Victoria Warenik         4,195 Words









The Inheritance







Four days later the far off voice of my husband Brandon floated up to me from the sorely manicured lawn as I opened the screen door, “I’ll be right there, Rach. I just want to go thank the McCourt’s.”
“Alright, Brando,” I sighed, “Will you thank them for the macaroni casserole?” Our daughter Emma’s dog, Sheep, was pulling at my arm, sniffing everything within range. Already frazzled, I kept getting distracted by this damn dog. “Sheep! Stop! I know you’re cute, but that’s no excuse. You have to behave.”
My childhood home, a two-story Victorian, painted a pale yellow with forest green shutters and a wraparound porch, is like walking into a storybook. My mother kept the house immaculate. The stairs that lead upstairs to my bedroom, my sister’s room and the guest room is right in front of the smoky glass door; Mom always made sure the banister was spotless. The house is old but comfortable. The teak hardwood floors my dad put in, when my parents bought the place almost fifty years ago, are still polished and don’t creak at all—the perfect floor for a teenager to sneak out. A scented candle always lit to freshen the old wood; I can still smell the last one that burned, jasmine. Unmatched coasters are placed everywhere, stacked, just waiting for a chance to catch a glass’ sweat. Sheep, of course, a puppy of four years old, bounded through the door immediately, off to track the entirety of the house whipped some of the coasters to the floor with his enthusiastic wag. “Sheep!”  Shit. Just what I needed. More of a mess to pick up. “Remind me to smack you the next time you do that!” I called after Sheep, mumbling, “stupid dog.” If only he weren’t so cute.
To the left of the foyer is the living room. A couple TV trays were still leaning in the corner of the room, behind my Mom’s sewing chair she used to rock my sister and me to sleep in. In front of the TV is a long couch that has been re-upholstered more times than I can remember (now it’s a pleasant muted green and blue paisley) and a worn brown leather recliner. My parents never really watched TV unless Carson or M*A*S*H was on.  They both worshiped Johnny and Alan Alda. Dad was in Korea, as an Army pilot. He had so many stories, many he couldn’t tell me till I was old enough not to have my own nightmares. The stories he would tell me, as early as I can remember, were about him and Mom.
† † † †
“It’s Anya. Fronzcak. I went to see your mother this morning, to check on her since your father’s passing and…I’m sorry…she didn’t answer the door. When I didn’t get a response I got the spare…from under the gardenia pot…letting myself in. I just assumed she was out in the back planting or in the basement doing laundry. You know how early she always gets up. Are you still there, Rachel?”
“Yes, go ahead.” My voice shaking as I answered. Her voice was cracking and she sounded a bit frazzled. I didn’t want to upset her but her high tone and sighs were getting to me.
“Well, I went inside, calling for Betty but she didn’t answer. I was yelling her name as I walked through the house and when I didn’t find her on the first floor, or see her outside, I went to the second. I approached the bedroom; she’s been spending a lot of time in there lately…so I opened the door and I glanced toward the bed. Your mother was under the covers and I thought she was just sleeping. I called her name again and she didn’t answer. I approached the bed and tried to wake her up. I kept calling her name and gently shaking her. She didn’t respond. I’ve called an ambulance but can you be here anytime soon…”
My mother said she was fine two days ago when I saw her but I knew she was heartbroken. Angry tears searing, I couldn’t answer Anya. Brandon took the phone from me.
An hour later, having Brandon speed from Greensboro to Ashveville, I was in my childhood home, finding myself comforting Mrs. Fronczak. I didn’t get the luxury of time to mourn my loss. I had to make calls to family and arrange to have Mom’s body moved. Ironically, it seemed easier this time because I had to bury Dad only two months ago. I just didn’t understand why she had to leave me—us. She had two living daughters, four grandkids, her sons-in-law and her two younger brothers.
† † † †
Dad knew Mom his whole life. When they were both fourteen he worked up the nerve to finally ask her on a date to see a movie. Dad and Mom dated for five years before he asked for her hand in marriage. Happily married for over forty-eight years, they went to the movies every week in mutual love for movies and one another. Dad tells it best, remembering the fear he felt when approaching Grandpa to ask Mom out. I sometimes went on dates with them, when they couldn’t find a sitter, before Bailey was born.
I always was a handful, as Mom said, but I was pretty laid back once I found my niche going into high school, joining the swimming and soccer teams. I always dressed in muted colors; maybe to make up for the color of our house which was always so bright. Today I’m wearing a faded purple t-shirt Dad gave me too many years ago with the caption, “I bleed purple and orange” on the front in orange, Clemson, my alma mater, is emblazoned on the back. My parents were always supportive. They never questioned me studying for an English degree, just trusted I would make my own mistakes and learn from them.
“Rachel! Honey? Where are you?” My other half and straw-haired husband of thirty years called.
“Over here, Brandon!” I sigh back, “I’m in the living room.”
Laying one of his hands on my shoulders he gave me a look that said, “I know you’re just faking it.”
“I know I’m not okay. But we need to do this. Where are the kids and everyone else?”
He raised his eyebrows. I tried to focus on his soft blue eyes while he said something about Emma running late, Ben being late because of an anniversary with his girlfriend…Bailey and Ryan were on the way with their little rascals. I always liked that phrase. Little rascals.
Christ. What Brando rattled off was finally clicking. There’s already an obese and rambunctious golden retriever with a puppy mindset even though he is four, and on their way was our ‘rebel without a cause’ eighteen year-old, our twenty year-old with his overzealous girlfriend, eventually, my over-emotional younger sister and her emotionally-stunted-but-fun-loving husband, and their seven and nine year-old? To tear apart this house? Can’t wait.
“Thanks, Hon. This is going to be a long day.”
“Yeah. Do you want to wait on the porch for them or just get started in here?” Brando asked not knowing what to do to comfort me through my loss; he only has his Dad left, his Mother left when he was eight, he never knew the love of two parents until mine. I didn’t even think of the pain he felt. Pulling me in to his frame, he ran his hands down my bare arms, still reveling in the sensation after thirty-three years, enveloping me in a much-needed hug, as I rest my head in the crook of his shoulder. I feel as if I’m ready for whatever comes next.
Emma opened the front door, calling out, “Oi! Guys, get a room!” She’s wearing a pair of worn khaki shorts and an old ratty t-shirt of Brando’s that now looks grey from all its washes. Emma got her Dad’s hair, untamable straw-colored locks that never look the same twice. Today she’s wearing it down her back in two loose braids. Her ensemble finishes off with a pair of lime green Chuck Taylor’s and one of her grandmother’s silver rings; she also inherited her grandmother’s hazel eyes. Sheep bounds up, landing with his front paws on my stomach, he tries to lick my chin. Knocking him back to the floor I seize my chest. That dog doesn’t even know his own strength. That really hurt. Brandon and Emma laugh. I see all the sympathy I’ll get from them. My mom has just died and I get attacked by this dog and all I want to do is clean out the house now because later it’ll just hurt more and I have two of the people I love most laughing at me. Seeing I am not amused, Brandon and Emma stop chuckling.
“Mom, are you okay?”
“Rach, is everything alright?”
All I want more than anything in the world is to crawl into my bed and never get out but I know I can’t. That would be selfish. Trying to hold myself together, I straighten my shoulders and blink rapidly to get any stray tears to stay in.
“I’m fine.” One pointed look from Brando and he knows I’m lying. “I’m fine.” I repeat, hoping to drop the subject. I have to be the strong one. The oldest. Set the example.   
Thankfully, the front door opens and the whirlwind that is the Dobler family come in to join the fun. Bailey and Ryan come over and give Brando, Emma and me hugs.
Bailey immediately started sniffling when she saw me. I don’t know if I can stand it. I just had my weepy moment though, so I think I’ll be okay. I always was her shoulder to cry on when we were younger when she had a fight with Mom. I’m ten years older than her and didn’t get to get to know her that well but I loved her nonetheless. Brando and I have always been more like an aunt or uncle then anything else. Everyone was hurting. I kept forgetting how close Brando was to Mom and Dad. I flashed a small smile all for him.
I gave Bailey a hug, telling her it would be all right. The mood immediately sobered and everyone got reminiscent. Bailey and Ryan’s kids, who weren’t even ten yet, came and went, off to find something more fun to do, Emma and Ben always went in the backyard to play in the tree house Dad made me and the tire swing their Dad used to push me in when we visited. Ryan took over for me, patting his wife awkwardly on the back. Sheep stared at me with his head cocked to the right, as if asking the silent question, what’s wrong? I decided that was wiser not to answer the fat Golden retriever.
“I just miss them. Why’d they have to go? I just can’t seem to stop crying, I’m just like Mom always was after watching Casablanca or Dr. Zhivago.” my sister sniffled, words garbled and unintelligible after this comment breaking down into her husband’s shoulder, holding on to him as if he was her lifeline. Maybe he was.
“Alright guys,” I clapped, trying to gain control of the rapidly deteriorating situation in my parent’s living room, “let’s get started. No time to dawdle. I don’t want to get weepy. And I will if I stay down here any longer. I know what a tough situation this is, but we have to be strong for Mom. She would want us to go on.” Even though she didn’t, the little voice in my head kept telling me. “So, only keep the things you really want.”
I grabbed some industrial-sized black trash bags, starting up the stairs. I heard movement downstairs so I continued up resolutely, deciding to start in my room.
My room is just as I left it—pale green in color, there is a bureau on the left wall that still holds some of my old clothes. My desk is on my right wall, still holding scribbles of bad love poems I wrote to Brandon. My bed was a full, pushed up against my window—the best view of the back yard full of live oaks and the pond.
I was seventeen, lying on my bed looking up at my white ceiling; fingers interlaced on my stomach. I was thinking about a boy I had just met—a handsome boy with straw-colored hair and a heart-wrenching smile. I was thirteen, still in my swimsuit, considering the second place trophy I held in my hands. I was eighteen, holding a bulging cardboard box full of books and trinkets I wanted to take with me to college; I was moving out for good and Mom was standing in the doorway crying, not ready to let her little girl go. Dad was comforting her, arm around her shoulders, keeping a slight smile on his face; he didn’t want to show how much he would miss me—no more of our late night talks over chocolate milk, no more of our father-daughter days…
Coming up behind me, Brandon put his arm around my shoulders, a one-armed hug, whispering into my hair, “Rach, it’s time.”
Taking a deep breath I replied, “I know, let’s get started.”
“Remember when we first met and your Dad wouldn’t let me past the first step of the stairs?” Brandon chuckled, remembering.
I smiled. “Yeah. And how Mom was so worried about your reaction to Dad, she asked you back at a time she knew Dad wouldn’t be here? And we could be alone?”
Three hours later I was finished with my room and though I was emotionally drained, I kept remembering all the great times I had in my room. Stories about my parents with Brandon.
Brando and I had thrown away everything I didn’t want to keep, boxing up the rest, mostly old papers and pictures, which we packed in the car to take back home. Bailey was in her room with Ryan. Emma was in the guest room, going through the closet. Sheep was probably destroying something downstairs.
As if on cue, I heard a crash drifting up from the sunroom downstairs. Fearing someone was hurt moving a heavy piece of furniture, I raced down, only to find Sheep nipping at a bouquet of yellow and orange roses strewn across the hardwood, water slowly crawling its way down the floor, the porcelain vase the flowers were held in, shattered, no way to piece back together. Silently fuming in the doorway, Sheep finally noticed my presence. Slowly lifting his furry golden head, he stared at me with a look I can only characterize as sheepish. Which is when I realize how he really got his name. And I realize how ridiculous I’m acting by huffing down the stairs in anger over a broken vase. By the time Brandon, Emma, Bailey and Ryan come to check on me, I am clutching the side of the doorframe howling in laughter. It’s infectious. I am trying to explain my reaction when Ben walks into the room, a quizzical lift of his brow.
“Well, and I thought this was going to be a sob fest.” My loving son, the empathetic one.
Once I had gained control of myself, I hugged Ben and gave him the choice of helping his sister upstairs or tackling his grandfather’s shed. He, of course, chose the shed. He was closest to Dad. Next to Brando, who was the son he never had.
Brando and I headed back upstairs to continue the onslaught, ready to tackle my parents’ room. I couldn’t even imagine what I was going to find. I knew I was probably going to break down. Again. Walking into the room, I smelled the sweet cloying scent my Mom always wore and the slight musk of my Dad from his Brut aftershave. The room smelled slightly stale, lived-in, but not taken care of for some time. The bed was made but it was eerie walking through the space; the room held so many memories. Nights before Bailey was born and I was too scared to sleep in my own bed, nights Dad and I would separate at the top of the stairs, him going to his room, me going to mine after a late night of watching Johnny. Sometimes I would only stay up long enough to hear my Dad imitate the “Heeeeere’s Johnny!”
Brando and I worked for an hour, throwing things away methodically, almost unthinking. Brandon was trying not to upset me more than he knew I was. Every once in a while one of us would sigh or laugh to ourselves about something and set the memory aside to show the other. All of my parents’ clothes would be bagged and given to Goodwill. They stipulated in their will that I would get Dad’s book and baseball collections (the cards for Brando) and Bail would get most of Mom’s albums and glassware. Mom’s jewelry would be split equally. Dad bequeathed his coin collection to Ben; it was something they did together when Ben was younger. The family library would be given to Brando and me; it’s really the only thing I ever wanted. Mom and Dad always spent their free time reading, or going to the movies. Bailey never liked to read—she was an accountant.
The house was going to stand vacated for a period of time. Whoever needed it would get it, my parents were adamant on that point. Right now, no one in the family had a need so we were using it as a family vacation home. Someone had mentioned something about turning it into a B&B.
“Hon, are you ready to start on the closet?” Brando asked me, wiping his brow with the back of his hand.
“Sure, you want to take the top and I’ll take the bottom shelf?”
“Okay.”
Sorting through my parents’ lives was definitely an exhausting task. They just had so much; skis, Mom’s old ballet shoes, Dad’s uniform, letters to one another during the war, boxes full of movie ticket stubs—so much. Toward the back of one of the corners was a stacked pile of papers I assumed were legal documents. I saw a leather-bound journal and wondered whose it was.
Flipping through the journal, I saw my Mom’s precise script. Most of the dates denoted that she wrote in it when Dad was at war. Toward the end, the entries flew forward in date, the first a few weeks before Dad got really sick last year and the last right before she died, four days ago.
“Rach, what’s wrong? What’d you find?”
Not able to speak yet, I thrust the diary into his hands. Brandon joined me on the floor, pulling me into his lap in my parents’ closet, surrounded by the memories of their mutual love and ours. Dated the day before Mom’s death, March 13, 2000, it read:

Do you remember my daddy and mother sitting a row behind us those first couple times because we were only thirteen and they thought we were too young to date? How scared you were of my daddy, who was the butcher of our small town, standing at six feet three inches? How every time we got just a little too close he would clear his throat and stare pointedly at the three inches of air between our shoulders?
When I sit in one of the broken recliners I recall your sweaty hand and nervous smirk the first time we went, to see Dr. Zhivago, because you had heard from Alice who had been told by Lily that I really wanted to see it, even though it was too long; we were both scared. I liked you so much—what did you ever see in me? I couldn’t tell you now what the movie was about. I kept thinking about your hand in mine, about the sound of my heartbeat thundering in my ears. Do you remember my clammy hand and the way I wore my hair, down in soft curls?
We loved the middle. “The perfect place to see everything that matters,” you always said. Remember we’d get there early just so we could get a middle seat? Do you remember whenever we went you would complain about ticket prices? They started off at twenty cents. Before we stopped going because you couldn’t anymore they were at seven dollars.
Whenever I step in a sticky puddle of dried coke and melted chocolate I think of going with you that one time when you threw a lopsided grimace on your face, squeezing my hand in reassurance that it wasn’t me, hoping it wasn’t going to stick on your shoes making that noise; squelch, squelch, squelch.
Can you remember me giving you a box of Milk Duds, a bucket of fresh buttered popcorn and a large coke for our anniversary? Every year?  Even when you weren’t there, off fighting for some war you didn’t believe in, for a country you did? It was my way of telling you I loved what we did every week for more than forty-eight years. Do you remember bickering during the movie, guessing what was going to happen? I only remember that after the first few times. After you got enough courage to kiss me on our third date there. Dad finally trusted you to not take advantage of me. Your lips tasted like chocolate.
Do you remember talking to Dad, a big teddy bear of a man you were so frightened of, asking him for my hand in marriage five years after we started dating,  imploring though you wouldn’t ever be good enough for me, you would try?
Every time I think of you, I think of a cavernous room filled with eyes staring in one direction, forward, except for one pair of startling green, yours; staring at mine. I see neon twinkling lights that seem to wink at me, nudging me toward you. I see lush, high-backed welcoming chairs that envelop you in a warm hug, but never like yours did.
I think back, realizing most of our memories surround this one place.
I went again because I thought I could. They gave me a look filled with pity but kindly asked where you were. I had to leave. I couldn’t sit and hold my own hand, eat popcorn without you stealing it right from my fingers…we did everything together, not like this. You in the cold ground, waiting. Me, a shell of myself ready to join you. I can’t do it anymore without you.

“Well…I…just don’t know what to say Rachel. It’s beautiful.”
“She couldn’t live without Dad. I know they loved one another without fail but I never thought his loss would make her so empty. So lost.” I couldn’t come to terms with what was so blatantly obvious.
Stiffening behind me Brandon said, “Hey. That’s not fair. She lived without your dad for two years when he was in Korea.”
“She had me,” I whispered.
“Hon. Sometimes it’s not how much she loved you and Bailey. She was married to your Father for forty-eight years, knew him for fifty-three. That type of attachment just doesn’t end when one of them dies…I don’t know if I would want to live if you died.”
“Does it excuse her leaving me? Leaving me to be alone without either of my parents? I know logically I’m being selfish but I just thought I’d be able to have my parents for the rest of my life…” Angrily pushing the palm of my hand across my cheek, Brandon rocked me back and forth slowly.
From down the hall Emma called, “Mom! Where are you? I have something to show you!” Hoping it isn’t something else Sheep has done, Brandon’s arms comfort me.
When she comes into view all I can see is her open, shining face holding an old photo album full of baby pictures of Bailey and me and early photos of Mom and Dad’s marriage. She sees me and Brando on the floor, me holding an open diary, sitting in her Dad’s lap, a watery smile adorning both of our faces, drying tracks of salty tears shining down mine. In the instant I see my daughter’s clear face, full of a life and joy I find hard to comprehend, turn upside down in abject concern just for her mother’s welfare I know what unconditional love is. At eighteen, all I was thinking about was having fun, spending time with Brandon and acting out against my parents. I stand up from my husband’s warm embrace, and in two steps have my daughter in my arms. I hold on to her as if she is the only remnant floating in the ocean after a plane wreck. No one else but her and Ben can save me from myself. Why couldn’t I save Mom?