by Peitho
“I didn’t sleep at all. All this was going on with my twin sister and I was out there….”
I choked, “All this was going on and I lived in the same house.”
I stood up in the noisy restaurant and swallowed the ball of grief in my throat down. I saw the food spread out in front of me and began to reach for things, as if my mom hadn’t just died and guilt didn’t consume me. I did what I’d done so recently and tried to drown the weight of guilt out with the weight of food. When I first came into the room I didn’t feel like eating, now I couldn’t think of anything more welcoming then the crispy bacon in front of me, and enough pastries to put my local bakery out of business. My favorites, cherry and raspberry strudels were in front of me and I couldn’t think of anything better than just eating, eating and eating.
I grabbed everything I saw and put it on one plate. I didn’t have an appetite to eat all of the food I’d collected because I was hungry. No, I had an appetite because I was an emotional wreck and food would sooth me.
I sat down, my mind empty except for the vision of the food in front of me, and I ate. I started to feel like an empty shell on the beach. I could hear echoes and waves, those were the sounds that others were making in the restaurant, but I was invisible to them.
I didn’t even notice if Aunt Rose or Uncle Graham were still seated at the table.
I just didn’t care. I had this crazy reasoning that if I ate, then all my troubles would go away. I stopped when reality invaded and I realized that not only did I feel sick after what must have been my tenth piece of bacon, but the strudels, which would normally curb my sweet tooth, didn’t do their usual job. Mom wasn’t coming back, no matter how much I ate, and our house wasn’t going to be home, not anymore.
A wave of tears entered my eyes ready to flood out in a wave of devastating grief.
That’s when I felt a hand on mine and I turned to face the owner of it, to discover that it was Uncle Graham.
“Hey,” he whispered, probably unsure what to say after that. But in some crazy way it made me feel better, knowing that I wasn’t alone even if it was for a little while.
“Rose’s gone to see how much of your things she can get out of the house. We don’t think that it’s a good idea for you to go back now. Well, not right away, it was probably the reason why you had the nightmare in the car?”
I nodded, thinking that I didn’t want anything from that house near me right now. Photos of Mom, maybe, but then again, I had a ton of pictures of her on my phone. My mind was racing about all the things that I could want and if I really needed them.
But my thoughts were interrupted as Graham said, “You don’t need to worry about a thing, baby girl.”
I had to look up to him, to figure out if he was patronizing me or if, in his own kind of way, he was trying to comfort me.
As I saw his normally sky-blue eyes turn dull, I knew that it was the latter. He was trying to find comfort in his words and for the second time since I heard that he wanted to be a rapper, I doubted his ability to express himself.
I shook my head thinking about my thoughts - bad, ungrateful thoughts that wanted to lash out and take my misery out on Graham.
“So, not fair,” he sighed.
“Why?”
Was the only word that muttered out of my mouth. I realized that he didn’t understand what I’d actually meant. He thought I’d asked him why because of what he’d said.
“I know that you're probably beating yourself up about the whole thing, but hey, we’re just as much to blame. Rose thinks that she should have been supporting Lily more and she should have been here for you. Hell, they’re both my older sisters, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t do something for them in return. Instead of always waiting for them to do it for me. I’m a grown man for crying out loud.”
We were talking more now than we’d done in the last few years. That’s the thing about grief. I remembered seeing Gran’s friends so many times in the past and never having a real conversation with them. But when she died, and they all came to the funeral? That was when we really had conversations. Not the usual ones, that we’d had in the past. ´How’s things going dear?´, then I would respond, ´Fine.´ They told me things that I’d told Gran that she passed on to them, about which grade I was in, things like that, before she died.
After she died we spent our time reminiscing about her. Her smile. Her laugh. Especially about her kind heart. That was what Uncle G and I were doing now, talking as if we’d just met and we were talking about things that we’d never done in the past.
“All I ever thought about was my career. That was the center of my world and part of me would forget to ask her how she was. Or even you, how you’re all doing. Selfish right?”
I wasn’t going to let him take the fall for that one. Sure, I was still at home, but I wasn’t really a kid. I didn’t have to act like one.
“We’re nearly the same age. We have more in common than the oldies. I could pick up the phone and talk to you. I mean there was never anything to stop me from reaching out to you or Aunt Rose and saying the situation in the house sucks. We really need help! With Aunt Rose, it’s a bit difficult with her job, she’s always on the move. Being a journalist and all.”
“Mom knew or suspected that something was wrong with Lily and Stuart. She’d told me to keep close to you. But as I said, it’s been all about the rap,” he sighed.
“Selfish me. My head had been filled with thoughts of Abe, the guy next door and how he’d asked me to prom…finishing high school and going to college. I just knew that my time in the house was nearly over and I couldn’t wait to get out.”
“I think that she was gonna leave him…maybe that was what happened. She called Rose and said something, but Rose couldn’t make out what she was saying. Not properly. It wasn’t the first time that she’d said things weren’t going too well, but she just didn’t go into too much detail….well none of this matters now…Because she’s gone.”
I felt sick, I’d eaten too fast and the secrets that had been behind our closed doors had led to my Mom’s death. I hated myself for being so selfish and then anger flooded into my veins. I hated Stuart from taking my mom away. I had to find him. No matter what, fuck school, fuck everything, Stuart had to pay for what he’d done. I’d let Mom down once before and I had no intention of doing it again.
Chapter Five
Mom had been dead for two days.
Two long miserable days and my world had spun around completely on its axis. I felt as if the last 48 hours were longer and the man at the desk in front of me didn’t make it any better. It felt like the world was whirling by me with incredible speed, while I was just sitting here, watching it all by.
We’d been called to a lawyer’s office, and I didn’t know what to expect. I knew either way that it should make the situation better, or in the case of the butterflies fluttering through my stomach, even worse.
“Vicki, once again I’m sorry about your loss. I did speak to your Aunt Rose yesterday and if there’s anything that you need then let me know.”
I nodded my head as Ned spoke. He was mom’s lawyer and friend when Grandpa died. He was the type of guy that all women relied on. Those were Mom’s words, not mine. The friend zone guy. The type that none of them were attracted to but should probably marry in a heartbeat. I’d wanted Mom to be with someone like Ned. He looked like Jon Favreau with a cute and knowing smile, but he had three kids and another one on the way. So, Mom and him were never an option, but I would have loved for her to meet someone like Ned. He’d only been married eight years and every two years, him and his wife would have another baby on the way.
He had been to our house for dinner a few times, until Stuart came into our lives, then it stopped. I knew the reason it stopped wasn’t because of his wife, who loved the idea of him not being alone when she went to stay with family. That was something that she did quite often, because she had a big family and they had a small place. She knew Mom wasn’t a th
reat and would be happy for him to get a homecooked meal once in a while. No, the reason he stopped coming for dinner was Stuart. He stopped a lot of things that we used to do. When he came into our lives it should have been a blessing for Mom, but it ended up being a living hell.
“Vicki, you want to do this now, or it could…”
“No!” I blurted the word out quite aggressively and then I repeated it more calmly, “No.”
He was staring at me. The same way that everyone I’d been in contact with had done since it happened two days ago. Teresa, Ava and I never were stuck for words, usually we ended our conversations with, “hey catch you on Snap later.” Or, “come over after you finished eating.”
It was always something along those lines, because there wasn’t enough time in the day to finish up everything that we had to say, but yesterday was the first time that we’d said bye to each other. We’d known each other from middle school when I moved to the neighborhood right through high school and not once had we ever said goodbye. Not as far back as I could remember had we ever said bye to each other.
It was as if we were saying that we didn’t know when we would talk to each other again. Everything that had become familiar started to become unfamiliar and I didn’t like it. It made me feel uncomfortable in my own skin.
My thoughts were interrupted as he started to speak, talk about my fate and by the look in his eye, I could tell that it wasn’t good news. Then again, all I kept thinking was that it couldn’t get any worse. I’d lost mom. Stuart had run off. What else could go wrong?
“There’s no easy way to say it. I’ve tried to figure out if there’s some kind of error or something, but there is no money left in the accounts. Stuart, emptied it or rather all of them before your mom’s death.”
“That’s horrible!” Aunt Rose said with anger. I was afraid she was going to cause a scene, something she’d done a couple of times since Mom died, but she’d just lost her twin sister. I figured it came with the territory. Either way, I took her hand to try to comfort her.
“Was there a trust fund for Vicki, at all, something he couldn’t touch?” She asked him, but I already knew the answer to that one. If there was no money in Mom’s account there sure as hell wasn’t a trust fund for me.
“No.”
“Savings account?” She asked, her eyes narrow as she stared Ned down.
“Gone!” He shook his head and stared at all of us in turn. “There’s nothing. Nothing new to report other than the fact that I did speak to the bank about giving Vicki a week to get her things and….”
I didn’t let him finish as I blurted out, “I only want a few things.”
I had a few clothes, books and stuff that I wanted but anything more than that, just felt too much. The one thing that I would want out of the house was Mom, and she was gone.
“You sure?” Aunt Rose asked and I nodded for confirmation.
Before she could say another word, Ned interrupted, “Well, they’ve foreclosed on the house. She couldn’t do more than take a few things.”
I nodded, part of me wanted this over and done with and the other just wanted to get the hell out of here. I was finding it harder to breathe by the second. I thought that it couldn't get any worse, but it was getting there.
“Did you say, foreclosed?”
I asked, double-checking if I’d heard him right.
He nodded, “Yes. Stuart took a loan or rather loans out on the house and cleared out the bank accounts. He took all the money.”
“Wow,” I whispered thinking that not only did he take mom, but any chance of me ever going to college.
Was there any more damage that this man could do to my life?
Silence filled the room and I felt as if time, stood still for a while as no one moved. No one said anything and all I could hear was the echoes of the antique clock on the wall every time a minute passed by.
One more year and I would finish high school and I would be out of here and in Stanford hopefully.
What the fuck was I thinking?
I shook my head at the idea of it. Stanford wasn’t an option, not anymore. There was no money and as Aunt Rose looked at her phone, I could tell that she had news of her own and it wasn’t good.
“Everything’s gone,” she mumbled.
Graham faced her and asked, “Sorry?”
“Sis and I had two trust funds. We started it when Dad died, we agreed that one part would help Graham go to college and the other was for Vicki. I told her about Graham starting his music career and never heading to college. I wanted to empty out the account seeing as our original plan changed.”
“Rap career,” he corrected her, but as he said the word I could tell that he’d regretted interrupting her and went quiet again.
“But before we came to the office, I thought that maybe I’d find out what was in the account with interest, to see about Vicki going to college in case Vicki’s trust fund had gone. But it seems that mine has gone too. I don’t know. I can’t explain or understand what Lily was going through and this whole thing is just making me feel sick. I wish that I’d taken her seriously when she called me. One minute Stuart was the best guy in the world and the next she didn’t want to talk about him.I just didn’t know what to think…”
“Your sister left a will and it has clear instructions in it.” Ned interrupted her to say.
“For what?” I asked, my eyes full of the hopelessness that Ned had given me. But another question entered my mind, did Mom write the will because she thought that she was going to die?
The way that his eyes rolled towards me, I knew that it had something to do with me.
Aunt Rose asked, “When was this will written?”
He cleared his throat before answering, “Two weeks ago.”
She knew! Mom knew that things were bad and that she would lose her life.
“Did she commit suicide?” All eyes focused on me, as if I hadn’t said the obvious. Why else would she change her will only two weeks ago?
“No. She was just playing it safe,” Ned said with sad eyes.
“Sweetie, why would you think that your mom would do that to herself?” Aunt Rose asked me, while patting my hand, trying to comfort me. I’d watched her interview a couple of movie stars through their tragic times. Her big break as she called it. Her turn to shine as the top reporter that she’s always wanted to be. I'm sure that she did the same thing as she was doing to me now, comforting them by patting their hands as they poured their heart out to her, and I wondered for a split second.
Did she really love me?
Or did she come here just to find out if Mom had money and what she could get from her.
I was thinking too many bad thoughts, they were all making me paranoid as I was suffocating under my own existence.
“No idea, but Mom’s gone. She wrote a will and left fucking instructions!” I stood up. And as I headed out of the door. “The same reason she fucking ruined my life by clearing out my college fund and staying with a man that treated her like dirt. The same man that killed her.”
I was angry. Mom was dead, and everything was a shit storm. It was as if none of us had really known her. The knowledge that she knew that Stuart was cleaning her out changed everything. I wasn’t upset about not knowing that she knew about Stuart and the money, I was upset that she had known, and hadn’t kicked him out. And right now, that made me think I didn’t like her. Even if she was dead.
Chapter Six
“You wanna watch something?” Teresa asked after I ended up at her door like a lost dog. That’s exactly what I felt like as I ignored Aunt Rose’s phone calls, which I thought would stop the moment I sent her a text saying that I was okay and just wanted some time alone. That seemed to give her the idea that she needed to call me so much that I got pissed and turned my phone off.
I’d gone from a mom that ignored me when she hooked up with her boyfriend that soon turned into her husband which then turned into her being my best friend when we went away a
s her mom died, to her becoming dead when we came back.
“Wanna go out?” Teresa prompted, totally uncertain of what to do for me, but feeling obligated that she had to do something to help me.
She was my friend, of course she would want to make me feel better. That just made me feel even worse because all I wanted to do was sit here and stew in anger.
“No.” I finally answered her. That was one thing that I knew that I didn’t want to do. I definitely did not want to go out again, I’d been walking for over an hour when I ended up here. The only thing that I wanted to do was rest and stew.
“Eat?” She offered and then shrugged as if she was running out of ideas. As the word left her mouth, I realized that it’d been a while since I ate and I wanted something to eat.
Anything.
“Sure.”
She jumped up with joy as if I’d given her some hope of doing something rather than us both just sitting in her room and facing each other.
“What do you want?”
I smiled, “Your famous ham sandwich.”
She made a mean sandwich with pickles, ham and just enough mayonnaise and mustard to always make me want more.
I followed her like a stray to the kitchen and with both of her parents at work, we could do as we pleased. Her parents were both nurses who did crazy shifts or so it felt like it most of the time. They were hardly home, and she would either be home alone or with her brother who seemed to be part of every social activity under the sun. They were only a year apart, but her brother was the smart one in the family and he loved everyone knowing that, including Teresa.
“Coming right up!”
I sat as I watched her hover between the refrigerator and the table. She put so much effort and care into it, that I knew that it was going to taste good. I wanted to say something, anything just so that the atmosphere wasn’t so damn thick when the one person that annoyed me more than anyone in the world walked in.
“Hey Vicki.”
I turned to look at him. Normally, he would say something that was funny in his eyes and mean in ours. This time, nothing, no hi Vicki what you girls up to? Nothing.
