Too little, too late [Pt. 5] Asher Hill sighed as he shifted through the contents of the latest shoebox to cross his path. Going through his recently deceased mother’s belongings was hardly an ideal way to spend an afternoon, but it was something that needed to be done, and putting it off any longer - he’d kept her house in perfect status over the last three months - was not going to bring her back to him. He was an adult (twenty three years old, to be exact) and needed to act like it.
He sat the whole box in the “keep” pile: it was full of photographs of his mother’s childhood, stationary images of his Muggle family members. Then he turned his attention to an equally old-looking box, having to blow dust off the top to even feel comfortable touching the lid. This one was full of old newspaper clippings. Asher sat it in the “keep” pile as well. He noted for a moment how large that pile had become. Actually, it was sort of the only pile. He sighed again. He would have go through them all again and be more thorough. He was probably going to have to sell this house, and all of his mother’s belongings would not fit at his place.
Asher’s attention was caught by the next box, which seemed… strangely out of place. For one thing, the box was far nicer than the mildew-coated shoeboxes that came before it. And the dust on it was easily the thinnest he’d seen, and not quite layers like the rest, more like puffs, as if they had fallen off the other boxes as opposed to collecting there naturally. The blond opened the strange, intricate box slowly.
Draped atop the rest of the contents, mostly mementos of his early childhood, was a folded piece of notebook paper with his name on it. Asher swallowed. It was his mother’s handwriting. Shaking fingers unfurled the page. With firm deliberation and a knot in his stomach, he began to read.
It was everything his mother had never told him. The story of meeting his father, the circumstances of his absence. He was the product of a short-lived affair, terminated when his mother had decided she could no longer live with herself as “the other woman” in his life. She had found out after their conclusion that she was pregnant, and by then, she did not know how to contact him.
There was a name: Ross Manger.
Asher stood up, scratching his head with his free hand. Where had he heard that name before? He had to walk away to think, so he went downstairs and sat at the kitchen counter. His eyes fell upon the newspaper he’d left there the day before, and all at once, he remembered; he tore through the paper to the obituaries and was displeased to discover his hunch was right. He had seen the name Ross Manger before. The man was dead.
He shoved his mother’s letter unceremoniously into his pocket, not bothering to refold his mother’s careful creases, rather letting it fold now as it crunched by his leg. The paper listed calling hours and a service three days off. Asher stared long and hard at the description of the man it gave. He would have to find his suit.