NaNoWriMo

Prelude

Oddly, Kester was not as annoyed as many might have thought him to be.

The man stood half on his front porch, one foot inside his house and one arm carefully held out of sight, fingers clenched around the handle of a wooden baseball bat. It was an old bat, scarred with use from decades of mishandling by children and teenagers of varying eagerness and aptitude. Kester had fond memories of the bat being used in the sport of baseball by both girls and boys; tonight, he had intended to use it in an entirely unsportsmanlike manner, should the occasion demand it.

Fortunately for his visitors, Kester was not unreasonable, and was rapidly beginning to loosen his grip on the, evidently unnecessary, weapon.

“Come on in,” he sighed, holding the screen door open. His visitors exchanged glances, then tentatively stepped up onto the porch, and then inside his house.

*             *             * 

“Daddy!” the little girl shrieked in glee as she was spun round and round through the air.

“If you make her throw up, you’re cleaning it up,” the child’s mother said dryly. The man simply gave the little girl an extra fast spin before tossing her up in the air, much to the child’s ear-piercing approval. The mother turned back to her guests. “If I’m lucky, they’ll wear each other out and be relatively civilized for supper.”

“Don’t count on it,” the older woman seated across from her laughed. “Jessie never seemed to lack for energy at that age, no matter how much Dad tossed him around.” Her tone turned wistful. “Dad wrestled with the boys, and did acrobatics with the girls.” She huffed a small laugh. “At least, he did until his bad back put a stop to it.”

“I remember him giving us flips,” the other guest, a young woman who looked to be barely out of her teens, mused fondly. “Even after his accident, Dad still tried to give each of us a flip every once in a while.” The three women smiled in remembrance of the beloved father and husband, before one of them glanced to the side.

"Jessie!" the young mother's voice whipped out, freezing her husband in his contorted, upside-down position on the living room couch; their little daughter giggled without remorse and waved from her perch atop the back of the couch, moving immediately after to renew her grip on her father's ankles. "For Go-goodness' sake, no jumping on the couch!"

*             *             * 

A full, and woefully untended, head of hair banged down forehead-first onto the hard surface of the desk. One hand stretched out above her head to rest on a pile of paper, an envelope clutched ever-so-gently between fingers. The figure moaned pitifully, bringing head up and down on the desk in small thumping motions. 

"What am I going to do?" she moaned piteously. "I hate this. Why - how - Nnnnnnnnn!" The sound of frustration was only partially muffled by the wooden desktop. A sigh, then the quiet, high-pitched sound of a scream held at the back of the throat, then a repetition of the light thumping. "I'm such an idiot..." She rested her forehead quietly on the desk for several long moments, simply breathing out and then breathing back in the reflected damp warmth.

She turned her head to the side and warily regarded the envelope still held in her hand. Sallie-Mae. The woman flinched slightly. Stupid student loan. Stupid school. Stupid degree; and educational goals; and professional aspirations; and life plans; and family expectations; and stupid, stupid lies to her parents about taking classes that semester!

So now here she was in the middle of the fall, having to pay for her student loan because she wasn't enrolled in classes, and she didn't have a job, and her stupid pride wouldn't allow her to tell her parents she'd lied, and so certainly couldn't ask for the money, and how the hell was she going to deal with this?!

"Stupid," she whispered to herself. "Gotta come up with a better word, but stupid, stupid Kelly, what are you going to do?" There was, of course, no answer.

Kester I

Kester had been a perfectly average boy, growing up. He'd been a B student, moderately athletic, not unattractive, not too prone to hormonal fits of idiocy, and even went to church every so often (which is to say, Mass on Easter Sunday and Christmas Eve). His parents, younger brother, and two elder sisters had never viewed him as a particularly horrible person, but neither had they ever shown him any particular sort of favor. But then, his family was hardly the most loving, let alone demonstrative.

When Kester was twenty-three years old and happily living two states from his family, his oldest sister called him in a panic to tell him that their parents were getting divorced. Kester neglected to verbalize his thoughts of, It's about time, but did manage to placate his sister enough for her to hang up. The next phone call he received was from his other sister, Katie, who wanted to tell him she was pregnant with her second child, and, Oh, did you hear that Mama is forcing Daddy into a divorce?

When Kester first met the girl who would become his wife, he had initially been struck at how different she was from his own mother, and then by the fact that she reminded him of his father. That particular realization had him later determined to have a far better married relationship than his parents had ever had. Fifteen years later, after a horrible battle with breast cancer, he was relatively certain that his wife had died knowing that he loved her.

*             *             * 

Outside, the night air was cold, and had the sort of damp chill to be expected of northern Georgia in early November; inside the house, however, it was surprisingly warm and a bit stale. Kester gestured his guests through the hallway to the living room, brushing aside his momentary awkwardness at the customary mess of the surroundings. It was his house, and his mess, and his business.

"Uh.." he brushed a hand up the back of his head, "Did either of you want something to drink? I've got, uh, water, and, uh...beer." He did a mental tally of his fridge. "And some kind of fruity wine. I think. Christmas present," he explained unnecessarily.

"I'll take a beer," one of his guests volunteered, glancing cautiously at his companion.

"Just water, please," the other said quietly, smiling and nodding in thanks.

Kester nodded his acknowledgement. "You're not pregnant again, are you?" he asked half-jokingly. The man choked slightly, but the woman only laughed.

"No, I'm not pregnant again. I think I've grown out of that stage of my life," Katie said with a grin.

"That's what you told me before the last one, too," Kester replied wryly, handing over a can of beer to his brother-in-law, then moving to fetch a glass. "Did you want a cup, or are you good with the can?"

"The can's fine."

Their host threw a few ice cubes into the glass and held it to the spigot at the sink. "How old's your youngest, now?"

"She's ten, now," his older sister said wonderingly, as though she could little believe it. Kester raised an eyebrow in slight disbelief; surely his ever-logical sister didn't subscribe to the cliche of 'I can't believe how fast they're growing!'? Not with her own children, at least?

"And your oldest?" It was really just filler talk rather than much real interest, though Kester was not so immune to the aforementioned cliche, himself. He handed his sister the glass of ice water, then moved to grab his own can of beer.

"He just turned thirty," Jon, his brother-in-law offered, sipping at his can.

"Hell," Kester spoke mock-admiringly, shaking his head, "I can't believe you two are still raising your own kids. Thirty years, you've been at it. And you still have, what, ten more years to go?" His sister rolled her eyes. It was a commonly heard observation, Kester was certain.

*             *             * 

Kester was eighteen years old when his oldest sister, Jocelyn - called Lynn - was married. He was twenty when she was divorced, and was still twenty when she remarried. Three years later, and again seven years after that: each time, Lynn was divorced and remarried within eighteen months. Two children, from two different husbands, suffered the changes alongside her. Kester was never very sure what her current husband's name was; he'd given up after the third husband, though his wife always knew the correct surname to put on the Christmas cards each year.

Katie, on the other hand, had married her perfect guy and they managed to love and tolerate each other just fine over the years. Kester had been twenty-one when his sister brought Jonathan Haverty around to his apartment to introduce them to each other. At twenty-three years of age, Jon was an all-American former football player, with a dark tan, sun-bleached-blond hair, wide and muscular shoulders, perfect teeth, and a huge family of eight siblings. Kester had quietly asked Katie if the thought of meeting her boyfriend's family scared her; the scoffing laugh in answer did little to cover the wide eyes and trembling hands.

Now, thirty years later, Katie and Jon had five children, two grandchildren, and two mortgages on their house. Jon was no longer the perfect, sporty-looking young man, and Katie was certainly no longer the mousy-but-pretty-looking little redhead. They were still a great match, though, and still loved each other with a strength and determination Kester had rarely seen.

Now, thirty years later, they must have had something of great importance on their minds, to drive out to his house so late in the evening.

*             *             * 

"Mama fell out of bed during the night a few days ago," Katie informed him calmly, snuggling into her husband's arm where they sat on Kester's living room couch. Kester's hand paused halfway to his mouth, the moisture beading on the metal beer can running over his suddenly tightened grip.

"Is she alright?" he finally asked, taking a measured sip to disguise his stiff mouth; his sister's eyes flatly informed him that he would need to try harder.

"The nurse that came to her house said that she didn't seem to have any broken bones," Jon spoke up, his arm tightening around his wife's shoulder. "But, she's scheduled to get a CAT scan and an MRI done next week just to make sure. She's bruised up, and stiff, but she's doing okay."

"The funeral is next week, isn't it?"

"Tuesday," Jon nodded.

"And how is Mama taking it?" Kester asked, his tone more curious than concerned. The couple on the couch exchanged glances.

"Mama's..." Katie paused to collect her thoughts, then continued, "She's not doing too badly, actually. She cries a lot, but her husband just died last week. She's...calmer. Her thoughts are all there, her...She's more lucid, really, than she has been in months." Kester nodded, looking down into his beer can. "She would enjoy having you visit her, Kest." Her brother's head came up sharply, his eyes boring into hers. "Lynn is in Atlanta, and Sean is in New York. You're the only other one besides me that Mama has in the area, and she'd really like to see you."

Kester had nothing to say to this.

"That's not actually why we're here, though," Jon spoke up.

"No," Katie agreed reluctantly, "It's not." She visibly gathered herself before launching into the most unexpected diatribe Kester had heard in quite some time. "We're here because we're worried that someone is going to steal Mama's money from her, and her house, and everything she has left."

"What?!" Kester abruptly sat straighter, beer splashing up out of the can onto his sleeve. "Damn it!" he swore quietly as he blotted at the dampness. "What do you mean, 'steal Mama's money'?"

"It's not stealing, as such," Jon spoke up wryly, his face grim. "Maybe closer to embezzling."

Kester stared at them for a long moment, his face closed off in confusion. "I have no idea what you're talking about. Who is stealing Mama's money?"

*             *             * 

Josie May Fairfield had been born on a strawberry farm in Florida, grew up on that strawberry farm, went off to business school at the age of seventeen, and thoroughly enjoyed her years of freedom before marrying a sweet, malleable Southern boy who treated her like a queen and was treated in turn like a mildly interesting servant. When she gave birth to her firstborn, a girl, Josie insisted the infant be named Jocelyn; Tom, her husband, gave her the middle name Grace, hoping it would prove prophetic. In the end, Jocelyn took after her mother far too much and was graceful in neither word nor deed. Tom quickly learned to spend as much time as possible out of doors, away from his wife and firstborn.

Three more children blessed their household in turn: Katherine Joy, Kester Lee, and, Mama's precious baby boy, Sean David. Josie raised them with an iron fist and biting tongue, and Tom tried to provide the gentleness and nurturing when his wife was not there to criticize. Over the years, Josie became more and more a 'pillar of society' in her middle-class, small-town world, and Tom sank more and more into the background - though he certainly carried more than his share of responsibilities. Motherhood, it seemed, had instilled some sense of propriety into Josie, however, for she spoke not a word of divorce until her baby boy, Sean, had graduated high school and moved into a tiny apartment of his own.

It took only two years before Josie remarried, this time to a very masculine Bostonian widower, William; she had supposed him to be fairly wealthy and a good catch, but was quickly surprised to discover that he was in reality an incredibly hard-working man who handled his money very carefully. Her new husband quickly realized what sort of woman he'd fallen in love with, but he loved her all the same. Somehow, the two remained together, held together by some strange loyalty (his) and a sense of inevitability (hers). As the years went by, the Bostonian's love and loyalty remained strong, and Josie's heart softened a great deal, though her tongue never did. And they grew old together.

*             *             * 

"Someone from the family is with her twenty-four seven," Jon explained. "I've been taking off work as much as I can, just to get things done around the house that Will used to hire people to do or do himself." His wife sent him a grateful look, pride glimmering in her eyes. "Rachel is with her right now." Rachel was their third child, a very responsible twenty-three year old who still lived at home while going to college; when she wasn't living with her grandmother, anyway...

"And the embezzlement?" Kester prompted.

"Will gave power of attorney to me before he died," his brother in law admitted. "He also left us $50,000 on the condition that we use it to care for your mother, however long she lives." Kester nodded; it sounded reasonable to him. "Lynn tells us that she has power of attorney over your mother, or at least that your mother wants her to have power of attorney." Kester's lip curled slightly; Jon huffed a wry laugh at his face. "Yes, that's exactly how we felt."

"Except Mama isn't in any state of mind to even understand what power of attorney even means!" Katie protested the idea. "We've been, our family, has been over there every day for almost three months, fixing their food, doing their shopping, driving them to doctors' appointments, changing the bandage on the incision from Mama's surgery; all that, and I've never heard a word from Mama about Lynn being given anything, much less power of attorney!"

"So now you're afraid that she'll give Lynn power of attorney, and you think Lynn will steal her money and house?" Uncomfortably, Kester's tone was not the least bit doubtful. Lynn had never ingratiated herself to anyone in the family, much less her antisocial younger brother; Kester had no doubt that Lynn was more than capable of what Katie was accusing her of.

"If Lynn gets power of attorney," Katie emphasized, "She will dump Mama in a crap nursing home that's paid for by the government, a federally run nursing home, and she'll sell the house and pocket the money. If that happens, Mama will be dead within a year. She would hate being in a nursing home. You know how she is!" Kester did indeed know, and certainly agreed that, yes, their mother would do her best to waste away in a government-run nursing home.

He mulled over the entire dilemma in his mind, fingers playing over the long stubble on his chin. It was entirely likely that his sister was correct about their elder sibling's intentions. It would be so simple, to just send their mother to a nursing home, so that none of them would have to be responsible for her care. Except, it would be sending her to a nursing hom for her to die. Mama was eighty-four years old; why not just let her die now? He scoffed at his own thoughts. So simple, huh?

"Lynn has said that she doesn't want to change anything," Jon spoke up, shaking his head. "She says that we can continue taking care of your mother, the same way we have been, and Lynn will take care of, as she says, 'Everything else.'"

"But that can't work out!" Katie burst out, waving her hands in the air, grayed curls bouncing. "The bills still come in to Mama's house; bank statements, and check books, and grocery bills, and medical payments, and all those sorts of things still have to be taken care of by the people who are there at her house, when the situations come up."

"So how would Lynn get the power of attorney?" her brother asked reasonably. "Do they have to have a lawyer present, or does there -"

"No," Katie interrupted, shaking her head, "If Mama agrees to sign the papers, it does not require the presence of witnesses, or a lawyer."

"We could contest it," her husband noted, "But if it's what your mother agrees to, then it's what she agrees to. She's not unable to make her own decisions."

"She's not mentally incompetent," Katie rephrased it into what was evidently a familiar legal phrase. Kester hmm'd quietly in understanding. "No more than she ever was, anyway," she corrected herself wryly. The two siblings regarded each other with bleak expressions. Both were well aware that their mother was more than a little out of touch with reality at times; even when they were children, Mama had provided many impressive displays of complete irrationality. Vascular dementia ran in the family, particularly in the women.

"If your mother signs the power of attorney to Lynn," Jon spoke firmly, "We're not contesting it, and we're not continuing to go over there to take care of her. Lynn needs to understand, and your mother needs to understand, that we can't be her caregivers if we aren't able to make the decisions. That's real life!" His wife grimaced horribly. Jon threw up one hand. "You can put the blame on me! Tell your mom that it's my decision, that I'm the one who is doing it. If Josie, your mother, wants to give Lynn the responsibility, that's fine; she can have all the responsibility, and your mother will have been the one to give it to her. And whatever Lynn does, we don't have anything to do with it!"

"Yeah, and then we go visit her once in a while in a nursing home until she just dies," Katie protested quietly.

 "I don't like it," her husband retorted. "Nobody will like it if your mother is put in a tinursing home, except maybe Lynn, and Sean won't give a...he won't care, so long as he's in her will."

Kester's lip curled at the mention of his younger brother. Sean was Mama's baby boy: favored, spoiled, and viewed as naievely faultless. From a young age, Sean excelled at working his audience for sympathy and favor; now, he was one broke actor among thousands trying to eke out a living on Broadway. The youngest child, Sean had been given handout after handout from their parents whenever he needed it, even up until recently. Sean, Kester knew, would eagerly push to get that extra money from their mother.

*             *             * 

Sean was nineteen when he was arrested the first time. His father was, quite understandably, completely furious, and refused to post bail. 

For almost two months, the teenager had been sneaking checks from his parents, and forging his father's signature in order to make purchases. When Tom noticed the unfamiliar charges, he quickly had it investigated; it didn't take long before the trail led straight to his youngest son.

Sean spent five weeks in jail on felony charges of check fraud and forgery. It was symptomatic of his general behavior that his only display of guilt was to say, "Sorry, Pop," just after being sentenced.

*             *             * 

"What exactly do you want me to do?" Kester demanded quietly, wiping a hand over his eyes and down his face. "Convince Mama not to sign the power of attorney over to Lynn? Convince her to sign it over to you?"

"Yes!"

"No." Katie cast her husband a quelling look. "I can't speak for Jo, but all I want from you is a phone call to Mama every so often. If you honestly care what happens to Mama," she paused briefly to take in his blank expression, but continued on, "If you honestly care what happens to Mama, you'll give her a reminder that she has options other than the daughter who only sees her once a year at Christmas, and is only now coming out of the woodwork to take over her financial matters!"

Kelly I

When she was born, Kelly was blue with oxygen deprivation. The physician on hand at the birthing center had feared she might not live long, but the infant struggled on despite all the doubts and fears, and quickly regained all the symptoms of proper health for a seven pound, twelve ounce baby. Kelly was the second child born to her parents, and the last of their children to survive the birthing process; the family buried three more babies, the last of which took Kelly's mother with it as well.

After four years of mourning, Kelly's father married again, to a young widow. One mother, and two three year old brothers were added to the Jefferson household, and Kelly's life was irreversibly changed. A year later, and another child was born into the family: a beautiful, bouncing baby girl. Suddenly, for the first time ever, ten year old Kelly Parker had to share her bedroom. The world didn’t end, but it was a close thing.

*             *             * 

“Kelly, unlock the door!” The furious yell immediately brought the young woman’s head up from the desk. Muttering, Kelly shoved her chair back and stormed over to the door, tucking the tell-tale envelope under her shirt.

“What do you want?” she leaned against the closed door, gritting her teeth against a flurry of unreasonably nasty words.

“I just want in! This is my room, too!” Kelly, recklessly ignoring her twenty-one year old maturity, rolled her eyes. “Mom! Moooom!” Emma’s yell rattled the closed door ever so slightly; Kelly’s teeth clenched tighter, then released.

“Fine!” Kelly unlocked the door and banged it open, huffing as she stalked back to the desk. Her eleven year old little sister watched through calculating narrow eyes as she sat back down in the chair and cradled her head in her crossed arms.

“What’s your problem?” Emma demanded. Kelly knew that if she turned to look, the pre-teen’s hands would be on her hips, and her lower lip would be stuck out in a stubborn expression; it was that familiar of a sight.

“Nothing,” she muttered into her arms, but then lifted her head and sighed. “I’m just worried about school.” Kelly frowned, and found it necessary to add, “I have a lot of projects due.” The lie sat like a stone in her stomach.

“Is it papers? I thought you liked writing papers!”

It was true, Kelly had to admit; writing papers was probably her favorite of all her college assignments. Writing came easily to her; it always had. She was, in fact, much more adept at writing out her thoughts than ever speaking them aloud. When it came down to it, though, literary writing of any kind was not what she wanted to have to do for the rest of her life. Which, actually, was kind of the entire problem.

What do I want to be when I grow up? Oh, sure; that was a question everyone faced when they were young. Kelly didn’t want to be a doctor (her eight year old self’s dream), because science was definitely not her forte. Nor did she desire to be an historian, as she had considered in her teens; as much she liked the subject, she didn’t think she was cut out for the hard-core research. She was good at writing, she could hold her side of a debate well enough to get her onto both the high school and college debate teams, and she was rather proud of her ability to do practical algebra and applied logic. Now, if she could only find some college degree that utilized those skills, and then a career in the same, elusive field…

“No, just projects,” Kelly finally replied vaguely. Emma rolled her eyes at the non-answer, reached into their bookshelf, and then plopped down on her bed to read.

“You’re not supposed to be reading without direct sunlight,” Kelly reprimanded her half-heartedly. The younger girl cocked an eyebrow in her direction, rolled over to put the book into the path of the sun, and proceeded to ignore all else.

Kelly loved her family, really she did. There was her dad, of course, and her step-mom (who had years before graduated to, simply, ‘Mom’), her older brother Jack, her two younger step-brothers – the now hormonal and mildly infuriating fifteen year old boys Kevin and Jason – and, of course, little Emma, the baby of the family. Kelly blessed all her stars (where that expression came from, she had no idea, nor did she truly care) that Emma was not spoiled, nor was she too much of a brat, even for being the baby. In fact, none of her family were too bad. It occasionally surprised her when some of her friends (most of whom no longer lived at home; good for them!) complained about how horrible their family members were, with this rule of the house or that demand on time. It seemed that she had been blessed with an unusually peaceful lot of people to live with. Well…at least, most of the time.

“Mom’s home! Come help get groceries!” came the call from the living room. Emma groaned; Kelly’s eyebrows went up.

“Mom wasn’t even home, before!” she accused, struggling between laughter and annoyance. Her younger sister just grinned sheepishly and shrugged, then flung the book down on the bed.

“Get out here and help with the groceries!” The yell from one of the boys had both of them scrambling for the door.

*             *             * 

When Kelly was fourteen, she got braces for the first time. That’s right; the first time. Her orthodontist was a short, soft-spoken Indian man with a completely incomprehensible Indian accent. It took almost three years before the braces came off; the end result was a beautifully straight smile from the front, and flared, almost bucked teeth  from the profile view. It was an improvement, to be sure, over the former smile, so Mom didn’t say anything about it for a couple years. The day Kelly got her first job, though, her mom started with small hints and graduated quickly to outright aggressive suggestions.

The second time of wearing braces was a vast improvement on the first. They chose a completely different orthodontist, for one thing; this doctor was a very large, friendly man with dark, dark skin and a gleamingly white, absolutely perfect smile. He also was soft-spoken, but the only accent he possessed was very obviously gained in Kentucky. That second time with braces took only a year and a half.

By the time she was twenty, Kelly was fairly confident that not only were her teeth were as straight as possible, but also that light yellow coffee stains were surely not too much of a price to pay for consistent caffeination. Mom, who hated coffee unless it was more cream and sugar than actual coffee bean derivative, begged to differ.

*             *             * 

Jessie I

Jessie was an impossible child when he was young. He was half-monkey, his mother would say in exasperated fondness; young Jessie just grinned in slight embarrassment and continued his previous activities. When the little boy was twenty months old, he climbed the bookshelves in the living room; when he was three years old, he walked the top of the eight-foot privacy fence around their yard, having gotten there by climbing the big oak tree that separated their yard from the neighbor's. Jessie had his first concussion when he was seven: He fell from a tree limb fifteen feet up, and gashed open his head on a large rock when he landed; sixteen stitches and a quite trying day and a half of bed rest kept him out of trouble for a short period of time. His mother, years later, admitted that the incident gave her a good idea of how to prepare herself for a very trying period of adolescence.

"Jessie needs to be active. Very active," she emphasized to her husband. By the time he was twelve, his mother had settled on something to take the edge off of his increasingly behavior: running. That first year, the rest of his family watched in amazement as two hours a day of running alongside a dozen other teenagers turned the  recalcitrant, sullen pre-teen into a rather pleasant and intelligent boy - one who ate them out of house and home, and needed an afternoon nap each day. Over the years, his running became more serious, and Jessie's high school cross country team quickly became top of the list in the district. 

Jessie never did stop running, even after he graduated first high school and then college; he ran every morning before heading off to his job as a civil engineer, and only grinned when his out-of-shape siblings told him how crazy he was for the vigorous exercise. Not even his wife tried to join his workouts, though she encouraged it for the good thing that it was. "I like seeing you come home all hot and sweaty, when I've just gotten out of bed in the morning," she grinned, before giving him a kiss that was pretty hot and sweaty in its own right.

*             *             * 

Jessie had never loved his wife more than when she gifted him with a beautiful baby girl, but this was definitely coming in at a close second.