A Collection of Stuff

Even from the Opposite Side of the House

A/N well this story is also from seventh grade wow o wow I dislike it but hERE

"You remember that." Was a common thing Aunt Hellen said. Whether it was something good or bad she said it often. And I did remember most things especially her beach condo.
Even from the opposite side of the house, I could see the beach. I won't say I was happy about it but I won't say I wasn't. I dropped my heavy duffle bag and walk toward the back of my Aunt Hellen's 'condo'. The place itself was quiet, but every footstep sounded magnified in my silence. I heard a wave crash and a seagull call as it flys off the sand, into a bright blue sky. A horn from a boat farther out at sea than it sounded rang loudly in my ears. I look to the right, a window is cracked. I walked over and crouched down, putting my face in the warm breeze. I stood up and looked where my back was facing. It had been a long time since I had been here last. Aunt Hellen had moved in six years before and I had been here when she had. My parents thought it would be a good idea if I got into the house before Aunt Hellen and suprised her.
I sure had suprised the person who came in.
And it wasn't Aunt Hellen.
It was a burglar who had known the previous  owners were exceedingly wealthy and only visited in the winter. The burglar, we found out, was a man named Jake Laketown and he had owned a bank in the town over. He was fired and he now worked at a candle store, Candle Castle, as a sales person.
Aunt Hellen never went to Candle Castle again.
But the house had really changed. Right in front of me, facing opposite the window, was a large red leather couch and on the other side of the room was a leather love seat, in front of an open doorway that lead to the dining room. On the wall to my left, facing the kitchen, was a flat screen tv, bigger than my body. I look to my right. The kitchen had definitely changed the most. Modernized, most people would say, City-I-nized, was Aunt Hellen's word for it.
Aunt Hellen had lived in the city for 12 years before she moved to Brazil for a year, then to Washington state, then back to the east coast. She said New York City was her favorite. I had only visited her once in New York, and I went alone on a plane from Louisianna to a stop at Philidelphia, Pennsylvania, then to J.F.K. In New York.
Aunt Hellen forgot to come and get me and I waited for an hour before she came.
"Oh! Mallian! What a joy to see you! My, you've grown!"
I had seen her a month before.
"It's not been that long Aunt Hellen..."
"But it has! I'm sorry dear, it completely slipped my mind that you had come!"
"It's all right, really."
"We'll lets get a move on, we have to get you situated, after all, a month is a long time."
I had only brought clothes for a week. But because Aunt Hellen is awesome she bought me clothes, since my mother had called and told her she didn't have enough presentable clothing.
I hear a car door slam and I am snapped back to reality.
What? I think turning toward the front of the house. Aunt Hellen told me I had 2 hours to myself. I run to the front and there is Aunt Hellen, trying to get out of the car.
While carrying all of its contents.
She had been visiting Brazil to see her old house and then realized that the plans overlapped and flew back as soon as the next plane landed.
I rush out the door and grab a plastic bag.
"Don't touch that!"
I drop the bag.
"Could you get my suitcase Mallie? It's in the trunk."
"Sure,"
After hauling all of the things out of her car, including a rag with something that looked like car oil, and a empty gas can, we went inside.
"I'm so sorry Mallie. Gimme a hug now. Proper greeting time."
I gave her a hug and she kissed my cheek. I wandered over to my duffle bag and plucked out a 20 dollar bill from the outside pocket.
"Mama told me to give this to you."
She took the money and closed it in a fist with two hands, then gave it back to me.
"You keep it Mallie, just say you gave it to me." She smiled a smile that could light up a pitch black room. Mama says I have that smile, but all I see is a mouth with crooked teeth and the need for much dreaded braces.
"No Aunt Hellen, she insisted."
"Did she say that even if I resisted she really had insisted that I simply was enlisted to this twisted piece of money and that if I had ever assisted her in anything possible that I needed to take the money?"
"She insisted." I smile my crooked smile and she beams her perfect one.
"I see she knew I had persisted, with not taking her money." She takes the 20. "I suppose if she insisted." She tucks it away in her pocket. "Now, enough with rhyming, how have you been? How's the family?"
Terrible. I think. Daddy isn't working anymore, Mama is away trying to get work. Sonny and Heather are sick along with Timmie and Jack. Francesca and Julie were away with their friends to look at colleges. Lianna was just born and a handful at the easiest.
"Fine." I say.
"Good, good, how are you?"
Stressed.
"Fantastic." I say, "How are you and Mr. Uncle Joseph?"
Mr. Uncle Joseph was Aunt Hellen's boyfriend. She met him in New York when he asked to sit next to her at a musical at Broadway. It turned out they had a lot in common.
Aunt Hellen loved New York, he loved New York. Aunt Hellen had moved a lot as a child, he had too. Aunt Hellen....
The list goes on and on, but since Aunt Hellen and Mr. Uncle Joseph weren't married he was Mr. Uncle Joseph not Uncle Joseph.
"Alright..."
Mr. Uncle Joseph had been diagnosed with some type of cancer in his 'nether regions' Daddy had told me.
"He sure is fighting it strong." Her smile changed to a worried frown but it snapped right back to its beaming opposite in a few moments.
"But enough about the sad stuff." She turned around and got a small wrapped box from the plastic bag I had gotten then dropped.
Aunt Hellen always got me something when I saw her. Last time she gave me $50. I bought a dress I had been saving up for to wear to the spring dance. I bought it and had $25 left to spare, of which I bought an abundance of candy for the girls and me.
Aunt Hellen handed me the box.
I looked at her then at the emerald green covered box with golden ribbon. It was about the size of the palm of my hand and I could love the box itself as much as I could love whatever was inside if it. I lifted the lid and inside was a turtle necklace. A golden turtle with diamond looking jewels lining the shell, in the middle was a swirl multi-color rock and it was beautiful. I filled it up and put the necklace around my neck. Long enough not to choke me. Short enough to be seen above my shirt.
I hugged Aunt Hellen.
"Thank you! Oh it's so pretty!"
"I've gotten something for the girls." She said. "And Timmie and Jack." She smiled.
"Tell Sonny, Heather, Francesca, Julie, and Lianna, that I said hi, and that I am going to try and and come down and see you guys soon. Tell Timmie and Jack that I'm sorry they're boys in a six girl family plus Elizabeth."
Elizabeth is my mother's middle name, she hates her first name, Pollie. My Grandmom always wanted to name called Mama Elizabeth but Grandpop had always wanted a Pollina. So since Grandmom was really tired after she gave birth to Mama, Grandpop told everyone the first name was Pollina and the middle name was Elizabeth. Grandpop was away most of Mama's childhood working with his friend Mr. Payne building houses, so Grandmom took this opportunity and called her Elizabeth. Grandpop hasn't given in yet so he still calls her Pollie, but everyone calls Mama Ellie or Elizabeth.
Daddy calls Mama Ellie.
"How's your father doing?"
"Daddy is ok... His boss cut him a few months ago so we're trying to help him find jobs."
"And does your daddy like help with finding jobs?" She smiled mischievously.
"No..."
"Your father is a very independent person Mallie, and if he wanted help he still wouldn't ask for it. If he needed it he might whisper, if it depended on his life he would speak, not yell."
I smiled, but something inside of me was unsettled by that.
Even if his life depended on that? I thought back to when he last asked for help. I couldn't remember. I remember I helped him with the dinky swing set in our backyard but he didn't ask.
"Oh Mallian Rosetta Goodwin." She pushed me gently down the hallway. "You would not believe what he would ask for." She smiled as she remembered.
"He would request all sorts of things! Like lemonade or juice boxes, or like, dried and sweetened mango slices," she looked at me, "Disgusting, by the way."
"He was a handful." She said. She walked to where a curtain covered the sliding glass door in the back of the house. She opened it up a small amount.
"That is until Frankie and Jules were born."
Frankie and Jules are Francesca and Julie but Aunt Hellen calls them that. I can't call them that because I think it would be weird. I've always called them Francesca and Julie. I also dont think yelling is right.
One time, a few months ago, Francesca's boyfriend, Liam, broke up with her because she didn't marry him. She told him that she wanted to go to college, and start a life foundation before getting married. Liam ran away and got married to some other girl, Francesca was heartbroken.
I could hear the yells from my room. Francesca still loved Liam, but couldn't marry him. She yelled all sorts of foul things at Mama that night. Telling her it was her fault Liam ran away, that she would have said yes if it wasn't for her drilling it into her head that college had to come first. She yelled and yelled until Julie came home from work and stopped Francesca. Mama was crying and Julie told Francesca to leave for a while.
Francesca came back and she had mascara streaks down her cheeks when she came into the bathroom where I was getting ready. She told me to get out and leave her. I obeyed, I couldn't think of anything more unsettling than making my sister or Mama upset, and Francesca had done both in a matter of minutes.
I got ready in Sonny and Heather's room. The two seven year olds gave me no privacy. I told them to get out, they didn't. Of course. The team of troublemakers were not nessisarily making trouble, but sure we're frustrating. They wouldn't leave me be. Poking my stomach saying, "I see your belly Mallie!"
"Then your daddy was independent." Aunt Hellen's words snapped me into reality.
"What?"
"What?" Aunt Hellen looked at me.
"Sorry..." I say looking at my feet. "I wasn't exactly paying attention."
"A mind that wanders is a happy mind." Aunt Hellen laughs and smiles with her perfect teeth. "You remember that." She gets up and places her hand on my head as she walks past me toward the sliding glass door which she opens, but before she steps out she says,
"You remember that."