by Boris Bacic
The lawyer continued speaking.
“Yeah, I’m really sorry about that. Listen, we can take care of all the legal issues on Monday, but until then, what I need you to do is split all the personal property with your sister. She’s already there, right?”
“Yeah, Cheryl’s already here,” Jill said.
“Good. What I need you to do is go through all the items in the house and make a list, and then we’ll take care of all the other legal issues on Monday, depending on what you decide to do with the house. Okay?”
“That’s fine but, um… can’t you arrive earlier than Monday? I mean, I have a family in Portland and work on Monday, so I can’t just cancel my entire life because of this,” she chuckled sardonically to mask her annoyance.
She felt Cheryl’s judgmental glare on her, but ignored it. Right now, she was too pissed off to care. The lawyer probably ran into a problem, yes, but Jill doubted that the problem would last all the way until Monday. Most likely, he just didn’t want to work on the weekend, the son of a bitch.
“I’m really sorry, but there’s no way I’ll make it before Monday. Listen, I’ll be there as early as I can, morning most likely. In the meantime, you and your sister work on splitting all the movable property between each other, alright?”
“Okay, but—”
“Jill, I’m really sorry, I have to run, okay? I’ll see you Monday, bye.”
Before Jill could say anything else, he hung up. What a son of a bitch. She wanted to hurl her phone across the room, but she controlled her anger as she looked at Cheryl.
“Okay, so um… he said that we should—”
“I heard it all,” Cheryl interrupted. “Listen, if you need to go back to your family, I don’t mind. I’ll take care of Mom, and you can just come back on Monday.”
There was a hint of passive-aggressive animosity in her timbre. Or maybe it was Jill’s imagination. Still, Cheryl’s suggestion sounded heavenly, but she knew that it was a trap.
No problem, you go home and enjoy your time with your family while I do all the legwork around our comatose mother and the house. I’ll do it all alone, no problem. I’ll always hold it against you, sure. But it’s your choice, no pressure.
“Are you crazy? I’m not letting you do all this yourself,” Jill forced out on a peal of laughter.
“I mean, it’s not that much work, anyway,” Cheryl shrugged.
A loud, startling buzz filled the room. It took Jill a moment to realize that someone was ringing the doorbell.
“No, it’s fine. We’re doing this together,” Jill insisted, now on the brink of losing her patience, as she strode towards the entrance.
She wondered what Violet forgot as she opened the door. To her surprise, instead of Violet stood a short, elderly woman at the door, grinning from ear to ear.
Chapter 6
“Oh, hello, sweetie,” the old lady chirped in a jovial voice. “My, my, you have grown so much, Jill!”
“Uh, hi,” Jill smiled back, trying not to give away that she had no idea who the woman was.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” the woman outright asked, the smile still plastered to her face.
“Erika!” Cheryl shouted over Jill’s shoulder and skipped to the door.
The old woman made an ‘o’ shape with her mouth and put her hands together in what looked like a pleasant surprise to her.
“Oh, Cherry, dear Cherry! Come here, let me take a good look at you!”
Jill stepped aside and allowed Cheryl to approach. Erika put her stubby fingers on Cheryl’s face and pinched her cheeks.
“Look at you, all grown up. The last time I saw you, you were this small,” she motioned below her waist with her palm. “And now you’re all grown up. Both of you. Oh, I haven’t seen you since you moved in with your Dad, Jill.”
She looked at Jill, as if she just remembered that the older sister was there.
Jill gave her a PR grin and crossed her arms. This was pretty much a normal thing. Cheryl would get most of the attention from relatives, friends, neighbors, etc., while Jill would simply get acknowledged briefly out of courtesy.
Jill remembered Erika. She lived nearby, and she used to bring all sorts of homemade cookies to the girls. Even back then, Jill was more of a recluse than Cheryl, so naturally, Erika took a liking more towards the younger sister. Erika did often try to call Jill over and strike up conversations with her—it’s just that Jill was scared of adults. Whenever someone came for a visit, she’d go into her room or to the backyard.
Erika lived ten minutes down the street, but she used to visit Annette all the time, almost daily. Those visits dwindled as time passed and Annette’s mental health started to deteriorate.
“And you look like you’re aging backward, Erika,” Cheryl flattered her.
Erika dismissively waved that away from the wrist and then patted Cheryl’s hand.
“You haven’t changed one bit, Cherry. I bet all the boys at college are just tripping over each other to get in line to ask you out.”
Yeah, well. I have a really good job and a family, but whatever, Jill wanted to say, but that would, of course, just confirm her jealousy.
She didn’t really want to compete for attention around Cheryl anymore—especially since she knew that she could never win—but it would be nice to get acknowledged sometimes as a successful person.
Erika’s smile dropped, and her face suddenly turned grievous.
“I am really sorry about what happened to your mom; I really am,” she said.
“Thank you,” Cheryl nodded.
“She and I had tea almost every week, you know? But then that blasted dementia started getting to her. It was harder and harder to have conversations with her.”
***
“Oh?” Cheryl raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, it really was. We would talk about something, and she would just space out and forget what we were talking about. Or she’d ask me the same questions multiple times. And sometimes, what she said didn’t make any sense at all.”
“But I saw her just a few months ago,” Cheryl said. “She was fine. I mean, she did have some moments, but she was fine for the most part.”
“Yes. Yes, she was,” Erika nodded fervently. “And then her mental state began to worsen in just the last few months drastically. It was so sad to see her like that.”
Cheryl pursed her lips. She didn’t like the sound of that. If Mom ever woke up from a coma, would she even be the same person? Would the coma cause her mental state to worsen even more?
“Well, I won’t be bothering you any longer, sweeties,” Erika said, and the genuine smile stretched across her face once more.
“You’re no bother at all, Erika,” Cheryl shook her head. “Do you wanna come in for some tea? I mean, if Mom has tea, that is…”
Erika guffawed and patted Cheryl’s hand once more.
“Thank you, dear, but I really should get back home. It’s almost dark, and I don’t want to be out on the road too late.” She briefly looked at Jill and winked connivingly. “But I will be sure to stop by tomorrow and bring you some of my cookies. You remember the chocolate nut cookies I used to bake for you, don’t you Cherry?”
“Of course I do,” Cheryl’s mouth contorted into a grin.
Erika used to bring all sorts of cookies, but the chocolate nut cookies were her favorite. And once she expressed how tasty they were, Erika made sure to bake those primarily. Jill never liked them, and she would only take and eat one, out of courtesy towards Erika.
“Well, then I’ll make sure to bring you some tomorrow as soon as I bake them,” Erika said complacently.
“No, you really shouldn’t bother yourse—”
“Oh, don’t worry about it, Cherry, sweetie. It’s no bother at all,” she looked at Jill. “What about you, Jill? Would you like me to bake you anything? It was always hard to tell what you liked when you were little.”
“I’m good, but thank you, Erika. Gotta watch my weight, you know?
” Jill shrugged.
“I see a lot of young people these days starving themselves to look good. It’s not healthy. Not healthy at all, sweetie. You should really put on some weight, you look like skin and bone.”
Cheryl suppressed her laughter. When she looked at Jill, she realized that she was staring at Erika with a reticent—and perhaps annoyed—stare.
“I’ll keep it in mind, thank you,” Jill stated, patronizingly.
Luckily, Erika didn’t hear the enmity in Jill’s voice.
“Well, I’ll be on my way, then,” the old lady said. “It was so good to see you both. Please take good care of your mother.”
She directed that last sentence at Cheryl with utter seriousness.
“I will. I promise,” Cheryl gave her a reassuring smile.
The air felt heavily silent as soon as Cheryl closed the door. But then suddenly, she felt good. She was glad that she got to see Erika, and that she was doing well.
“She was always so kind, huh?” Cheryl asked.
“I guess,” Jill shrugged. “We should probably start sorting through things if we wanna get this done in time.”
That’s Jill. Always focused on the task, never procrastinating or leaving things for later.
“Sure,” Cheryl said, as she made her way toward the living room. “How about we order some takeaway first? I’m starving.”
Chapter 7
The food arrived faster than Cheryl expected it would. She ordered some chicken wings, while Jill had a salad.
“Are you on a diet?” Cheryl asked with her mouth full of greasy, spicy wings.
“Not really. Just trying not to exceed my caloric intake,” Jill shrugged.
“Oh, screw that. Look at your figure. I’m sure you can allow yourself something more sinful than a salad.
Jill had an amazing figure. Her stomach was flat, even when she sat. Even while she was pregnant, Jill seemed to retain her slim structure, despite the incongruity of her bulging stomach. Cheryl was slim, too. But she wasn’t as fit as Jill. Jill tried being careful about what she ate, and she did yoga, but Cheryl got lucky with her mom’s genetics. She could eat as much as she wanted to without gaining weight. Her stomach was flabbier than Jill’s, though, but she didn’t care enough about it to start working out or going on a diet.
“So, which room do you wanna start with?” Cheryl asked.
“I was thinking we split the work,” Jill said. “How about we start with our old rooms?”
“Works for me.”
They continued eating in silence for a while. It felt strange for just the two of them to eat at the kitchen table. It was family tradition to have the entire family eating together. But then Mom and Dad got divorced, and Jill moved in with Dad. That’s when Cheryl’s and Jill’s relationship started growing cold.
“How’s college?” Jill broke the silence.
Cheryl tilted her head slightly.
“It’s alright. Freshman year was exciting. Now it’s all just monotonous.”
“You gotta study a lot?”
“Not really. It’s a joke, to be honest. The professors don’t really care that much.”
“Lucky. Back when I was in college, the professors were sadistic. Made us study for hours every day just to pass the exam. Especially the computer science professor. Computer science wasn’t even a mandatory term, and he still made us walk through muck.”
Cheryl meagerly laughed at that.
“But at least it all worked out well. You got a good job now and a nice family.”
Jill continued staring at her salad as she nodded.
“How’s Charlie, by the way?” Cheryl asked.
“Good! He’s smart. A little too smart for his own good, if you ask me. Just recently, he lost his third tooth, and he devised an experiment to prove if the Tooth Fairy actually exists.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. He didn’t tell us when he lost his tooth and sneakily put it under his pillow. When the Tooth Fairy didn’t show up, he realized that we lied to him.”
Cheryl guffawed.
“Wow. That is unbelievable.”
“Yeah. I dread to think what he’ll do when he reaches puberty.”
They both laughed at that.
“And what about Lee?” Cheryl asked.
“He’s good. Just got promoted recently, so that really helped us financially.”
“Did he manage to resolve that elbow problem he had?”
“Yeah. He underwent three surgeries, but now he can finally do things without any pain.”
“I guess he learned his lesson not to lift heavy things.”
Jill nodded. More time went by in silence before Jill spoke up again.
“So, I thought your boyfriend was going to drive you here? That’s what the lawyer said, anyway.”
“Uh, yeah,” remembering Tom suddenly caused Cheryl’s anger to reemerge.
She had gone hours without thinking about him, so she didn’t really appreciate Jill reminding her. Then again, she couldn’t have known.
“What was his name again? Tom? I saw a picture on Facebook. You two look good together as a couple,” Jill continued, further exacerbating the situation.
“We actually broke up,” Cheryl blurted out, taking a big bite out of the wings to give herself some time chewing instead of talking.
“Oh, no. I’m so sorry, Cheryl. I didn’t mean to poke…”
Cheryl swallowed.
“No, it’s fine. He cheated on me with my friend, so…” her voice started cracking towards the end.
She stared at her half-eaten chicken wings, her vision getting blurry from the tears that welled up in her eyes. She blinked them away. She couldn’t show her weak side.
Not in front of Jill.
“I’m really sorry, Cheryl,” Jill said, almost coldly.
She didn’t add anything else. Perhaps she didn’t know what to say.
“He actually broke up with me on the way here,” Cheryl added, unable to contain the emotions that swirled inside her and inflated to the size of a balloon.
“He broke up with you on your way to visit your sick mother? What a terrible human being!”
Cheryl chuckled.
“I was so upset that I got out of his car and chased him away. And then I hitchhiked to Medford. I guess I should have seen it coming,” she said, a little more composed now that the emotions that had threatened to seep through the cracks were held at bay.
Jill leaned back and spoke after a moment of silence, “I guess there’s some kind of curse on our entire family’s generation of girls, huh? Mom’s fiancé cheated on her two days before they got married, my boyfriend of three years cheated on me, and now you. I guess you’re now officially a member of the club.”
Cheryl chuckled at that. It was a stupid joke, but she couldn’t help but laugh at it. That laughter almost turned into sobbing, but Cheryl gritted her teeth and pushed the breakdown deeper inside.
***
Jill suddenly saw herself in Cheryl. She didn’t see it until now, but when she stared at her, all sad, pretending to be strong, she remembered the night she caught Rob in bed with a girl she didn’t know.
She was twenty back then, and she and Rob had been dating for three years. Rob lived in a one-bedroom apartment, and the entrance of the building was unlocked. She knocked on the door (since the doorbell didn’t work), but no one answered. She tried the door, and it was unlocked. She called out to Rob, but there was no response.
She had, however, heard something coming from the bedroom. Giggling. Although she knew already what it was from the knot that formed in the pit of her stomach, Jill proceeded forward, rationalizing the entire time that she wasn’t hearing things right.
As she got closer to the door, she heard the bed’s squeaking, and soft, effeminate moaning sounds. The door was slightly ajar, and Jill only needed to push it inward slightly to peer inside.
At first, they didn’t even see her. The girl, a busty, curvy blonde sat on top of Rob
and held her hands on his chest as she bounced up and down. Jill distinctly remembered the expression of ecstasy that Rob had on his face as the girl bounced on him, ground into him, and rammed him like there was no tomorrow—something he never had with Jill
Jill let out an uncontrollable gasp and put a hand over her mouth, and that’s when they heard her. The girl stopped bouncing, instantly silencing all sounds. Both she and Rob turned their heads towards Jill. The expression of ecstasy that Rob previously had on his face drooped, as if someone had just swiped it off in one steady motion, and was instead replaced with something akin to terror.
He pushed the girl off him and jumped on his feet, covering his private parts with his blanket, but Jill didn’t wait around. She was already out of there, crying uncontrollably, ignoring Rob’s desperate calling. He didn’t follow her, luckily, because it was freezing outside and he wasn’t adequately dressed.
When she returned home, Dad noticed the zombified look on her face, so he asked her what was wrong. She told him about it with a straight face. Later she told Mom over the phone, too. Mom was less supportive than Dad. The first thing she said was, ‘I told you this relationship was doomed from the start’. Dad, however, sat at the kitchen table with Jill, and only then did she break down in front of him and go into all of the nasty details while he comforted her.
For the next twenty-four hours, Jill’s phone buzzed and vibrated with Rob’s incessant calls and messages. She never returned any of his calls. She lived in Medford with her dad back then and studied in Portland. Rob lived in Portland, and before the cheating, he and Jill had planned on moving in together, but Rob had seemed reluctant to do so whenever Jill had brought up the topic. Eventually, the long-distance relationship must have made him tired, and he decided to look for comfort elsewhere.
That was all Jill needed to finally move out of Medford. She had only three years left until she finished college, but she already planned what she would do after. Even when she returned to college, Rob kept calling her incessantly. She didn’t want to block his number on purpose because it fed her ego to have him run after her.
Eventually, after a couple more unsuccessful relationships, she met Lee, and soon after, they got married. Rob was only a distant memory by then. Jill once looked him up on Facebook and saw that he had a kid now. She had no idea who the mother was.
