Her grandmother insisted she could only inherit the old cabin and it’s fifty-some-odd acres if she moved there and lived in it. So she didn’t inherit it…not for years. She was being stubborn, she knew that. What would it cost her really to move into the cabin for two years, use it as her mailing address, then sell it afterwards. She’d have fulfilled the requirement to inherit it and she’d save on capital gains tax. It was a win-win. Still, it took her nearly eight years to break down and move there, and by then it was because she was slightly out of options.

She’d known her grandmother was dying, in that way that everyone is dying from the moment they’re born, but also in that she’d finally been to sentences to hospice care. If that was even a sentence. She wasn’t sure. Helen knew her grandmother refused to leave the cabin unless it was in a box, and there was no one willing to come care for her until the hospice was granted. It seemed she’d get her wish now and if it meant a “stranger” was living with her until the wish was granted, so be it.

There were no strangers in that little town though. They’d all been born there, grown up there, would die there. Except the select few, like her mother, who’d managed to escape. Helen always expected her mother to utter something dramatic like, “promise me you’ll never go there!” but she never did. She died without ever having introduced to Helen to any family or friends from there. She died without ever mentioning her own mother was even alive.

All that is to say that Helen could be forgiven for her stubbornness when it came to the inheritance. Who would give up their life to move somewhere they’d never been, to live with someone they’d never even known about, to inherit a cabin they’d never seen. Not Helen. She’d created a life for herself, such as it was, a job that took ten to twelve hours of her day and a cat that took that remainder, books to fill in and soften the edges. So it wasn’t until the job disappeared that she even considered the inheritance.

It all came about one day out of the blue, the inheritance, that is. She received a phone call from an unknown number, and let it go to voicemail. Who answers an unknown number these days. And so it wasn’t until her lunch hour when she remembered to check her voicemail that she learned she not only had a grandmother, but that she could also have a cabin. She sat with it for awhile, chewing it over as she ate her turkey wrap and drank her pop.

When she finally decided to call the attorney back Helen learned that in order to claim her inheritance, she would need to go live in the cabin for two full years, and also that her grandmother was still very much alive and living there too. It all seemed a bit ridiculous, and Helen refused, the attorney letting her know that he’d be in touch.

He wasn’t. In touch, that is. She didn’t hear from the attorney again for nearly eight years.

And then her phone rang.

Surprisingly she’d saved the attorney’s information in her phone and new precisely who was calling this time. Rather than send it to voicemail, she answered, a bit clipped perhaps in her “yes,” rather than a “hello,” but she answered which she figured was better than the alterantive.

The attorney must have thought so too, because rather than stutter or stumble, he introduced himself again, this time with a “perhaps you remember me?” attached to the end. He then proceeded to inform Helen that her grandmother was now “actively dying” and that she, Helen, was still the sold beneficiary of the cabin and that the two year stipulation was still in place.

“When can we expect you?” the attorney said, for it was very much a statement as much as a question.

Helen sat quietly for a minute, quietly on the outside only as on the inside her thoughts spun about coming and going so quickly she wasn’t thinking about any one of them really simply being overwhelmed by their speed and quantity. She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and shouted internally. With her eyeballs pulsing she told herself, “the bottom line is that without a job I’m in a bit of a bind. The bottom line is I could go there and have a free place to live for two years while I sort myself out. The bottom line is I don’t exactly have a lot of options. The bottom line is I can be packed and on my way in less than 48 hours.”

“I’ll be there by the weekend,” she heard herself saying and she hung up before the attorney could say more.

Helen had never expected to accept the inheritance, had never expected to be in a position where she’d have no other options. You don’t go from living a soulless work filled existence to having nothing overnight, and yet that’s exactly how it happened. One minute the people around her were slowly losing their jobs and their cars, their homes and their families, and the next minute she was one of them. She’d figured she had padding for one month, one month in which to find another job before she’d have to enter panic mode. Now there’d be no need. Now she’d have two years and a property to sell at the end of it.

She began packing.

This #writethirtyminutes session was prompted very loosely from “A Year of Writing Prompts” by Writer’s Digest, available here

It had to be Jack in the Box, that was the thing, when smoking weed she needed, not wanted or craved or thought about, but physically needed a chicken sandwich, fries, and a Dr. Pepper. And it had to be from Jack in the Box. Everybody has their thing, and this was hers. Or rather it was on of hers.

Which is how they ended up, the four of them, at a Jack in the Box drive thru one night. It was early, as nights out go, but late considering that they would all have to work tomorrow. The driver, Jeanie, didn’t smoke, so she’d be fine…although it also meant that she didn’t need this trip to grease town the way her passengers did. She dutifully got everyone shushed enough to get the orders placed, which took some doing, no small feat being the sober one amidst a group of raucous and totally stoned young women.

They were all waiting for the order to get repeated back, well, to be fair, Jeanie was waiting for the order to be repeated back, the others were staring off into nowhere, having completely forgotten where they were and what they were doing, no longer aware of their previously all consuming desire for this disgusting bit of plastic food to tether them back to earth. Only the repeat never came. Instead someone must have left the mic on without noticing because suddenly Jeanie the chicken sandwiches and fries that she was expecting to tally became a confusing smush of

This #writethirtyminutes session was prompted very loosely from “A Year of Writing Prompts” by Writer’s Digest, available here

I’m a pretty good cook, not great, I’ll never be great cause I won’t do the training, but I’m good. Good enough. Good enough that when I invite people to dinner they jump at it, or it seems they do, there’s an immediate response of yes and much hoopla made over picking the date for said dinner, the sooner the better they always insist. So, yeah, I’m a pretty good cook.

So when I set out to make Thanksgiving dinner this year, I figured it’d be a slam dunk with family and friends. I created a menu based on all my favorite things but including some of the more standard fare as well, because you never know what dish really says Thanksgiving to people. I mean, you’d think that would be the turkey, but that beast of a bird really tends to be symbolic in peoples minds for some reason…which is something I’ve never understood, I mean, if those pox-giving Pilgrims really did sit down to a meal with the Native Americans, even if they had turkey, it wouldn’t be this huge thing we picture today…it’d be one of those scrawny wild turkeys, that yes, will fix you and your family of four a meal, but it’s not going to feed hundreds. Not even if you had four of them. Or six. I mean, clearly these people ate deer or something.

Anyway, I went ahead with the turkey, because as I explained, tradition.

So as I’m inviting people to dinner and showing them the menu and everything people are excited. I mean, they seem excited, there’s a lot of “thank you” and “I can’t wait” and even a “can’t Thanksgiving come earlier this year.” Which really pleases me, I’m not gonna lie, it feels good to hear people are excited to come, even if they’re coming for the food more than for me. Which is just me trying to be self-deprecating, but really I think they’re coming for the food.

And it’s not until I get to the last couple on my list, the last two people to fill in my table, the two people I’ve been trying to get to come to dinner for years who always seem to have an excuse, it’s not until I’m inviting them that things start to go…wrong seems like a harsh word, it’s more that things just start to go awry, let’s just say that.

I can tell right away, before I even invite them but after I’ve discussed this amazing menu, it really is amazing, that they aren’t interested, and it bugs me. How can they not be interested when I’m describing candied yams and a turkey that’s been rubbed, brined, and slow cooked? Who can look bored when hearing about the ingredients and the love and care being put into such a meal? But they do, look bored that is. And I already know they’re going to say no, but I ask them to dinner anyway.

Obviously, they find a polite way to decline. I mean, if I hadn’t seen that coming I would have been concerned by my lack of attention, but it still stings a bit, these constant “no, thank you” responses I get from them. And for whatever reason, instead of just shrugging it off and figuring out who to invite instead, I get a bit…defensive is probably what I got, but I’d like to think I was curious. And before you know it I’m asking them why they always turn down my dinner invites.

Well, it turns out, and this was a relief, I tell you, it turns out they’re vegan but even more than vegan. As I keep asking for more clarification, as I keep hearing the way they eat, I’m just amazed. There’s a list of like…fruit. Really. It’s just fruit that they eat. Literal fruit. They have all these vitamins and minerals and injections they take, because all they eat is fruit. And I realize that it’s really no wonder they always look cold and like they’re going to disappear if the wind blows, they eat fewer foods than rabbits.

But, I can’t help myself, I’m intrigued. I have to know more. We end up getting a table at a nearby coffee shop, they drink water, while I ask all these questions about their diet, and they don’t seem to mind. They don’t get verbose or anything, they don’t try to convert me, they just answer question after question. And the next thing I know, I’m offering to make them a meal. Their way. A fruit dinner. But that includes cooked fruits, like a serious, multi-course fruit dinner.

This #writethirtyminutes session was prompted very loosely from “A Year of Writing Prompts” by Writer’s Digest, available here