The Ring

by Florence Osmund

  Jessivel took a moment for reality to set in.

  “Lincoln Park?”

  “You said you have a car, right?”

  “It’s a long drive.”

  “What do you consider a long commute?”

  “It would take me twenty minutes to drive there, and then where would I park?”

  Sofia shot her a disapproving look.

  “Okay, I’m in,” Jessivel mumbled.

  “Could you show any less enthusiasm?”

  “It’s going to take a while for me to get used to this.”

  “You can do it, Jessivel. I know you can. I have faith in you—more than you have in yourself right now.”

  Jessivel hadn’t been prepared for being put in her place by the likes of a social services counselor. But she had been, and while it was not easy to take, she had to admit that it was almost gratifying to have someone stand up to her. She also hadn’t been prepared to like anything she had to offer. But if she was honest with herself, the idea of being a barista was somewhat interesting—if only she didn’t have to deal with people she knew she wasn’t going to like. That part terrified her. Sofia had referred to things like point-of-sale systems, inventory management, and teamwork. So many scary concepts.

  She had ninety days to prepare for being the sole supporter of herself and Kayla. That in itself was a terrifying concept, but not even close to having to work in a chicken processing plant.

  Chapter 17

  Paige drove from the hospital back to her office, assured that her mother was in good hands though she couldn’t wrap her mind around a heart attack. She knew of no one in her family who had ever had heart trouble.

  Once in her office, after an hour of unsuccessfully trying to reconcile the current month’s dip in operating cash flow, she logged into the company’s central database and electronically earmarked a raft of new listings she needed to review, and then headed home.

  She thought more of her mother’s lifestyle as she sat at a red traffic light—her relatively healthy eating habits, a good sleep routine, and physical exercise—when the blasting car horn behind her snapped her back to reality. She glanced in the rearview mirror to see who was being so impatient and was shocked to see Jessivel behind the wheel in the car behind her.

  Paige released her foot from the brake pedal, but before she stepped on the gas, she changed her mind and swiftly put it back on the brake. The maneuver caused Jessivel’s car to rear-end her with an ugly-sounding impact, making Paige’s body jerk forward, but luckily not with enough force to cause the airbag to inflate.

  Paige put her car in park and proceeded to open the door. But as soon as she did, Jessivel backed up, pulled away, and sped down the street.

  Paige slammed her door shut and took off after her.

  The two women made numerous left and right turns down dozens of narrow side streets, blowing most of the stop signs, until they wound up at a dead end not big enough to make a quick turnaround. Paige had Jessivel trapped.

  They stayed in their respective cars glaring at each other for several seconds. Jessivel, wide-eyed and red-faced, appeared to be screaming something at her. Paige cracked her window and caught a few words.

  “You stupid bitch. Leave me the hell alone.”

  Paige slipped the gear into reverse but kept her foot on the brake while she vacillated between confronting Jessivel and fleeing the scene. In business, it would be a no-brainer—she never backed down from confrontation—she was wired for it. But when it came to personal matters, she tended to respond in the opposite way.

  Paige could feel her heart rate increase, and her entire body went tense. Continuing with this confrontation would only make her feel worse…physically. But if she backed down now, it would in all likelihood hinder her search for the truth. Or even worse, completely end it.

  As soon as she was able to focus on the payoff of a confrontation, Paige was able to assuage her initial weak-kneed reaction. At least, she hoped. She put the car in park just as Jessivel jumped out of her car and barreled toward her.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she shouted, standing less than three feet from Paige’s car door, her arms flailing. “Are you crazy or something?”

  Paige rolled down her window a bit more, trying to appear calm on the outside. “You hit me back there,” she said. “Why did you run off like that?”

  “I barely touched you, and you’re the one who caused it. I doubt if there’s even a dent on your fancy car.”

  “Well, you didn’t give me much of a chance to check it out.”

  Jessivel inched closer to Paige’s car, causing Paige to fear what the woman was capable of doing. She considered her surroundings—no visible sign of another human being within shouting distance.

  “I checked. There’s no damage,” Jessivel said through clenched teeth, her facial muscles noticeably tight.

  “How could you have checked? You’ve been standing here the whole time.”

  Jessivel swiped at Paige’s car window with an open hand, a combative gesture that caused Paige to recoil.

  “I saw there was no damage right after it happened, stupid,” Jessivel said. “Now move your damn car so I can get out of here.”

  “Can we talk?” Paige finally asked, suddenly having the wherewithal to do what she thought would defray the hostility of the situation.

  “We just did.”

  “I mean about your father. I have some information you might find useful.”

  “You know nothing about my father! Now, move your damn car and let me out of here before I call the police.” When she grabbed the door handle, Paige instinctively clicked on the “lock doors” button inside her car to ensure her safety.

  “C’mon, there’s no reason to call the police. And keep in mind that if you do, and they hear you hit me from behind, you’ll likely be the one to get a ticket.”

  “And I’ll tell them you’ve been stalking me!” she said with her hands on her hips. “You’re really crazy, you know that?”

  “I’ve been trying to talk to you, that’s all.”

  “Don’t you get it? I don’t want to talk to you. We have nothing in common. Nothing to talk about. You annoy me. Now back up your rich-ass car and let me out of here.”

  Paige stared into her eyes for a brief moment before reaching into her purse and pulling out the photo of her father. She rolled her window all the way down and, undeterred by the tremor in her hand, showed it to her.

  Jessivel’s body appeared to freeze in place when she saw it.

  “Now can we talk?” Paige asked.

  Chapter 18

  Jessivel walked around Paige’s car at a slow, deliberate pace before she opened the passenger door. Then she slid partway into the seat, one foot remaining outside of the car, firmly set on the ground. “What are you doing with a picture of my father?” she asked without looking at Paige, her rage subsided from a moment earlier. When she didn’t get an immediate response, she turned toward her.

  Paige met Jessivel’s gaze and stared into her eyes longer than was comfortable. “Jessivel...” She paused, taking a hard, obvious swallow. “He’s my father too.”

  She had never told Paige her real first name. A heaviness expanded within Jessivel’s chest in the space of seconds, rendering her speechless. She gulped down a swig of air to relieve the knot that had tightened in her throat.

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “His real name is Ryan West. He was married to my mother for forty-three years when he died in May.”

  “It’s not the same man,” she said with determination. “He lived with us my whole life.”

  “Was he there every day?” Paige asked.

  “No, he traveled in his work.”

  “A lot?”

  “Yes…a lot.”

  “Sometimes for a week at a time?”

  Random thoughts swirled through Jessivel’s head, thoughts that had nothing to do with the subject at hand—leftovers in her fridge, the heartbreaking e
pisode of Grey's Anatomy she had watched the previous night, Kayla’s math homework. “Yeah,” she finally said. “Sometimes even longer.”

  “Same here.” Her eyebrows squeezed together, almost becoming one. “As hard as it is to say this, it looks to me as though our father was leading two lives. Was he married to your mother?”

  “No…but it was like he was. We were a fam—” She stopped talking when her voice cracked.

  “I know. Same here. I never would have dreamed he had even cheated on my mother, let alone lived with another woman at the same time. As far as I knew him, he was a good man.”

  “Everyone has a twin. So…maybe the two men just looked alike. Or maybe they were real twins. That’s it. They could have been twins.”

  “And his ring? How do you explain that?”

  Jessivel reached up to clasp the ring through the fabric of her blouse. “I don’t want to hear any more of your crap,” she said, her hand still on the door handle. Her mind told her to go, but her body froze.

  “I understand your reaction to this, Jessivel. Believe me, I do. Can you at least take my phone number and call me when you’re ready to discuss it further?”

  Jessivel turned toward Paige and snapped, “Why? You’ve said your piece. Story over.”

  “Don’t you want to know more? Aren’t you curious as to how he pulled this off?” She paused. “It appears we’re half-sisters. Couldn’t we get to know each other a little?”

  Now with both legs out of the car, Jessivel turned toward Paige.

  “No…to all three.”

  Jessivel exited Paige’s car and got into her own. She waited for Paige to back up and drove off.

  She hated Paige. They couldn’t possibly be sisters. That fancy hairdo and clothes and car and her know-it-all attitude. She rolled her window all the way down to let the wind brush against her face, breathing in the sweet aroma of a nearby chocolate factory. How dare that woman butt into her personal life, especially now when she was at an all-time low, struggling to keep a roof over her and Kayla’s head. Who does she think she is? And what was her deal anyway? What did she want? She wasn’t reaching out to her from the goodness of her heart. She had to be looking for some kind of payoff. And it couldn’t be money. That was the scary part.

  It was all some big mistake. It had to be.

  Now that she was receiving food stamps, she didn’t have to go to soup kitchens anymore and run the risk of running into her—that was a relief. She didn’t have to go anywhere these days, for that matter. Except for the grocery store. And barista classes. She’d enrolled in a five-day course at the Chicago Barista Academy, paid for by Audrey Russo, owner of The Busy Bean. Apparently, Mrs. Flores had done one helluva sell job on her.

  When Jessivel arrived home, she called her mother and asked if they could meet somewhere after she got off work.

  “I never ‘get off work,’” her mother said. “I’m on call here around the clock.”

  “No time off? What kind of slave drivers are they?”

  “The kind that provide a place for me to live, that’s what kind. What is it you want to talk about?”

  “Dad.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about, Jess.”

  “Yes, there is. I just found out—”

  “Gotta go. I’ll call you later.”

  “But—”

  Her mother had already hung up.

  “Where were you?” Kayla asked as she entered Jessivel’s bedroom. “How long can it take to pick up something for dinner? What did you get?”

  Jessivel had forgotten all about the reason she’d been out and about.

  “Sorry. I forgot.”

  “Forgot what?”

  “Dinner.”

  “How could you forget? Where were you all this time?”

  “Never mind! Leave me alone.”

  “Geez, what a grouch,” Kayla muttered on her way out.

  The pre-teen attitude and smart mouth were unbearable. Jessivel had enough on her mind without that. And as far as her mother, what was she hiding?

  Paige had stuffed something into Jessivel’s purse. She hoped it was the supposed photo of her father so she could study it, recognize his shirt or something. She grabbed her purse. The photo wasn’t there but Paige’s business card was. OWNER, CASTLE REALTORS. How nice. One sister owns her own company. The other is going to barista school so she can wait on rich people…rich people like her sister.

  Perfect. Just perfect.

  Chapter 19

  “You need a better social life, Paige. You can’t work all the time. What happened to all your friends?” her mother asked from her hospital bed on one of Paige’s daily visits. Her mother had undergone numerous tests before being diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism and put on blood thinners. Her condition remained serious but stable.

  “I have friends. I was just with Sandy, Gayle, and Valerie for dinner last weekend. I do okay.”

  Most days, her mother didn’t talk much—often complaining of fatigue and light-headedness. So as much as Paige wanted to pump her for more information about her father, she knew it would upset her, so she didn’t, figuring her blood pressure was erratic enough. Consequently, on these visits, Paige gave her mother updates on work and her social life, such as it was.

  “You need a man.”

  “No one really needs a man, Mom.”

  “One day, you’ll realize I’m right. And it doesn’t matter that you can’t have children. You can have a happy marriage without children, you know.”

  “I know, Mom.”

  On the sixth day of her mother’s hospitalization, her condition worsened. It happened while Paige was in her room when she witnessed a bluish tint permeate her mother’s face accompanied by a noticeable shortness of breath. Paige rang for the nurse, who appeared so quickly that Paige figured she must have seen something going wrong from the nurses’ station monitor as well. More hospital staff arrived. They ushered Paige out of the room and transported her mother to the ICU while Paige waited nearby.

  Paige fidgeted in the waiting room chair, adjusting the settings on her phone, catching up on Facebook postings, her attention snapping at every sound and movement in the immediate area. After what felt like too long of a time, the doctor came out to talk to her.

  “Your mother has developed epiglottitis, a fancy word for inflammation of the tissue that covers her windpipe. We have her on a breathing tube, humidified oxygen, and antibiotics.”

  “How serious is it?”

  “It’s treatable. We’ll want to keep looking for any sign of infection—that can complicate things.”

  “Can I see her?”

  “Let’s give her some time for her vitals to come down a bit. Then you can see her.”

  An hour passed before a nurse came out to tell Paige she could see her mother.

  Even though she had been warned about the breathing tube, still she was taken aback by the bulky apparatus covering her mother’s nose and mouth. She approached her bed and peered down at her.

  “How are you doing, Mom?”

  Her mother looked up at her and rolled her eyes. She held the briefest of smiles, just enough to accentuate the deep lines around her mouth.

  “Can I get you anything?”

  Her mother pointed to the door.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  Her mother’s first words appeared to get caught in her throat.

  “I wish I could help you, but—”

  When her mother mimed writing something down, Paige pulled out a pen and pad from her purse.

  Home, she wrote.

  “I’m afraid you’re going to be here for a while.”

  Her mother let out an impatient snort. Dead plants, she wrote.

  “What plants? Your houseplants?”

  Her mother nodded.

  “They need watering?”

  She nodded a second time.

  “Can the cleaning lady water them?”

  She shook her head.

 
“Okay. I’ll go water them then. I’ll take in your mail, too. Anything else I can do while I’m there?”

  My will, she wrote, then looked up at Paige, the emptiness in her eyes disquieting.

  “Mother, you’re not dying,” Paige said with no conviction.

  Her mother’s look signaled she needed to say no more and do as told.

  Paige felt uneasy being alone in her mother’s house. Even with her permission, it seemed like she was invading her mother’s privacy, sneaking around behind her back.

  She walked through each room with an increased awareness of her mother’s possessions as she watered the houseplants, observing her belongings as if she were there for the first time. Her mother’s penchant for neatness and classic taste in home décor made her house looked staged, ready to be put on the market. Paige stopped to inspect things as she went from houseplant to houseplant, opened drawers and cabinets, and peeked under things. Her curiosity didn’t stop until she had examined every room in the house, even those without houseplants in them.

  One thing surprised her—none of her father’s personal belongings was in sight. Her mother had either discarded them, gave them away, or hid them somewhere. Paige wondered what she would have done under similar circumstances—keep certain things around for sentimental reasons or get rid of all the distressing reminders. Her mother hadn’t asked her if she wanted anything of her father’s, and that bothered her. She hoped her mother had just stashed everything away until she was emotionally ready to deal with it.

  The more she reflected on the request from her mother to bring her will, the more Paige questioned it—she and Natalie were her only heirs. Sure, some distant relatives existed out there, but no one her mother had kept in touch with except for weddings, funerals, and the annual Christmas-card exchange. And then there was her mother’s sister and niece with whom she had no relationship.