by Jeff Strand
Neither film was particularly good. Adeline was not opposed to fart jokes, but they had to be quality fart jokes, and she did prefer that they be kept to fewer than thirty in a single motion picture. Naomi loved it. The second film in their double feature contained zero fart jokes and a surprising amount of courtroom intrigue for a kids' movie. Naomi did not enjoy this one quite as much.
When she drove back home late that afternoon, Jack's car and a green van were in the driveway. "Perfect timing!" said Jack as they walked through the front door. "They're just about done."
"Did they find anything wrong?" Adeline asked.
"Well, I've got good news and bad news. The bad news is, no, they didn't specifically find anything that could explain your problem. But they vacuumed all of the vents, changed the air filter even though it didn't really need it, gave the basement a thorough cleaning, and they even checked the attic. There really shouldn't be an issue."
"And the good news?"
"Follow me."
Adeline, Paige, and Naomi followed Jack into the kitchen. He gestured to the counter upon which the banana lay.
"Ta da!"
Adeline picked up the banana and inspected it. No brown spots. Plenty of green. She thought that maybe it was a bit more ripe than it should have been based on its condition this morning, but she also didn't typically apply that degree of scrutiny to a banana's life cycle. It definitely had not gone bad like the other fruit. Maybe they had indeed fixed the problem.
"Looks like a perfectly good banana," Adeline admitted. Now she kind of wondered if Jack thought they'd taken care of things, or if she'd been exaggerating. She supposed it didn't matter.
"And I've got a surprise for you," said Jack. "Come on out back."
He led them out to the backyard.
"Oh, cool!" shouted Naomi.
There were several fish in the koi pond. Naomi and Paige both crouched down to get a better look.
"An apology gift," said Jack.
"You really didn't have to do this," Adeline told him.
"No, but I don't like unsatisfied customers. Moving is enough of a pain in the butt without adding house problems into the mix."
"Well, we appreciate it. I'm sure Boyd would like to thank you in person."
"No need. Tell him I said hi. I'll get everybody cleared out of your home and we'll hope that everything is fine from here on out."
"I'm sure it will be. Thank you so much, Jack."
"Thanks for the fish!" said Naomi, who seemed transfixed.
"When I come back, I expect you to have names for all five of them."
"I will!"
A few minutes later, Jack and the cleaners were gone.
Adeline decided to keep monitoring the banana, just in case.
* * *
The banana was still in good shape when Boyd returned home from work.
"I think we may be okay," said Adeline, handing it to him. "This has been in the house all day."
"It's a miracle banana," Boyd declared.
"I've never been so excited about fruit. Maybe all it took was another go at the air ducts."
"Well, it's hard to describe just how much I did not want to pack everything up and start this process again. I would've put on a brave face, but on the inside I would've been bawling."
"I guess we don't know for sure that it's fixed. We'll keep watching the banana. Even if everything is fine now, we have to admit that it was weird, right?"
"Very weird."
* * *
It was difficult to justify "fruit no longer rotting" as a junk food celebration, so dinner was a healthy meal of salmon and Caesar salad.
* * *
Boyd lay on the couch, watching Netflix. There was still plenty to do around the house, but if the ladies got to spend their day at the movies, by God he was going to sit here and watch a young Bruce Willis take out some terrorists.
At least he was feeling better.
Mostly.
He'd felt fine at work and for a couple of hours after getting home, but now that he was plopped on the couch he was cold even with a blanket over him. Could just be the after effects. Getting rid of the root cause of his illness didn't mean that the illness would completely go away.
By the time he got to the part where Alan Rickman (RIP to the best villain ever) explained that they were not terrorists, but rather thieves, Boyd was back to feeling shitty.
* * *
Paige stared at herself in the mirror.
Even without the glasses that made her look like the world's biggest dork, she was ugly.
Everything about her was ugly.
Her nose was ugly. Her mouth was ugly. Her hands were ugly, and what kind of person had ugly hands? She didn't know anybody else who had to be embarrassed of their hands. Only her.
Her eyes. Those were the ugliest of them all.
She hadn't been lying to Mom and Dad or the doctor about not being able to feel the contact lens anymore, but she thought she could feel it now. It was way up there behind her eye. Would it even matter if she hurt herself trying to dig it out? Would she look any worse?
* * *
Adeline soaked in the hot bubble bath, thinking that this was absolute bliss. Candles. A glass of red wine. Soft music. If the kids were quiet, she was going to relax in here until she became the Hideous Prune Woman.
* * *
Billy.
Stardust.
Mrs. Swimmy.
Brinnaria.
Streaky.
Those were not necessarily the final names of the fish (Naomi had changed her mind over a dozen times) but that's what they were right now. Streaky, of course, was her favorite. He was white with a gold streak on his head.
They all looked hungry, but Naomi wasn't allowed to feed them without Mom or Dad being there. She could kill them if she gave them too much. She supposed this meant that the fish would eat and eat and eat until their stomachs exploded. Paige would probably want to see something like that, but not Naomi. She felt bad that the fish were so hungry, but she wasn't going to do anything that might hurt them.
She'd had goldfish before, but never big fish like this. These were so much better.
She couldn't stop watching them.
She wanted to crawl right in there and swim with them.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Before
"Think it would kill the fish if we pissed in the koi pond?" asked Heck.
Maddox glared at him. "Fuck's the matter with you? We're here to make amends."
"It was a joke. And I'm not here to make amends to some King-Kong goldfish."
"Keep your voice down." The three of them had walked up to the front door, and then had a sudden realization that they should probably scope out the place first. They had no idea who lived here. Could be a house full of shotgun-toting, chainsaw-wielding hillbillies.
"We're wasting time," said Fletcher. "We need to just knock. What if she catches us sneaking around out here and then refuses to accept our apology?"
"How do you know it's a she?" asked Maddox.
Fletcher shrugged. "I just do. How do we know any of this?"
"I think he's right," said Heck. "I think it's a she."
"Yeah, I agree with that," said Maddox. He couldn't picture her in his mind, but, yeah, it was a she. That was much better than a house full of armed yokels.
The question of how they knew any of this was a very good one. In fact, he'd rarely stopped thinking about it. But not understanding why they were compelled to confess their crimes and return the hard-earned cash that they desperately needed to somebody they didn't know...well, that just didn't feel like reason enough not to do it.
They walked back around the house to the front door.
"We should've worn nicer clothes," said Maddox, who'd worn a stained T-shirt to his sister's wedding.
He'd left the colostomy bag at home, of course, and also his gun. He hadn't even brought a knife. Hadn't even considered bringing a knife even though he was fairly certai
n that bringing a weapon was a good idea in this situation. He did have his share of the cash in a large yellow padded envelope. Heck and Fletcher had their own shares in similar envelopes. They could have put all of the cash in one, but Maddox had expressed concern that if, say, Heck returned the entire sum, he'd be the only one to get credit for it. Maddox couldn't take that risk. The other two men freely admitted that they'd been worried about the same thing, and so each of them returning their own third of the payment was unquestionably the right decision.
Maddox rang the doorbell.
They waited for a few moments.
"Ring it again," said Heck.
"What if she's just moving slow?" asked Maddox. "We don't want to make her mad."
"She's not going to fly into a rage because we rang the doorbell more than once."
"But it's late. The lights are out. We probably woke her up. She might not have even had a chance to get out of bed yet."
"Then that's a good reason to ring it again," said Heck. "Let her know it's important."
He rang the doorbell again.
The porch light came on.
All three of the men took a step backwards.
The door swung open.
The woman appeared to be about fifty years old. You could make an argument that she wasn't bad looking, though she had kind of a spinster appearance, not that anybody used the word spinster anymore. Totally one of those crazy cat lady virgins.
She definitely wasn't frail, though. Not that she had muscles bulging through her nightgown, but Maddox got the sense that if she was ever married, she could've bashed her husband over the head with a shovel and buried him in the backyard without needing anybody's assistance.
She slowly raised her hand and pointed her index finger at Maddox. "Why hast thou disturbed my slumber?" she asked, in a low, eerie voice.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Relax, I'm kidding." She reached out and patted him on the shoulder. "Why's a big strong man like you such a scaredy-cat?"
"I wasn't scared," Maddox said.
"Of course you weren't."
"Saying 'I beg your pardon' isn't a sign of fear. I thought I misheard you."
"I think the gentleman doth protest too much. Would you like to come in? I don't typically have big strong men in my home, but since you're already here, it would be rude to turn you away."
"Yes, we'd love to," said Maddox. The woman stepped aside as he, Heck, and Fletcher walked inside, making sure to wipe their feet on the doormat first.
The house was sparsely furnished. There weren't even any pictures on the walls.
"Nice place," said Heck, shutting the door behind him. Maddox felt like it could be a mistake to trap themselves inside, but it was too late now, and he didn't want to offend the woman by suggesting that she might pose a threat.
"Thank you," she said. "I don't need a home with three bedrooms, but I sometimes stay here between tenants. I like the area. And of course I was waiting for you. Which of you is Hector?"
Heck raised his hand.
"And Larry?"
"That's me," said Maddox.
The woman looked at Fletcher. "Then you must be Cliff."
Maddox had never known Fletcher's full name. He'd thought that Fletcher was his first name, not his last. He wanted to poke fun at him, but Cliff was a perfectly good name, unworthy of ridicule.
"Do you know my name?" she asked.
Maddox concentrated for a moment. "Virginia?"
"Close."
"Jean?"
"Closer."
"Gina?"
"That's it. Pleased to meet you. And you three have paid me this kind visit because you murdered my older sister, right?"
Maddox and his partners exchanged an uncertain glance. That was indeed the reason they were here, but it suddenly seemed unwise to just blurt it out.
"Yes," Maddox admitted. "It wasn't our idea."
"That makes it all better then?"
"No, of course not. But we only did it for the money. We didn't know she was your sister. Or even anybody's sister."
"You knew she was at least somebody's daughter."
"Well, yes, that's true, but, I mean, we didn't know if her parents were still alive." Maddox didn't feel that he was doing himself any favors. Why the hell did he have to do all of the heavy lifting in this conversation? Why weren't Heck and Fletcher trying to help him out?
"Only for the money," said Gina. "Was it worth it?"
"No. Not at all. Not one bit."
Maddox looked over at Heck for assistance.
"Not at all," Heck agreed.
Maddox held up his envelope. "We brought the money. Every dollar. We wanted to give it to you, as penance."
"I see." Gina kind of smiled at him. That is, her mouth didn't curl up, but she seemed to be smiling with her eyes. "Have you noticed anything unusual since you've been here?"
"No, ma'am."
"Do I seem like an impolite host?"
"No."
"I invited you into my home, and yet here we are, standing around. I didn't offer you a seat on my comfortable sofa. I haven't asked if I could get you something to drink. Do you know why this is? Let Cliff answer; he hasn't spoken much."
"I don't know," said Fletcher.
"It's because I do not like you. You are unintelligent men who are easily manipulated. It creates a dilemma for me, because I need you to be easily manipulated to work my witchcraft, but it disgusts me that I'm successful. You do understand that you're not here of your own free will, right?"
The three men nodded.
"Good. I'm glad you're not that stupid. You let yourselves be paid to do something very, very naughty. Naughtier than you even know. Something that an extremely bad person hoped to use to gain some power that didn't belong to him. Sadly for him, it didn't work. And sadly for you, I'm quite unhappy about it."
"We brought the money, though," said Maddox. "It's yours. All three of us agreed."
"Let's take this to the kitchen, shall we?" Without waiting for an answer, Gina walked down the hallway.
Maddox believed that this was an excellent opportunity for them to flee the house, and maybe the country. And yet he couldn't bring himself to do it. The thing Gina had said about him being easily manipulated was clearly true, and apparently there was nothing he could do about it.
They followed her.
"Throw the money in the sink, please," she said.
Maddox, Heck, and Fletcher tossed their envelopes into the sink.
"You can count it if you want," said Maddox.
"I trust you. Do any of you smoke?"
"Heck does," said Maddox, accusingly. He assumed that Gina did not approve of smokers.
"Does that mean you have a lighter in your pocket?" Gina asked him.
"Yeah."
"Well, don't stand there like an imbecile. I wouldn't ask you if you had a lighter in your pocket if I didn't mean for you to take it out."
"Sorry, sorry." Heck dug into his pocket and pulled out a black lighter. A few coins and a pack of gum fell to the floor along with it, but he didn't pick them up. He extended the lighter toward Gina.
"No, it's more fun if you do it," she said. "Burn the money."
"What?" Maddox asked.
"Burn the blood money."
"Don't you want it?"
"I'm not saying I couldn't use it. I'd love the extra cash. But, no, I do not want the money you were paid to murder my sister. I wouldn't even accept it to donate to charity. I want it destroyed. If you thought this was how you were going to cleanse your conscience, I'm afraid you were wrong."
She picked up a container of lighter fluid. Since people rarely kept tins of lighter fluid next to their kitchen sink, Maddox was pretty sure she'd planned all of this out before they arrived.
"Can we just keep the money?" Heck asked.
The sheer stupidity of his question should have made everybody chuckle, but Maddox was terrified that Gina would be outraged instead of amused.
She narrowed her eyes. Though she definitely wasn't amused, she didn't seem to be filled with rage, so that was a relief. "No," she said. "You may not keep the money."
"I understand," said Heck. "I shouldn’t have asked."
Gina squirted a generous amount of lighter fluid onto the envelopes. "Light them up," she said. "Be careful that you don't burn yourself. I've got an ice pack in the freezer and bandages in the bathroom, but I will not offer them to you. If your skin gets red and blistered, you're on your own. Burn the money."
Heck flicked on the flame. "It's a lot of money," he said.
"Yes, it most certainly is. If only you'd earned it honestly. Burn the money, Hector. Please do not make me ask you again."
Heck dropped the lighter into the sink. The flames whooshed up into the air, almost getting his hand. Maddox could see the bills as the yellow envelope burned away and felt heartsick. That cash was supposed to solve a lot of his problems.
Everybody stood there, silently watching the money turn to ashes.
After it was gone far beyond the point of salvage, Gina turned on the faucet and doused the remaining flames. "Don't you all feel better, knowing that this filthy, dirty, wretched money is gone?"
Maddox didn't, but he lied and said, "Yes."
"Good. I know I do."
"Anyway, that's why we came here. Penance."
"Right, right. You'd said that earlier. Are you up for a hypothetical discussion, Larry?"
"Of course."
"Let's pretend that you stole an apple. A nice, juicy, red apple. But let's say that the owner of the apple caught you before you ate it. So you gave it back. Would you consider that doing penance?"
Maddox said nothing.
"Or let's say that you did eat the apple. After the owner caught you, you went straight to the market and bought them another apple. A better, juicier, redder apple. Does that count as penance?"
"I think it makes things right."
"Perhaps," said Gina. "But we weren't talking about balancing out the universe. We were talking about doing penance. Maybe you just used the wrong word; after all, we've already established that you're not very smart. But the word 'penance' is out there and there's no taking it back now. What I'm trying to say through this hypothetical example is that burning the money you received for taking my sister away from me isn't good enough."
