Chapter 10 #2
“Just the usual, I guess. We worked damn hard to run the business, and it started to fail. We lost customers after we got called into question over the organic labeling. I thought she had done all the paperwork and had gone through whatever certification process was required, but apparently she just faked the whole thing. So we were selling our produce as organic, but it wasn’t legit,” she said, with a frustrated cry, raising both hands.
“I wanted to go to college, and she wouldn’t let me because we didn’t have any money.
So, when I did apply to get a student loan, she told me that she would take that money to keep the house afloat.
I don’t know why if there was no mortgage, but she’d already hooked up with this boyfriend, didn’t want to lose him, and was doing pretty much anything she could to keep him.
Now the business was tanking and wasn’t generating much, but she still had the property and the house.
She told me, if I got a student loan, I should give that money to her to help her survive, especially considering all the years she had helped me survive, and, if I didn’t, then I had to get out.
” She rubbed at her face, lost in thought for a moment.
“At the time I thought she couldn’t possibly mean it, but she did.
She told me that she needed the money to keep her boyfriend and that she couldn’t risk losing him,” she repeated, with a roll of her eyes.
“And he’s such a loser that I couldn’t understand why she was even saying that, but I guess, in her mind, she had somehow concluded that he was something special.
It was damn hard to understand, but then things got worse because he turned his focus my way, and, all of a sudden, he was making comments that were completely inappropriate as far as I’m concerned. ”
“Oh no,” Lindsey whispered, glancing at Sterling, who was looking grim.
“That was the final straw between Mom and me because then he started making comments about me teasing him, how I would cause a problem for them, you know, comments like that,” she shared.
“Obviously I didn’t want anything to do with him.
He’s just creepy, and the very idea makes me want to puke.
” She shuddered. “But he was bound and determined to get me into his bed, willingly or not, and seemed intent on destroying my relationship with my mother. And honestly, our relationship was already pretty rocky, but he just finished it,” she declared, looking back and forth between Lindsey and Sterling.
“So, I’m not going back to that house, and I’m not sure I want anything to do with her ever.
She’s been pretty adamant about my giving her money, which I won’t do, not that I have it anyway.
It’s about all I can do to put food on the table while I finish my practicum,” she noted.
“I only have another six weeks to go, and then I can get a regular nursing job and should do better, but I have no plans to subsidize them.”
“Good choice,” Lindsey claimed, with a smile.
“Maybe not even six weeks,” Chelsea corrected herself.
“Time goes by so fast, and I thought I would be okay, but then he went and slashed my tires. I had to put all that on my credit card, so God only knows how long I’ll be paying on that.
Suffice it to say that I’m not even sure what I’m doing, and now all this with you has thrown me for a loop,” she acknowledged, staring at him again, “especially coming out of the blue like that.”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” he said. “I hadn’t intended for it to be out of the blue, but, once Lindsey told me how you were in trouble and that somebody had slashed your tires, I just wanted to meet you and to let you know that—even though it may seem as if you’re alone—you’re not,” he told her awkwardly. “I mean, not if you don’t want to be.”
Lindsey felt helpless, watching these two adults, both wounded by this very awkward history between them, who had never met each other, trying to figure out what to do.
Hoping to break the tension of the moment, Lindsey reached across to Chelsea and added, “Hey, I am absolutely devastated at what you’ve been going through, and I didn’t even know how tough things were with your mom. ”
“No, I didn’t dare let anybody know,” Chelsea muttered.
“I mean she’s always had a hard personality which was already causing trouble both in the business and as I went through high school.
However, things really blew up once he showed up on the scene, and over time it’s just gone from bad to worse,” she shared, with a teary smile.
She turned to Sterling. “Did you say you were injured?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I have a prosthetic. I lost a leg,” he shared, “as well as a few other injuries, most of which are doing okay for now, though some of them may well cause trouble as I get older. So, from my perspective, I need help too. I need to build a new life, a new career. I need a home, a place to live. Something to call my own. I’m currently staying with a friend of mine out at the Haven. ”
She frowned. “I’ve heard something about that. Isn’t it some refuge or animal sanctuary?”
“It’s meant to be for animals, but Timber has made it very clear that it is for anybody who needs a place to catch their breath and to regroup.”
“Which is very generous of him,” she noted, “because the world is full of people who want to take advantage of that kind of generosity.”
She was speaking from a pure heart, it was obvious; and, for Lindsey, that was so hard to hear because the truth of Chelsea’s reality was evident at the very thought of sanctuary.
Lindsey realized that, even though she may have had her own issues and questions about her educational and career choices, she still had a decent job and could support herself.
She also had a little bit of family, not much left and not perfect, but it wasn’t anywhere near as dysfunctional as what these two people had been through.
“How was foster care?” Chelsea asked Sterling abruptly. When he just looked at her, she winced. “Yeah, I haven’t heard anything good about it.”
“No, especially when an already traumatized young boy, who not only lost his mom and his grandfather, but then suddenly didn’t have any place else to go,” he told her. “It was pretty rough. And it was foster care, which is inherently difficult anyway.”
“I’m so sorry,” Chelsea muttered. “I can’t imagine why she wouldn’t have taken you in.” When he gave her a wry look, she flushed. “Of course she’s selfish, but it didn’t occur to me that she would be that selfish.”
“I was already upset about losing my mom, but what I didn’t understand was why my grandfather didn’t take me in,” he said. “I don’t remember him being injured in any way.”
“I think his health took a downturn somewhere around the same time as losing your mom, so it may be that you weren’t ever told.”
“I was given zero contact,” he told her.
“I was told by the foster home people that there was no family for me, but obviously that was wrong,” he said.
“At first I thought my grandfather had dumped me in foster care. Only when I kept asking questions was I told that he was dead, that I had no family.”
Chelsea stared at him, clearly troubled.
“I absolutely hate that for you, to think that was the truth of it. A few years ago, well, five or six, I guess, I would never have believed you. I wouldn’t have thought my mother could possibly do that.
She was always selfish, but I had never seen that level of it before. ”
Sterling asked, “Now that you know whose house it is, or how she ended up with my house, how do you feel?”
“I have no doubt that she would do it and most probably did,” she declared. “That’s one of the hard things that I’m still adjusting to. When someone in your family is no longer who you thought they were,” she explained, “it makes for a really lousy awakening.”
He nodded slowly. “I’m sorry for that, and it’s not easy by any means for me either,” he noted. “Remember that I too had my own awakening.”
She stared at him and sighed. “And an ugly one at that. So, what are you doing about it?”
“I contacted the lawyer, who has contacted her, and we’ve sought some other legal opinions as to how we’ll proceed going forward.”
“And you want the property, I presume?”
“Yes, I do want the property. It was my mother’s after all, and she clearly wanted me to have it. Most eight-year-olds don’t have their name on the family property. How much money has your mother put into it?”
“Not a thing. She never had any money to put into it, and that’s one of the reasons she lied and cheated so much.
As I mentioned, we didn’t have true organic status, but she was selling everything at triple the price as if we had.
She made up a certificate and posted it all over the place, knowing that 90 percent of the people out there would never ask.
Of course, stupid na?ve little Chelsea didn’t realize what she was up to, and I thought everything was fine.
I worked at various jobs, and all my paychecks went to her to be invested in the business because, as I said, I thought we were in this together,” she shared, followed by a groan.
“Eventually I found out that the money I’d been contributing hadn’t been going into the business or the property at all.
She treated it just like every other penny that came in, …
as hers to spend as she pleased. Once I realized my hours of work were supplying booze for him and her, I couldn’t ignore it and couldn’t explain it away any longer. ”
Sterling and Lindsey sat silently as Chelsea spoke, knowing it was important for her to get it all out.