Shadow

Chapter 3 - A Few Home Truths

The blazing light of the sun almost burned a hole into the back of her neck as Abbie walked across the intersection to Starlight Street.

All the houses on her street were residential bungalows, including her own (although sometimes her mother would talk about an extension that included stairs and an attic). She saw her house from the distance and the metallic grey Toyota Corolla parked in the driveway. It meant her mother was home, which she deemed as strange since Julie would be at the office right now and not come back home until at least six in the evening.

There were times when Abbie often thought of her mother as a pompous ass-kisser. She gave special attention to her clients to make at least one good deal on a property, so she could earn off of the commission; she would take her clients to dinner and discuss alternatives of the seller's asking price or other properties they could be potentially interested in. A majority of the time, it would be a waste of time. One buyer, in particular, wanted a property for half the price the seller had been asking for. Julie tried to accommodate the buyer as much as she could, even though the property had been on the market for quite some time, but the buyer didn't budge. Another buyer even asked her to research building permits on a property just because they were "curious". Julie, being the resourceful type, did just that until she received a phone call from the buyer saying that they changed their mind about purchasing the property.

Some deals would come to fruition, and some wouldn't.

She hated having her time wasted because as Abbie had witnessed, Julie certainly gave it her all. She was good at her job and took extraordinary pride in that. Her mother was right when she said she had a reputation in this town; a diligent, no-nonsense, law-abiding citizen who once even considered running for mayor to clean up all the mess that was Barstow. But it was usually the men who would be the front-runners of any kind of election, especially in the state of California, as if a woman could not be taken seriously, an action Julie always deemed as quite sexist.

'Men always screw things up,' she had said. 'Just look at the fool who's running this country.'

Despite being the upstanding woman people thought she was, she also had many secrets that she didn't want the town to know. How her husband really died was for one, and the fact that her daughter was a drug-addict who cut school quite a lot. Whenever the school would ring Julie to tell her Abbie hadn't been in class yet again, she would come up with a different reason every single time. There was only so many times you could use the "my daughter is ill" excuse. And in the evenings when she returned home from work, a shouting match would ensue between mother and daughter. Insults, as well as objects, were thrown; doors slamming shut, and the twins crying in the aftermath.

Julie always felt like she was a success outdoors, but indoors, she was failing as a mother. Abbie would do her best to remind her of it whenever she could, feeling little to no sympathy for her. The way she figured, her mother let her spiral out of control since her father's untimely death, giving her much freedom to explore the dark sides of the world, but the moment her reputation would be in question, then she would start to act like a mother.

Abbie walked up the driveway and passed the car, looking through the windows, seeing if her mother had left her bag in there. If she did, that would mean she was here passing by, perhaps on a break. If there was nothing in the car, her mother would be home for the rest of the day.

She put the key in the lock and turned it. Before she stepped in, she found herself craving for another fix. She flushed and trembled at the same time. Then the force of the door pulled from the inside, causing Abbie to almost lose her grip. She came face to face with her mother with a stern look on her face.