by Julia Kent
This is all I own.
This is all I’m allowed to own, by court order.
Following behind Mom, I make the right turn into my bedroom and stop short. She wasn’t kidding. This room is exactly as I left it when I moved out after college, twelve years ago.
“See, honey? We even kept your Lisa Frank notebooks and pens and all the paraphernalia. You used to love this stuff!”
I drop the backpack, careful not to crack the tablet. I shove the large suitcase up against the end of the bed. The carry-on fits nicely into the corner near the closet as I turn and take in the room. Sure, I've been home plenty of times in the last twelve years, but I haven't really paid attention to anything in the house.
This is it. This is what I’ve become.
This, and seven hundred dollars in a single bank account that I had to open on my own, attached to a secured credit card that uses five hundred of that to provide a five-hundred-dollar spending limit, is all I have.
Everything else is gone.
It’s been seized by the federal government, taken by state agencies, or is part of lien after lien coming after anything Burke touched.
My lawyer tried to argue that because it was revealed that we were not technically, legally married, those assets needed to be separated so that I could preserve mine, but RICO charges don’t work that way. Burke was part of something enormous, and I was suspected of being a part of it. A financial scandal that journalists will still be talking about ten years from now.
Hopefully, I’ll just be a footnote. A footnote on a footnote.
Unfortunately, the name Hastings Monahan stands out. This is the first time I have ever wished my name were Jane Smith.
No offense to Jane Smiths.
“You must be so tired,” Mom says, looking at me nervously.
I don’t know what to say to her. This is the first time since I graduated from college that I’ve been dependent on my parents. Even when I would come into town, I would stay at hotels, so I literally haven’t slept in this room in twelve years.
It’s not because I don’t love my parents, of course.
It’s because I hate being dependent on anyone.
And I hate not having control of my environment. If I’d stayed here when I visited, Mom would’ve shaped my time. In a hotel, I could be on endless calls, work into the night, do what needed to be done to set up the next big deal. Keep the momentum going.
Work. Right.
All that work, twelve years of it–poof!
Gone in an instant. Gone with a single strip of plastic that wrapped around my wrists and tied a knot in my life, between two worlds.
“Hastings?” Mom says, her hand on my wrist.
I look at her, jolting, realizing that I’m really here. “Yeah?”
“Coffee? I can go brew some downstairs.”
“Oh. That would be nice. I’ll take a macchiato.”
Mom blinks. “We don’t have one of those machines, honey. We just make it the good old-fashioned way. Drip drip drip.”
“Oh. Sure, right.”
“If you want, we can go to Beanerino. I’m sure they have macchiatos and lattes and cappuccinos.”
Dread fills me. “No, Mom, no. I’m good. I’ll just take a cup of coffee here.”
Mom goes downstairs, and I sit on the edge of my floral print-covered bed. It’s a twin. I haven’t slept in a twin since…
College.
My phone buzzes. It’s either my lawyer or an investigator, and if it’s an investigator, I’m supposed to refer them to my lawyer.
“Hastings?” Mom calls from downstairs. “Your dad’s coming home from the agency. He would love to sit with us and have some coffee.”
I groan. That’s code for, Sharon and Roy want to sit down and have a Serious Talk.
I can’t blame them. If my thirty-four-year-old daughter were hauled away in handcuffs, the arrest televised as a great coup on the part of authorities in San Francisco and federal agents who handle financial crimes, I’d want to sit down and talk, too.
For the last month, they’ve paid for lawyers—more lawyers than you could ever possibly imagine, private investigators, and consultants I didn’t even know existed until now.
Did you know you can hire people to come and clean up your home after it’s been purged of everything by federal authorities? Not just regular cleaners, but people who seem to understand the delicacy of these situations.
You can hire PR experts. I don’t have any of those. Why bother? There’s no coming back from this. Burke screwed me royally in every way but one.
In bed.
And now I find out I was never really married to him.
The front door opens, the sound of Dad shuffling in. I can tell he’s taking his shoes off, hanging up his coat, and heading straight to the back of the house, where the kitchen is. I’ve been gone more than a third of my life, but I still know the rhythm.
Flopping back on the bed, I stare at the ceiling, wondering if the glow-in-the-dark stars are still there from when I was little. Knowing my parents, they probably are.
Mom’s nostalgic that way. It’s like all of the nostalgia that’s supposed to be spread out among a general population got collected into Sharon Monahan. Mallory has a little bit of it, too.
They’re both so happy here in Anderhill, Massachusetts. There’s no part of them that wants to claw their way up. There’s no achiever who strives for more, even when more is a moving target. They just are. They like what they like, and they know what they like.
And that’s why I find them both so infuriating.
“Hastings!” Mom calls up. “Coffee’s ready!”
I breathe, a deep inhale that goes down into my belly, pushing it up until I can see it, like a whale breaching the surface. I pull more air inside me, pressing the base of my spine down with each breath, down, down, down. I imagine a basketball centered in my pelvis, my arms out, legs splayed and bent at the knees, and I let it out, all the way out.
Then I do it again, this time holding my abdominal muscles flat with my hand.
It’s a calming technique.
It’s also a sharpening technique.
Right now, I need calm over sharp.
Facing the inevitable, I grab the small cooler and walk downstairs, expecting to find my mother and father at the kitchen table. My phone buzzes again. It’s in my pocket. I grab it and look at it.
Ian McCrory.
Again.
“I bought that almond-milk creamer that you like,” Mom says when I walk into the kitchen. “I know almonds are supposed to be bad for the environment, but you don’t drink cow’s milk, and we can’t get sheep’s milk easily.”
“I would never put sheep’s milk in coffee, Mom.”
“Oh, I know. It’s just that you used to use it when you made cheese.”
“Not in my coffee, Mom.”
“Oh! Why did I think you did that?”
“I used to do coconut milk in my coffee. But thank you. This’ll be fine.”
“Well, good, dear.” She’s getting increasingly nervous. “I just want to make sure that whatever you need, we provide, and I just want to make sure you know that we love you, and…” Her voice descends into a tearful, shaking tone that sets my spine on fire.
“It's fine.” I hold up the cooler. She brightens.
“You got to keep that?”
I set it down, press the buttons on each side, and open it. Thirty pounds of accomplishment.
The seven wheels, each four pounds, give or take, have a tang to them that cuts through my existential horror and fills me with a faint hope.
“Can we find room in your fridge?”
“Of course! I knew you still made manchego sometimes, but I never expected this!”
“It's the one thing Burke couldn't take from me,” I say, hating his name on my tongue. Between the two of us, we get the wheels in the back of the fridge, where I give them one last loving look.
Mission accomplished.
“Hastings,” Dad says, standing and putting his arm around my shoulders as I stir the almond milk into my coffee. “This is going to take a long time for you to get over.”
“Get… over? Dad, you don’t 'get over' something like this.”
He frowns at me. “Something's different about you.”
“I lost my husband, my job, my home, most of my worldly possessions, and every shred of pride?”
“No. That's not it.” He studies me, then snaps his fingers. “Eyelash extensions? Mallory did those a few weeks ago and they really make her eyes pop.”
Mom sighs. “Roy.” Eyeing his blond hair, she clears her throat repeatedly.
Fishing in his front pocket, he removes his balled-up hand and extends it to her, unrolling his fingers.
A cough drop.
“Roy! She dyed her hair brown!”
Dad studies me. “Nah. That's not it.”
In spite of myself, I laugh. We're being played.
“ROY! Are you going blind?”
Giggles take us over as Mom stares at us blankly, then joins in.
Bzzzzzzz
I ignore my phone.
“You will get over this, honey,” Mom interjects. “I promise you will. Burke may have screwed you over–well, he didn't just screw you, he fu–”
“Mom!” I cut her off before she can finish.
“I can say that word sometimes. If there’s any time to say it, it's now. Look what he did to you!”
“Mom, stop.”
“But he completely snowed you. All the while, all those years, he lied to you, and he convinced you, right under your nose, that you—”
“MOM!” The shocked look on her face makes me feel bad, but the rage inside me takes over. “Quit talking about how stupid I am.”
“No one said anything about you being stupid.”
Dad gives me a look of understanding. “No, you didn’t, Sharon. But Hastings feels stupid right now.”
“Of course I do! Wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“No!” Mom chimes in, the two of them neutralizing each other. “This could happen to anyone.”
“Has it ever happened to you?”
“What? Of course not. I’m married to Roy. We’ve been married for—how many years have we been married, Roy?”
“Thirty-six.”
“I’ve been married to him for thirty-six years. You don’t have four extra wives and a hidden identity, do you, Roy?”
“If I did, Sharon, you’d know.”
“I didn’t know,” I say, holding the cup of hot coffee to my lips and sipping, the action mechanical, devoid of any sense of personhood. “And every time anyone talks to me about this, it’s like another piece of my soul gets put through a cheese grater.”
“Wow!” Mom says, looking at Dad, then turning back to me. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For telling us how you feel.”
“You’re thanking me for that?”
“Hastings, you don’t talk about feelings. Ever. I think the last time you told me about your inner state, you were nine, and it was after you ate a bunch of Girl Scout cookies that you had bought out of your allowance so that you would be the troop’s top seller. You just don’t do this.”
Bzzzzzzz
In anger, I pick up my phone and hit Accept. Before he can say a word, I snap, “Leave me alone. I don’t need anything from you.”
“I’m just trying to check in and see how you’re doing,” Ian says.
“I’m fine.”
“Look, Hastings, I wanted to talk to you about—”
I end the call. The last thing I need is to have my former nemesis rub my nose in it.
“Was that your lawyer?” Mom asks.
“No. Just someone who needs to leave me alone.”
“Burke?” she screeches.
“What? No! I'll never hear from him. Ever. That SOB has disappeared entirely.”
“Are you sure the charges are dropped?” Dad asks. “I hate to ask, and I don’t want to pick at a raw wound, but...”
“It's all in process. I'll get a formal report soon, but it looks like it. My lawyer advised me to provide testimony about Burke. I shared everything that I know, including personal details you just don’t talk about with your parents.”
Mom turns bright red.
“I’m sorry that you had to get that, um, intimate, dear,” Mom says before gulping half her cup of coffee in one big, long, muted gesture.
Dad’s eyes narrow, his lips pursed. Roy Monahan is a pretty mild-mannered guy, but when it comes to us–me, Mallory, and Mom–we always know he has our backs.
I just hate that I had to learn it the hard way.
“It sounds like you have a good team,” Dad says. “We’ve combed over any insurance policies to see if you had any protection from some of the corporate director’s and officer’s liability.” A hangdog expression makes it clear that he found nothing. He turns his hands up in a gesture of helplessness. “And beyond that, it’s all about the lawyers.”
“It’s always about the lawyers, Dad. Burke was a lawyer.”
“Burke was a piece of—”
Before Dad can finish, the front door opens. In walks Mallory, followed by her fiancé, Will. Bright red curls bounce into the kitchen atop round, compassionate eyes.
My sister is here for my homecoming. Of course she is. That’s what good people do in small towns, right? Shame burns through me as she smiles the standard-issue Smile of Pity.
You know that smile. The one people give you when they’re secretly glad they’re not you.
“Hasty—Hastings, I mean,” Mallory says, coming in for a hug. The last time I saw her, I was here in Anderhill for a dress fitting. She and Will are getting married in June, just four months away.
As if my life weren’t bad enough.
As if I haven’t lost every single bit of money except for that seven hundred dollars in my bank account.
As if being dragged through the mud weren’t bad enough.
As if I weren’t humiliated enough.
Life converged my scandal with my baby sister’s wedding.
She’s marrying Will Lotham, the younger brother of Veronica Lotham, whom I hated with a passion in high school.
Why? Because she was so much like my sister.
Mallory has no ambition. She’s happy with her life as is. She’s barely ever left Massachusetts or our small town, and Veronica’s similar.
Even worse–Veronica’s happy with her life and ambitious.
That one-two punch was just a little too much, even back in high school. She was that super-nice, sharp young woman who had an internal line she wouldn't cross, and who lacked the killer instinct when it came to final negotiations.
I eat those women for lunch now.
Or at least, until a month ago, I did.
“Will!” I exclaim, pretending to be chipper as he comes in for a hug with eyes that have the same pity in them. It’s worse somehow, being looked at like this by him, because he is ambitious. And successful. Unlike Mallory, he gets it. He knows what it feels like to go out into the world, climb up a ladder, maybe even build the ladder itself, rung by rung, until you’re at the top.
Unlike me, he’s still up there.
We all sit down at the small table, Mom pouring cups of coffee and pulling milk and sugar out as we settle into an awkward group. This is what daily life is going to be like until I can get back on my feet.
I’m going to sleep in my childhood bedroom. I’m going to sit at my childhood breakfast table. I’m going to drink coffee from a coffee maker.
I’m going to get the look of pity.
Sartre says that hell is other people, but there is no hell like coming home with your tail between your legs after you’ve been suckered by a high-end con man who is wanted in six states and three different countries.
A high-end con man you gave your best years to.
This is a special kind of hell, custom-designed for me.
“Hastings was just telling us about her…” Mom halts as she realizes maybe I don’t want to talk about it.
“Everything’s looking good on the legal end,” Dad says, rescuing me.
“But how are you? Emotionally?” Mallory asks.
She’s so predictable.
And then I do something I didn’t predict.
I start to cry.
Alarm fills Dad’s face as he looks at me. Speechless, Mom’s hand goes to the base of her throat, fingers intertwining with her necklace. Will looks uncomfortable, eyes anywhere but on me.
Furiously trying to cover my tears, I grab a napkin from the holder in the middle of the table and dab my lower lids.
“Did you get a cat?” I ask Mom in a nasty, accusatory tone that makes me feel more shame. “These allergies...”
“Hasty…”
“Don’t call me that,” I snap at Mallory.
“I’m sorry. I’m just going back to… it just feels… well, you’re…” Her words come out in fits and starts as she tries to figure out the right way to say it.
“Just spit it out. Go ahead. Call me a loser. A failure. A sucker. Use all the words you say behind the scenes when you talk about me with Perky and Fiona. I know how it is now. I'm not just your sister. I am a topic.”
Acid fills my words.
It has to. Otherwise I'd burn right through from the inside out.
“No! You’re not! I don’t! Hastings, it’s just… I’m so sorry.”
Niagara Falls bursts out of my eyes.
“I’m just… so… tired,” I say, the tears making my voice shake, “of having people feel sorry for me. Stop saying you’re sorry. There’s only so… much… pity… I can absorb!”
Stricken, Mallory leans back and takes in a sharp inhale that pauses. She’s holding her breath. Have I offended her? Did I cross some line?
The old me wouldn’t care, but right now, I don’t even know which me I am.
“You’re not a sucker.” Will’s words surprise me, his gaze catching mine. “Burke is the asshole here, Hastings. He snowed a lot of people. You’re not the only one.”