In the Forest of Light and Dark

by Kasniak, Mark

  “Okay, sweetheart, Good luck.”

  “Okay, see ya.” I said, somewhat quietly along with a flicker of a wave as I headed for the door.

  “Oh, and Cera,” My step daddy said, calling out to me again just as I had reached the back door. “You be careful, you hear me? Especially with that, Tucker. I see the way he looks at you. I don’t mind so much that you and your friends are sneaking off into the woods at night to have a couple of beers, but you watch yourself. Seventeen-year-old girls and alcohol don’t mix. It’s a recipe for pregnancy. Just look at what happened to that friend of yours, that Amanda, or your mama for that matter when she had you.”

  “I know, I know.” I said wanting desperately to get the hell out of there and end the conversation.

  “I know you know,” my step daddy then responded and I could tell he was gearing up to go on another one of his tangents. “I’m just sayin’ these boys’ can be pretty slick, is all. I would’ve lied the pants of the Devil to get girls into bed with me when I was your age. So, don’t you go on believin’ any of this guy’s bullshit that he’s in love, or that he’ll be there to take care of you and a baby if he gets you knocked-up. Just look at all these girls around town and here on the Maury show, I bet they—”

  “Okay, got it!” I shouted rudely at him. “I’ll keep my pants on, alright. Now I really gotta go.”

  “Okay, kid, okay.”

  The Letter

  The next day, I was the lucky one to be elected by my mama to go and grab the pile of past-due notices that were surely piled up in the mailbox. As I started rummaging through them, I had noticed that there was one in particular that stood out because this one had consisted of a high-quality stationary. The envelope, was clearly addressed to my mama, Janine Barrett Singer, and had the words OPEN IMMEDIATELY TIME SENSITIVE written on it diagonally in bold, black ink and in all capital letters. The return address said it was from the law offices of Schlitzmeyer and Brown located somewhere in Elmira, NY.

  At first, I thought it might be a letter informing us that one of our creditors had referred our delinquent account over to financial lawyers, and that we should soon be expecting to have our butts hauled into court. But after I had handed the letter over to my mama, and she had taken the time to read what it said. I found out that wasn't the case at all. In fact, the letter was from my Grandmother Lyanna’s lawyers. They were the people she had hired as the executors of her will. And, to all of our surprise; the letter informed my mama that she was the sole beneficiary of my grandmother's estate and all her belongings. Also, my mama was to inherit a rather small fortune to the tune of $437,698.63, which I had assumed, was my grandmother's entire life savings.

  The letter looked like it was going to end up being the answer to all of our prayers. But, like everything in life there was a catch. I would explain further, but instead of me getting into it, why don't you just read the letter for yourself?

  Schlitzmeyer & Brown

  2568 Main St.

  Elmira, NY 14904

  July 14, 2010

  Janine Barrett-Singer

  84 Rawlin Ave.

  Saraland, Al 36571

  Dear Janine:

  I am contacting you on behalf of your mother’s (Lyanna Barrett) estate. Pryor to your mothers passing, the law offices of Schlitzmeyer and Brown had been hired by her to be the executors of her living will and affairs. As executors, our duty is to oversee that all of your mother’s final wishes are carried out to her specific instructions.

  We would like to inform you, that upon your mother’s wishes, you are to inherit from her estate per her will, her home in Mt. Harrison, NY, and all the furnishing there within the dwelling and property. Along with her 2009 Cadillac ELR, and all of your mother’s liquid assets, which we believe will come to the sum of $437,698.63 U.S. dollars.

  A lien to the tune of $20,000 U.S. dollars will be frozen in accordance with New York State inheritance laws for approximately six months to allow any potential creditors to come forward or to allow settlement of any outstanding debts.

  It is also our responsibility to inform you that your mother had placed one stipulation on your collection of your inheritance. Upon acceptance of aforementioned inheritance, which you will have 30 days upon receiving this letter to decide if indeed you will accept, you (Janine Barrett Singer) in accordance with your mother (Lyanna Mary Barrett) wishes, agree to keep ownership of the estate at 147 Collings Avenue, Mount Harrison, New York 14510 for the duration of ONE YEAR, whereupon completion of your mother’s living will shall be satisfied, and any sale of the aforementioned estate may proceed.

  It is imperative that you contact our offices upon receiving this letter. Any failure to contact us and inform us of your wishes to accept your inheritance your mother has stipulated for you to receive in her living will shall be forfeited. And, the society for the prevention of cruelty to animals will become the sole beneficiary of your mother’s entire estate and monetary assets.

  Sincerely yours,

  Adam Brown

  CEO S&B attorneys at law

  Well, there you have it. A house, a Caddy, and more than 400K, all of it my mama’s for the taking. The only thing required of her was to keep the house—which apparently was a family heirloom—for one year, and then she could turn around and sell it if she wanted.

  But after having heard the contents of the letter I couldn’t help but get the strangest feeling—mostly because of the way my mama stared blankly at it, completely entranced—that my mama had somehow felt that the stipulation my grandmother had put in her will about us needing to keep the house for an entire year was somehow a little trick. A game my grandmother had played to try to bring my mama back home again to Mount Harrison.

  “You're gonna take it, right?” I had asked her after she’d finished reading the letter out loud, but she didn’t answer me. She just continued to stare emotionless at the letter as if it had put her in a dream.

  “Mama,” I said.

  “MAMA!”

  “W-What?” she finally stammered. “I... I don't know, sweetie. I'll have to talk it over with your stepfather when he gets back from the store.” she then told me sounding dismissive.

  At the time of all of this happening, like my mama had said, my Step Daddy Cade wasn’t home. He had gone down to the Walmart to pick up some motor oil for the Family Truckster and a couple of cases of Coke.

  “What do you mean you'll have to talk it over?” I then asked her. “There's nothin' to talk about. This is four hund—”

  “I said I'll have to talk it over with your step daddy when he gets back.” my mama quickly chided me, raising her voice and cutting me off mid-sentence. During which she hadn’t so much as even taken her eyes off the letter to acknowledge me as she said it. “Now, I don't want another word out of you about this until your step daddy and I have had a chance to figure things out.”

  “Okay, fine.” I mumbled as I walked out of the kitchen in a huff.

  I can't never could understand my mama's logic sometimes though. You’d be dumber than a box of rocks not to get on the telephone right then that, very same minute and call those Schlitzmeyer and Brown fellows telling them, hell yeah you want to accept my grandmother’s offer. Hell, if someone had ever asked me if I wanted four hundred thousand dollars, a car, and a big ass house, my answer would’ve been along the lines of, Is a frog's ass waterproof? Fuck, Yeah! It is.

  After leaving the kitchen I had gone to my bedroom to watch television as I waited for my step daddy to get back from the store, but it was no use. After my mama had received that letter I could hardly contain myself. I had felt as if I had ants in my pants and I just had to get out of the house and tell somebody about our good fortune. So, I hopped on my bike and went over to Marzie Kirkland's house to share with her my family’s good news.

  After telling Marzie about the letter, she had said to me sounding eerily like a slack-jawed yokel, as she had a tendency to do sometimes, “Wow! Are you really tellin' the truth, no f
oolin' or anything?” Then, after I had insisted to her that I wasn’t making things up, she still wouldn't believe me until I had sworn upon my mama's life. But after she’d finally accepted that what I was telling her was the truth, she asked me, “What do you think your parents are gonna do? Doesn’t your mama hate New York and didn’t she end up running away from there back when she was our age?”

  I thought about what Marzie had just said for a moment and then replied, “Well, yeah... But what do you think she’s gonna do? She has to take the money. I mean, the shit she went through back when she was a kid was a real long time ago. Besides, there probably isn’t anybody up there now who even knows who she is anymore. And, what choice does she have anyways? We only got another couple of weeks before the bank throws us out of our home here.”

  Dumbfounded, by what I’d just let slip Marzie then asked me what I’d meant.

  I had forgotten that she and the rest of my friends hadn’t yet found out about the bank foreclosing on our home, and that soon we’d be without even a pot to piss in.

  So, at that point I’d figured keeping the foreclosure a secret from everybody really didn’t matter that much anymore given the news of my mama’s inheritance. So, I told Marzie all about it, and after telling her she still managed to look at me befuddled and asked, “But what about our senior year together?” sounding disappointed as she said it. And to tell you the truth, up until that point, I hadn't even thought about the fact that I would most likely be leaving Saraland for good if my mama did accept that inheritance, and leaving my friends behind with it.

  I didn't know what to say to her. So, I said the first thing that had popped into my mind, which ended up being the God's-honest-truth. I said, “Well, I suppose I'll be leavin'. I mean what choice do I have? It’s either homeless and broke in Saraland or rich and livin’ in a big-ass house up in New York.”

  “Well, what about your step daddy? What did he have to say?” Marzie then asked me beseechingly before adding, “You know he’s not about to pack up and move to New York. He was born and raised here, right? Ain't-no-way he's about to move up North to become a city-slicker.”

  (The thing though to know about my step daddy Cade’s stubbornness is… That it can be easily remedied by a big pile of money. For all the times he’d said, “It'll be a cold day in hell before I move up North.” Nobody’s ever offered him a heap of cash and a new house. Just watch him whistle a new tune when my mama tells him about the inheritance.)

  “When are you gonna tell the rest of the guys?” Marzie then asked referring to Tucker, Owen, Lettie, Gerralyn, and Eron.

  Again, I hadn't even given any thought yet to them either. How was I supposed to break the news to the rest of them? I reckoned that I’ll just have to come clean and tell them just like I had done with Marzie. But, the thought of telling the rest of them that I’ll soon be leaving Saraland felt different somehow, harder. I knew it would be especially difficult with Tucker, who I had a feeling that deep down that fool was truly in love with me. The news of me leaving Saraland was probably going to break his heart, and for the first time since finding out about the money I felt sad enough to cry as I continued to think about how my life was about to change.

  “I suppose I'll hold off for a bit.” I said, giving Marzie an answer, but then adding, “At least until my parents have had time to talk it over and it’s been settled on that we're definitely moving. So maybe… tomorrow,”

  “Well, if it does get decided on that you’ll be leavin’. I guess we'll be needin’ to throw you a goin' away party.” Marzie then said with a ratcheting chipperness to her voice.

  “Well, yeah,” I said jokingly. “But for now don't say anythin' to anyone else until I know I’m leavin’ for sure, okay. No use makin' a big stink about nothin' until it's somethin'.”

  Marzie agreed.

  After leaving Marzie’s place I felt like I needed to take some time alone, so I stopped at Catfish Creek. The tiny tributary has been where I always liked to go when I had a lot on my mind. The creek, which cut through town not far from my house, was nothing more than a muddy rivulet, really. My Step Daddy Cade had used to take me to it when I was just a little girl, and we would catch crawdaddies, turtles, and bullfrogs gathering them in a five-gallon bucket until it was time to let them go. I can still remember how my step daddy used to like to tease the crawdads with a stick, poking them in their faces until he could get them to fight each other. He would then laugh his ass off like a stupid son-of-a-bitch as they ripped each other apart.

  As I sat for a while on the rocks near the water’s weed-choked edges, I watched as tadpoles dipped and vanish in-and-out of the reeds. It had by this time of day begun to cool off, the sun having made its way west. But the rock that I had parked myself upon still felt plenty warm from having collected the sun’s intense rays all day.

  As I pondered for a while just what that letter from my grandmother’s lawyers really meant. What it meant for me and what it would mean for my parents. It had been the first time since that moment at Marzie’s house when I had found myself upset while thinking about Tucker, that I had taken a moment to reflect on how this inheritance was going to change all of our lives. For a little while there, I have to admit, it somewhat scared me to think about it. I mean, Saraland is all I know. All I’ve ever known, and up until a couple of hours ago I had figured that I was going to spend the rest of my life there. Just like everyone in my Step Daddy Cade's family had done. I really hadn’t any clue about how life in New York was going to end up. I really didn’t know much, if anything at all about it, except that the New York Yankee’s liked to buy their championships, and I’ve been told the people are rude. Niagara Falls was up there somewhere, along with a lot of liberals that my Step Daddy Cade liked to bitch about. But, as far as Mt. Harrison goes, I knew nothing, not even its location on a map.

  After leaving the creek I rode my bike slowly home still needing more time to figure things out. But when I had gotten close to home I had seen that the pea-green eyesore was now parked back in the driveway. I then knew that my step daddy was probably right-at-that-very-minute finding out about the letter for himself.

  Quickly, I ditched my bike in the front yard and snuck around to the back of the house where my parent’s bedroom window was located. I wanted to eavesdrop in on them and I’d figured that’s where they’d be. I knew if I heard them arguing it would’ve been because my mama would have broken the news to my step daddy and then had told him that she didn’t want to accept the inheritance on account of us needing to move up to Mount Harrison as part of the deal. Which I’m sure would’ve irritated my step daddy enough for him to knock a little sense into her head. (Figuratively of course, my step daddy has never laid a finger on either of us.)

  Slowly, I crept up under their window, careful not to make any noise, and when I got close I could hear that my parents indeed were in their bedroom, and of course, they were bickering. I could hear my Step Daddy Cade arguing to take the money and my mama was basically telling him that she just didn’t think it would be a good idea.

  After having heard the two of them quarreling that sinking feeling I had that my mama had planned on turning down her inheritance was all but then confirmed in my mind.

  Jesus Right Christ on a Triscuit, lady. Just take the damn money already, I thought as I clung ever closer to the house so my parents wouldn’t catch me spying on them.

  After a while, they had quieted down for a bit and I had to work my way further still under their bedroom window sill so I could hear them better. All while having to wrestle with the weeds and brambles that surrounded me.

  After the brief lull had ended, my parents picked back up as they continued to go at it. They were gradually becoming louder again, but I still couldn't completely make out just what each of them was saying.

  One thing I did know for sure though, was that my step daddy had indeed already flip-flopped on the issue of him dying in Alabama. Because I could clearly hear him saying things like,
“That’s more money than Bill Gates has.” and “Saraland can kiss my ass!”

  Then, after a good five or ten more minutes or so of being hunched up under their window sill among the thorny weeds, it started to seem like Step Daddy Cade was beginning to make real headway with my mama. Their voices had begun to simmer down once again becoming barely audible to me, and I knew that their discussion was most likely coming to its conclusion.

  Knowing-full-well that my Step Daddy Cade doesn’t back down from any argument about money unless it will be a favorable outcome for him. I had already assumed that it was my mama who’d given in and was beginning to soften over the issue of us moving to New York.

  Having heard enough, I was just about getting ready to leave my awkward position tucked away under the window when, just then, who should sneak up behind me?

  Tucker.

  He had pulled up in front of our house without me ever having heard the sound of his obnoxiously loud truck. Later on, he would tell me that when he had approached the front door of the house he had heard my parents squabbling inside. So, he then had decided to sneak around back to knock on my bedroom window to see if I was held up in there needing rescue. But instead he found me clinging to the side of the house hiding among the bushes like a field mouse.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked him with a startled whisper.

  “I came to see what you were up to.” he said, whispering back at me as I pulled him down and away from the window fearing that my parents might see him. “Be quiet,” I then snipped at him while giving him what I was sure must have been a very dour look.

  “What are your parents fightin' bout?” he then asked, but before I could tell him to hush up again, he said, “I betcha did somethin' awful, didn'tcha?”