Blunder

Chapter 2

The emergency contact booklet, my mother had put together many years ago, lays perched upon a stack of dusty old records piled up above the fridge.  I stood on my tiptoes, and extended my arm up over my head. I flounder with the book for a moment, before it tumbles down on to the stick lanolium. The book has weathered quite a bit over the years, it’s leather bound back tarnished and faded to a light cream, while its pages had turned a molted yellow.

I sink to my knees beside it, and riffle through the pages in search for my Aunt’s contact information.

(310) 459-7835 Helena Richmond home #

2640 Seaport Drive. Banks C.A

Is the short passage that I find scrawled in my mother’s looping cursive.

I take a deep breath, trying to calm my suddenly ragged breathing. I clutch a fistful of my shirt above my heart, and feel it pulsating out of my chest. My palms are sweat slicked and cause me to fumble with the device. 

“Come on get a grip. Pull your self together!” I mutter to myself.

However, despite my little pep talk, my hands tremble as I punch in the number. Please go to voice mail. Please go to voice mail. Please go to-

“Richmond residence, this is Helena. May I ask who’s calling?” Oh shit! I’m so not ready for this!

“…Hello? This is the Richmond residence is anybody there?” I clear my throat, attempting to dislodge the lump that seems to have all but stolen my ability to speak. I attempt to formulate some sort of respectable response in my head, but end up rambling.

“Erhm… yea hi this is Arial, your niece. Um… well this is kind of hard to say but Margaret and I are in kind of a sticky situation. Are house is foreclosed and we could really use some cash to help us back on are feet. I mean it would just be a loan of course but-” She cuts me off and begins a rant of her own.

“Oh Arial Honey I can't believe its really you, ’I've been trying to contact you both for years! Where are you? Are you safe?”

I’m taken aback by her confession. She had been shearing for a means to contact us all this time? Surely she’s bluffing I reassure myself; after all it was her who had broken all ties with my mother.  My brow furrows in confusion.  I shift the phone over to the crook of my neck and begin to anxiously pick at my cuticles. I decide just to disregard the topic for now.

“Yea we're okay I guess. Right know we’re living in the ‘burbs outside San Francisco.”

The line is quiet for a few beats and for a moment I think she's hung up on me, but she soon pies up, continuing to maunder.

“I can't believe it all this time you both were only a half an hour’s drive south of me! I can't believe it, this is a miracle!  What's the address? I’m coming to get you.”

            No! No! No! This is not happening, mother will be beyond furious with me if she had known I’d been in contact with her sister. I allow a haggard sigh to escape as I let my head flop back against the wall, letting the sharp crack clear my head.

“Um… I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, now about the loan-“

“Why not? Fine, if you insist. Now about the loan, you know that I would be happy to give you a loan, but it seems unnecessary seeing as our family owns three properties up in Banks. Your granddaddy left your mother, a beautiful beach side cottage when he passed. Now I’m warning you it is a bit quaint, but it’s charming as can be!”

“Umm…” She’s caught me off guard with her proposal, and I seem to be having a bit of trouble processing it.

I’m suddenly aware of the presence looming behind me. Sure enough, my mother is slumped against the door with a quizzical look on her face. The wan light, that trickles in through the vertical slits of our kitchen’s venal binds cast shadows across her face, heightening the look of her pallid skin. The majority of her dark curl’s had sprung free from her bun, and framing her ovular face and her feckless stood out starkly against her ashen cheeks.