by Ash, Leela
Jennifer spent the rest of the day and into the night going through her old things. Cleaning out her old closet was like going through a time capsule. Helping herself to the full liquor cabinet, she decided to take a break with a glass of wine as she looked through some old photo albums. As she sipped the wine and felt waves of nostalgia wash over her, she had a crazy idea. She wished there was a way that she could just buy her mother’s house. This place was where she grew up and it held so many happy memories, it just killed her to think they were selling it. But what could she do? After all, she didn’t have the kind of money it would take to buy it. On top of it Ryan seemed to be pushing the issue of the sale. Jennifer thought that maybe it was because he didn’t want his new wife to have a way out. Or maybe she was just feeling protective – or paranoid.
But she thought that Ryan was controlling and getting rid of Darla’s house would be like a guarantee for him that she couldn’t leave him. At least that is how Jennifer saw it. Jennifer never said a word though. How could she tell her mom that the guy she was going to marry might be rich, but he was also a class “A” jerk? Jennifer was sure that his son’s would be no better. She wasn’t looking forward to having to meet more rich assholes. She was sure that they had just as little class as their father did. The thought of holidays with the three of them looking down their noses at her was almost more than she could bear. Jennifer knew that she would have to get used to this new situation eventually, but at the moment Christmas was still eight months away. She could afford to maintain her morose outlook about it for a while yet.
Jennifer stewed about the wedding and then she stewed about where she was going to live after she got out of college. It had all just changed so fast and she was finding it hard not to blame her new stepdad Ryan. Before she left for college, her mother was dating some other guy entirely. Then, the next thing she knew, she got a phone call from Darla telling her that their mother was engaged. On top of that, it was to an entirely different guy that Jennifer had never even met, let alone knew anything about. There was a slight sadness mixed with a fair amount of irritation because Jennifer felt like she was losing her mother and gaining three pompous men in return. She knew she had not even met her new stepbrothers yet, but she was already convinced they would be jerks.
She tried to spend the rest of her break relaxing. She knew the material for the finals pretty well already. She wanted to visit with some of her friends that had decided not to go off to school, or had gone to college locally. Her friend Cindy was working at a local club, The Highball, so she went down there to get a few drinks the next evening. The more time they spent talking about old times the more homesick Jennifer became. Still, they had a good time dancing and laughing, just like old times. It turned out that her mother had left her a couple of messages while she was dancing. By the time she saw them, she was on her way home anyhow and didn’t bother checking them. Had she taken a minute to listen to the voicemails, she would not have been surprised to find the front door unlocked when she got back to the house.
Jennifer walked in slowly and paused, listening to see if she heard anything. By this time she was getting almost used to random people appearing in the home. It did belong to her mother and she just had to deal with her penchant for giving out sets of keys.
There was a light on in the back by her mother’s room and as she walked back there her hands found a glass vase to use, just in case. Having grown up in a safe neighborhood, and knowing her mom, she wasn’t too worried really. As she got closer, she could hear the shuffling of papers, but despite her feeling it would just be another random friend of her mother’s, it took her a moment to get the courage up to peer around the corner to see who it was. This was the downside of the free room and board.
Jennifer came around the door with the vase in front of her and, although relieved, was still shocked when she saw that it was her mother.
“Mom! What are you doing here? I thought you were on your honeymoon for the next two weeks? It’s only been three days.”
“I know baby, but Ryan had a merger deal that ran into some sort of trouble unexpectedly, so he wanted to get back and take care of it. I guess we’ll take the honeymoon later.”
Jennifer could see that her mother was hurt, but that she would never admit it. Her mom was all about appearances. She wanted everyone to think that it was all okay, even if it didn’t feel ok for her. Once again, Jennifer was not going to upset her fantasy world.
“So what are you looking for?”
“Oh, just papers on the house. Ryan wants to have his lawyers look at them and find a buyer as soon as possible.”
“I don’t understand why you have to rush everything. It is not like you guys need the money.”
Darla looked back at her daughter and shrugged.
“You know how Ryan is. He likes to get stuff done, no procrastination. That’s why he has been so successful.”
“No, actually, I don’t really know ‘how he is’ at all. All I know is what you tell me. I have only met him twice mom.”
“I know dear and he suggested that you come by and have dinner with us soon.” She said evasively. “I see that you met new your brother Charlie. I was so happy to see you two getting along.”
“Wait, what?” Jennifer felt the blood drain from her face.
“I saw you and Charlie at the table talking. He’s your new stepbrother, well one of them. He is the oldest and his younger brother stopped by after the wedding. Maybe you met him too?”
Jennifer’s heart rate increased dramatically and she felt like her throat was closing up. While she couldn’t speak from shock, her mind screamed for her to answer. She needed to say something to fill the void. And to find out if what she said was true. Jennifer could not imagine that the man who had his hands all over her at the wedding and whom she kissed so passionately was really her new stepbrother. How could that be?
“The one I danced with at the wedding is my new stepbrother?”
“Yes. One of them. I swear dear, it is like you are not even listening sometimes.”
Jennifer leaned back against her mother’s bed. Darla turned around with some papers in her hands and waved them like they were the winning lottery ticket. Apparently she had been searching for them for a while.
“I just don’t understand why you have to sell the house. Maybe I want to buy it.”
“Oh now Jenny, don’t be dramatic. I know you will miss it, but you don’t want this house.”
“But this was the house that we all lived in. Dad lived here and if you sell it, it will be like losing one of the last pieces of Dad.”
It was finally said. Jennifer was finally able to voice what she had wanted to say for a while. Her father had been gone for 7 years and her mother didn’t even say his name anymore. Jennifer’s older sister wouldn’t talk about him either. They acted like he had never existed and Jennifer just didn’t get it. She knew that was just their way of coping, but she couldn’t be that way. She wanted to hold on to the house. She felt like it was all she had left of him.
“Baby, it’s just a house. You don’t really want this old house, not really. It’s got too much wrong with it. The porch needs to be fixed and it needs a new roof.”
“I don’t care. I do want it. How much are you trying to sell it for?”
“I don’t know. I was going to let Ryan take care of all of that.”
“Of course you were.”
Jennifer was done talking. Her mind reeled from the thought of making out with her stepbrother, but her heart sank from the idea that her mother was really going to go through with selling the house.
“Well, when you find out let me know. I might go down to the bank and see if I can get a loan.”
“You know they‘ll never approve you Jennifer.”
“They might. I will figure something out. Thanks for the show of support though. So are you staying over there tonight, or here?”
Darla looked at her youngest daughter and sat down on the bed. The
older woman had not realized how much all these changes were going to affect her. It was true that there were a lot of memories of her husband in this house. That was one of the main reasons that she was okay with selling it when Ryan suggested it. She couldn’t deal with all the memories and selling the place would mean one less painful reminder to deal with. For the most part she had made a kind of peace with it, but she hadn’t thought about how it would affect Jennifer.
“Honey, I know this has all happened so quickly, but I am married to Ryan now. So yes, I will be staying with him. You are staying here until you go back to school, right?”
“Yeah. I guess I will get a storage unit and get my stuff out of here.”
Jennifer did not want to sound bitter, but she was and she didn’t know how to let it go. She was more than just a little disappointed, she was devastated. Darla stayed to grab a few more items that she threw in a suitcase. Jennifer heard a noise downstairs and she looked to see the same man that had walked in the day before. She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t been concerned with who he was yesterday. She was just so distracted with everything going on. She had figured he was an assistant or something. He waved slightly and she wondered if he had heard what she had said about his father. Or had he heard what she had said about her own father?
4
Jennifer did not stay much longer at her mother’s house. She packed up most of her things and took some of her father’s things over to a storage facility. Jennifer had a feeling that the house would not be in the family the next time she was back in town and the thought saddened her. There was nothing to be done though, so she left to go back to school a couple of days early.
Her mother had called several times to try and get together, but Jennifer had ignored the messages and didn’t bother texting her until she was back at school. Even then, it was just to tell her that she made it back safely. The two women did not talk for the next several months and Jennifer even started to ignore the calls from her sister. She sort of went into a protective bubble.
Jennifer just tried to immerse herself in school and forget about what was going on back home. She had actually found a boyfriend too. It weirded her out though, because she found herself constantly comparing him to Charles. Charles was taller, she would think to herself. And she had felt differently as he had held her close. She didn’t feel the same way about her boyfriend Steve, though he was nice and they did have a good time together. They hadn’t gone all the way yet though. Jennifer had before, of course, she just hadn’t given it up yet with him. As the time stretched on, she wondered if she ever would. Maybe it had something to do with Charles, who lingered in the back of her mind, despite her attempts to dispel any thought of him.
Finally, the holidays were upon her and Jennifer felt compelled to go see her mother for Christmas. She had opted out of Thanksgiving and Darla had actually seemed uncharacteristically upset. She had called her the next morning and made Jennifer feel bad, so she had promised to go home for a couple days during the next holiday.
She dreaded the trip for many reasons though. One of the big ones was the reminder of the imminent loss of her childhood home and all those memories of her father that she was afraid would go with it. There was also her mother’s unwillingness to talk about it. On top of that she would have to deal with her new rich stepfather that she couldn’t stand to be around. And of course, the main reason to stay away would have been to avoid seeing the stepbrother she had sucked face with and whom she had allowed to feel her up. That was kind of a big one. It would have been a lot for anyone and Jennifer just felt so overwhelmed. She wished that she could find a good enough excuse to just skip the whole thing. But she was out of excuses.
The day that she was packing up for what would probably be her last ride “home”, she received a large envelope folded over in her mail box. It was a crisp textured eight and one half by eleven inch white envelope with no return address. Opening it curiously, she found a small collection of papers inside. There was a note that was on the top of the stack of legal papers that at first just confused her. Then it made tears well up in her eyes, blurring her vision. She could hardly believe it and had to read it through three times before it would begin to sink in.
“Jennifer, Samuel overheard the conversation with your mother about your childhood home. We hope this is not unwelcomed or too ostentatious of a gift, but we decided to buy it for you and would like to give it to you as an early Christmas present, if you will accept. Of course we will have to deal with some tax implications, etc. but we have attorneys for that sort of thing. Along with the house will also be a fund to be used for upkeep and repairs for the foreseeable future, so that this does not become a burden to you financially. You probably are wondering where this is coming from. We know what it is like to lose a parent and to want to hold on to their memory. We lost our mother. It is our sincerest wish that you accept this small gift on our behalf. You would be giving us great pleasure in receiving it. I hope to see you soon. Charles”
After she picked her jaw up off the floor and stopped crying tears of both joy and relief, she looked at the pages once more to be sure she wasn’t imagining it. The letter trembled in her hands as she read the important parts several times over. Then she looked at the new deed with her name on it. There it was in black and white, but she still couldn’t believe it. People don’t just give other people a house. Did they? Well, apparently. These guys did. It seemed like they had done that very thing. Jennifer was speechless as she made her final preparations for the trip home. She realized she was driving towards her home for real now. I was hers, unless this was some kind of trick. It was still hard to believe it in her mind. If it was true, she did not know how she could repay them for their kindness.
***
“Hey baby, are you leaving soon? I’m all ready.”
“Yeah Steve. I’m leaving now.”
“Ok babe. I’ll see you when you get here.”
Jennifer hung up and grimaced, she hated being called babe. Baby wasn’t so bad, but babe just grated on her nerves for some reason. She had mentioned it to Steve, but he did not seem to care too much and continued punctuating his sentences liberally with the nickname.
She had decided to take Steve with her for purely selfish reasons. The visit was already going to be more than she wanted to face and she planned to use her boyfriend as a buffer. This approach wasn’t going to win her any girlfriend of the year awards, but sometimes you just had to do what you had to do. The dinner was supposed to be at Ryan’s mansion and her stepbrothers were going to be there, as well as the rest of Ryan’s family. She had not met them, but Jennifer already imagined that she knew how it would go. She knew they were just people like her, but sometimes the money thing could be a lot to take. Of course those stepbrothers had just bought her a house, so maybe it was time to see them in a new light.
So she figured Steve could do the small talk thing with the rich folk, since he came from a pretty well-off family. She also figured that Steve would keep her mind and her lips away from the forbidden ones that she still felt attracted to. The knowledge of her new familial connection with Charles had not dampened the memory of the heat she had felt between them. Jennifer could still feel Charles’ body against hers. That feeling and the memory of that encounter had kept her up late at night on several occasions in the intervening months since she had seen him. She imagined that a man like that would always have a girlfriend but despite the obvious problems it would present, she couldn’t help but wish that he was available.
Jennifer picked up Steve and was glad to see that he had dressed up a bit with a button down and some slacks. He looked nice. Now if he could just leave out all the “babe” comments.
Since Jennifer supposedly had her own home now, she figured she had somewhere to escape to if things got to be too much on the trip. That helped her relax a bit. She assumed that her new benefactors had left the house as it was. She had actually lost track of what had happened with the house when she retr
eated into her bubble over the summer and fall. Anyhow, even though the family situation would be marginally more manageable now, she also realized that in coping with it she had potentially created another problem. By inviting him to meet the family it was very possible that he would assume that she was stepping up the relationship. That, of course, would mean sex for Steve. That would be a pretty reasonable conclusion actually. The problem was that Jennifer still wasn’t sure if she wanted to have sex with him, even though it had been several months since they had started dating. She had given him a few blow jobs to satiate his needs a bit and to let off some of the pressure he was no doubt feeling inside. She had certainly relieved that pressure admirably, but it clearly wasn’t enough. He wanted it all and she knew that that weekend, he would try to get it.
He kissed her as they were about to drive away from in front of his dorm but Jennifer was the one who pulled back when his mouth became more insistent. She pretended she had to focus on the drive ahead of them. From the look in his eyes, she imagined he was pretty sure they would be sleeping together any day now. At times like this, he seemed to look at her almost as a possession, Jennifer thought. She wasn’t sure if she liked it or not. Almost against her will, her body responded to his soft lips and probing tongue, and she momentarily contemplated ending her self-imposed dry spell. She really did need to have sex and so it was starting to look like Steve just might be in luck after all. The way she kept vacillating around this issue, she could understand how crazy men thought woman were. She felt a little crazy herself, she laughed inside.
5
“So I thought we were going to your mom’s?”
“We are. I just wanted to put our things here. I haven’t seen the house since I was here for the wedding. And I haven’t seen it since it became mine. It feels pretty good. I thought we could tidy up a few things while we are here.”
