the game,” I clarify. “Anyway, end of announcement, I guess.”

Artie steps up to me with that look people wear when someone close to you just died. I know the look. I remember it well.

“I am so, so sorry, Helena,” he says the only thing you’re allowed to say in a situation like this, a bottle of absinthe still in his hand.

“Well, you didn’t kill him,” I reply, and reach for the alcohol. Then I turn around and head back into the cold.

Besides, he didn’t suffer much.

The cork comes off with a loud plop, and the liquid burns its way down my throat. At least, it should. I can’t even feel it anymore. I can’t feel anything.

I cross through a park, my breath rising in small, frantic clouds as my thoughts tumble over each other.

I think about the empty chair in front of the easel.

I think about the years he lost in prison.

I think about the unfinished canvases. I think about the people who had put him there.

I think about his face. Pained. About their smug smiles.

My chest tightens. I squeeze the bottle in my hand, then I take another big swig.

It’s all so goddamn unfair. Life. Death. Everything.

I roam around aimlessly until eventually I end up where I had to end up: a gallery.

Not just any gallery.

The gallery.

The gallery that is owned by the people who put both of us behind bars.

The St. Clairs.

Standing in the street, snow swirling around me, I squint at the displayed paintings, trying to make out the artist. They look old.

I wonder how much they’re charging. Whether the amount for one painting could make up for all the years my grandpa lost. All the years I lost. All the time we lost together.

Another swig and the bottle in my hand is empty. The cork goes back on with a short screech.

His pained face flashes before my eyes again.

Then the bottle goes flying through the window.