by S. J. Frey
Copyright © 2019 by S.J. Frey
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Book Cover Design by: betibup33design
Author Photography by: Naomi Hoover
Author Photo Editing by: Monique Layzell Art Prints
Dedications
I would like to take a moment to thank my friends and family for supporting me through this journey of my literary career. You have all been there for me since the beginning, and I don't think I could have reached my goal without any of you.
I want to dedicate my first novel to the love of my life Nathaniel. Words can not describe the amount of love and support you've given me throughout this process, and I wouldn't be where I am without you. Thank you.
Contents
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
One
“Okay, Mom, try not to raise too much hell.”
Slowly I let my hand graze the top of the marble slab that held my mother’s name. It’s only been a short three months since her passing, but it feels like it was yesterday. A few times, I would come to the grave and talk to her. To think a simple cold could take out an active person like my mother. Then again, it wasn’t just a cold, was it? Mom was sick for a while and never said a thing. She was too stubborn and didn’t want anyone to worry about her.
The sky is starting to turn grey as the air shifts slightly, running small chills down my back. I have every right to be in a cemetery. I hate the feeling I get walking through the tombstones. It's as if something will rip through the ground and grab my ankles.
I fight the urge to run and slowly make my way back to the beat-up station wagon that sits on the gravel road. The blue color and wood panel stick out like a sore thumb against the darkening sky. The door creaks open as I pull it as far as it could go and slid my body onto the cracking leather seats. Just as I shut the door, the rain began to pelt my cracked windshield. Sighing, I sit there for a moment to wait for some of the showers to pass over before I go to the main road. The last thing I needed is to hydroplane because of my tires.
My poor station wagon is on its last leg. The windshield cracked from a rock that bounced off a truck, and the floor was so rusted that, with enough force, I could probably push my feet through and Flintstone my way around. Then there is the brown leather interior that is breaking apart. I think I went through two spools of duct tape patching the beast back together. Throughout all its imperfections, the thing still runs and gets me from point A to point B.
My eyes shift to my mother’s grave once more. I watch the rain come to a stop as I recall the whole reason I wanted this wagon in the first place. This wagon is my first car. My mom promised to match whatever I saved during the summer of my Junior year in high school. I picked this wagon because it reminded me so much of her.
Mom used to tell me stories from when she was my age. She grew up in the 70s and was a bit of a wild child. For some reason, this wagon reminded me of the younger version of my mother in her stories.
I smile at her grave and then look at my reflection in the window. There are bags under my eyes, and my hair is a mess. I can't remember the last time I brushed it. The long drive from New York to Virginia was tiring from the get-go, and staying in a crappy motel didn't help my insomnia either.
After everything with the house is complete, I have plans on going back to New York and never looking back. There was nothing left in Virginia for me anymore, so why return?
I turn the key and let the engine warm-up slightly before carefully applying pressure to the gas. I skillfully pull around the stone path of the cemetery and onto the main road. If I didn’t get to the house in time, I knew that my Aunt Kat was going to have a fit.
The house still looks the same, the shutters are hanging off the hinges of the first-floor windows, and the walkway is still slightly overgrown with weeds. Mom and I didn’t have any idea on how to fix the shutters, and the plants just took over. As I pull up to the house, I recognize Aunt Kat’s green Kia in the driveway. I can only imagine how long she was waiting for me.
The moment I walk into the door, I am nearly trampled on by a tall woman with curly red hair. I am being squeezed to death and couldn’t get a word out as the squeezing became tighter. Aunt Kat notices my struggle and instantly let me go. Aunt Kat wasn’t my real aunt, she was a childhood friend of my mothers, and I rarely saw her. She only came to see me more in the final weeks.
“Sorry, Liz. I got a little carried away there. It’s just-- it’s been so long since I last saw you.”
“It’s alright, Aunt Kat,” I smile.
The once lively home is now a stark reminder of how things used to be. I am half expecting Mom to come around the corner with a smile on her face, but I knew it wouldn’t happen. The house is empty.
All the furniture is gone. The creepy figurines my mother collected now call home to an old lady down the street, and all our family pictures are sitting in a box by the front door. It’s hard to believe that all my childhood memories are now in a box.
“Alright, let’s get the attic cleared out before the realtor comes.”
Aunt Kat’s voice seems to pull me away from my trance and slowly brings me back down to the tormented reality that I now live. She is right. If we didn’t clear out before the realtor came, then we might not close on the home.
Slowly I follow Aunt Kat up the steps to the second floor, and I stop a few feet in front of Mom’s room and frown. The door is open, and everything is gone. Her bed, clothes, perfume, everything that was my mother is now gone. I can feel tears prick the corners of my eyes and had to keep walking towards the task at hand. I can't let my emotions get the best of me now; I had a job to do.
Walking up to Aunt Kat, I watch her pull the little string that is attached to a trap door in the ceiling. The ladder came shooting down, making me jump slightly as the clattering sound echoed throughout the empty house.
“I was able to get rid of some decorations your mom had along with some clothing and furniture. There are still a few boxes that need to be sorted through,” She says as she climbed up to the attic’s opening.
I was thankful for Aunt Kat. I wouldn’t be able to get all the preparation done or selling the house on my own without her.
Entering the attic, I greet the musty smell of mothballs that littered the ground. Mom must have done that to make sure the mice didn’t get into the boxes. Quietly I sit on the ground and start to go through a box filled with papers. Most of it is old bills and coupons. It was junk, in my opinion. Sighing, I grab the box and sift through some more papers before I deemed it was trash. Pushing that box aside, I grab another one.
“Oh, look at this,” Aunt Kat coos.
Looking up, I smile, seeing her holding a onesie that belonged to me when I was a baby. I roll my eyes and snatch it out of her hand to throw onto the trash pile. There is no reason to hold onto things like that anymore.
Aunt Kat gave
a face and started to go through another box that held some papers and other documents. Most of them are old medical bills that my mother had been hiding from me. She pulled some papers out and gave them a once over before placing them onto the trash pile.
“So, any luck with any guys at school?” She asks as she wiggles her eyebrows.
I gave her a look and crossed my arms over my chest. Picking up a piece of old newspaper, I wadded it up into a paper ball at threw it at her. The older woman ducks while laughing and then reaches behind her to grab it and throw it right back at me. I caught it with one hand and sigh.
“Not a chance. I don’t have time for guys besides, none of them want a serious girl, they want a girl they can sleep with on the first night.”
Since I recently graduated, trying to find a new job in my career is going to be hard. I didn’t have time to be worrying about guys. It wasn’t like being with a guy is going to be beneficial to me in the long run. Just look at my mother; she was left pregnant by my father without another word of where he was going, and after twenty years, I never received a phone call from the man. If there were men like that in this world, then it was better off to be alone.
Aunt Kat only exhales loudly. “You will find someone someday, Lizzy. When you least expect it.”
I didn’t want to talk about the subject anymore. We need to get this attic cleaned out before the realtor arrives. The realtor was a real hassle to deal with in the beginning, and I would rather not be around when she comes by again. I never met a woman that could smile to your face and yet be so stuck up at the same time. New York City is full of people like her, but most of them keep to themselves. This woman, Cathy, was nosey and wanted nothing more than her commission.
After what seemed like forever, we clean up the first round of boxes. Going back up, we began the second round. Sifting through, I find more old bills, pictures, silly awards I won in grade school and a soccer trophy for that one time I tried to play soccer, failed, and quit. I might keep the cup, though. I push through to the bottom of the box, and I find a thick, yellow folder with the string broken. There are water stains covered in little black spots that scream mold. It was sitting at the very bottom so naturally it would get ruined; this attic leaked all the time.
I slip my hand through the flap and pull out a thick stack of papers. They are so stained that it is hard to make heads or tails of what is on the paper. The only thing I could make out from the envelope is my name and certain words from the packet itself.
“Hey, Aunt Kat? What do you make of this?” I ask, holding the papers out to her.
Aunt Kat pulls her reading glasses from her back pocket and presses them to her face. She peers closely at the brittle pages as she tries to read what I couldn’t. If her face were any closer to the paper, she would be kissing it.
“I can’t tell you what it is. A will? Maybe?” she says, flipping through some of the other pages. Some of them start to rip in her hands as she turns them over.
A will? It couldn’t be Mom’s; I already had her paperwork from when she passed. Was this a backup copy?
“Here!” She exclaims, pointing to a page towards the end of the packet. “It says here. ‘The final testament of Edmund J. Montgomery, written and curated by The Law Offices of William Galloway & Co.’ Lizzy, I think this is your father’s.”
It feels like someone took a rock and jammed it down my throat, only to push it into my stomach. My heart is beating rapidly, and I have no clue why. I never met my father, so why did I feel as if he would walk up right behind me at this moment? This document is proof that he is just as gone now as he was back then. Why would he send a will to a child whom he has never seen? More importantly, why would my mother keep it and not tell me? I couldn’t tell what hurt most, the deception, or the discovery.
Aunt Kat sensed my distracted state and cleared her throat. “I can’t tell what everything entails; the papers are beaten up. The only thing I can make out is that it was sent out about four years ago, other than that, it’s in ruins.”
So, for four years, while I was in school, Mom held onto the most significant piece of information about my life and failed to share it with me? Well, she kept her sickness a secret. I shouldn’t be too surprised.
“Where is the office?” I ask, looking at the paper.
Aunt Kat points to the smudged letter that read a somewhat legible address. The office is in town, which meant my father must have lived in the same area. So, for twenty years, no phone call, no letter, no visit and he lived so close, but dared to give me his stuff when he died? I have half a mind to just chuck the papers and move on with my life, but there is something inside my heart that wanted to know more about him. He has been a mystery in my life, and I feel like this will is a step closer to finally solving it. I came to terms with my mother’s passing, and now I need to come to terms with my father’s disappearance.
“Look sugar. I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Just go to the lawyer and see what they say.” Aunt Kat smiles.
“You’re right. We should get this trash out of here before Cathy comes,” I say as I quickly gather up as many bags as I can and shove the packet of papers into my armpit.
When we put the trash is on the curb, I left the key in the secured pack on the door. The house is no longer my childhood home, my safe sanctuary, my mother’s heart, and her soul. It is now just a house. Aunt Kat hugs me tightly and begs me to visit her from time to time. Of course, I counter with her visiting my best friend and me in the big city. I watch her get into her green Kia and slowly drove down the street, around the corner and out of sight until the next time I saw her. When will that be? I have no idea.
The wind is starting to pick up again as the threatening smell of fresh rain began to rise from the earth. At any moment, it will storm, and I need to find a place to stay for the night. I promised Amy I would wait for her before getting a better hotel, but she didn’t arrive in town yet. So, the run-down motel will have to do until she gets back to me.
The moment I get into my car, I watch as a blue minivan pulls into the driveway and the realtor’s car arriving right after it. That is my cue to leave. I can’t sit and watch their happy faces as they tour through their new home. I put my car into gear and pull away from the curb. I didn’t care where I am going, but at that moment, I knew I have to get away from here.
Two
I don’t think I will get over the shock of knowing my mother kept something from me all these years. First, it was my father’s will, and then it was her sickness. What was next? A rich Grandmother I never thought I had?
Still, it is hard to know that the only person you have in your life kept something so monumental away from you. She left me behind with too many questions like: Why would she keep me from this? Was she trying to protect me? a
The yellowed envelope crinkles in my hand as I pull out the packet of moldy papers. Most of the ink washed away from our leaky roof. I can barely make out any of the words except the letterhead that is still intact.
“Law Offices of William Galloway & Co. 2325 Main Street, Johnstown VA”
Well, at least I knew where to go. I scrunch my face up to the paper to try and make out the rest of it, but my dim car light didn’t help. The documents are so fragile they are falling apart in my hands. People are staring at me as they walk to their cars from the burger joint I stopped by. I huff, throwing my head back and let the papers fall to my lap while the raindrops dot my windshield.
Sighing, I carefully stuff the papers back into the envelope and grab my phone.
Amy texted me a bunch of times, and I could tell she was getting restless.
A: Hey! I finally got my project in! Are we still on for tonight?
Crap. I forgot for a brief second that Amy was driving from New York to stay with me. I also forgot to tell her that the house is no more and that I didn’t have the hotel room to stay in yet. I've been wasting time.
A: Are you there?
A: GPS says I’m only six h
ours away!
A: Hope you’re okay. I am stopping by a rest stop. Call me if you need me.
I want to kick myself for not texting her back right away. Amy is always a bit of a worrywart. Ever since we became friends and roommates, she still did the best to look out for me, even when I was going through the law for months of my mother’s death. She is the sister I never had. If it wasn’t for being there for me when things went sour, I’m not sure how I would have survived.
I am looking at the last text message I quickly type up a reply.
Me: Hey! Sorry for not responding. I got caught up with Aunt Kat at the house.
A: It’s okay! I was getting a little worried about you. Glad to hear everything went well.
Me: Of course, you were worried, you always are! You’ll never guess what I found.
A: What?
Me: A will from my father