The Ring

by Florence Osmund

  “He said we can move in right away, Mom,” Kayla said upon entering the living room. “Can I have my old TV in my room again?”

  “We’ll see.”

  After he showed them the building amenities, Jessivel signed the contract: ninety days free rent and 30 percent of her adjusted income afterward. Then she and Kayla made several trips from the car to the apartment to transfer their belongings to their new home.

  “What’s the matter?” Kayla asked. “You look sad, but you should be happy. No more living in our car. Yea!”

  “I’m happy, sweetie. Happy as shit.”

  “Hercules said Jennifer Hudson was born right here in Englewood.”

  “Well, goody for her.”

  That night, Jessivel lay on her new lumpy mattress between sheets she wished she had replaced with ones she had packed from her old bed. The dark brown stain on the ceiling forced her to think of several disgusting things that could have caused it. Despite this, her thoughts brought her back to happier times, when she was sixteen years old and lying in bed next to her boyfriend, Jason—cute, charming, and attentive Jason. She felt safe with him, proud to be seen with him, proud to be his girl. Then she got pregnant.

  Jessivel had stupidly thought Jason would have been happy about the pregnancy, supportive. Instead, he had ghosted her as soon as he found out. For the next few months, she tried numerous times to get in touch with him. When she had finally reached his sister through social media, she told her that Jason was living with another girl who was also pregnant with his child. Jessivel asked how she could get in touch with him, but all his sister would tell her was that he was in a different state. Further attempts to reach him through his family failed.

  Jessivel’s parents had considered Jason a “bad-ass boy” and discouraged her from chasing him down, her father telling her that he’d take care of Jessivel and her baby. Ultimately, she succumbed to their wishes, but only after her attempts to reach Jason proved futile.

  Jessivel had gone into a long slump after that, wallowing in the hurt and humiliation, too embarrassed at first to reconnect with her school friends who had moved on with their lives without her. Feeling alone, ashamed, and worried about what lie ahead for herself and a baby, she spent the better part of her pregnancy stowed away in her room. Looking back, she was sure she had been experiencing some level of clinical depression, although she had never been diagnosed or treated for it.

  Now, under different circumstances, she felt just as low as she had back then.

  Chapter 15

  Paige drove to Tracy’s Backstreet Kitchen marveling over her recent investigative accomplishment. “Margo” was actually Jessivel Salter. And Jessivel’s father Wayne Salter and her own father Ryan West were one in the same. Sufficient time had now passed to allow this to sink in—she and Jessivel were half-sisters. And all or most of her father’s long and frequent so-called business trips had likely been spent with his other family.

  She walked in the door, checked out the day’s schedule, and went to work. Tracy’s was exceptionally busy this Wednesday, and she had a hard time concentrating on what she was doing given her recent revelation. Tracy pulled her aside after they had served dessert.

  “Anything wrong, Paige? You don’t seem yourself today.”

  Without divulging too many details, Paige explained that she desperately wanted to find the woman who called herself Margo.

  “They come and they go, Paige. You’ve seen that over the years.”

  “I know, but I’d really like to help her. It’s become personal.”

  “Our goal here is to feed people in need regardless of their circumstances, to view them as individuals and treat them with respect. But we can’t go chasing after them to do it.”

  “I understand. But could you text me if she comes in here again?”

  She hesitated. “I suppose I could do that.”

  Paige gave Tracy a hug. “Thanks.”

  “Be careful, hon.”

  While driving back to her office, Paige reflected on Jessivel’s usual demeanor—quiet and self-conscious, but easily provoked. And she had an unfriendly and ungrateful attitude about her that she found puzzling. Made her wonder how two people raised by one same parent, in this case their father, could be so different. Not unlike she and Natalie, now that she thought about it, and they had been raised by two same parents.

  She considered confronting her mother again now that she had more information. She wanted her mother to know her father had been leading a double life. She wanted her mother to know the truth.

  Olivia greeted Paige at her office door with a pained expression on her face.

  “We need to talk,” Olivia said as she followed Paige into her office.

  “What’s up?”

  “It’s your mother. She’s in the hospital.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “I don’t know much because they wouldn’t tell me anything, not being related and all. But your mother gave them this number to call, and, well, I didn’t want to call you on your cell, in case you were driving or something. Anyway, I hope I did the right thing by—”

  “Of course, you did. What hospital?”

  “Midwest.”

  “I’m on my way,” Paige said as she darted out the door.

  Once in the car, she called the hospital.

  “My name is Paige West. What can you tell me about my mother, Elaine West? How is she?”

  “I’ll connect you to a nurses’ station.”

  Paige repeated her query to the nurse.

  “She’s in serious but stable condition. We can tell you more in person.”

  “Okay. I’m twenty minutes away.”

  Paige couldn’t imagine what had happened to her mother. Her health was good, and her checkups had always gone well—some arthritis in her back, high blood pressure for which she took medication, other normal aches and pains for someone her age. Nothing ever serious.

  Once at the hospital, Paige rushed to the Emergency Room and inquired about her mother’s condition. She was asked to wait for a doctor.

  She stared out the window at the sizable parking lot as a train of rampant thoughts roared through her head. She wasn’t ready to lose her mother, who had just turned sixty-four, so close to her father’s passing. It just wasn’t fair.

  “Miss West?” the relatively young man in blue scrubs asked as he approached her.

  She stood up. “Yes.”

  He led her into a private area.

  “Your mother is stable.”

  “Can I see her?”

  “Yes. I don’t see why not.”

  “What happened?”

  “Apparently, she was experiencing chest pains and shortness of breath and called 9-1-1. The paramedics found her vital signs to be unstable and brought her here. She has what we call hemodynamic instability, the long way of saying erratic blood pressure.”

  “They told me on the phone that she was in serious condition.”

  “Serious in that her vital signs are still unstable. Hemodynamic instability doesn’t happen on its own—something caused it. That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

  “What are your initial thoughts, doctor?”

  “We haven’t ruled out heart attack yet. Many signs are pointing in that direction. And if that’s what it was, it was fairly mild.”

  “Heart attack? I never—”

  “She’s in good hands, I assure you. We’ll figure it out and treat her accordingly. Would you like to see her now?”

  Paige followed the doctor to a small cell inside the Emergency Room. When he pulled back the curtain, the smell of disinfectant overwhelmed her, and the sight of her frail-looking mother hooked up to numerous cables and machines made her gasp. She touched her mother’s arm on the only surface that didn’t have something connected to it.

  “Mom?”

  Her mother scrunched up her face as if in pain.

  “Are you okay?” Paige asked.

  Her mother nodd
ed.

  “Can you open your eyes?”

  Her mother strained to open them.

  “I’m fine, dear. Just a little indigestion.”

  “Well, I think it may be a little more than that, Mom. They have to figure it out.”

  “Not to worry about me, sweetheart. How was your day?”

  “Not important. We need to focus on you right now.”

  A smile tugged at the corner of her mother’s mouth. “Look what it takes to get you to come visit me.”

  “That’s not funny, Mother.”

  “Wasn’t meant to be. Your father died in this hospital.”

  “Yes, I know. But let’s not—”

  “Room 229.”

  “I know, but—”

  “I told them not to put me in Room 229.”

  “Good thinking.”

  A nurse walked in to check on her. She introduced herself to Paige and, with a twinkle in her eye, softly said, “Your mother has been very clear with us on what she expects while she’s here.”

  “I’m sure she has.”

  “That’s okay—shows spunk. We like spunk.”

  Despite her tiny frame, her mother generally had a huge presence wherever she went.

  “Good, ’cause that’s what you’ll get.”

  Paige left the room as soon as her mother appeared to have drifted asleep, touching base with the nurses’ station on her way out to give them her cell phone number.

  She drove back to the office via a longer route than necessary to allow time to process this new turn of events. The more she thought about losing her mother, the more somber she felt.

  Intellectually, Paige knew that everyone had a finite amount of time in this world. But emotionally, she was frightened by the prospect of being alone. First losing her daughter, followed by her divorce, then losing her father, now Mom. Paige prided herself on being positive and disciplined when it came to the business of real estate, but she could not say the same when it came to matters of the heart.

  She tried to release the thought of losing her mother in favor of something else, anything else, but to no avail.

  Chapter 16

  “You don’t know what it’s like to be in my shoes,” Jessivel said to Kayla a few days after they had moved into their new apartment. “And stop being so damned judgmental. Poppy provided for us our whole lives, and then that stopped without any notice. It’s not fair, so quit blasting me for something that isn’t my fault.”

  Jessivel didn’t feel comfortable in the new neighborhood and didn’t care much for living on the fifteenth floor of a massive building, like shelter animals stacked in cages. And the furniture that came with the apartment, while functional, wasn’t great, not like the furniture that had come with the house she and her parents had rented.

  She had ninety days to come to terms with an occupation that hopefully she didn’t hate, get training, find a stupid job, and start paying rent—a daunting list for someone who had relied on others her whole life.

  “It doesn’t matter whose fault it was, Mom. You have to take responsibility for it now. Today is now. Don’t you get that?”

  “Look, no twelve-year-old is going to give me advice on what I’m supposed to do, so shut the hell up. I have enough people bossing me around.”

  That afternoon, she had a meeting with a CDFSS counselor to discuss her skill set, a meeting she was not looking forward to. At least it would be short, she thought to herself. There was nothing to talk about.

  “I have no skills,” she told the middle-aged woman as they sat across from each other in a small, windowless room. The nameplate on the desk read SOFIA FLORES.

  “Yes, you do. You just don’t know it yet.”

  They discussed what Jessivel had been doing for the past several years, her likes and dislikes, and her personality traits. Then the woman told her she had a job in mind for her.

  “A barista? What the hell is that?” Jessivel asked.

  “It’s something you know a lot about already.”

  “I don’t even know what it is, lady. You just wasted an hour of both our times.” She rose to get up.

  “Sit down,” the woman said, her fixed expression telling Jessivel she meant business. “First of all, my name isn’t ‘lady.’ It’s Mrs. Flores. You may call me Sofia if you like. And secondly, I don’t appreciate you not at least hearing me out before you so rudely get up to leave.” She leaned in toward Jessivel, her eyes narrowed. “Something I don’t think you understand even a little is that we’re here to help you. And if you’d get rid of that big chip you have planted on your shoulder, maybe you’d realize that.”

  Jessivel sat back down with a thump. “Go on.”

  “And I don’t appreciate the eye roll either.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You told me you like experimenting with coffees, that your father would bring home different kinds of beans he’d find when traveling for his work. And you would blend different ones together, add flavorings, experiment. You mentioned using a Moka pot, something I had never heard of. Perhaps I read between the lines, but it seems as though you enjoyed doing this.”

  “So?”

  “What do you think a barista does?”

  “I have no clue.”

  “They make specialty coffees.”

  “Like in Starbucks?”

  “Yes and no. They make specialty coffees, but you have more knowledge than that kind of job requires. I’m thinking beyond that. But here’s the thing. While you have excellent coffee knowledge, you have a long way to go when it comes to customer service skills. I’m going to be brutally honest with you. You have a look—like the one you’re giving me right now—that you don’t like me and don’t want to be here. When you wait on customers, you must portray a person who is there to, and more importantly, wants to help them. You’re there to make their day better. It’s part of good customer service.”

  “Humph.”

  “You have a sandpaper exterior and an unhealthy mindset, Jessivel, but I know that’s not what’s on the inside.” She leaned back in her chair and faintly smiled. “Do you know what it means to create meaning for yourself?”

  Jessivel shook her head, not wanting to know what it meant.

  Sofia pointed to a sign hanging on her wall.

  LIFE ISN'T ABOUT FINDING YOURSELF.

  LIFE IS ABOUT CREATING YOURSELF.

  “George Bernard Shaw said it, but that’s not important. What he was getting at is that your life shouldn’t be decided by someone else or some outside circumstances.” She paused and looked past Jessivel for a few seconds. “Think of yourself going through life in a small boat on a river. You can let the river decide where you’re going, or you can direct the boat to where you want it to go. It’s up to you.”

  That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.

  “I can read your facial expression, and I see you’re not on board with this. But I’m here to tell you that life should be about discovering what you’re capable of and evolving into the person you aspire to be, rather than waiting for someone or something else to decide for you and then settling for it. Do you get that?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Whether you realize it or not, every choice you make shapes you into who you are. It’s up to you to decide to face the things you’re unhappy with in your life and either accept them or change them. And most things in life can be changed.”

  “So it’s my fault I am where I am today. That’s what you’re really saying.”

  “I never used the word ‘fault.’ You weren’t listening. Jessivel, I’m willing to work with you on this.” She leaned forward and focused with intent into Jessivel’s eyes. “I do this for a living, and I know what it takes to turn things around. I can put you in touch with hundreds of success stories if you want. But first, you need to decide whether you are willing to do this for yourself. And more importantly, are you willing to do this for your daughter?”

  “A barista.”

  “It would be
a solid job doing something you love. With your subsidized housing, you could easily support yourself and Kayla.”

  “Dealing with a bunch of people who know nothing about coffee.”

  “See, this is where you need to change your way of thinking. That mindset of yours is a critical weakness for you. Think of it as you’d be helping people who would benefit from your knowledge of coffee. Do you think you could do that?”

  Jessivel shrugged. She doubted it.

  “You would just need some coaching on how to approach people, how to support them in their decision as to what coffee they want. Good customer service is vital to the store owner.”

  “Right. The store owner. The rich store owner. Be friendly, polite, and smile at the a-hole customers so he can make money.”

  “There goes that attitude again. Look, the owner making money is part of it—they’re certainly not in the business to lose money. But there’s more to it than that. I know the owner of The Busy Bean in Lincoln Park. Extremely nice woman. And talk about a success story. Audrey grew up in extreme poverty, in a gang-infested neighborhood on the west side, where it isn’t safe to sit on your own front porch and you risk your life waiting at a bus stop. She grew up scared but determined to break the vicious cycle that had plagued her family for generations. Her first job was at a chicken processing plant. Can you imagine what it’s like to work all day on an assembly line in an unairconditioned factory, expected to break down scores of slaughtered, defeathered chickens a minute, with the stench of chlorine and ammonia so thick in the air that it’s hard to breathe?”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “She did this for four years, until she had enough money saved to move her and her mother out of that neighborhood and eventually start the coffee shop business.”

  The chicken story got to her.

  “The Busy Bean would be the perfect place for you to work—she’s always experimenting with coffees. But I couldn’t present you the way you are. We’d have work to do. What do you say? And don’t say ‘yes’ unless you’re going to buy into it all the way. Don’t waste my time.”