Chapter Three Kim #4
Jane went to the kitchen, poured a glass of wine, and sat at the counter.
This whole thing with Kim was making her think about her mother—and she had a sudden urge to call her, something she did very infrequently.
In any case, Jane felt obligated to check in on her brother, so, feeling warmed and relaxed by a few sips of the earthy red wine, she decided to FaceTime.
Her mother picked up after the fourth ring.
“Jane,” she said, “is everything okay? Why are you FaceTiming?”
Her mother stood in the laundry nook, bathed in cold LED light.
She was still in her work clothes—a blue silk blouse calibrated to her eye color, and a tweed skirt.
Business-y. Her severe bob resembled a battle helmet, with bangs and sharp tips of hair framing her face like daggers.
Yet her careworn expression belied the dragon lady comparison, as did the fact that she was tiny—barely over five feet tall and notably skinny.
If not the coveted size zero, at least close to that nullity.
“Everything’s great, Mom, I’m just calling to check in.”
“It’s fine, Jane. I’m doing your brother’s laundry.”
Jane’s mother held an important position in the finance department at Northwestern University, which involved the over sight of all kinds of budgetary and investment decisions.
Her mother had gotten a CPA certification before Jane was born, then had gone back to school to get an MBA while Jane was in elementary school.
Spreadsheets and numbers were her happy place.
She worked full days and usually brought work home.
Her obsessive focus on work and ongoing concerns about Jane’s brother monopolized her life.
She seemed characteristically distracted, as if doing complex analytics in her head, and flitted about like a nervous bird, as if stillness could be lethal.
Jane realized she must have FaceTimed in an attempt to make their interchange feel less tenuous, a little more substantial.
“You shouldn’t have to do laundry.”
“I really don’t have a choice,” her mother replied.
“Can’t one of John’s aides do some of it for you?”
Home health care aides assisted Jane’s brother almost full-time. It was an extravagance, but a necessary one.
“I wish they could, but—John likes the way I do it, and it’s one thing I can do for him, so...” Her mother propped the phone up on a shelf and continued folding.
“You do a lot for him, Mom.”
“No, I really don’t.” Her tone implied that Jane was foolish to even have that idea.
“How is John?”
“You know, the same.” Her mother sighed. “It’s difficult.”
“I know, I’m sorry.”
“Difficult for him, not for me.” Was she rejecting Jane’s sympathy? Or only deflecting?
“I worry about him all the time.... I want to come for a visit.” It was true, she was overdue for a trip home.
“No need to worry, but yes, please come, John would like that.” Her mother picked up a T-shirt and folded it haphazardly. “So how is work going, Jane?”
“Mom, there are better ways to fold a T-shirt.” Jane regretted the words as soon as they flew out of her mouth.
“I’m sure there are, but this is good enough. You certainly do take to all the rubrics of neatness and organization, don’t you? I hope your job is a good outlet for you.”
“It is. Usually. I mean, today was a bit much.”
“I don’t know how you do it, but if you enjoy it....” Jane’s mother shrugged as she pulled fraying underwear out of the hamper. Talking to her mother still made her feel like a petulant little girl. Like an incompetent, helpless child.
“I usually do,” Jane answered, truthfully.
“You are such a smart girl; it seems like you would get bored with it.” A compliment?
“Oh, every day is different, with different people. That keeps it interesting.”
“Do you have to do a lot of filing? It’s my least favorite activity.”
“No,” Jane answered as evenly as possible lest she sound defensive, but it was irritating how little effort her mother made to understand what she actually did. “That’s really not the sort of thing I do.”
Her mother, focused on folding, stole a look back at the phone. “Did you do something to your hair?”
Jane bristled. “Nothing, Mom.”
“Did you color it?”
Jane ran her hands through her hair. “No, Mom, you don’t know my hair color? This is my natural color.”
“It looks very dark.”
“Maybe the light is funny.”
“Oh, yes, I guess it is.” Her mother laughed. Whenever she laughed, it seemed so incongruous.
“How is Dad?”
“You know him, he’s very wrapped up in work. He likes that. You can call him.”
“I will.”
“And things are good with Teddy?” her mother asked.
“Pretty good.”
“Does he have a regular job yet?”
“He’s got a lot of irons in the fire.”
Jane thought she saw her mother smirk. “Well, okay. Let’s hope one of those irons turns into something tangible.”
“Yep, that’s exactly what I’m hoping for.”
“Great. Listen, I have to finish this laundry....”
“Yeah, I got to figure dinner out, so... talk soon.”
“Thanks for calling, Jane, and good night.”
Her mother seemed so joyless, so unhappy, that Jane felt a sharp tug of guilt compounding the guilt of her overdue visit.
Maybe all this guilt had colored the entire conversation.
Or maybe it was all in her head, where the swirl of emotion and memory and need made it hard to gauge the objective reality of things.
If there even was any objective reality.
She took a sip of wine and looked through the mail, recoiling at the sight of the dreaded Department of Water and Power bill. She tore it open and gasped. It was a thousand dollars more than their usual bill. How was that even possible?
Jane marched back into the living room and suffered through the end of Teddy and Keith’s rendition of “Diamond Dogs.”
“Teddy, can we speak for a second?”
“Right now?”
“Yes, please.”
“Sure thing, okay—be right back, Keith.”
Teddy followed her into the kitchen, and she waved the DWP bill in his face.
“Did you see how much this is? Well, no, because you left it for me to open. Any idea why it’s gone up so much?”
Teddy’s brow furrowed as he looked at the bill.
Jane took a deep breath to calm herself but an awful thought surfaced: Had she waved this bill in Teddy’s face as aggressively as Kim had waved her bony finger at her this morning?
And then an even more awful thought: Did she sound as scornful as her mother?
“Well, it looks like the electric is a much higher amount.”
“Why? What are we doing differently? It’s not more air-conditioning. It hasn’t been that hot.”
Jane scrutinized him as he appeared to be weighing his words.
“I don’t know if this could be it, but I’ve been mining crypto—”
She was stunned. “Since when?”
“Keith hooked me up. He’s been doing great with it, so he bought a bunch of ASIC mining rigs and—”
“When were you going to tell me? Where is all this equipment?”
“In my shed out back. I’m using the outlet on the charging station. Since we don’t have an EV, it’s just been sitting there.” Teddy said this as if it were painfully obvious, as if mining crypto was practically obligatory.
“So were you hiding it from me?” Jane was trying not to sound accusatory and failing miserably.
“The rigs can throw off a lot of heat. I didn’t want them in the house in August.”
“Okay, but you realize that you still have to pay for that power? It’s not free.”
“I know.” He shrugged. “I guess I didn’t tell you sooner because I knew how you would react.”
Jane took that in. “Are you making it my fault that you chose not to tell me?”
“No, but—come on, Jane, you shit on everything I do. Anyway, Ethereum is paying me in crypto for doing the mining, so it should all even out.”
“It ‘should,’ or it will?”
“Well, it’s a little unpredictable. You get paid when you’re the first one to get the hash—”
“It’s a whole lot unpredictable, Teddy. How do you mine something that isn’t even tangible?”
“It’s, like, a metaphor, it’s not literal.... But the blockchain requires constant verification. That’s why crypto is so solid.”
Jane scoffed. “It’s as solid as fantasy football. And we’re paying the price! A thousand dollars! Did you have any idea it takes so much power?”
Teddy paused before sheepishly replying, “No, not really.”
“So, spend a thousand dollars to make a dollar’s worth of crypto. You’ll be a millionaire in no time.”
“Can we talk about this later? After Keith goes?”
“Did he talk you into this?”
“No, and don’t hate on Keith.”
“I’m going to lie down. It’s been a bitch of a day, and this is not what I needed to come home to.”
She stood in front of the bathroom mirror, splashed water on her face, then squeezed a dollop of her most abrasive scrub onto her fingers and rubbed it on her cheeks.
She wanted to remove any trace of this day.
She studied her face in the mirror. Did she look like her mother?
Sometimes she thought she had her mother’s eyes.
But only the shape. Her mother had blue eyes, and Jane’s were hazel.
No, she really looked more like her father.
She willed herself to cry, hoping it would be cathartic, but to no avail.