Daily Flash Fiction Challenge

“You’re that Greek family’s kid?” Mort Gainey says. “Andropolis. Yep! Never forget a name.”

“I go by Andrews.” I say. “Nick Andrews.”

“Don’t blame ya.” He rings up my groceries. “Looks like you plan to stay a while.”

“Just until I get their affairs in order.”

“Can’t really say I knew them, just from when they shopped here, you know.”

I left Mercer Falls twenty years ago because of people like Mort Gainey. We were the only Greek family in town and made to feel unwelcome. Even so, my dad became a successful entrepreneur and wanted me to join him in the baklava baking business, but I couldn’t stay in Mercer Falls. I needed to find my way in the world, not be stifled by a small, petty town and the people in it.

And now my parents are gone, within a month of each other—before we had a chance to reconnect.

I’m back for the reading of the will. My father went first, then my mother, two months later. The assets include two houses and contents, three cars, and a substantial portfolio of securities. Since I’m the only child, I will be an extremely wealthy man when I leave Mercer Falls.

The room spins as the lawyer reads my mother’s will. “And, since Nicholas changed his name to Andrews, left town without a goodbye, and hasn’t had any contact since that time, not even to attend his father’s funeral, I, Dorthia Andropolis bequeath to him my…”

I hold my breath.

“…and everything else goes to my devoted niece, Bethania Andropolis.”

So, now, I’m on my way out of town in my mother’s 1976 Chevette, my inheritance. I give the middle finger to Mort Gainey as I pass Gainey’s Grocery, and leave Mercer Falls in my dust.