A Quiet Neighbor (2 page)

At least this patient had a constant visitor,
she thought. The granddaughter. At least he had someone; at least he was loved.
But even he seemed to be alone.

Before departing to check on the next room, the
young nurse grabbed hold of Sgt. Whimplestein’s limp and liver-spotted hand to
whisper, “Please, if you can hear me, open your eyes…”

Maybe today was the day for a miracle.

Chapter
One:

Saturday,
October 1, 2011

IT WAS THE FIRST WEEKEND IN OCTOBER.
The
liquidambar trees in the neighborhood were distorting in color, fading from
dull greens to buttery yellows clipped with dusty browns. The sidewalks were
starting to accrue a blanket of shriveled leaves that had lost their
brilliance. Intermingled were long, curling strips of eucalyptus bark wherever
the wispy gum trees shaded the lonely roadside.

Signs of fall kissed the Indian summer goodbye
in the small town of San Carlos. The night air was crisp and the daytime shadows
grew long, yet the noontime sun still baked the town beneath with doggish heat
when the east winds—or
Santa Anas
—reemerged.

The clouds were lumpy and full, the kind that
kids doodle with their smelly fat markers on brightly colored construction
paper during arts and crafts. And on the corner of Golfcrest Drive and Tuxedo
Road, there stood a nondescript, two-story neo-eclectic house with a
blue-shingled roof and peeling white siding, where inside stood a kitchen
fridge decorated with colorful A-B-C magnets and those fat-handed doodles on
bright green and yellow paper.

Perched on the blue-shingled roof, with her knees
tucked under her chin, her forlorn blue eyes peering over crossed arms, Loral
Holmes brooded over her spiral notebook.

Stuck with the duty of babysitting, she watched
her two half-sisters, Tory and Bella, squeal with fearsome delight as they
jumped into the lukewarm pool below, trying to catch the last of the summer
heat. With each splash, buckets of water splattered out onto the concrete pool
deck.

From where she was perched, Loral could watch
the pools of water evaporate before her eyes on the sun-drenched concrete. The
sounds of laughter, giggles, and the occasional cannonball rippled through the
lazy air and settled into the densely-vegetated canyon below, among the drone
of Japanese beetles and the chirping of warblers. And somewhere in the
distance, a leaf-blower seemed to hum endlessly.

Empty vessel, sinking deep.

Loral Holmes:

2:00
P.M.

There are days I think to myself that I
shouldn’t exist; that the world would be better if I wasn’t here. I shouldn’t
even be here. Why am I? What purpose do I have? Then I look at Tory and Bella
and I wonder all over again.

I feel hollow. It is like the world is moving
all around me and I’m thinning in the shadows, or looking from above. My
thoughts and actions have no purpose, no real meaning. I’m just here, breathing,
not alive, yet not quite dead; lost.

At seventeen years old, a month into my senior
year of high school, I’m supposed to be having the time of my life, dreaming and
wishing and seeking mischief—and yet, what am I doing? I’m perched on the roof,
bored out of my mind, watching my half-sisters have all the fun. I can actually
see excitement ripple from their goose-bumped flesh as they splash and play in
the heavily chlorinated water. Am I actually jealous of a six- and five-year-old?

“Bella, no!” In a blink of an eye, I watch as
my five-year-old sister trips over one of the loose shingles on the roof and
teeters back to center. How did she get on the roof so fast? Bella has always
been the fearless one, ever since she came kicking and screaming into this
world, while Tory has been the reserved and well-behaved one.

Luckily there is time to grab Bella before she
foolishly tries to repeat my idiotic stunt from a couple months back. How could
I have been so stupid? Of course, at the time, I wasn’t thinking. All I wanted
was to feel.

It was one of the hottest days of summer and I
was on the roof mad about something Tess said or did and I got this crazy idea
to jump off the roof and into the sparkling pool below. The pool was beckoning
me to jump in. In all honesty, I was having one of my pity-me thought parties
and my curiosity got the better of me, plus it was really hot. Isn’t there a
saying, “curiosity killed the cat?” Well, I was secretly hoping I was that cat
and I was on my ninth life.

How was I supposed to know that the time I decided
to hedge my bets on life, Bella was looking out the kitchen window, ready and
eager to copy my actions? Yes, I know children are impressionable—well, so are
young adults for that matter. But, it’s not like I was an older sister all my
life. I just got thrown into the role.

Besides having to watch what I say and do, I
also have no privacy. Sharing a room with two sisters who are at widely different
stages in their lives than I am is difficult. They’re just learning the
alphabet and how to tell time, while I’m about to start diving into the real
world as an adult. At least I have the roof as my sanctuary. It is where I come
to write, think, and be.

“Bella, how many times do I have to tell you,
that you have to be at least my age before you are allowed on the roof?”

Bella pushes out her lips into a heavy pout.
“But, it’s too far away. I wanna jump now.”

Frustration overwhelms me as I try grasping for
composure. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s dangerous.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s too high up and you can break a
bone or die.”

“Why?”

Fuck!
“Because I said so.”

“Bella, let’s play mermaids and Loral can be
our mermaid-mommy and make us special treats.”

God bless Tory’s quick thinking and Bella’s
love for snacks. I guide Bella down the ladder and bring her over to Tory.
Dressed in the same flowery one-piece with neon greens, blues, and pinks, Tory
giggles before jumping into the pool, hand in hand, with her sister. I watch in
relief as Bella forgets about her frown and follows Tory’s lead, swimming
around like a lopsided fish.

Was I ever that easy to please? No, I was
always too old for my age. There was a time I felt like I was aging at warp
speed internally while my physical appearance stayed the same. I might have
been five and looked five, but I felt like I was thirty going on forty.

I don’t think I was ever allowed to be young
and happy; I came into the world with one eye open.

I blame my dad, or the man that should be my
dad, biologically. The section on my birth certificate that reads Father was
left blank. Tess didn’t even bother to write in his name. She claims she didn’t
know, but there has always been speculation and talk of what kind of man he
was.

There was a time I wished he was important,
like the President of the United States; a man too busy to come home to take
care of me because he had so many other people counting on him. But then I grew
up. At least the girls have a dad who loves them and tries to take care of
them.

Tory wasn’t far off when she gave me the
imaginary role of mermaid-mommy. Most of the time I do feel more like their
mother than their older sister. With Tess gone most of the day selling houses,
working the bottle, or if history repeats itself—which it was prone to do—coaxing
a man to bed, and Mr.-oblivious-stay-at-home-stepdad staying boxed in the house
to brood during the day and sulk at night, it is no wonder that I took on the
brunt of the domestic and child-rearing duties. It isn’t like there is anything
better to do around here anyways.

And with me being a social outcast who
daydreams in class, shows no interest in the plethora of after school clubs and
activities, and—besides my so-called boyfriend—has no friends to speak of, I am
a self-proclaimed loner. Taking care of my baby sisters at least provides me with
some life purpose, or at least, did.

Being uprooted every few years, I learned at a
young age that it was easier to stay numb and distant than to get involved and
attached. Friends were difficult to keep since I changed schools every time
Tess found a new guy or got tired of one. Good-byes were always tearful and
depressing, but what was harder were the trailing calls, lost letters, broken
promises, and the understanding that I was replaceable. My friends eventually
forgot about me, while the girls at the new school were entering their
impressionable years, making the new girl the outsider.

It wasn’t like I expected any of my classmates
to include me in their already formed circles of friends. I was constantly
dropping in and out from somewhere, and I never knew how long I would be staying
at one school or another because I didn’t know how long Tess’s new relationship
would last.

I was completely alone. And once puberty hit, I
felt the wrath of every girl that got cursed with the underdeveloped, ugly stick.
I became viewed as a threat and that lovely title was not going to help me make
friends, so I retreated further into my writing.

I really could not care less if I was thought
of as pretty. I mean, it’s not like being pretty has done Tess any favors. Tess
is the quintessential alcoholic that prides herself on knowing when she’s
reached her limit. As a successful real estate agent, she brags about her
clairvoyance and people skills when it is well known that her striking good
looks, pouty lips, and easy smile land her the big-money sales.

Our tagline reads: Beauty, effortless and
striking.

While Tess takes advantage of what men deem
riveting, I feel it is completely useless. We have what women consider the
trademark look: long, lean curves with trusting lake-blue eyes that sparkle
against a smooth ivory complexion, hair soft and playful. Where Tess’s hair is
a thick sea of salon-pampered wheat-blond waves, mine is a ruler straight mass
of unadulterated rich brown. And while Tess makes a conscious effort to conceal
the fine lines and dark circles of a woman nearing forty with a penchant for
vodka tonics in smoky bars, I tend to keep my skin naked and clear of
chemicals, powders, and creams.

For eleven years it had been just Tess and
Loral, Loral and Tess, the stunning duo. Men came in waves and some lingered
longer than others. Few actually made it into the house, and even fewer got to
meet me, for which I’m grateful. Those that crossed the barrier to a woman’s
heart knew that meeting the children was a crucial step toward “putting a ring
on it” and made a valiant attempt to impress—all, that is, except for Brett.

Brett wasn’t like the other guys that came and
went. He didn’t try winning my affection with plastic dolls and pretty hair
clips. He didn’t try telling lavish stories about the places he’d supposedly
traveled and the outlandish adventures he’d undertaken. And most importantly,
he never laid a hand on me, raised his voice, or inappropriately touched me.
Brett did and does none of those things. What he does instead is avoid me like
the plague. He freezes and runs the other way.

One can’t fault a guy for being strange, but
can I fault myself for being the cause? I have no idea what it is that causes
his strangeness. He’s a handsome guy that loves cars and sports, meaning he’s a
normal guys-guy. Tess doesn’t pick pansies—well, maybe she did once, but that’s
beside the point.

The last guy Tess was seeing turned out to be a
jerk who made me feel slimy every time he came over, and in the bitter end, was
caught canoodling with Tess’s younger and more voluptuous receptionist. The
break-up was explosive, the doe-eyed slut was fired, and a young male receptionist
hired to console.

The point, dramatic as it may have been, had
been made and left me guarded and hostile toward Tess’s future interests with
the opposite sex.

With all the previous examples, I figured it
best to keep my distance and not get attached. There was no point in getting
attached anyways, when there was a ninety-nine percent chance he was primarily
being used as eye-candy, like the others that came before him, and would soon
be reduced to a tiny puddle of sugared syrup within the next few months. How
was I to know that Brett would be in the one percent?

Months turned into years and years turned into
a house and two adorable half-sisters. A large part of me aches to be included
in this new family dynamic, but with years of rejection, that part has hardened
into a gnawed peach pit.

What is so wrong with me that my stepfather
jumps at the chance to run in the other direction? Why can’t he treat me like a
normal person? Do I produce a foul odor? Do I speak out of turn or raise my
voice? Do I arouse unhealthy desires in him? Ugh, what am I thinking; I’m not
my mother.

All I wanted was to belong. Have friends. Be a
part of something bigger than myself. But once I knew I wasn’t going to get
that, I retreated into myself and my unspoken words. I wrote and wrote
feverishly. So now instead of attending birthday parties and sleepovers, I sit
perched on the roof and write poems and short stories, slowly waiting for my
eighteenth birthday when I can start a completely new life. A life with more
substance. A life with a clear beginning, middle, and end. A life I can finally
call my own.

“Mermaid-Mommy, aren’t you hungry? I think Mermaid-Mommy
wants snack’ms.”