What She Left Us Read online

  What She Left Us

  A Novel by

  Stephanie Elliot

  Copyright ©Stephanie Elliot 2013

  Chapter 1

  Jenna hooked her fingers through the crocheted blanket that had been at the bottom of her mother’s bed for as long as she could remember. As she always did when she was nervous, worried, preoccupied or consumed, she rubbed her index finger and thumb together in between the holes of the blanket until the pads of her fingers went numb. Jenna remembered holding onto the blanket the year Courtney was born, she remembered when Courtney was a baby and had thrown up on the handmade blanket. There had been rainy summer mornings when she and Courtney had used the blanket to make forts in the living room, while Sesame Street played on the TV and her mother made cinnamon pancakes on the stove. This very blanket had kept them warm on cool fall evenings while she and Court drank apple cider on the backyard deck.

  She wondered why Courtney hadn’t taken the blanket back with her to college. Maybe it held too many memories? Jenna moved her fingers along the silk ivory edge of the blanket, smoothing it across her cheek, wondering what memories it had held for her mother.

  Her mom. The reason she was here. She knew she had to do this. It had been five months already. Enough time. Or maybe not, but it had to be done, and there was no one else to do it. The downstairs was practically emptied out, cleaned up of all the memories, swept away of framed photos and mementoes. Jenna had taken a few pieces of furniture she wanted for her tiny apartment, but the rest would go to Goodwill.

  Jenna glanced around her mom's room and then sneezed. The room was dusty and stale, not like old-lady-mothball stale, but nothing like her mother. More like a hotel room that hadn't been aired out in a long while, a room that needed fresh air and clean linens. Jenna wanted to remember what her mom smelled like. She knew if she opened the closet she’d get a whiff of her perfume, Beautiful, that still clung from her clothes, and then it’d be all over, she’d lose it for sure, and she had a whole lot of work ahead of her. The dressers needed to be emptied, stacks of papers in the closet had to be sorted through, and eventually, there was a whole basement that had to be cleaned out. Jenna needed to go through boxes upon boxes of items. She was in no frame of mind to unearth the history of her family.

  She grabbed her cell phone and hit speed dial. After two rings, Courtney picked up.

  “Hello?”

  “Did I wake you?” Jenna asked.

  “It’s ten o’clock in the morning, what do you think?”

  Jenna really didn’t know how to answer, because after all, it was ten o’clock in the morning so she waited for her sister to reply.

  “Of course you woke me up! It’s Saturday!”

  “Sorry,” And then Jenna asked, “Can you talk?”

  “Just give me a sec.”

  After a minute of rustling from Courtney’s end, she heard a door slam, and then she was back on. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m at Mom’s.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, it’s just, kind of hard being here alone. I keep thinking about when we were kids, and about times when we were all here together… ”

  “Look Jen, I get it, I really do, but I told you I couldn’t be there. I’ve got a paper due, and… ”

  “No it’s fine, I guess I just needed to talk to someone.”

  “Wait, why isn’t Darren there?”

  “He’s busy today.”

  “Well, yeah, me too. I told you I had a soc paper due.”

  “Sorry I bothered you.”

  “It’s all right. I’ll call you next week, okay?” Courtney said, “After I get my paper done.”

  “Sure.”

  “And don’t worry about it, you’ll get through it. It’s all just stuff anyway. It’s not Mom. Think of it as just junk. Imagine all the crap isn’t hers.”

  But it is. It’s all hers.

  “Maybe.”

  “It’ll be all right,” Courtney said softly into the phone.

  “Okay, then. How’s school?”

  “It’s fine, really busy. Look, I’ve got to go.”

  Jenna hung up the phone and felt the onslaught of tears coming. She didn’t know how she was going to get through the task that was ahead of her, without Darren, without Courtney. And the fact that Courtney was so disengaged about the whole process infuriated her. After all, it was her mother too. Just because Jenna was the oldest why did it mean she had to deal with all the bullshit.

  Despite it all, Jenna missed Courtney, and her pissy attitude. Jenna didn’t understand why Courtney was being that way. So, so not like Courtney. She missed Darren too. And most of all, she missed her mother.

  Jenna sat on the bed and poked her fingers through the blanket over and over again, and let the tears come.

  Chapter 2

  Courtney hung up with her sister and slumped against her door. It was still quiet in the dorm hall, because, after all, it was only ten a.m. on a Saturday. She was thankful for this as she began to cry silent tears.

  She hadn’t wanted to come back this year, but she’d committed to being an RA, which covered her room and board. She didn’t want to be away from her sister, didn’t think the two of them could handle being on their own. She felt bad about not being there to help Jenna with the task of cleaning out their childhood home. Why hadn’t she helped her over the summer? She, Jenna and Darren could have gotten through the whole project in a couple of weekends, and probably pretty easily with a case or two of beer to numb whatever feelings might come their way during the process. She felt horrible that Jenna was there doing it all on her own. And where the hell was Darren? Why wasn’t he there to help her sister?

  And what was worse was that she knew her mother’s belongings weren’t junk. She didn’t know why she said that to Jenna. She wanted to be there. But she felt like she might lose it, fall apart at the memories. She didn’t want to look at all the memories of her mom and remember that this was the outfit she had worn to Courtney’s high school graduation, or here was the pair of yellow high heels she and Jenna used to wear during dress-up. Courtney didn’t want to rehash all the memories that she had tucked inside. She didn’t want them spilling out into tears. She wanted those emotions kept in, didn’t want to share them with anyone. They were too painful, too private.

  Courtney hoped that Jenna would understand, that she would forgive her for not helping. Besides, Courtney couldn’t worry about it now. She heard bickering outside of her room and went to see what was going on. There were two hungover freshmen coming out of a room down the hall wearing nothing but their bras and boxer shorts. She quickly wiped her tears from her face and addressed them.

  “Bren! Angie! Get back into your rooms and put on some clothes!”

  She didn’t know how she was going to make it through a year as a Resident Assistant. How was she going to pretend to be a mother to forty-eight college students, when she herself didn’t even have her own mom anymore?

  Chapter 3

  “Can’t take your call. Leave a message.”

  Jenna clicked her cell phone to off. Hearing Darren’s voice caused that reaction she was all too familiar with – the one where it felt like she might sneeze, where her nose would begin to tickle but then tears came instead. She pinched her nostrils closed tight to stop the onslaught. She was so tired of crying. That’s all she’d been doing for so long. She needed a change. She needed to get away – find a place where tears didn’t happen every single day. She cried when she was at her mom's house. She cried when she was at her apartment. When she thought about how much she missed her mom, she cried. Thinking of Darren made her cry all of the time. Not thinking of Darren made her cry all of the time.

  Life made her cry practically all of
the time.

  The first time she saw Darren, she wasn’t looking for a boyfriend. She was, in fact, searching for someone to save her mother’s life in those immediate seconds. He was the EMT who had responded to her 9-1-1 call the night her mother had what she had thought was a heart attack. Darren and two other EMTs rushed into her mother’s home and took over the situation, assessed her mother, checked her vitals, gave her oxygen, and determined she wasn’t having a heart attack at that moment. Then, when they decided it was safe and her mother would not have to be admitted to Central Medical, the other two EMTs left in their vehicle.

  By then, Jenna had calmed down enough to fill out paperwork, and she realized how handsome and attentive Darren was. She noticed his cool, kind gray eyes and the height of him, and could tell through his blue uniform shirt that he was very muscular. She answered his questions about her mother’s health, and her recent complaints and pains. They spent two hours drinking Diet Coke and talking in the cozy kitchen while her mother slept peacefully in her bedroom. Jenna told him about how she planned on getting her master's in environmental studies. He told her that wanted to become an air medic and he had recently applied for a rigorous training program that only a few are accepted into. They talked about mutual friends and places they had been, places they wanted to go, and family, and Jenna thanked him so much for being the one to come help her mother.

  She walked him to the ambulance late that night after Darren insisted on checking on her mother one last time before leaving. When he asked her to meet him at The Haven the next night to see one of the local area bands, she agreed.

  That had been two years ago.

  Two years and an engagement ago.

  And now, he wasn’t answering her calls.

  Chapter 4

  Sudden didn’t cover it. One minute she was there. The next, not. There was no immediate explanation except that her heart had stopped. That’s all they could give Jenna. Jenna and Darren had been knocking and knocking and finally, when her mother didn’t answer, she let herself in with her key. The three of them were planning on going to dinner.

  In all her life, Jenna had imagined the worst possible scenarios she’d ever encounter, but never did she expect to see what she saw when she and Darren entered her mom’s house that evening.

  A scream escaped Jenna’s lips and she backed out of the door into the light of outside, into life, to the world of living and breathing. Darren had run to her mother's lifeless body to see what he could do. He said she was already gone.

  Afterwards, she desperately wished she would have gone to the floor and lay by her mom, even though she was already dead. She wished she had lain by her side, touched her hair, whispered in her ear that she loved her and she was with her. She wished she hadn’t run outside and cried, that she hadn’t been scared of the body on the floor. That was what she regretted most – that she didn't spend time there on the floor with her mom, stroking her hair, kissing her face, telling her that she loved her. And she regretted that she didn't tell her mom that she would take care of Courtney.

  Jenna and Darren had to tell Courtney. It was late April and Courtney was finishing up freshman year at NPU. They drove up together and when Courtney saw them when she opened up her door to her dorm, she knew. She knew.

  The looks on their faces said it all.

  “No.”

  Jenna and Darren reached out for Courtney and she fell into them.

  Now, five months later, the autopsy report was in. Initial findings indicated her heart had given up, a classic heart attack, but why? There had to be something more. Her mom had been relatively healthy. Didn’t smoke, only drank the occasional glass of wine, went for daily walks, wasn’t overweight.

  Jenna had been alone in her apartment when the letter came. Because that’s what she was now.

  Alone.

  Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the return address from the autopsy examiner. She hadn’t realized that autopsy results were simply mailed to the homes of the bereaved. Such a sad and gruesome thought. Your loved one is dead. Here’s a letter stating what killed your loved one. But really, what should she have expected? A phone call? An email? An invitation to dinner to share the grim details?

  With shaking hands, she slipped her finger through the flap of the envelope and lifted the papers. Her eyes scanned the pages until she found what she was looking for.

  Official cause of death: Congestive heart failure.

  Unfamiliar words and phrases sprang from the page and Jenna's eyes blurred through tears. Hemochromatosis, genetic iron poisoning, mutations, C282Y and H63D, 18 times as much iron as normal in system.

  And then: Hereditary.

  Hereditary?

  The last part of the report is what shocked Jenna the most:

  Hemochromatosis is hereditary and life-threatening. It is strongly recommended that siblings and children of the deceased be tested immediately.

  Chapter 5

  Courtney heard a door slam and then, “Well, you’re a fucking bitch!” Then the rough edgy sounds of some metal band she couldn’t name shook the floor. She expected a freshman girl to knock on her door in five, four, three, two…

  “Courtney! Bren took my makeup without asking, and she’s also wearing my skinny jeans!”

  Courtney opened her door slowly, after taking three long, deep breaths, a tactic the RAs learned in training over the summer. Angie, a bright but indignant freshman stood there, hands on her hips.

  “Look Angie, I’m not here to be your mother.” Courtney ran her fingers through her chin-length bob, and sighed.

  “You guys have to figure this out for yourselves. I’m here to make sure you stick to the rules, and that you’re safe, okay? Go in there and work it out. This is college, not daycare.”

  “Fine.” Angie scowled, flipped her hair and stormed away.

  “And tell Bren that music needs to be turned way down. It’s after nine!”

  “Fine!”

  Courtney didn’t want to be the one in charge. Not at this point in her life. Not now that her mother was gone. Gone. That sounded so dumb. Dead. That sounded even worse. But that’s what she was. Dead. Courtney, motherless at the age of nineteen. She had no one. Well, she had her sister, and while they were close now, growing up in her shadow had not been an easy thing to do. Everything had come so easy for Jenna and it seemed Courtney had to work so much harder, and even then, she never got the attention her sister did.

  All Courtney really wanted was her sister, and she couldn’t even have that, because she was stuck at school. She wished she could have stayed home for the semester, been there to help Jenna go through their mom’s things, reminisce a little, forge a new bond together, maybe grow up a little. Courtney realized she needed to grow up. She needed something. She had no one. At least Jenna had Darren.

  Courtney had never even had a real boyfriend who had loved her, not really, and had only dated casually. No one had ever said anything more serious to her than the basics to get something from her. Two guys had gotten enough, and she had regretted that, but what was done was done. She wanted to find that someone who she could connect with, feel what she was sure Jenna and Darren had. At least Jenna had that. She had something to hold onto now that her mother was gone. Something to look forward to, a future. Jenna had that future with Darren.

  What Courtney was dealing with now was a bunch of freshmen idiots who griped to her all day long. Whose biggest issues were whether someone was burning incense in the communal microwave or if someone had a guest over and it was disrupting a roommate. She was sure her students’ biggest issues were sneaking beer into their rooms, getting laid every weekend, and not getting caught breaking the rules. The job of Resident Assistant was exhausting to Courtney and she couldn’t get away from it, especially not on the weekends, when most of the mayhem occurred. These kids didn’t need her, the university did – so she could make sure they didn’t burn the place down by burning a bong and passing out.

  No, th
is was not what she had signed up for when she decided she wanted to go to college. She had planned on getting into the arts and maybe graphic design. She thought she might take some design classes and see where it took her. She was really interested in studying post-modernism and had the desire to take some intro to art courses. She wanted to spend her free time drawing and learning some paint techniques, but so far the kids were occupying all of her free time.

  She felt like she might need to call a mandatory dorm floor council meeting. She had to start instilling the rules around Stanton North 6D or those students of hers were going to take over, and there’d be nothing left of her. She felt they’d taken advantage of her already, but if they kept up with their sneaking around, screaming after hours, beer parties, then there’d really be trouble. She had to step it up in her role. Her tuition was paid, and the school was counting on her to be a Resident Assistant.

  Yes, it was definitely time for her to put on her big girl panties and call a meeting. She needed to show those forty-eight kids who was boss around there.

  Chapter 6

  “Will you talk to me?”

  “Jenna, it’s you who made the decision, not me. I was always willing to talk to you. You shut me out.”

  His voice took her breath away. She hadn’t talked to him, heard the sound of him since three days after the funeral. It had been so long. Months. Forever.

  “How are you?” Jenna asked.

  “I’m fine, but I’m at work on call, and really can’t talk,” Darren sounded bitter. She didn’t want him to sound this way, annoyed with her. She wanted him to say he missed her, and that he wanted her back in his life. Back to before.

  “I got the autopsy report.”

  “Really?” She sensed him soften.

  “Can I come over?” she asked.

  “Jen, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Can’t you talk to me over the phone?”