You inherit a lighthouse

'The only thing you inherit from me are my leather slippers,' my father said. 'I started with nothing, so you can too.' The last thing I want from him are those slippers! Every year he received a new pair, with which he did not hesitate to deliver a good beating, whether or not on my mother's orders.

The interesting thing is that he didn't start with nothing. He married a millionaire's daughter, and when he no longer needed her, he traded her in for a coal miner's wife. When she had had enough of him, he moved on to another woman who owned real estate. I have no idea what they saw in him, for he was definitely a womaniser, certainly not the rock you can build on, but rather a man of empty promises, taking advantage of others and seeing himself as the centre of the universe. He would proudly tell how women did everything for him; even when he was at school or in the Japanese internment camp, people fell for his charms. There was nothing to be proud of, let alone the many he abused for his own gain and the traces he left behind.

Fortunately, he is dead, and frankly, the man who once stood on a pedestal with me as a small child fell hard from it. Small children may be loyal for a while, but they are certainly not blind.

Is there anything left to inherit, except for those slippers with which he beat children from the first family black and blue, while those from the second family actually hit the parents? That would certainly have been an interesting study for The Nanny.

Not on my father's side, and that is excellent. I shudder at the thought of being saddled with a tangible reminder of a selfish, emotionless person. And as for my mother: she has, in all likelihood, sold the properties long ago. Being a landlord isn't that much fun. You constantly have to pump money into it and listen to a lot of moaning. The average tenant is also far from careful with other people's belongings, let alone hygiene.

Besides apartments, houses, shops, and factories, there was no lighthouse among my grandfather's possessions. A pity, because I would have loved to live in one, or in a windmill. The latter seems incredibly practical to me, especially in times of energy scarcity. So, there will never be a letter from a solicitor stating, 'You inherit a lighthouse.' Nor any other letter, because I have a secret address.

_{13-3-2026
Prompt: see title
source photo}