by Tammar Stein
I don’t want to hear the excuses. With a sigh, I kneel down to pick up the papers.
“No,” she says, stopping me. “I’ll do it.”
“But it’s my fault. Let me help.”
“No,” she says firmly. “I’ll clean up. Go do your homework. You don’t want to fall behind.”
She’s not furious anymore and neither am I. But nothing has been cleared up and I still haven’t told her I might not give over the money. It’s hard to do it in the face of her quiet dignity and defeat.
“We can’t move back to the old house,” she says tiredly, kneeling by the bills on the floor. “We haven’t paid the taxes on it in three years. There’s almost ten thousand dollars due. The county’s putting it up for auction soon.” She speaks so quietly, it’s almost a whisper.
My deflating anger leaves me empty and all stretched out. I bend down again to help pick up the mess but she shoos me away. “Go do your homework.”
“Okay, Mom.” I kiss her cheek. “I love you, you know.”
She nods, still kneeling, and I can’t see her face.
“I know you do,” she says, her voice nearly muffled. “I know.”
I leave her on her knees in the kitchen, picking up the mess we all made.
Climbing the wide staircase, grasping the railing, its tendrils of wrought iron like frozen vines from some enchanted land, I have never felt more alone.
Give all my trust away? I ask, my heart pounding at the thought of an angel visit right here in my house. Yet I have to ask. How will that fix this?
But angels don’t answer unsolicited questions. Maybe he’s busy with other chores. All is quiet as I slowly trek upstairs. There are only us lost human souls in the house and we have to make our way as best we can.
I used to be dismissive of people who prayed to God for answers. My literal, scientific mind used to believe that unless some heavenly voice answered you with the correct answer, you were wasting your time. You might as well be asking your invisible friend what she thinks about the situation.
Yet even without a dramatic reply, simply asking the question calms me. Giving the money away is the starting point. But it has to be done right, or it’s as pointless as all the spending my family has already done. My money has to buy the right thing.
I have eight days to figure out what that is.
Jennifer was the first one who noticed Aiden wasn’t acting right. Drew ignored her at first. All kids go through weird phases. Jennifer overreacted a lot, every fever meant a trip to the doctor, every scrape was gooped in antibacterial gel. Aiden was fine. Of course he was fine. He ate nothing but organic food. Slept in organic-cotton pajamas and played with wooden toys made in America and certified lead free. How could anything be seriously wrong with a three-year-old? But as Aiden started losing what the pediatrician called “milestones,” even Drew started to worry.
You never want to hear the word “cancer.” It’s a nightmare, a death sentence, your body’s betrayal of you. But to hear it said about your kid? Your sweet, funny little guy? That was a knife thrust straight in your gut, then twisted.
“But I did everything right,” Jennifer wailed when the pediatric oncologist delivered the news. Tears ran unchecked down her face. “I did everything I was supposed to.”
Drew, who hadn’t cried since he was ten and fumbled the pop fly that cost his team the game, felt his eyes prickle as tears overflowed. My boy, he kept thinking. My boy.
It was the start of hell. They didn’t even realize, they didn’t have a clue what lay in store for them. The modern-day equivalent of a hall of torture that you were supposed to submit your toddler to willingly, that you were supposed to be grateful for. And they were, of course. They were pathetically grateful to all the nurses, the teams of doctors, the therapists, dietitians and psychiatrists, everyone who was so willing to give everything they had to try and fix what was wrong with Aiden. Aiden, who cried when he saw anyone wearing scrubs. Who knew the way to the hospital better than the way to the park. Who had had more surgeries by the time he was six than most people have in a lifetime.
Then, on top of the agony of watching their son fight so bravely for his life, on top of the cruel waiting game to see if the cancer would come back, and dealing with it when it did, again and again, there were the bills. More than they could handle. More than anyone could. They always thought they had decent health coverage, until they realized they didn’t. You’d have to be a millionaire to handle your share of the bills.
Which was when someone mentioned that one of their former neighbors had won the lottery a couple of years back. One of those Powerball jackpots. If God cared about us at all, Drew thought bitterly, we’d win so we could pay these bills. Then again, if God cared about them at all, pediatric oncology wouldn’t be a field of medicine.
Before the diagnosis, Drew couldn’t imagine ever asking anyone for a loan, let alone some stranger. Before the diagnosis, they paid cash for their house, cash for their cars; they didn’t believe in mortgages and car loans. Before Aiden got sick, there were a lot of things Drew couldn’t imagine. He still didn’t want to do it, but Jennifer had no such qualms.
“If Aiden can get stuck with a needle six times while that Cro-Magnon nurse Heidi searches for a vein,” she said, spewing rage at him as if he were the one responsible, “you can certainly tuck your pride and see if someone will help us.” They were fighting a lot by then. About money. About Aiden. About everything. They were close to losing the house. They had taken out a huge mortgage to pay the hospital, and now those monthly payments jostled with the never-ending doctors’ bills for the best and juiciest parts of Drew’s paycheck. They probably had a couple more months before the bank called in their mortgage. They’d already traded in their cars like a car commercial played in reverse, driving away with a clunker and leaving their excellent sedan behind.
So for Aiden, for all of them, he went to meet the guy, the millionaire, who actually seemed like a decent sort. Drew swore up and down that he’d pay it back. Every bit. Every penny. And he meant it, though how he ever would was a problem that seemed small compared with everything else he was facing.
When the guy wrote him the check, as easy as pie, Drew felt tears prickle behind his eyes. Tears of gratitude. Of envy at how easy some people had it.
“It’ll make a huge difference,” Drew said, clutching the check to his chest like a talisman. “This will make all the difference.” But at the same time he knew it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
Chapter Eight
So where did all the money go?
The dolphin, of course. A share in a helicopter that we used twice. A custom RV that my parents sold after three years for a fraction of what they bought it for. A boat that Eddie trashed with some college buddies. Another one that slowly rusted in the marina. This stupid house and all its troubles. I did my share too. I begged for an iPad on the day they came out. Took an amazing cruise with my parents to the Galápagos for my thirteenth birthday (I dropped hints for a month to avoid a repeat of the twelfth-birthday disaster). The RV was my idea, too; I had visions of touring all the national parks during one epic summer road trip. The most we ever did, though, was drive it to Disney and “camp” for a week.
There were investments too. A failed sushi bar in Ocala. Condominiums in Tampa. A resort, or mall, or something like that, in Costa Rica (that one I tried to talk them out of). A lot of the money disappeared in foolish attempts to make more from investments that were a sure thing.
Then there were all those second cousins once removed. Old high school buddies, looking to reconnect after all these years. And…well, they could use a helping hand. They all needed help. Some of them were jerks, looking for a handout, but some of them really did need help. One of them had a very sick child and horrid insurance that wouldn’t pay for a vital operation. One of them was struggling to make it through college, loaded down with two jobs and insane loans, and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to graduate. One of the
m had lost his job, had three young kids, and the bank was threatening foreclosure. And couldn’t my parents help?
Hardly anyone paid them back. At a rough guess, my parents “lent” a couple of million. All those heartfelt promises to repay were usually empty promises in the end. After the first few times, my parents understood that when they wrote someone a check, they called it a loan when actually it was a gift.
It pisses me off that my folks wasted so much money on the stupid house, the flower arrangements, the trips and clothes and parties, a freaking mall in the rain forest, and I feel sick about my part in the whole fiasco. But when I think of all the people my parents helped, really and truly saved, even if the people themselves no longer felt a debt of gratitude, then I know my parents were on the right track.
So I start with charities. There are people out there who deserve what we landed a lot more than us. Find a few of them and I’m good to go. I type in a few keywords, and worthy candidates fill my screen. There are programs for wounded veterans. Foster kids. Urban gardens. Sending children to science summer camp. Protecting sea grass in the bay. Restoring oyster beds in the Chesapeake. Providing clean water in the developing world. Promoting literacy. Preventing child abuse. If nothing else, it cheers me up to see that so many people are trying to make the world a better place. But after an hour of surfing websites and testimonials, I’ve found nothing that really feels right. Nothing sends a shiver of recognition down my spine. This is going to take more than picking a worthwhile charity and dumping my trust fund in their account. It’s too easy. It’ll need to mean a whole heck of a lot before I turn my back on my family. It needs to be personal.
It’s past midnight when I shut off my computer, but sleep eludes me. For the second night in a row, I check the clock at five-minute intervals, unable to turn my brain off. I keep replaying the look on my mom’s face. How in God’s name am I supposed to tell her she can’t have the money?
I slip out of bed and head to the patio at the back of the house.
Once again, I huddle on one of the faded, musty lounge chairs, staring blindly at the dark water. It doesn’t take long before I catch the flickering blue light of late-night television in my peripheral vision. Eddie, up late, in a waking coma in front of the TV. Out of curiosity, I turn to my parents’ window and sure enough, there’s light glowing around the margins of their heavy lined curtains.
Two in the morning and every one of us is awake in our Florida mansion.
Invasive air potato vines and cat claw vine, with its wicked thorns, have officially taken over our yard in the year since my parents stopped the yard service. They wind through every shrub, pulling down saplings. Spanish needles and prickly crabgrass grow freely in the beds, blurring any lines the landscaper originally intended. Add to that the fact that each of us is fighting some private demon, unable to sleep, and it sounds almost familiar. A story told long ago, some fairy tale about an evil curse and a kingdom under a spell.
The stories always start with a curse. Ours was winning the lottery.
It doesn’t matter that it’s two in the morning. I have to talk to Natasha.
Natasha has her own place, a condo in a fancy high-rise on the water near Steeped. It’s a ten-minute bike ride, and at two a.m. on a Friday, there’s no one to do a double take at a girl in pajamas and flip-flops furiously pedaling.
I key in her security code to enter the building and let myself into her condo with the spare key she keeps at our house.
Her apartment is dark, naturally. Hoping I don’t scare the living daylights out of her, I carefully open the door to her bedroom.
The plan is to gently shake her awake and let her know I’m not budging until she tells me the full story. But Natasha is already awake. She sits on her bed, hugging her knees, the identical pose I was in a few minutes ago on the patio. She looks up when the door swings open like she’s been waiting for someone to come, like she’s barely holding on.
“I’m scared, Leni,” she says in a small, high voice. Goose bumps spread across my skin.
“Why?”
“I’ve done something awful.” Her chin quivers. “Something really, really awful. And I’m scared that I can never be forgiven.” She begins weeping in hopeless sobs and I freeze at the sight of my confident, sensual older sister reduced to this mess. Not that my last encounter with her was exactly normal, but this verges on a true crisis, a dial-911, hand-this-over-to-the-professionals sort of situation. I could call Mom, but instinctively I know she’d be helpless here. I could dial 911, but the imaginary conversation where I tell the operator that my emergency is my older sister weeping in bed because she had someone rig the lottery doesn’t play well in my head. When I catch a whiff of ripe body odor, at least I know where to start.
“Come on.” I tug on Natasha’s arm, almost encircling her upper arm with my fingers. “There’s no point crying in bed. You need a shower. You smell.”
Pulling and prodding, I get her out of bed and into the shower. Hers is all sleek and modern, with cold glass tile and chrome fixtures. Her clothes stink of sweat and cigarette smoke. Once she’s undressed, the vertebrae in her spine stick out like LEGOs and her ribs are starkly exposed; hip bones jut out. Her hands are chapped and red, her fingernails raw and bleeding where she’s bitten them to the quick.
“In!” I command, ignoring the sad state of her body, and point to the steaming shower. She enters slowly, flinching as the water hits. I scrub her hair, my shirt getting soaked. I hand her a bar of soap to wash her body, and then wait for her to step into the towel I hold outstretched for her.
Once she’s clean and wrapped in the towel, I change my sopping shirt for one of hers and grab a pair of fresh, cozy pajamas for Natasha. She still huddles under the towel and I end up dressing her, buttoning the shirt while her hands hang limply at her sides.
She’s calmer now; maybe cleanliness really is next to godliness. But when I lead her back to her room and urge her to go to bed, to sleep, she refuses.
“I don’t want to sleep,” she says. “I have nightmares.”
“Natasha.” Here’s what I want to say: You’re being ridiculous. You’re twenty-four. You can’t be scared of the dark. But the words die before I can say them. She looks utterly drained and pathetic.
We stand at an impasse by her bed.
“I’ll stay for the night,” I finally say. “It’s late, anyway.”
She sighs, her shoulders slumping, and nods in agreement. We both crawl under the thin cotton blanket and there’s a weird adjustment to the fact that there’s another person in the bed with me.
Natasha curls on her side away from me. She always runs the AC at full blast and the dark room is freezing. But for once, I’m glad for the bracing chill. It’s very late, but we’re not sleeping until she tells me the rest of the story.
“Tasha,” I say. “What’s really going on?”
She’s quiet for a moment and I think she’s going to say that she’s tired, that she’ll tell me in the morning.
“You have to tell me,” I insist. “Tell me about this lottery guy. Who is he, what’s he like?”
She waits another second, postponing the inevitable.
“He wasn’t tall,” she finally says. “But there was something about him that made him seem like he was. You know how some people are like that? Like they’re bigger than their bodies. I liked that about him. That confidence. Like he always got what he wanted. I loved that about him.”
Her voice is soft in the dark, coming from the other side of the bed, eerie and mesmerizing. This is how the whole mess got started. My heart starts beating a little faster.
“Where did you meet him?”
“I was sneaking a smoke in the parking lot at school. And there he was, leaning against one of the cars, smiling like he was in on the joke, you know? Like it was all one big joke. Maybe it was, for him.” Natasha laughs in a mirthless sort of huff. “He wore tight jeans, cowboy boots and this amazing calf-skin jacket, all soft and buttery.
I really wanted to touch it. He should have looked ridiculous but he made it work. All I could do was look at him and think how sexy he was. His hair was the way I like it, loose, soft, kind of messy.” Even after everything that has happened, Natasha’s still excited, some part of her is still turned on. There’s this tone in her voice that says she doesn’t get it, even after all our family has been through. I think about my mom, falling apart in the kitchen, and all I feel is rage.
“Did you know who he was?” What I really want to ask is: How could you be so stupid, how could you be so blind?
“At first, no, of course not. No. No. I didn’t know, didn’t have a clue who he was. I thought he was some really awesome substitute teacher. Undercover narc, maybe. But nothing worse than that.”
“And later? When did you find out?” I demand. “Why did you think it would work out well?” I want to shake her poor, withered body until the bones knock together. This thing that she leveled the family with. This false gift. And all of us, shadows awake at night, riddled with guilt we can’t understand.
“Leni, it wasn’t like that,” she says, her voice rising. “It wasn’t like that at all. He was so nice, so helpful. And we won! We won seventy million dollars. How was I supposed to know each one of those dollars was a curse? How could I have known that then? I was only seventeen.”
We’re both breathing heavily and my heart knocks in my chest at the sudden adrenaline rush, but there’s nothing to fight and nowhere to hide.
“There was something a little scary about him,” she finally admits. “I couldn’t put my finger on it, but the first thing I did when I saw him was take a step back.” I sit up to see her face better, but she stays on her side, her back to me, a pale mound under the washed-out covers. “I keep thinking about that,” she says to the wall. “That small step away from him.” Her voice is suddenly thick with tears. “He frowned when he saw it. Then he smiled this crooked little smile and started talking. I keep thinking about how some part of me knew I should leave, but I ignored it.”
