The One Real Regret

by Janet Nissenson

Jill smiled politely, as she’d been trained to do from childhood, at the kindhearted but rather nosy friend of her grandmother’s. “She wanted to come out today very badly, Mrs. Lamont, but the doctor wants her to wait another week before leaving the house. Especially considering how cold and rainy it is today.”

  Mrs. Lamont nodded in understanding, huddling a bit deeper into her heavy duty raincoat. “Well, that certainly makes a lot of sense. The last thing Betty needs is to catch a cold while still recovering from a bout of pneumonia. And you’re right, dear. It’s a nasty day out this morning. Now, don’t let me keep you, I’m sure you want to get back and check on your poor granny. Tell Betty I said hello, and that I’m praying for her every day.”

  Jill fought back the urge to roll her eyes, knowing full well that despite Mrs. Lamont’s feigned piety she was actually one of the biggest gossips in town, and had frequently said unkind things about Jill’s mother and even Jill herself, along with just about every other resident of the town. Instead she merely smiled her thanks, and visibly shivered in her own much thinner and less substantial raincoat, prompting the elderly woman to insist that Jill get inside her car where she’d be warm and out of the elements.

  She dashed over to the ancient Ford sedan that had belonged to the grandfather who’d passed on before Jill had been born, grateful to escape from both the cold, icy rain that was threatening to turn into sleet, and also from the always watchful, always judgmental looks and glares of the other churchgoers. It wasn’t so bad when her grandmother was with her, given that Betty Parrish was known to stare daggers at anyone who dared to belittle or demean Jill. But on the few occasions, especially as of late, when Betty had been indisposed and Jill had to venture out somewhere on her own, she was always self-conscious and wary, and went out of her way to avoid eye contact with most of the residents of this small town - in particular the ones who knew all of her family secrets and who seemed to be waiting with bated breath for Jill to follow in her mother’s troubled footsteps.

  “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, after all.” “Bad blood runs in the veins, you know.” “Mark my words, that girl is going to turn out just like her mama did - bad. The granddaughter is going to give poor Betty Parrish even more grief than the daughter did.”

  Jill had heard all of those disparaging comments and more ever since she’d been old enough to understand what they meant. And while her grandmother had always been reluctant to discuss anything about her daughter - Jill’s mother - the same couldn’t be said about the gossips who abounded in this town, especially the woman who’d lived next door to Betty for almost fifty years, the same woman who professed to be her best friend.

  It had been from Shirley Beauford that Jill had heard most of the sordid tales about Abby Parrish and her troubled, tragic young life. Shirley had actually been quite fond of Abby, and had placed at least some of the blame for the girl’s wildness on Betty and her husband Earl. Abby had been born late in life to the couple, a surprise baby after Betty had been convinced it had not been God’s will for her to have a child. Betty had been in her early forties when Abby was born, and ill-equipped to deal with an active, demanding infant and then an even more active toddler. Betty had tried without success to rely on the same sort of stern discipline her own mother had used to raise her, but it had backfired badly, causing the already willful Abby to rebel and act out even more.

  The situation had only escalated when Earl had died of a fatal heart attack when Abby had been barely thirteen, leaving an already overwhelmed Betty to raise a teenager on her own. Since Betty had still been working fulltime at the phone company, Abby had been left to her own devices most of the time. She’d almost gleefully raised hell in as many ways as possible - getting caught smoking, drinking, and doing drugs at school; sleeping with nearly every boy in the local high school before moving on to older men; cutting classes and nearly being expelled on more than one occasion; getting into trouble with the sheriff, first for relatively minor infractions like shoplifting and speeding, and then, in later years, for far more serious crimes like driving drunk and selling drugs.

  Any sort of discipline imposed by Betty only seemed to make things worse - grounding, taking away allowances or watching TV or other privileges, threatening to send Abby away to reform school or church camp. Betty had clearly been in over her head when it had come to controlling her wild, out of control daughter, and most of the time her solution to the problem had simply been to pray for God to save poor Abby’s lost soul.

  Abby had run away from home for the first time at the tender age of fifteen with an older boy from Greenville, only to return a month later as though nothing had ever happened. It was a pattern that would repeat itself numerous times over the next few years – Abby disappearing for a month or two or more with no phone calls or other communications, leaving Betty to worry and fret about her daughter’s wellbeing. And then, when whatever male she’d run off with - because with the beautiful, promiscuous Abby there was always a man involved - abandoned her or got arrested or simply tired of her - she would return home, fully expecting her mother to welcome her back with open arms.

  Betty finally had her fill, however, and told Abby that the next time she up and left town not to bother coming back. Abby must have taken her mother seriously enough to stay away that last time, because a full four years passed before Betty received any word about her daughter - and then it was to inform her that not only had Abby died of a drug overdose but had left behind a two and a half year old little girl named Jill. There was no father in the picture, and from all accounts from the social worker assigned to the case, Abby had frequently left her baby with friends and acquaintances for days at a time while she was off and about who knew where and doing who knew what.

  Despite all of the grief and trouble Abby had brought to Betty, there was never any question in her mind that little Jill would come to live with her. And from the day the child moved in, Betty vowed that this time around things would be very, very different. For one thing, Betty was retired now, and she wouldn’t have to entrust Jill to be looked after by a babysitter, or attend nursery school, or be left on her own as she grew older. Betty became almost fanatical about watching every move Jill made, over-protecting her to the extreme, and also setting down an extremely strict set of rules that she insisted Jill follow to the letter.

  Betty had thoroughly vetted any of the children Jill played with, making sure they were only from good, Christian families, and carefully supervised all of their play dates. There was no way she was going to permit Jill to associate with the sort of bad news friends who had contributed to Abby’s downfall. It didn’t matter in the least to Betty that her strict code of ethics also meant that, as the years went by, most of Jill’s classmates tended to shun and avoid her, not wanting to be around her authoritarian, controlling grandmother, and that by the time high school rolled around the girl had very few actual friends.

  Jill’s uber-strict grandmother had also controlled every other facet of her life - deciding what television shows she could watch (when she was permitted to watch television at all, that is), what books and magazines she could read or music she could listen to. Betty personally chose all of Jill’s clothes, determined that no one would ever think her granddaughter dressed like a cheap slut. Jill wasn’t permitted to pluck her eyebrows, wear makeup, paint her nails, get her ears pierced, or wear her long hair loose. And because Betty lived on a tight budget, relying on her modest pension and Social Security benefits, they rarely if ever ate out or went to the movies or did anything that could be considered the least bit fun. Jill’s clothes had all been purchased from either the Walmart twenty miles south of town, or the Goodwill store in Midland. They were plain and unfashionable, and nearly always a size too large so that she would have room to grow into them, and also so they wouldn’t emphasize her maturing figure as she grew older. Given how promiscuous Abby had been, Betty seemed to go out of her way to make sure boys weren’t attracted to Jill,
forcing the girl to downplay her looks and not call attention to herself.

  During her high school years, Jill hadn’t been permitted to have a cell phone, or even a computer, and had had to arrive at school extra early each day to use one of the school’s computers to type up her homework assignments. It went without saying that she wasn’t allowed to date or attend school events like dances or football games. When her sixteenth birthday arrived, Betty had steadfastly refused to let her apply for a driver’s license, and had continued to drive her to and from school, despite the fact that Jill was subjected to constant teasing as a result. In fact, the only reason Jill had finally been allowed to start driving once she turned eighteen was because Betty’s eyesight had deteriorated to the point where driving was no longer deemed safe and she wasn’t able to renew her own license.

  Jill sighed as she started up the old car, grateful when the engine turned over without much coaxing. The ancient relic of a vehicle was going to have to be replaced sooner than later, she thought ruefully as she pulled out of the church parking lot. Betty would fight her tooth and nail on the matter, of course, as the old woman always did when it came to spending money. Just last year she’d pitched a fit when the roof of the small ranch house she had lived in all of her life had needed to be fixed, arguing with the roofers that it could simply be patched and not replaced in entirety. It had only been when the owner of the roofing company - the only such company in town - had steadfastly refused to do the repairs and insisted that only a full replacement would be suitable that Betty had reluctantly acquiesced. The fact that the old roof had been leaking in a variety of locations for several years hadn’t helped convince Betty, and to this day she still grumbled about the “small fortune” she’d had to pay. Jill shuddered to imagine breaking the news to her stingy, crotchety grandmother that the Ford sedan was also on its last legs and likely wouldn’t last until the summer. More and more as of late Betty had been kvetching about money, especially since it was now left up to Jill to do the grocery shopping and other errands. Her grandmother insisted on going over the receipts line by line, complaining that Jill didn’t know how to stick to a budget, and that she needed to pay more attention to prices.

  Jill had bit her tongue after each lecture on money, knowing that any argument on her part would be met with deaf ears. Betty refused to let Jill know anything about her finances, still insisted on paying all of the bills herself, and kept all of her bank statements and other papers locked up tight in her small desk. Ever since Jill had been allowed to get a part-time job a few years ago - doing office work at the local real estate agency owned by someone Betty knew from the church - she’d been expected to hand over her modest paychecks to her grandmother, and then received a miserly allowance in return. It was barely enough to buy a cup of coffee a few times a week, much less pay for all the things she’d wanted and needed for so long now - a trendy new wardrobe, an upgraded cell phone, a laptop computer. But she knew all of those things would have to wait until she finished college and was able to get a real job. And hopefully by then she’d summon up the courage to finally stand up to her domineering grandmother and actually start living for the first time in her life.

  Oh, she had certainly been tempted far too many times to count over the years to defy her grandmother’s totally unreasonable demands and decrees. On the surface, Jill might have seemed meek and mild and totally cowed by Betty’s ridiculously over the top rules. But there had always been a rebellious streak simmering just beneath the surface, threatening to boil over at any given moment, and result in Jill setting her foot down and refusing to obey. In her very vivid imagination she’d done exactly that on any number of occasions, even going so far as to rehearse in her bedroom mirror just what she was going to say to her grandmother - whether it was to demand a pair of jeans and a sweater that actually fit, or to boldly announce that she was going to attend the high school football game on Friday night, or to insist that if she didn’t get a computer of her own she simply wasn’t going to do her homework any longer and flunk out of school.

  But of course, when push had come to shove, Jill hadn’t had the nerve - or the heart - to say any of those things, or any of the hundreds of others she longed to blurt out. In addition to all of the rules of behavior Betty had instilled in her over the years, along with a healthy respect for God and religion, Jill’s grandmother had also made sure to perfect the art of the guilt trip. From early childhood Jill had been made to feel guilty each and every time she didn’t instantly obey Betty, and she’d grown weary long ago of hearing dramatic proclamations like “I hope you don’t break my heart like your mother did”, or “don’t turn into a spoiled, ungrateful little brat like Abby was”. Or the real clinchers like “you’re all I have, Jill, you don’t know how much I count on you being here for me”, and “what a good little girl you’ve always been, Jill, not like your mother was. I’m so proud of you.”

  And Betty had always seem to sense - uncannily so, thought Jill grimly - whenever her granddaughter was tempted to rebel and speak up for herself, because it was always right before one of those potential outbursts that she would say something to make Jill feel guilty and ungrateful. So Jill continued to bite her tongue and keep her emotions bottled up inside of her, to the point where, at the age of nineteen and a half, she feared she was going to go crazy or have a nervous breakdown if she had to keep this up much longer.

  At least she had a bit more freedom nowadays, she admitted, considering that she finally had her drivers license and was attending the community college in Greenville, nearly a half hour’s drive from Midland. It would have been downright mortifying to still have to rely on her eighty-three year old grandmother to drive her to and from classes at this stage of her life. Of course, she still had to check in with the old woman at various times during the day, one of the reasons why Betty had finally permitted her to buy a cell phone - one of those bare bones, pay as you go models that did not include any sort of internet service.

  And while she was grateful for any small reprieve from Betty’s stifling rules, Jill wasn’t at all happy at having had to settle for a community college. She’d easily been the top student in her class all during high school, graduating with a perfect grade point average, and earning all manner of academic honors. The guidance counselor at the high school had eagerly helped Jill scope out more than a dozen highly ranked Southern universities - Clemson, Tulane, Rice, Duke - and even Ivy League schools like Harvard and Yale. The possibility of going away to college and being on her own for the first time had seemed like a dream to Jill, one that she was determined to fulfill.

  But life had a rather nasty habit of getting in the way of things, and the very same night when Jill had finally worked up the courage to tell Betty of her plans to apply to several different colleges, the old woman had suffered a stroke. As it turned out, the stroke had been a fairly mild one, and Betty had mostly recovered after a very short hospitalization, but the incident had been more than enough for Jill to put the discussion about college on hold for a couple of months. By then, Betty had begun to make statements like “who knows how much longer I’ll be around” and “the doctor tells me the next time I have a stroke I might not be so lucky”, and repeating them so frequently that now Jill had a whole new set of things to feel guilty over. Quietly, sadly, she gave up on the idea of attending one of those top notch universities and applied to the local community college instead.

  Betty, of course, had been all too smugly happy at this turn of events, insisting that Jill could pursue any number of fine career opportunities offered at the small, local college - a paralegal, pre-school teacher, X-ray technician, tax preparer. Jill had rather glumly agreed, not having the heart to tell her grandmother that what she really wanted to do was major in finance at a renowned university, and then find a job paying six figures or more in a big, exciting city far, far away from this sleepy, drab little town where her life was going nowhere in a hurry.

  Bur rather than enroll i
n a certificate type of program, one that would have prepared her for a specific type of job, Jill had instead embarked on a bachelors degree program, taking all of the required courses necessary with the hope of eventually transferring to a four-year university. And while Jill knew that for now she was virtually trapped here in Midland, kept here by a combination of obligation and guilt, that wouldn’t always be the case. It might take her a decade or more to finish that degree, but she was bound and determined that one day she would have that opportunity - along with the chance to travel all over the world, to see the cities and countries and landmarks she could only dream about now.

  Since that first stroke she’d suffered more than two years ago, Betty’s formerly robust health had continued to decline steadily. She’d suffered three more mild strokes, and had seemed to slow down a bit more after each one. There had been three bouts of pneumonia, each one more serious and lasting longer than the one before. This most recent one had occurred right after Christmas, and had required a ten day hospitalization. She’d been back at home for a week now, insisting that she was feeling a little stronger each day, but Jill barely recognized the frail old woman who took frequent naps, had little appetite, and seemed to spend most of her waking hours reading the bible and talking to herself.

  The doctor had told Jill that Betty’s health was on a steady decline, and that she would likely need fulltime care before much longer. Jill shuddered as she tried to envision breaking that news to her grandmother, who would be sure to squawk and protest about how much money hiring a caregiver or going to live in a residential care facility would cost. But Jill’s real fear was that Betty would expect her to quit school and become her fulltime caregiver, thereby giving up whatever small semblance of a life she had now. She’d actually made a number of friends at school, friends that she enjoyed meeting for lunch or coffee or chatting with on the phone. And while she had yet to go out on a real date, there were more than a few young men at college who were definitely interested in her. But any hopes of actually going on a date, or having any sort of normal life, would be completely dashed if she had to look after her grandmother fulltime.