Sledgehammer (Hard to Love 2)

“Sure. Is everything alright?”

Her mouth purses before she speaks. “Unfortunately, no. We never received last month’s payment and this month’s bill is due today. You’re aware of our policy. If you’re more than three months behind we’ll be forced to evict your grandmother.”

Every hair on my body stands on end. Fucking Eileen.

Things that go bump in the night never scared me. I learned a long time ago that the things I should be scared of seldom hide under the bed or the closet. They rarely look like the boogeyman. Only in bad fiction are villains so heavily drawn. The villains in most of our lives are family and friends, lovers. People making choices. It’s as simple as that. Some we agree with, some we don’t, and some that leave deep and lasting scars.

We had an agreement. All three Jones women. My grandmother, Eileen, and I. It was the first and certainly the last time we would all agree on something. My grandmother was going to sell her lucrative funeral business, property and all, and put most of it in a trust to pay for her care. Two small portions were set aside. One for my inheritance and the other for Eileen. Because my grandmother insisted that she didn’t want her condition to hold me back from pursuing my career, she made Eileen the trustee. In other words, in charge of my grandmother’s money. The money that was to pay for the assisted living facility she had picked out herself when she was still able to do so.

My grandmother was notoriously punctilious, neat and orderly, everything was always done by the book and on time. She would clutch her pearls in horror if she knew her bills aren’t being paid.

An hour later I finally reach Long Island, my mood as dark as pitch. After a solid ten minutes of pounding on the front door and pressing the doorbell, it finally rips open.

My thirteen year old half sister stands with a spindly arm on her hip and her head tilted. It’s like looking in the rear view mirror, at myself sixteen years ago. Stringy blonde hair, freckles, that sullen, narrow eyed sneer on her face. The purple braces and expensive clothing are the only things that distinguish the past from the present.

“Audrey.”

“Amber,” the cheeky little shit retorts.

Over her head, I scan inside the house and find nothing. It seems empty other than the sound of the television blasting. “Where’s Eileen?”

“At the mall.”

“Busy laying waste to the family coffers?”

“The what?”

“Never mind,” I grunt, blowing on my fingers to make sure frostbite doesn’t set in. “Tell your mother I came by and that I need to speak to her. And tell her it’s urgent.”

“She’s your mother, too!”

“Don’t remind me.”

With that, I trot down the front steps and march out of there as if my pants are on fire.

“When did you get your period?” a thirteen year old voice shouts.

Huh?

The motorcycle boots I bought in a thrift store for the cost of a sandwich come to a hard stop. My heel hits a patch of ice. Somehow I manage to right myself before my face gets intimately acquainted with the sidewalk. Turning, I find Audrey with her arms crossed in front, putting on her best tough girl act. She may be able to fool other people with that scowl but not me. I invented that look. To me, that look says scared shitless and lost.

I barely know my half sister and it’s pretty much my fault. All the animosity between our mother and me has spilled onto her. And frankly, up until now, her personality resembled more flora than human being. Before today she’s only ever spoken two words to me––yes and no––and this abundance of verbiage is usually accompanied by a dirty look.

Am I a little resentful that Eileen works hard to look like mom of the year with Audrey when all she worked hard to do was to get rid of me? Yes, I’m a little resentful. I say only a little because if Eileen is anything, she’s consistent. Over the years, I’ve watched her pretend to be a better mother, but in the end her selfish nature always prevails. Like everything else she’s done in her life, it starts out with a bang and quickly turns into a whimper.

I swallow a heavy dose of guilt as I watch Audrey play with her braces and nervously shift from one purple Ugg boot to the other. Why did I ever think that Eileen was going to be any different with her? The truth punches me in the gut. Because I was thinking of myself, of my own pain, of my own anger––of my own issues. And if there’s one thing that scares me, it’s not things that go bump in the night or hide under the bed. It’s being anything like my mother.