The One Real Regret

by Janet Nissenson

  Since Betty’s return home from the hospital, a visiting nurse had stopped by the house once a day for an hour or so to check on her, and Shirley from next door always spent at least a couple of hours at the house every day while Jill was at school or work. The minister from Betty’s church was also a frequent visitor, as were other friends from the church, helping to relieve the constant worry Jill felt while she was away. Her grandmother might be a stubborn, old-fashioned pain in the rump, but she was the only family Jill had ever known, the only person in the whole world who had ever loved or cared about Jill. And since Jill wasn’t at all sure how she would cope on her own, she prayed multiple times a day that her tough old granny would pull through this latest setback and keep on going for many more years to come.

  The sleet was coming down in earnest as Jill pulled the car inside the garage of the ranch house that had originally belonged to Betty’s parents. Most of the furnishings and fixtures dated all the way back to Betty’s childhood, and the whole place rather depressingly reminded Jill of a dusty, fusty old museum. Still, she reminded herself with a sigh, she’d unquestionably had a much, much better life here than she could have ever hoped to have living with her flighty, unreliable mother. The very few memories she had of Abby were fleeting at best, but from everything she’d managed to learn about her mother over the years Jill knew that Abby Parrish had been far from maternal. At the time of Abby’s death, Jill had been living in a foster home, having been taken away by a social worker after an ex-boyfriend had expressed concern for the child’s well being. She was lucky, Jill told herself firmly, that her grandmother had provided her with a home and stability and security, even if all of those things had at times felt more like a prison to her.

  The house seemed eerily silent as she entered the kitchen from the garage, shrugging off her damp raincoat as she did so.

  “Grandma?” she called out cautiously, her heart beating a little bit faster when there was no immediate reply from Betty.

  ‘She’s probably just sleeping,’ Jill told herself as she walked towards the living room. ‘You know she’s been doing more and more of that lately. Plus, even though she won’t admit it, Grandma’s also getting hard of hearing.’

  But it only took one glance at Betty as she sat unmoving in the big overstuffed armchair for Jill to know that her grandmother was gone. Betty had insisted on leaving her bed that morning, wanting to sit in the living room where the lighting was better so she could read her Bible while Jill was at church. Jill had made sure the old woman was warm and comfortable, tucking a cherished old quilt about her frail body, and setting a cup of hot tea on the table next to her. She’d fretted about leaving her alone, but Betty had insisted that Jill go to church, worrying about how it would look to everyone if neither of the Parrish women showed up.

  “You have to go, Jill,” Betty had stated firmly. “Don’t give those old biddies more cause to gossip about us than they already have.”

  “I don’t care about them, Grandma,” Jill had replied resolutely. “You’re way more important than their stupid, unfounded gossip. They can say whatever they like about me, I don’t really care.”

  “Well, you should,” Betty had reprimanded. “You know they’re just watching and waiting for you to make a mistake, so they can caw and cackle that you’re just like your mother. So you get yourself to that church, Jill Parrish, and stop their wagging tongues. All right?”

  Jill had sighed tiredly, but nodded in agreement. “All right. But I’m only doing it for you, Grandma, and not because of them.”

  Betty had given a weary smile and squeezed Jill’s hand with a surprisingly firm grip. “That’s my good girl. And you are a good girl, Jill. Kind and smart and with a heart as big as the moon. You don’t have it in you to hurt or disappoint anyone. And I know I haven’t told you this very often in your young life, but I am very, very proud of you, my girl. You’ve made your grandmother very happy.”

  Jill had blinked back tears as she’d pressed a quick kiss to Betty’s cheek. “I’m glad,” she’d whispered. “Now, make sure you drink the rest of your tea and eat all of that muffin I left for you. You need to get your strength back so you can go to church with me again.”

  “Next week for sure,” Betty had vowed. “No matter what that know-it-all doctor has to say on the matter. Now, go, before you arrive late. And say an extra prayer for your granny, hmm?”

  “Always,” Jill had promised. “I’ll be back in just over an hour.”

  And sometime during that hour Betty had quietly passed away. Judging by the look on her face, it had been a peaceful passing, and a painless one, too, Jill hoped. Like a robot she called 9-1-1 to ask for the paramedics, though she supposed it really wasn’t an emergency under the circumstances. But since she didn’t know who else to call, it was the only number that came to mind.

  The next several hours would always be like a blur to Jill, given how quickly everything unfolded and the sheer number of people who came in and out of the house. Shirley and her husband Fred rushed through the door mere seconds after the ambulance arrived, and after an initial bout of crying and wailing, the neighbor who had also been Betty’s lifelong friend quietly and efficiently took charge. After the hearse from the funeral home drove off with the body, Shirley summoned the minister, Betty’s attorney, other neighbors, and friends from church to the house. Nearly everyone brought food to share, whether it was a casserole, a salad, a coffeecake, or a plate of cookies. Jill wasn’t allowed a moment to herself, and before long her head began to ache unbearably. She longed to shout at everyone to just leave her alone in peace to grieve, that she couldn’t bear the thought of eating anything, and to please get out of the house.

  But even then all the years of Betty’s insistence on good manners and ladylike behavior prevailed, and instead Jill politely thanked everyone for coming and told them how much she appreciated their concern. Numbly, she listened as the minister went over the arrangements Betty had made with him more than a year ago for her funeral and burial, and he assured her that there was really nothing else that needed to be done at this time. Betty’s attorney, who was even older than his deceased client, instructed Jill to stop by his office the next morning so they could go over the will in more detail, but advised her to look over Betty’s personal papers in the meanwhile.

  It was early evening by the time the last of the well meaning but increasingly annoying guests left, leaving Jill to insist to Shirley yet again that she would be just fine on her own, and that she definitely did not need Shirley to stay overnight. And if Shirley looked a little hurt at Jill’s refusal, well, that was just too bad, thought Jill tiredly. She hadn’t had a moment to herself since discovering Betty’s body, hadn’t had the time to properly grieve or cry or think about what was likely to happen next. And while she knew Shirley meant well, Jill badly needed to be alone this evening, and was on the verge of screaming hysterically any minute now.

  The first thing she did when she was finally alone was sink into a hot bath, letting the steamy water seep into her chilled bones and make her feel warm for the first time all day. Bundled up into her favorite pajamas and fleecy robe, she made herself a cup of cocoa and nibbled on a couple of chocolate chip cookies even though she wasn’t really hungry.

  And then, because her curiosity had been roused ever since the brief conversation with Wallace Benton, the attorney, Jill resolutely took a seat at her grandmother’s small but neat-as-a-pin desk and slowly unlocked the drawer where she knew all of Betty’s papers were kept. Betty had always kept the drawer locked, not that Jill would have dared to invade her grandmother’s privacy, but she had made sure that Jill knew what key would unlock the drawer in case of some emergency.

  Math had always come easy to Jill, had in fact been her favorite subject all through her school years, so it was the simplest of matters to quickly and thoroughly make an assessment of her grandmother’s finances. But even someone who’d been deemed a financial whiz by her high sch
ool calculus teacher had to look over the bank statements and other papers several times in order to truly believe what she was seeing.

  “My, God,” breathed Jill in disbelief. “After living like misers for all these years - why? Why did she insist on pinching every penny, buying nothing but the generic brands at the grocery store, getting my clothes from the clearance rack at Walmart and from the rotten Goodwill store, like we were some sort of homeless beggars? When we could have been living comfortably all this time. I don’t believe it.”

  But the bank balance didn’t lie, and while Betty Parrish hadn’t been a millionaire, she had managed to sock away a considerable sum of money over the decades. Jill noted that the pension and Social Security payments had been a lot more than she would have guessed, while Betty had also been receiving some sort of supplemental monies from the state for Jill’s care all these years. The savings account had also been earning a modest amount of interest over the decades, making the sum total of the balance that much higher.

  And there was also the value of the house to consider, mused Jill as she set aside the stacks of bank statements. From her part-time job at the local realty office, she knew that properties in this small town weren’t worth a whole lot, especially an older home like this one that hadn’t been modernized. Still, though, it was worth something, and when added to the amount in the savings account, Jill wouldn’t have to worry about money for some time.

  A further exploration of the files revealed a copy of Betty’s will, a standard, relatively brief document in which she left everything to Jill, with the exception of a few antiques that she wished to go to Shirley. There was also a large manila envelope that contained a thick stack of twenty dollar bills, which rather shockingly amounted to more than five thousand dollars.

  Jill stared at the wad of cash numbly, hardly able to believe her eyes. All those years, she thought to herself in mingled anger and despair, when she’d wanted something as simple as an ice cream cone or a little stuffed rabbit or a pair of fuzzy mittens and hadn’t dared to ask because she’d always been told they were poor, that they had to watch their pennies, that they couldn’t afford it. Her anger built to the boiling point, to where she was sorely tempted to pick up the stack of bills and fling them heedlessly around the living room. She thought of all the times the girls in her class had made fun of her cheap, ill-fitting, frumpy clothes, all of the school dances and football games she’d missed because there was supposedly no money for a ticket, how she’d never once gone on any sort of vacation or had any fun at all, save for the annual church carnival.

  “Well, that’s going to change right here and now,” she declared, rising to her feet and grabbing several handfuls of twenty dollar bills. “Grandma, I suppose I’ll never know now why you felt you always had to scrimp and save and deny both of us even the smallest of pleasures. Knowing you, I’m going to guess that you wanted to make sure I was taken care of when you weren’t around anymore. But I’ve just realized that life is too damned short not to enjoy it to the fullest. And, yes, I realize I just used a bad word and that you’re probably already rolling over in your grave. Or coffin, or wherever you’re at right now. But I’m not going to apologize, Grandma. And I am definitely, one hundred percent, finally going to start living my life! And no time like the present.”

  Jill scrolled through the very short list of contacts in the cheap-ass cell phone that she was definitely going to replace pronto, then pressed the call button for one of her college friends.

  “Lissy? Yeah, I know it’s weird for me to be calling you on a Sunday night, but I was hoping you might be able to give me some advice. I need a total makeover and I need it fast.”

  ***

  “Wow! You seriously look like a completely different girl, Jill. A really hot girl. A really hot girl that is going to have every guy at school following her around when she returns next week.”

  Jill was having trouble herself believing that the girl - correction, young woman - staring back at her in the hairdresser’s mirror was really her. Lissy was right - she looked so different than the person who’d met up with her friend early this morning that it was almost unreal. And she was ever so grateful to her friend for accompanying her on a seemingly endless list of errands and appointments throughout the day, knowing full well that she would never have been able to navigate everything by herself.

  She gave Lissy’s hand a squeeze. “Well, we’ll have to see about that, I think. But you’re right - I look totally different. Thanks to all of your advice, that is.”

  The tall, slim and blonde Lissy waved a hand in dismissal. “Nah. I didn’t do all that much, Jill, just sort of steered you in the right direction. You would have figured it all out on your own, given how smart you are.”

  Jill rolled her eyes. “I’m smart about things like economics and trigonometry and other academic stuff. But when it comes to things like what brand of mascara or what style of jeans to buy, or what’s the best hair salon in town I’m admittedly clueless.”

  Lissy grinned. “Fortunately for you shopping and getting girly are two things I’ve always been brilliant at. You called the right friend for help the other night, that’s for sure.”

  Armed with the affirmation from her grandmother’s attorney that Jill was indeed due to inherit a tidy sum of money, and with a big wad of cash in her purse, she’d met up with Lissy early this morning for a leisurely breakfast before embarking on the ever growing to-do list she had drawn up. With the various arrangements she still had to make for Betty’s funeral, and since the funeral itself was to be held on Thursday, two days from now, Jill had emailed all of her teachers and professors to let them know she wouldn’t be at college this week. All of them had been sympathetic and understanding, and assured Jill she should take all the time she needed to mourn and get everything in order. Lissy, who never needed much encouragement to cut classes and goof off for a day or so, had been more than willing to meet up with Jill and be her accomplice. Lissy had also assured Jill that she should have zero reason to feel guilty about the planned shopping spree so soon after her grandmother’s passing.

  “Hey,” she’d pointed out. “You’ve been more or less forced to live like a nun all of your life. A really poor nun at that. There’s nothing the least bit disrespectful about what you’re doing, Jill. Haven’t you been taking care of your grandmother for the past couple of years? And putting up with all of her ridiculous rules and crap for a whole lot longer. You owe it to yourself to indulge in a little self-care for once in your life. Besides, you need some serious cheering up from the sounds of things. Nothing a little retail therapy can’t help with.”

  After splurging on crab cake eggs benedicts and lattes for breakfast, Jill and Lissy had made quick work of checking off all the things on the to-do list. Jill had bought a brand new smartphone as well as a top of the line laptop, then made arrangements to have high speed internet installed at the house. From there had come a shopping spree at the local mall, where Jill had bought what amounted to a brand new wardrobe - jeans, T-shirts, skirts, blouses, dresses, jackets, sweaters, shoes, boots, lingerie. Everything she bought was young and trendy and fresh, and, most importantly, it actually fit.

  Included in her wardrobe additions, however, was a simple black wool dress that she would wear to the funeral, along with a pair of plain black pumps. Lissy had rather reluctantly agreed that Betty’s burial wasn’t the right occasion for Jill to flaunt her new, bolder wardrobe to everyone in attendance.

  After that had been a visit to Sephora, where one of the makeup artists had waxed and shaped Jill’s eyebrows, then painstakingly showed her how to apply a light, natural makeup palette that emphasized her best features - big eyes, sculpted cheekbones, full lipped mouth.

  The last stop of the day had been at this hair salon, where the stylist had oohed and ahhed over Jill’s long, thick golden brown waves, but had been horror stricken when Jill had tentatively suggested cutting it as short as chin length.

&n
bsp; “Oh, no, darlin’!” the rather effeminate older man had exclaimed in horror. “That would be a crime of epic proportions, to cut off that much of these gorgeous locks of yours! Now, it definitely needs a good trim - when was the last time you had it cut? - but nowhere near that short. Tell you what, sweet girl. You leave it up to me, hmm? Trust me, little ole Donny here will treat all of this beautiful hair of yours with genuine love and respect. And you will absolutely love the way you look afterwards. Okay?”

  Jill had rather anxiously looked to Lissy for affirmation, and when her friend had given a thumbs-up, Jill had acquiesced to the stylist’s plea. And while she’d admittedly been more than a little nervous during the whole snipping and cutting and styling process, she was totally blown away by the end result now.

  She touched a shining, golden brown strand of hair tentatively. “It looks fabulous,” she agreed. “I guess I’ve worn it in a ponytail or braid or bun for so long that I almost forgot what it looks like loose.”

  Donny clucked as he ran a comb through her long hair one more time. “You should always wear it loose from now on,” he admonished. “Keeping all of this gorgeous hair hidden away would be a crime. And here. These are all the products I used today. Promise me that you will never, ever use generic drugstore crap on your hair ever again.”

  Jill laughed as she took the paper shopping bag filled with hair care products. “I promise!”

  After settling the bill, she and Lissy walked back to the parking lot where they’d left their cars. Jill grimaced as she compared the ancient old sedan to Lissy’s cute little compact SUV.

  “I should really buy a new car, too, I suppose. But I’m not sure it’s a wise move at this point.”