C Reiss - Sing

“I don’t want to.”

The teapot whistled.

“I’ll be gone in a few hours. So you might as well tell me.”

She put the mug of hot liquid in front of me and left the room. I started to follow, but saw her open a door in the china cabinet and crouch down, rummaging through old dishes and cookbooks, until she came up with a brown paper expanding file.

I sat back down, and she slapped it in front of me.

“This is what you came for. All my paperwork. Take it. No, I don’t want to lose the house. I love that house as much as you do. If I didn’t love it, I would have sold it and kicked you to the street for being an indolent, disrespectful bitch two years ago.”

“Don’t hold back, ma. Tell me how you really feel.”

She didn’t say anything else, but she didn’t laugh and forgive me either. That was it. That was what she’d wanted to say. And it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. I didn’t get crushed under the weight of her disapproval.

But she was right. Despite my initial protestations, I wanted to save the house. I slid the folder to me.

“I’m sorry about whatever his name is,” I said. “It looks like you guys had a good time together.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay.”

I unspooled the string from the felt disk and flipped open the envelope.

I don’t know anything about finance. Numbers only interested me insofar as they related to sound vibrations, but once I spread the papers across the table and stacked them into a narrative I could get my head around, one thing was abundantly clear.

My mother had blown about three quarters of a million dollars travelling the globe.

The house I lived in had been purchased for 95K in the mid nineties, and paid in full twenty years later with my dad’s life insurance. But Echo Park had been in the nascent stages of a renaissance when my parents had bought it, and since then, more and more people like Dr. Thorensen had moved in next to artists, Hispanic families and gang members.

According to a bank located in Colorado, my little house on a hill was worth six hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I knew this, because my mother had cashed out every dime, and then some, piggy backing mortgages and loans. She’d attempted to squeeze almost another hundred grand in equity out of the thing when I’d had those permits opened. As if there were going to be actual improvements.

She’d bailed on her job in February. She’d been at that church since I was in high school, and had a salary good enough to make all her obligations, if barely, but without that job, it all tumbled on her. I imagined the gentleman in question was the cause of her slide.

“You’re a goddamn genius, ma.”

“Watch your mouth.”

“You know you’ll never pay this back?”

“They won’t miss it. It’s a bank.”

“It’s about four banks. Mom, Christ—“

“Mouth.”

“I can’t even get my head around what to do.” I collected the papers. I wanted to slam and bang them to illustrate my annoyance, but they only made shuffling sounds. “Can you just tell me what happened? Because you didn’t raise me to do stuff like this.”

She put her fists on her hips. “Like what?”

“Stealing. This is stealing.”

“Not if I let them have that house.”

“It’s not worth seven hundred thousand dollars.”

“The appraisers said it was, so it is. That’s what things are worth. What experts say they’re worth. People like us, we’re nothing. Our opinions don’t mean anything. And you agree. In your heart you know it. You think the house isn’t worth anything because you love it and if you love it, it’s garbage right? Well, how much would you pay for it? Huh? How much for your father’s trees? How much for the porch your father and I sat on after you were in bed?”

“Mom—“

“How much for the kitchen where I cooked for you? How much for the side door you snuck into after curfew as if I didn’t know? Or the bathroom where I miscarried two babies? How much is it worth, Monya? Even that cracked foundation your father promised to fix a hundred times before he shipped himself across the world. That house was where I waited for him. Where he wasn’t when I found out I had cancer? How much would a stranger pay for those years? If my life there wasn’t worth seven hundred thousand dollars, what was my life worth?”

I couldn’t take it any more. Her face was red and strained. Her voice had his a crescendo, and I had been a neglectful, indolent bitch. I bolted up from the chair and put my arms around her and let her cry.

“It’s okay, ma. We’ll fix it.”

“I can’t. I tried everything.”

“I have friends who are lawyers. I can—“

I could have them look at the paperwork, maybe explain the situation. But I stopped myself. Jonathan was going to offer to buy the house, no doubt, and I didn’t want him to. I didn’t want to go down a road where he started bailing out my family, then my friends. I didn’t want him to trade Jessica’s financial distress for mine. I could soothe my mother for the moment, but in the end, we’d have to let the house go. I’d tell Jonathan I was ok with it. Make it out like it wasn’t a big deal.

A call came in. Still holding my mother, I slipped the phone out of my pocket. Margie. I missed it by a second and put it back in my pocket while it went to voicemail.

“Let me see what I can do,” I said. She sniffed and stood up straight.

“There’s nothing to do. I’m sorry you have to move.”

“I’ll live.” I waved it off, but I knew I wasn’t convincing. So I changed the subject. “I should have come around sooner.”

“Yes. You should have.”

“I’m sorry.”

A text blooped. My mother and I looked at each other expectantly.

“This the man with the car?” The tone did not bode well for an intelligent conversation. If I had just learned to stop calling myself a whore, my mother hadn’t. She was in a depressive phase but that could change on a dime.

“No it’s his sister, probably.”

I looked. It was a text from Margie, as I expected.

—Where the fuck are you?—

The next one came immediately after.

—He’s bleeding into his chest. Bad suture ripped tissue—

It took me sixty seconds to say goodbye to my mother, promise her I’d do my best for her, scoop up the papers, and get in the car.

MONICA

I texted Margie that I’d be there in two hours. It was getting dark already, and I’d hit Los Angeles right around rush hour, which would literally double the time it would take me to get to Sequoia. The hospital was inside a knot of traffic arteries that made it hard to move toward or away from during peak hours. Either poor planning for the sake of the ambulances and women in labor, but if you wanted a central, urban hospital accessible from the five points of LA, it was prime real estate.

And Jonathan was in the middle of the best cardiac unit in the country, if the internet was to be believed. Whatever happened, I was sure it would be rectified in no time at all. I worried that he might face unpleasantness, and that I wouldn’t be there for him. But he’d be fine. I was sure, positive as a matter of fact, that it wasn’t a big deal.

I finally got into the waiting room at 7pm, and was redirected to intensive care. I didn’t shake, nor did I panic, because in ten years, this was going to be funny.

But when I got to intensive care, it didn’t look like anyone was laughing. Fiona blew past me without greeting. Deirdre smiled at me, but she wasn’t like the rest of them. She couldn’t hide her concern. Sheila, who always came off motherly and kind was talking to Margie like she wanted to bite her head off. Doing my own roll call, I counted off. Carrie not coming. Leanne in Asia. Theresa hadn’t been around in days. Eileen stood by Margie, twisting her diamond ring around her finger with her thumb. Her pumps had been traded for sneakers days ago, when her medication had been upped. She waved to me, but didn’t call me over.