Kremer De La Espriella Gabriel Jacoboh, Heritage Story

HERITAGE STORY

Inspired By “The Breaking Bad” Drama Series

Written By Gabriel Jacoboh Kremer De La Espriella

Ihad never sat to think about all that had happened. Only five years ago, we were a simple and humble family, and although we didn’t have money, we were happy. Now that I think about it, I never noticed how suddenly things changed and how everything fell apart in the blink of an eye. That morning I turned on the TV as usual, and it was then when I saw the news, which had a large header reading “Walter White found dead inside a meth lab.” As I experienced a sense of relief, the reporter said: “The drug Kingpin once known throughout the South-West as Heisenberg may yet claim a final victim...” I immediately turned the TV off, not believing that he was able to cause pain even after his death.

Three years had been gone since that day, the day when our new lives finally began. By that time I was studying Mechanical Engineering at the University of New Mexico, and also worked casually as an Uber driver to make some extra money. My mother had become more stable and still owned the car wash station, which was our most significant income source. As for Aunt Marie, she was still grieving Uncle Hank and felt resentment towards my mother for being an accomplice to Walter. She had become very distant to my mother, making sure she was not at home when coming to visit Holly and me.

Unfortunately, things as good as they were didn’t last very long. That day I was at the University, 8:00 in the morning, chemistry class, specifically the class I hated the most, but not because I was terrible at it, but because it reminded me of Walter. Then in the middle of the course, I received a message from my mother saying that Holly was feeling sick, and they had gone to the hospital. I wasn’t anxious about it, so I said I would go after class. As soon as the last hour finished, I went to the hospital, but mom and Holly had already left. When I

arrived home, Holly was sleeping, and mom was sitting in the living room.

“W-what’s wrong with her mom?” I asked as fluently as I could.

Speaking fluently with cerebral palsy is difficult, but I did my best.

“She is fine, Flynn,” mom answered. “Doctors said she might have a tiny intoxication.”

After that, we didn’t really give it too much attention, but Holly wasn’t getting any better and showed illness symptoms even one week later. When Aunt Marie came to visit us, Holly was still sick and we decided to take her to the hospital again. I called mom to inform her, and she rushed to the hospital. The encounter between her and Aunt Marie was very awkward, as they hadn’t seen each other in about six months. When we spoke to the doctor, he said that they weren’t able to find anything, and still don’t know what is wrong with Holly.

For the next few days, my mother was so distraught, even more than I thought she should. I couldn’t understand what it was that tormented her, as what Holly had seemed to be just flu. At one point, I wasn’t able to hold the intrigue and decided to ask what was worrying her so much. It was then when she told me what was going on. Apparently, Walter’s mother suffered from hereditary cancer, and she feared that there might be a possibility that Holly was born with a damaged gene mutation that she inherited from her father.

At first, the idea sounded ridiculous to me, mainly because I know cancer is a genetic mutation inside the organism, and therefore it’s not something that can be carried genetically. So the idea that it could be inherited seemed illogical to me. Nevertheless, explaining this to my mother didn’t comfort her that much.

I felt very convinced with my theory, or at least I wanted to, but knowing I’m not a geneticist, I decided to do some research about it. I turned my laptop on, opened Google, and typed: “is cancer hereditary?”. I looked at several different results and sources, which most agreed with the same idea. it said;

“Cancer itself is not hereditary, but there is a specific damaged gene that could be inherited from parents, which can increase the possibilities of cancer. This particular case is called hereditary cancer. I suddenly felt overwhelmed, but there was nothing I could do about it, but to expect to be wrong.

The next day when I was going to University, I received a call from my mother saying that the doctors had made a discovery and she wanted me to be there. I called to inform her I would be absent and turned towards the hospital, in the waiting room where my mother and the doctor were sitting, waiting for me. As soon as I sat down, the doctor began speaking.

“We have been running tests on your daughter for the last few days. Yesterday night we found a damaged gene in her DNA, which is most likely hereditary.”

Upon hearing this, I felt as if my heart stopped, and the sole idea of losing my sister just the same way I lost my father was unbearable. Before he was able to finish, I interrupted him.

“H-holly has cancer mom. Sh-she has hereditary cancer.” I said.

The look in mom’s face was indescribable. I could see her eyes getting wet. “What do you mean?” She answered while crying. “My baby can’t have cancer.”

Tears kept running through her face, and as she fell to the floor, it looked as if she was dying.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. White,” the doctor said in a warm voice. “We’ll do the best we can to help her.”

The doctor continued to explain that her cancer was in a manageable stage and hadn’t developed into a critical situation. Nevertheless, the cost of the treatment was beyond our income, and there was no way we could afford it.

I was willing to quit University without hesitation and work as much as I could, but my mother opposed it, saying I needed to finish my career. She proposed to sell as many things as we could, from the furniture to both cars, but after doing the math we learned that it wouldn’t be enough to cover the cost for the whole treatment.

Things didn’t get better after that. Mom had a mental breakdown and remained in shock, neither speaking nor eating. However, I still had to go to University and work as much as possible, and I couldn’t look after mom all day which forced me to send her to aunt Marie’s house. At first, she was reluctant, but when she got to see mom in her weak condition she agreed. One less worry for me.

I spent a lot of time thinking about ways of getting money, but none of them were remotely enough to cover Holly’s treatment. It was then when I remembered something, something related to Walter. He had left me an inheritance, a considerable inheritance; 9.72 million dollars to be exact. I didn’t want it to come down to this, as I felt dirty even to consider claiming that money, but if I wanted to save my sister it was the only choice.

I tried contacting Elliot and Gretchen directly, but neither of them answered. I also tried to contact them through their company, but every time I said my name the other person at the line would hang up. In the end, I decided to personally go to their house in Santa Fe, as the situation was very critical and we couldn’t wait for them to answer.

Locating their home was easier than I thought, not only because everyone knew where they lived but because it stood out from the rest of the houses. I rang the doorbell, and after a few seconds, Gretchen Schwartz opened the door. She let out a giant scream as soon as she saw me and immediately ran in the opposite direction calling for her husband. Elliot came down the stairs, and his face morphed as soon as he saw me. “We haven’t done anything,” said Gretchen while crying.

“Don’t kill us, Walter…” said Elliot as he held Gretchen in his arms. “...please”.

I didn’t understand what was going on, or why would they be afraid of me. I was also kind of irritated to be called Walter, my father’s name, but for this time, I bore it.

After calming them down for a while, I explained the whole situation to the Schwartzs, who were both very shocked about it and kept giving each other odd looks. Elliott went upstairs to look for a key that opened the door to a secret vault. They asked me to wait, as that vault had other personal things from them which they preferred to keep private, so I just sat down and waited. About 15 minutes later they came back upstairs with several bags, all of them full of money. Gretchen asked if I wanted to check if it was all there, but I blindly trusted them and didn’t count it. Terrible mistake.

Having claimed the money and feeling as if Holly had already fought cancer, I was ready to leave. Elliott and Gretchen helped me carry the bags to the car and put them in the luggage. I got inside the car and said goodbye to them, but then Elliott pointed out that I had a low tire pressure and offered to help me fix it. I left the car, and Gretchen went inside the house. Nevertheless, the tire was in perfect condition, and it was a plan to have a word with me alone. Elliott took out a small paper envelope and said it was a letter. He handed me the letter, and the cover said: “From Walter White.” My heart

pumped faster when I read that name. Elliott said Walter had given it to him in secret and asked him to hand it to me whenever I came to claim the money. I shook hands with Elliott and got back into the car again.

I hesitated to open the envelope. In the end, Walter did us more harm than good, having been a remarkably absent father and husband throughout his last few years with us. Regardless of that, I decided to open it and read it.

“Hello Junior,

If you are reading this letter it’s because you have decided to see Elliott and Gretchen to claim what is yours. Now, son, I am sure that you hate me for all I have done, but bear in mind that my intentions were not always bad. I wanted to help the family, to leave you with something before I died. As a man once told me, “a man must provide for his family.” Aside from my selfish actions, I want to make it clear that I love you, your mother, and Holly with all my heart, and for whatever irreversible damage I may have caused you, I’m sorry. Remember that this money is meant for your University, and whatever is left can be used to sustain the family. However, I’m obliged to give you a warning. Use this money wisely and never become ambitious enough to try and do what I did. The drug business world is a dangerous one, so stay away from it.

Love you, W.W”

I didn’t know how to feel about it. For the last three years, I endured a profound feeling of hatred towards Walter, but the letter had somehow managed to soften me. The image of a selfish monster I had of him began slowly fading. Anyways, it wasn’t the time to be sentimental, so I turned on the car and left.

The ride was an hour-long from Santa Fe to Albuquerque, but it was enough time to make my mind spin around. As I traveled down the road, I began having memories, and no matter how hard I tried to stop them, I couldn’t. I remembered

Walter’s 50 th birthday, a very joyful day in which all the family and friends were together. Another memory that came to my mind was when he bought me my first car, a red 2009 Dodge Challenger SRT-8, along with his Chrysler 300 SRT-8. The final moment I remembered was when I opened up my website: “http://www.savewalterwhite.com/,” and the strong desire I had to help him with his disease.

I was about 10 minutes away from Albuquerque, and my head was spinning all around which was making me go mad, so I decided to stop on a payphone. I know it was a very odd thing to do, but I just felt like I had to. I grabbed the payphone, put some coins on it, and typed the last phone number Walter had called me from before he passed away. I didn’t expect anything to happen, but to my surprise, someone picked up on the other side.

“Yo,” the person, on the other hand, said, “who’s this?” “F-Flynn,” I said. “Flynn White.” “White? Are you Mr. Whites’ son?” He said. “Y-yes. Who’s this?” I asked. “Jesse Pinkman.” He answered.

I remembered that name from somewhere, but I couldn’t figure it out. I asked him how he knew Walter, which he affirmed, claiming to be his former associate. His response rang some bells in my head, and I recalled the day he was found dead, and that the news spoke about how Heisenberg’s associate had escaped. They had most likely already stopped looking for him, and in fact, he had already settled in Alaska.

He sounded like he needed someone to talk to, So I carried on asking more about Walter as much as I could, from how it all began to where it ended. In less than a few minutes, I got to know most of the story, or at least his side of the story. Then I asked Pinkman his opinion on Walter, which was very different from what I would expect. Jesse said that although

Walter had become a selfish monster and had turned his back on him several times, he respected him. He said that very deep inside, Walter was a kind person who had good intentions but carried them on with questionable actions.

Jesse also added that he, despite everything, was grateful to Walter, as had come in his aid to his rescue. After that, he changed the topic and asked about my family’s situations, and I went on to explain to him the situation with Holly as briefly as possible. His only response to it was the same I had received earlier in the letter from Walter; “do not be as foolish as he was and become ambitious with the money. So stay away from the meth businessman.” Then the signal was suddenly cut, so I got into the car and kept driving back home.

I arrived at my house hoping to find Mom to tell her what was going on, but I only found aunt Marie there. She said mom had gone to the hospital again to see Holly and that we should go to visit them. She seemed very worried about my mother, so I tried to calm her down. Unfortunately, all my attempts to calm her went down when she saw the giant bags I had carried inside the house. Aunt Marie freaked out and began sobbing.

“Please tell me that is not what I think it is.” She said in a very altered state.

“Please tell me that is not your father’s inheritance, Flynn.” “Y-yes, Aunt Marie,” I said. “It is.”

Aunt Marie began shouting at me, saying she couldn’t believe I had claimed it. Mom had told her about the inheritance at some point and assured her I would never claim it. I tried very hard to justify it, saying that our income wasn’t enough, and it was our only hope to save Holly, but Aunt Marie wasn’t reasoning and kept yelling at me to give it back. After denying her request several times, she ran outside of the house and yelled at me:

“There has to be another way, Flynn. There is always a better way.”

Although I didn’t process well what just happened, I packed the bags again and got into the car. When I arrived at the hospital, I gave mom a call so she could go down to the parkway and get in the car. When she got in, I took a deep breath and told her everything. I told her that I had gone to Santa Fe for Walter’s inheritance and that I was going to use it to help Holly, whether she agreed or not. To my surprise, she didn’t disagree and said she was also willing to do whatever was necessary. Then mom went on to tell me that Holly had been getting worse during the last days, and after the doctors ran several tests on her, they noticed that her health was decaying and that the sickness may be worse than expected. The news was hard to swallow, but I felt secure due to the money we had.

I then proceeded to show mom the money, which was in the luggage. We began opening up the bags and saw how bills came out of them, $100 bills. Unfortunately, things weren’t crystal clear for us now, as mom noticed that the bags didn’t have as many bills as we thought and that they were filled with rocks instead. I then understood why Elliott and Gretchen were acting so odd, and it was because they had spent most of the money thinking I was never going to claim it. Now I understood Walter’s hatred towards them and saw how selfish they indeed were. I felt like the world stopped for a minute, and my hopes of saving my sister shattered. It brought tears into my mother’s eyes.

Sometimes we do things that we don’t want to, things that are very dangerous and risky, and even occasionally illegal. But when someone does this, usually it is because there is a reason behind it. Walter did it or at least started it because he wanted to leave something to his family after his death,

and now I found myself in a similar situation to save Holly. I finally was able to understand what a man is capable of doing to provide for his own family, all while I stand here in front of my car’s trunk with less money and even more problems than I had yesterday. With a suitcase full of lab equipment, I am ready to do what I have to.