Heaven's a Lie

by Wallace Stroby

  She tucks the bill in a vest pocket, ducks under the culvert and steps onto the narrow concrete ledge of the creek bank, her sneakers squishing. Walking heel to toe on the ledge, she sweeps the flashlight beam side to side. At the end of the culvert, she steps to the other bank, walks back that way, ducking low again. Slower this time, doing grids again with the flashlight. No more bills.

  Back to the ditch, then up to the road, her feet soaked and numb. In the office, she takes off her sneakers and socks, rolls up her jeans cuffs midcalf. She lays the wet socks over the heater grille, sets the sneakers in front of it. The floor is cold beneath her bare feet. She dries them with a towel from the back room linen closet.

  She smooths out the wet bill on the desk, the half-burned one beside it. There may be more around, blown down the road or into the woods, but there’s nothing she can do about that now.

  She holds the bills up to the light. They’re real as far as she can tell, the blue security ribbons intact. To the left of Franklin are the embedded threads that read USA and 100.

  A sudden chill sweeps through her again, goose bumps from the cold. The pain in her back has returned.

  At nine, the door locks automatically with a sharp click that startles her. At ten-thirty, Baxter’s beat-up station wagon pulls into the lot. She tucks the bills in her vest pocket, buzzes him in. He’s carrying a grease-soaked White Castle bag, has the smell of alcohol on his breath.

  “Didn’t have time for dinner,” he says. He raises the hinged wooden flap at the end of the counter. “Had to grab something on the way. Want a slider?”

  “Ugh. No thanks.”

  Her socks are dry now, warm from the heater. She starts to pull them on, sees he’s looking at the tattoo above her right ankle, the blue rose and the spiral of thorns that circle her calf. She pulls up her sock to cover it, slips on her still-damp sneakers.

  She tells him about the accident, but his attention drifts, and there’s a loss of focus in his eyes. He takes the remote from the counter, starts flipping channels. He’ll be asleep at the desk by eleven.

  Outside in the cold, clouds hide the moon. She resists the temptation to open the Subaru’s trunk, look inside. Baxter might be watching.

  She starts the engine, turns up the heat, grips the wheel.

  Drive away now, and everything’s different. You’re different.

  Three deep breaths. She looks back toward the office. Sure enough, Baxter’s at the window.

  She backs up and steers around his station wagon. Snow flurries shine in her headlights. She turns on the wipers, pulls out of the neon-lit lot and onto the dark highway.

  THREE

  The motion-sensor light over the trailer door switches on as she pulls into the carport. Home. She shuts off the engine and headlights. It’s quiet, except for the sound of a TV in the double-wide next door. Her trailer’s at the end of the row, an empty lot on the other side.

  You can’t just sit here.

  She’s light-headed as she goes up the wooden steps and unlocks the trailer door. A single lamp is on in the living room. The rest of the trailer is dark, the curtains closed. It’s cold. She set the thermostat to sixty, as she always does when she leaves in the morning, trying to keep the heating bill down. Now she raises it to sixty-eight, hears the heat kick on. A dusty smell rises from the floor vents.

  The carport light goes out. From the kitchenette window, she can see up the road to the park entrance. No one following her. No police cars. No flashing lights. No sirens.

  Eleven-fifteen by her watch. She’ll wait. The trailers around her will be dark by midnight. Normal people with normal jobs. No one staying up late, spying on their neighbors.

  There are three bottles of Blue Moon left in the refrigerator. She opens one, doesn’t bother with a glass. She takes it into the living room, sits on the couch and turns off the lamp. She feels safe now, calmer than she’s been in hours.

  Halfway through the beer, she already has a slight buzz. When the bottle’s empty, she considers getting another. She closes her eyes, drifts, then is suddenly awake again.

  She looks at her watch. One a.m. Almost two hours gone.

  At the window, she parts the blinds, looks out at the Subaru. She switches off the motion sensor so it won’t activate, then puts on her hoodie again, goes outside.

  No more snow. The sky is clear, with a bow around the moon. The TV’s off in the trailer next door, the windows dark. She can hear the hum of cars out on Route 35.

  When she opens the trunk, the inside bulb lights up the sheet she took from the motel’s linen closet. Under it is the gear bag, canvas sides browned by heat.

  It’s heavier than she remembered. She closes the trunk, carries the bag inside, locks and chains the front door. In the bedroom, she turns on the overhead light, slides the door shut behind her. She sets the bag on the low bed, unzips it and looks at the money inside.

  Take your time. Be careful.

  She goes through the strapped bills, looking for dye packs, GPS trackers. But she already knows this isn’t bank money. The paper straps are generic—no bank name, logo or denominations. There’s a torn strap and more loose bills at the bottom of the bag. All hundreds.

  She lines the packs up on the comforter in three rows. Most of the packs are hundreds, the rest fifties. She wipes wet palms on her jeans.

  Stop stalling. Count it.

  The hundreds are in standard $10,000 packs, the fifties in packs of $5,000. Some of the bills are soiled, creased. None of the serial numbers are in sequence.

  She gets the Dri Mark pen from her dresser, draws an amber line across one of the hundreds. It fades quickly. If the bill were counterfeit, the line would show black, the ink reacting to the quality of the paper. She marks other bills from different packs. An amber line each time, fading to nothing.

  She counts ninety-eight loose hundreds, binds them with a rubber band, feels a sense of relief. The two damaged bills complete that pack. That means there might not be any others blowing around out there on the road or in the woods, waiting for someone to find them.

  It takes her three tries to count it all, losing track and coming up with a different total each time. Finally she gets her phone, uses the calculator app, typing in numbers as she counts again.

  With the two damaged bills figured in, the total comes to $250,000 in hundreds, another $50,000 in fifties. She’s looking at $299,800 spread out on the bed.

  She sits back, has to put a hand against the dresser to keep from falling.

  Get it out of here. Take it back.

  But where? And to who?

  If she hadn’t grabbed the bag when she did, if she’d hesitated even a few more minutes, the money would have caught fire, gone up with the rest of the car. And the driver—maybe the only one who knew it was there—is dead. If anyone else is looking for the money, they might assume it was destroyed in the fire. Maybe now it belongs to no one at all. Except her.

  She gets her roll-on suitcase from the closet, opens it on the floor and stacks the money inside. Three pairs of jeans go over the bills to keep them in place. She zips the suitcase shut and sets it back in the closet, upright against the wall behind her hanging clothes.

  It all hits her then, and she can’t trust her legs. She sits on the bed, looks at the suitcase half hidden in the closet. She’s still cold, and the burn on her arm is stinging again. Wind whines around the trailer, a hollow, lonesome sound. She wants another beer, but first she needs to get rid of the gear bag.

  The other trailers are still dark. She puts the bag in the Subaru’s trunk, starts the engine. At the park exit, she turns south on Route 35. She takes it to the Asbury circle, then heads west.

  In twenty minutes, she’s on the outskirts of Freehold. She spots an open dumpster behind a dark supermarket, pulls up alongside it and kills her lights, leaves the engine running. Cars pass by, but no one slows.

  Do it quick.

  She gets the bag from the trunk, checks it one last time to make sure it�
��s empty, then tosses it up and into the dumpster.

  Driving back, she listens to a local station playing classic rock. When the hourly news comes on, she turns up the volume, but there’s nothing about the accident.

  Her arm is sore and throbbing beneath the bandage. Back in the trailer, tired now, she opens another Blue Moon, washes down two ibuprofen.

  She checks the window and door locks, takes the bottle into the living room. Then she sits in the dark and listens to the wind.

  FOUR

  Helen’s waiting at the diner in their regular booth by the window. It’s just before eight, the morning cold and clear. The diner’s crowded, loud with voices and the clinking of silverware and glass.

  Joette woke with a headache and a dry mouth. She lay in bed staring at the ceiling, thinking about the suitcase, tempted to take it out, look at the money inside. Proof it wasn’t all a dream.

  “Ouch,” Helen says. “Rough night?”

  Joette slides into the booth. She’s put on a long-sleeved black T-shirt to hide the bandage on her arm. She knows the way she looks—puffy eyes, dark circles. “Not sleeping so well these days.”

  “You’re losing more weight too,” Helen says. “What’s up with that?”

  “Not much appetite.” She’s dropped ten pounds in the last two months without trying, her jeans riding low and slack.

  “You’re not sick, are you?”

  “Just nerves.”

  She wants to tell Helen about the accident, but that would take too long, raise too many questions she doesn’t want to answer.

  “From what?” Helen says. “Worried about your meeting?”

  “They are what they are. It’s never good news.”

  “What’s this one about?”

  “Same as usual, I expect. Where I’m at with the Medicaid application. An update on how she’s doing. Which these days is always the same, or worse.”

  When the waitress comes over, Joette orders coffee and rye toast, Helen an omelet.

  “Her house is up for sale, so there’s nothing more I can do with it,” Joette says. “If the market changes, it might sell, but I can’t count on that. We’re doing private pay until her assets are zeroed out. At nine grand a month, that won’t be long. Medicaid keeps asking for more paperwork in the meantime—receipts, tax returns. Stuff I don’t think she even kept.”

  “Aren’t there lawyers you can hire for that, help the process along?”

  “Three-grand retainer to start with, ones I talked to.”

  “What about her will?”

  “I’m the executor, but there isn’t much to the estate. Just the house and whatever cash might be left, which at that point will likely be none.”

  “I don’t know how you do it,” Helen says. “Handling all this on your own.”

  “Wasn’t much choice.”

  “I know, but still. It must seem overwhelming at times.”

  “When are you going in?”

  “Ten. Probably be on drive-through until close. Half the people in the office are sick, with whatever it is that’s going around. Everybody’s worried it’s the virus again. Lots of hacking and coughing. Good times.”

  “Why don’t they stay home?”

  “It’s different since the sale. No sick days anymore. Just PTO—Personal Time Off. You get seven days a year. If you miss a day because you’re sick, it comes out of those.”

  “What if you’re sick more than seven days?”

  “Then you have to use your vacation time. Or go on short-term medical leave. Which no one wants to do, because they might not have a job when they get back.”

  “That doesn’t sound legal,” Joette says. “Surprised someone hasn’t gone after them on that.”

  “That’s the least of their worries. Word is a judgment’s coming soon on this latest consumer protection case. Probably a big fine, and some more middle managers thrown under the bus. In the meantime, corporate’s handing out seven-figure bonuses and pension packages to board members as fast as it can. Rats, meet ship.”

  The waitress brings their food. Joette takes a bite of toast, realizes she isn’t hungry. “I miss it sometimes, the bank. Miss the people mostly.”

  “Don’t. It’s not the way you remember it. There’s been so much turnover you wouldn’t know most of the people there anyway. The place you remember is gone.”

  “It was a good job, compared to some I’ve had. Lasted the longest, too. Always thought I was lucky to get it, especially with nothing but a GED and two years at Brookdale. I didn’t want to leave.”

  “I’m sorry the way that worked out,” Helen says. “It wasn’t fair.”

  “What is?”

  Joette reaches for the glass sugar canister, knocks it over. A trail of crystals spills on the table.

  “You are nervous,” Helen says.

  Joette rights the canister, shakes sugar into her coffee, sweeps the spilled crystals under the saucer.

  “Try a real breakfast someday,” Helen says. “Eggs at least, get some protein into you. You look like you could use it.”

  Her hand’s unsteady as she picks up the cup.

  “How are things at the motel?” Helen says.

  “Same. I think Singh’s just waiting to hear the right numbers from a developer so he can sell the property. Way he sees it, why bother fixing anything in the meantime? Or I guess he could just torch the place for the insurance, if he still has any. You gonna stay on there at the bank?”

  “Long as I can. If they fire me, they fire me, but I’m not quitting. Not with Leona at Howard, and Curtis headed there next year. And Leona’s got her heart set on law school afterward. How we’re going to make that happen, I don’t know.”

  “You must be proud of them.”

  “I am. Every day. But I envy you sometimes.”

  “Why would you possibly do that?”

  “Your freedom. Being able to do anything you want.”

  “It’s not the way it looks. I still have to work. I still have debts.”

  “But you could leave if you wanted to, when the situation with your mother changes. You could pick up, go somewhere else. Start over again.”

  “You mean when she dies?”

  “I know you’ve thought about it. You’re still young.”

  “I’ll be forty in two months.”

  “Young enough. There’s nothing else holding you here. You’ve done everything you needed to, everything you should have. Made every decision, paid every bill. You’ve been a good daughter. The best.”

  Joette feels water come to her eyes, looks away.

  “I worry about you, Jo. You’ve been through hell, dealt with more than most people ever have to in their lives. Troy getting sick. Your mom’s stroke.”

  “People deal with worse.”

  “We’re not talking about other people, are we? We’re talking about you.”

  Joette’s thumb finds her left wrist, rubs the raised scars there. She has to will herself to stop. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Stoic as always. You never change. Your mom was the same way. Tough lady when she had to be.”

  “Can’t blame her. She had her hands full with me after my father died. She put up with a lot, all the trouble I got into.”

  “Come on, you weren’t that bad, were you?”

  “I ran away a couple times. Got as far as Wildwood once. Don’t know what I thought I was doing.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Fifteen. I’d been acting out for a couple years already, I’m sure. Stupid things. Kid things.”

  “Why Wildwood?”

  “We’d been there once, at an amusement park, when my father was alive.”

  “You never told me this.”

  “Yeah, fifteen years old and dumb as a rock, hitchhiking in the summer. Slept on the beach that night. Wildwood cops found me the next day, called my mother. She had to come down and get me. She wasn’t happy.”

  “Good thing they did. Who knows where you would have en
ded up. If one of my kids had done that, I would have grounded them until they were thirty.”

  They eat in silence. The toast is limp and tasteless. She can only finish one slice.

  “Hang in there,” Helen says. “It’s about time for your luck to turn around anyway, isn’t it?”

  “You believe that?”

  “Why not? You’re due.”

  She thinks about the money again, the glowing bill dancing in front of her, waiting to be plucked from the air.

  “Maybe I am,” she says.

  FIVE

  She parks in the visitors’ lot at the nursing home, signs in at the security desk. Annalisa, the social worker, is waiting for her in the lobby. Together they walk down to the conference room. Lourdes, the head of nursing, and Nora from the billing office are already there, files open in front of them.

  Joette hates this room, the still lifes on the walls, the long polished-wood table. Nothing good happens here.

  “Thanks so much for coming, Jo,” Lourdes says. “Have you been up to see your mom yet?”

  Joette sits across from her. “No. I will when we’re done.”

  At the head of the table, Annalisa says, “Who wants to start?”

  Lourdes gives Joette a smile. “I’ll jump right in then. Your mother was evaluated again this week, at my request. I wanted to make sure I had the most recent results for our meeting. She’s on a pureed diet now, as you know.”

  “I’ve fed her. Is that the way it’ll be from now on? Baby food?”

  “It’s for her safety. The issue is her swallowing reflex, which is getting weaker. It might be that something changes going forward and we see an improvement, but it’s unlikely. I’d be giving you false hope to tell you different.”

  “I’ve spent a lot of time with her this week,” Annalisa says. “Most of the day she’s in the activity room. She does well there. She watches TV, and we have music twice a week. She seems to enjoy that.”