The Inheritance

Excerpt from an unpublished novel

by Gila Green

When no one responded to her knock, Layne didn't bother with the doorbell. It would have been disconnected in some way by her mother with a screwdriver or a hammer before or after her parents moved in. This was a mutual desire on the part of both of them. They discouraged visitors and not hearing them was an easy line of defense. After another minute she assessed the absurdity of waiting for someone, who was supposedly not there, to let her back into a life she hated.

Layne was certain Charlie would be here, but that was a mistake. Now, she hesitated to initiate a conversation with her, even by text. She yanked out her phone, stared at it, scrolled to Charlie's name and shoved the phone back into her carryon. Charlie would not become her ally. That would be a worse mistake than the one she'd already made.

There were no footprints in the clean snow leading up to the front door for her to count, no sound or light coming from inside for her to evaluate. Maybe Charlie was lying that her parents had abandoned her brother, but even they should be home at 7 o'clock in the morning. If they had a car parked around here (the driveway was expectedly empty), she wouldn't recognize it. Neither of them had ever kept the same car for more than a year or two.

Marvyn was another matter. He'd always come more alive at night than he ever had during the day, so it was no surprise he didn't answer the door at this hour, which was passed his bedtime. Layne refused to acknowledge as she had changed in the last five years, so might other people; she struggled extending the same benefit of the doubt to her brother and parents that she would to other people.

Marvyn could go to bed on the dot at ten p.m. these days for all she knew. He might go on a regular jog before sunrise and volunteer with the Red Cross. No. Those three would never change. She repeated that to herself, wrapping the words around her mind like a bulletproof vest.

Layne pressed on to the back of the house. There it was. The barbecue grill. Same broken appliance in a different location. In less than a minute she found the spare key under the cover, which was all her parents' barbecue ever was—a key holder. Proof that she was right. No change there.

The key was frozen between layers of ice and it took her a few minutes to slip it out of its place and into her gloved hands. She suspected this would be the easiest task she'd have during her stay. She returned to the front, walked up the two steps, both caked with glassy ice and blinding snow, unlocked the door and entered her parents' house. Her parents moved almost as often as they changed cars, but it was the house at the address Charlie texted. This was something Layne had triple checked before she got out of the taxi.

Inside the air was stale. The clock on the microwave flashed 7:00 in electronic blue. The microwave flashed 7:02 in red. In her heart, Layne was on automatic. Part of her brain was busy filling herself with as much numbness as she could create. She wouldn't let her mind leave her body. She wiggled her toes in her shoes and rubbed her hands together, keeping herself in the now. Her reflection in the mirror didn't surprise her. She looked like crap, a pale woman with smudged mascara and knotted hair. She shoved more of her thick hair under her hat, but some of it still peeked out.

Layne's 6 a.m. flight was delayed due to weather or a technical malfunction or some other announcement she only half heard. It was all she could do not to run back into Rael's open arms, talk him into letting her ignore these ridiculous messages. After two hours stretched out on three hard chairs, Layne had boarded, spent close to an hour on a plane so small she could see the pilot and then another half hour finding someone to split a taxi with her all the way to Ottawa's West End that was once called Nepean.

"Hello?" she said for no reason. Nothing gave off any warmth, not the kettle when she put her naked hand on it, not the vents for the heat, not the water in the tap. So, no one was here recently. Score for Charlie. Layne drew an imaginary point on a phantom scoreboard in the air. Already she was back in the game.

"Anybody home?"

She cleared her throat and rubbed the rock she picked up at the entrance to the plane between her thumb and forefinger, enjoying the feel of it on her cold skin. This was another one of her old habits already back and settled in like a childhood allergy.

The glass kitchen table groaned with stained romance novels (her mother's) and free newspapers (her father's) that looked as though they had all fallen into a wet sink and been left to dry. An open cupboard door in the kitchen revealed several brands of bleach, floor cleaner bottles with rusted bottoms that looked older than the floor, and furniture polish with ripped labels all crammed into a space meant for a third the number of items. Marvyn and disinfectant went together like Alt and delete. Nothing changes. Layne bent and closed the cupboard door. It creaked against her palm.

When she stood, there he was. She hardly had time to take a breath. Marvyn wore brand new traditional-blue jeans, a black GAP hoodie, and white Reeboks. His black hair was thick as ever, and if it did not have striking white streaks running through it, he could be sixteen instead of twenty-nine. His skin was the clear glowing sand color his girlfriends love so much, and she would only know if he had any creases around his mouth or eyes if she could get him to smile. Surely not yet. Not before thirty. Right now, when his face was motionless, it was as smooth as any boy's, as smooth as she remembered her father's.

"You didn't beat the vultures, sis," Marvyn said. He smirked, the expression most natural to him.

"Are you still hanging out with vultures?" Layne answered. Her mind told her to run, but she planted her feet on the floor and crossed her arms over her chest.

"More than ever."

"When will you learn?"

"You're here. You should have come straight to me."

Layne startled. A blast of cold hit her, forcing her out of her reverie. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them. There was nobody here. The only Marvyn talking was the one in her head, the one she wanted to see so she could earn her brownie points with Rael as the good and kind-hearted girlfriend and get the hell out of here. Her therapist was the only person who'd ever taken her seriously when she'd described how real her memory flashes could be.

"Over here. There you are. The sister. Answer please. I've been so worried."

Layne whirled around. Mrs. Volosovich had let herself in.

"Mrs. Polina Volosovich," the old lady said. "But everyone calls me Poly. You call me Poly, too." One hand rose to shake Layne's but fell back at her side, as though she remembered, Layne might have the same disease as her brother. The next thing you know Poly had thrown her arms around Layne. Already Layne was misreading things.

"I'm sorry about your parents, your brother. So, so sorry."

"Thank you," Layne said.

"Poly," Mrs. Volosovich coaxed.

"Poly," Layne said. The name stuck on her tongue like a label.

"The street is not the same for me since this happened."

Layne gazed into the old lady's eyes, but they were hard to see behind scuba lens glasses. She couldn't place the color. Why was this woman so emotional about her parents and her brother?

"Such good people, your parents," Poly said.

"My parents?"

"Your brother fixed everything for me, my car, my toaster, and your mother used to do my hair, dye, cut and she wouldn't take money. I sent her so many friends from the bingo hall, they all loved her."

Layne eyed Poly's hair, an inverted blonde bob, common in women her age. The color might be platinum or ash, Layne wouldn't know the difference, and neither would her mother.

"My mother? Dye and cut hair?"

There was no way her mother was a hairdresser, maybe she'd come to the wrong place. It's not as if there was a single photograph up anywhere. Marvyn was a great fixer, but he was more into computers than anything else and she'd never known him to use that skill to help anyone other than himself. She was half expecting this woman to tell her that her father had donated one of his kidneys to her cousin back in Moscow.

"Yes, of course. You didn't know your mother took up hairdressing? The magic touch." Poly shook her head and put her hands on her hips. "In my day, children had obligations towards their parents. That's all gone now."

Layne opened her mouth to answer but pretended to dig for something in her purse instead. She didn't owe this woman any explanations, even if her mother was her personal hairdresser, more like her personal rip-off artist. Maybe she wore those glasses because she could hardly see, and her mother took advantage of it.

"Today children want to be understood and if not," Poly made a motion with her hands of a bird flying away. "Obligations are out of fashion." Poly's phone rang. "Excuse me."

Poly spun around searching for her purse, finding it right by the front door.

"Sorry," Poly said into the receiver and slipped outside.

Before Layne could get her bearings, Poly was back. "Charlie's so stubborn. I told her you're here now. Not to come after her shift. He gets worse after she leaves, your brother."

"After what shift? Where does Charlie work?"

"She's a guard. Security."

"What sort of security?" Layne doesn't know why she's asking. She couldn't care less. She can't get her mouth under control.

"Jail, you know. Prison. She'll get a good pension one day but it's a long way off."

"Isn't the nearest women's prison in Kingston?"

Layne envisioned a place where women ate mush with sporks. She had to clear her head.

Poly either hadn't heard her or chose not to answer. Layne's head spun and she was short of breath. She forced herself to watch the hand on her watch for sixty seconds until she breathed normally.

Poly's opinion was not her problem, she had to avoid a panic attack. She took deep breaths and focused on facts: Her parents wouldn't take in a wounded puppy, this neighbor thought she was the bad girl, and Charlie was texting her from a prison. She stepped back as Poly moved closer to her.

"You're one of them all right with that wild hair. I knew you'd come someday. I told them that. You had less than an hour to arrive by my clock. I almost gave up," Poly said. She continued to chat, but Layne was only waiting for her to finish.

"Have you heard from my parents? Either of them?" Layne asked when Poly took a breath.

“I hear they have not been so lucky," Poly said. "Maybe if you'd have come sooner, but now, I don't know." Poly opened her palms and raised her broad shoulders. Her face was a mask behind those giant glasses and Layne was more lost than before.

“What do you mean by not so lucky?" Layne asked. "Did they phone you, text?"

But Poly studied her nails, which Layne could only describe as floral fever with their wildflower design. If her mother had transformed into a manicurist also, Layne didn't want to know about it.

“You remind me of those social work people from the city, so many questions," she said. "They asked me everything twice, too."

Layne swallowed. She was unprepared for this and she reached for the cold stone in her pocket, the tips of her fingers hitting each ridge.

“He might run if we leave him too long," Poly said. Her feet were already facing the door.

“You don't have a number for them then?" Layne said. Marvyn had never been much of a runner and Layne doubted he'd start now.

The neighbor held up one hand, all five fingers patched purple-red with eczema that only enhanced the pink flowers on her green nails. "I have the same numbers you do, but we must get going. My softy daughter has been begging to see him and I told her no, but she'll soon get in her car. He needs his sister now, not more of what they get up to. That's not helping at all."

So, Charlie is the neighbor's daughter? Maybe this wasn’t a girlfriend Layne remembered. Before Layne could ask, the neighbor was heading chin first towards the door, stomping down the two stairs in rubber heeled boots with the company logo engraved on the outside.

Layne couldn't find her coat. She'd taken it off in the taxi and must have put it down when she was looking for the key. Perhaps, near the barbecue. She buttoned her cardigan as high as it could go. She would find her coat later. She pulled up her socks inside of the boots she'd changed into before she got off the plane.

Layne hurried; she had a deep-rooted bias towards outsiders that she fought against in Toronto, but she wasn't in Toronto this morning. With each step the crunch of ice under her feet grew louder. Poly had already disappeared into her own home and her front door was shut; a leftover Christmas wreath welcomed visitors. If Marvyn wanted to run, he'd have to find a back door.

Layne tucked her hands inside the sleeves of her cardigan and resisted the urge to turn around and taxi back to the airport. No, it was a longing. Way more than an urge. She couldn't remember if she had closed her parents' door behind her and didn’t want to check. She counted her steps.

Forward was the only direction if she didn't want to back out and disappoint Rael, prove to him that he'd found a Canadian girl as cold as the weather. This person would never be suitable for Mr. Sunny South Africa, too rusted from too much cold and ice. She thought about how she would react if someone else's brother was hiding out in this neighbor's home, not Marvyn at all and she felt ten feet tall, she'd be free.

What if her brother was off on a jaunt with her parents and a complete stranger had snuck into their home or one of Marvyn's ragtag friends had actually been staying there on invitation? He'd always had a collection of hangers on, a squad of girly misfits and odd-men-out types. He'd never thought twice about inviting them to stay on the couch, the basement, Layne's bedroom, or the hallway if there were no free body-length spots.

Layne skidded on a patch of black ice and fell. The rock she'd picked up in Toronto sailed out of her pocket. Damn. There was a small tear in the knee of her jeans where the denim had worn thin. Layne stared at the two tiny drops of blood for a second before she smeared them on her palm and on the graying snow. Some rocks didn't want to be messed with. She should have left it where it was.

***

Canadian Gila Green is an Israel-based writer. She's traditionally published four novels in three countries and dozens of short stories. She teaches creative writing online and EFL in Jerusalem. The Inheritance is her first foray into Feminist Horror fiction. Her work has been short listed for the Doris Bakwin Literary Award, TenTen Fiction Contest and the Best New Writing Award.