“Uncle Ali is dead”
The text message I woke up to from Idara. She sent it at 3.55am. I had eight missed calls from her. I must have been knocked out not to hear a single ring. I stared at my phone screen, and it seemed the message was dancing in front of me.
I had to pull myself together. I never expected to wake up to a text like this. Uncle Ali was the relative I had put into the trash can of my mind. He was one person I never wanted to see again on this side of eternity, and probably the next. He was my mom’s younger brother. He was single and wealthy. He was the only male child in the family with three other sisters. My mom was the oldest, Idara’s mom Claudette, and then Uncle Ali, short for Allison. I can’t for the life of me understand why my grandparents named him Allison, but it stuck. Aunty Lilian was the last of them. She got married and moved to New Zealand. She was the one who stayed away from the family drama.
Uncle Allisson was a self-made millionaire. He was obsessed with making money from a very young age. It scared my grandparents, because…
