Ashes By Susan Pfeffer

The Coldness of Ashes

Susan Pfeffer’s story “Ashes” teaches a lesson about how trust is decided on past, not relationships. Ashleigh, “Ashes”, with divorced parents, talks about how when she is with her dad, the sun shines just a little bit brighter, but according to her mother, he is just an “irresponsible bum”. Ashes was a nickname her father gave her, which her mother hates. Ashes, says that her father hardly ever keeps a promise, such as when she was a kid, he told her that the stars were her necklace. One lesson the story suggests is that parent-child relationships can quickly change, depending on the choices they make. In the middle of the story, while Ashes is at dinner with her dad, she learns that he owes someone two hundred dollars.
In the story, Ashes quickly learns that her father owes someone two hundred dollars, and that he needs help because he cannot afford it. When she offers her help, her dad smiles and tells her that he doesn’t deserve her, almost like he planned for her to say that. Also, her father suggests the emergency money in his ex-wife’s apartment, and tells her that she should take it and let him “borrow” it. When they get to the apartment and Ashes is deciding what to do, all she sees is the dark sky and her father’s car, which calls out to her that she is, “one in a million”, like she is one of the million people who have had to steal for him. She feels as if she cannot trust her father because he is making her almost choose between the parents. The choice she makes will influence almost everything that happens after. If she takes it, she will lose her mother, and if she doesn’t, she will lose her father. She has to put all of her past relationships and her trust with her parents in mind, which will then make her decision. This is almost what happens to everyone when they have to make a choice. They take every good and bad thing in mind, and choose based on what or who they trust