The Sympathy Screw | 18+

Chapter 9 - Death and Taxes

Author's Notes:

Things are about to get crazy up in here because I'm introducing two characters (Marie and Michael) from my other novel that I'm working on getting published and one character (Violet's older sister) from "Behind the Closed Door" the other book I just started writing that you'll see sometime in the next week or two.

Sorry, but I couldn't come up with a song for this chapter. Let me know if you know one that fits. Next one has one, though.

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Six Weeks Later ...

"Thank you for taking the time to come all the way out to the Hodgson building, Violet," Marie told me as she ushered me into her office, "I know it wasn't easy for you to make the journey all the way to Maine while Andrew is in his last few weeks, but it will cut through a lot of red tape later if you can sign these tax forms now. I'm really so sorry that I wasn't able to make the trip to New York again for you."

"No," I told Marie, "It's okay. My older sister drove me, and Andrew was oddly insistent that I go now."

Marie pointed to a chair in her tiny little office and said, "Would you please have a seat?"

I sat down and scrutinized Marie while she pulled some paperwork out of a filing cabinet. She was extremely pale, but her green eyes were very bright. Her shiny, pin-straight dark hair was a few shades lighter than my own and came down to her chin. Marie was slim but lacking in muscle tone, still she was probably at least a DD-cup. Overall, she was quite striking. If it weren't for the fact that I was much more fit than she was, and that I knew Marie was happily married with a teenage daughter - and considerably older than she looked -, I might've been jealous of her spending so much time with Andrew; All in all, though, she bore very little resemblance to Todd, for being his cousin.

"Marie, I can hardly believe you used to babysit Todd when he was little," I told her.

As if answering the question I hadn't asked, Marie handed me a photograph from her desk and told me, "Todd's related on my father's side. I take after my mother's side, as does my daughter."

I looked at the picture. In the photo was what must've been Marie's family: Marie with a tanned-looking man with sandy blonde curly hair who looked to be in his mid-fifties and a beautiful teenage girl who was the spitting image of Marie except for her deep brown eyes and a slightly darker complexion.

"Daisy is sixteen. She gets her brown eyes and her skin from Luke, but everything else is all me," Marie told me, smiling with pride, "I was a train wreck at that age, but she got the good complexion genes from the Jackson side of the family."

I nodded, but my mind wasn't really on Marie's family. I couldn't help letting my mind drift back to Andrew in New York. He had been at a hospice facility for a few days and his oncologist had been coming to see him daily. I had been told that he hadn't really needed to be in hospice yet, but it was a precautionary measure as he was getting closer to his final days.

"I know what it's like," Marie said, once again almost reading my mind.

I looked at her, somewhat bewildered. "Pardon?"

Marie smiled at me. "My dad died of cancer. My parents split up when I was in high school, so he didn't really have anyone, and Luke and I took care of him when he was sick. I was with him right up until the end."

"I'd like to be there for Andrew at the end like that, too," I told her.

"No. You don't."

What the actual fuck? Where does this woman get off telling me what I want?