Warped Minds

Chapter 2: The Move

Chapter Two: Move

My mother is sitting at the kitchen doing work. She writes for an advice column in the papers. She wrote a couple novels and books and things like that, mostly on relationships and breakups. She likes stuff like that. Kind of odd really, she enjoys her 'job' but isn't employed necessarily. She moves around a lot and has a very large ego, which is part of the reason my parents got divorced. My mum is thankful she got full custody for me but personally I would have wanted to be emancipated. I see now why that couldn't have happened. Even though I can and sometimes do support myself and even though I have a job and even though I wish wish wish with all my heart to apply to a good college and even though I'm almost an adult, my mother still needs me. She's too young to have a walk away child. I'm 17 already, and she's only 33. She needs me because she needs to know that someone else is there in the world. So I stay, and I will stay.
I tap tap tap on her shoulder to get her attention, I don't talk to her much so I just gesture to the door.
"Can't you get it? Just take the bill and tell her I'm not here."
"Yes ma'am". Ms. Wilter is still knocking and it's giving my mum a headache. The dark wood floors and cold, chilled by their neglect. Our door doesn't have any windows, and that's on purpose. My mother doesn't take kindly to people easily. She has few friends but also has a nasty habit of avoiding them. The silver doorknob sits there mocking me. I could open it and obey my mother or I could turn and go back up the stairs. Think think think, knock knock knock.
"Just get the door Chrissy!"
"Yes ma'am" the doorknob turns and the wooden planks slowly creak open, revealing a very annoyed Ms. Wilter.
"I have been knocking for precisely three minutes and twenty three seconds." She was actually only knocking for two minutes and forty six seconds but Ms. Wilter isn't the type of person you argue with.
"Yes ma'am I know"
"don't sass me Chris. Where is your mother?" I hate it when she calls me chris. I hate it when anyone calls me chris.
"It's Chrissy, Chris is a guys name. I'm a girl." All she does is roll her eyes and place her teeny tiny wrinkly hands on her teeny tiny wrinkly hips.
"Yes yes we go through this every month Christy" good god woman. Can you just get this through your thick head?
"Chrissy. C. H. R. I. S. S. Y. No T's. My mother ran out to get milk and bread."
"Her car is here" she counters.
"Ms. Wilter, I'm 17, I can drive."
"You're not 17 you lying stupid girl." Oh no she didn't.
"I'll give the bill to her when she gets home if you need to be somewhere."
"Fine" she hands me a creased cream white envelope that has a stamp holding it closed.
"you have three days to pay in full"
"thank you Ms. Wilter, I'll be sure to give it to her. Good riddance!" I wave my hand in her face and then slam the door, rattling the whole house.
"Ding dong the witch is dead The wicked witch is dead!" I dance and skip and hop around, revealing the caffeine running through my system.
"Honey, calm down. How much is the bill?" I open the soft paper casing, running my finger around the edge and loosening the stamps hold. The paper inside is crisp and professional with black print scribbling itself across the page.
"You must pay Ms. Wilter 800 dollars and 53 cents by 12:00 PM on Friday. If it is not paid in full by then she could evict us." She pauses and rubs her forehead with the tips of her fingers.
"Thank you. You may go upstairs now." I begin walking towards the stairs but spin around in a 180, facing her abruptly.
"What were you and dad talking about?"
"just bills"
"ah but you see, it wasn't just bills, you and I both know that"
"it isn't important right now. Don't worry about it"
"too bad, I'm worrying. What's going on? You haven't paid the rent in three months, we are about to be evicted, you never go anywhere and all you do is sit on your laptop staring at a blank piece of paper that you haven't written on in weeks." She turns around and looks at me with her dead eyes. They are so sad. Tears reveal themselves and are about to spill over.
"Is it custody problems? Do I have to go live with dad? Answer me!" I yell the last part because she is being her usual unresponsive self. The tears become streams now, her cheeks are river beds.
"No... No honey I wouldn't do ..... I wouldn't make you..." She rambles and mumbles. "Are we going somewhere? Are we moving?" I walk into the kitchen and get a wash cloth wet with warm water. My mother can be rather pathetic at times.
"I didn't want.... Want you to find out... Find out like... this. I'm so..so..sorry" see? Absolutely pathetic. She's sitting here blubbering like a baby and all we are doing is moving.
"It's ok Mum" I begin to wash away the leftover makeup and tears.
"It's good to move. We need change. Where are we going? Wales?" We have family in Wales but she shakes her head and let's out a loud sigh. Finally she is pulling herself together.
"Michigan". She says it so soft I can barely hear it.
"Michigan? Where is that?" It sounded familiar, like I've heard it in some distant geography class. She turns the screen of the laptop to face me, revealing the picture of a small house surrounded by woods and what looks to be a lake in the back. The home description says it's a 3 bedroom 2 bath single family home but it could fit three of our little tiny townhouses inside of it.
"Where is it...?" I keep scanning the page until I see what's typed into the search bar. 'Single family homes in the U.S' ok ok this isn't too bad. Moving can be good. I'll even have a whole entire country that no one will know me in.
"How can we afford this? You can't even pay rent" my mother takes in a deep breath to compose herself.
"My mother died" so that's why she's upset. Her mother, my grandmother, was a cruel, vile, noxious person. Throughout her 54 year life she went through six husbands, sixteen different houses, 5 countries and millions and millions of dollars. It's utterly surprising that my mother is her only child. Even after her luxurious lifestyle she still sat on a small fortune she collected of her four dead husbands. She hated my mother and my mother hated her. There was a mutual agreement after my mother had me that they would speak exactly once a month so I would have good role models growing up (nice try Mum and dad).
"The house is already payed off. She left everything to me but I sold most of it. We are leaving on Saturday. I've already been to the house so it's all ready for us, we don't have to take anything."
"What about clothes? Food?"
"I bought us both clothes. We can pick up food on our way to the house." This can be good. This could be very very good.
It could also be very very bad.