Young Writers Society

“Thank you for coming with me,” Mom says softly. This was minutes after we passed the exit she used to take to her best friend's house who moved out of town. I don’t feel like it was a choice, really. I saw her answer the phone and the blood drain from her face, her hands start trembling and tears come without warning. She yelled at my aunt, “Three weeks? When were you going to tell me?” and I could hear Aunt Shelley crying on the other end of the phone. I sat at the dining room table when she finally hung up and sat down to sob into her arms. She yelled out in anger and banged her fists on the table before crying some more. Minutes later she finally caught her breath and told me, “My mom is dying. I’m going to meet Shelly at the house.” It was the right thing to do, to go with her.

“Yeah. Of course,” I whisper.

A few more minutes pass before she speaks again “oh wow, that’s still there,” she remarks. “Did you see that little shack on the left, in the clearing?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s the last building until we get to town, and then it’s just a half hour to Grandma’s.” She sounds hopeful, but I know it won’t last. She wants to get there but she doesn’t want to be there. She’ll hug her sister and dig her nails into her coat and hiss “Why did it take you so damn long?” Even though Aunt Shelley already explained herself.

We can already see it anyway: the snow. It’s raining at our house five hours away, part of the same storm that made Aunt Shelley send us a letter we never got and then hike three hours in the snow to call us.

It’s not falling now but it has been. On our last restroom break when we got off the freeway we slid through the empty intersection. My mom’s knuckles turned white on the steering wheel and through gritted teeth she said, “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” and turned the car the direction she hoped to go. We stopped sliding eventually and made it to a Love’s.

I look down at the GPS; still two hours until our destination. “Are we going to stop in town for anything?”

“I guess I’ll fill up one last time, just to be safe. I don’t know. Do we need anything else?”

“I don’t know.”

Out the window is a repeating pattern of trees. The same few yards copy-and-pasted in a line for miles. I watch them go by. We are both silent.

I never met my Grandma. When I told my mom that she said, “That can’t be true,” then stopped to think about it. “Maybe when you were a baby.” Yes, maybe when I was a baby. I don’t even know what she looks like. I try to imagine my mom old and gray but it makes me sad, and I heard she looks more like her dad anyway. The only thing I remember about Grandma is something my cousin Morgan told me.

“So you know how my mom talks to Grandma like once every month?” Morgan asked.

“Yeah,” I said, even though I had no idea.

“So I finally asked her, like, 'Mom, how did you tell Grandma I’m trans?’ And she literally said, ‘Actually I just started referring to you as a girl and I don’t think she noticed.’” We both laughed. “To be fair,” she added, “I don’t think she talked about me that much to begin with.”

After about an hour and a half of driving through the quiet woods we pass the sign into town, large rectangular stone with the shadow of some kind of flower with a lot of leaves, to the right of the words, “Welcome to Sommerville.”

“Wait-“ I look at Mom.

“Yep.”

“Sommerville as in-“

“Yes.”

“That’s crazy.” My eyebrows are furrowed as I try to understand.

“Your great grandfather was a very very,” she sighs, “very rich man.”

“I mean I knew they were rich but shit.”

She laughs. “Yeah, his mine basically built this town. I mean, you know, the miners built the town, but his money bought the name.” We approach the first intersection and she turns right. “Will you look up the closest gas station?” I grab her phone and unlock it before she says, “Never mind, it’s still right here.”

“You want anything?” I ask as I walk toward the store.

“Sugar-free Redbull? Actually, never mind, I'm gonna come in and pee in a minute.” She finishes paying for gas and I make my way to the bathroom.

I wonder some more about my great grandpa. I wonder what part he played in this town's history. I wonder what kind of man he was. Probably not a good one. I wonder if his son was like him and what he did with the money. I wonder what my dad knows about my mom’s family and what my Nana Ejinia would think about Grandma Beatrice. I don’t know anything about her but I find it hard to believe they would be friends. Nana’s husband, my Tata, worked in a mine. He died of lung cancer before I was born. I don’t think they would be friends.

I wonder if the girl standing behind the counter looking at her phone knows who the town is named after, if she would think differently of me if she knew Sommer was my mothers maiden name, or if she would even make that connection.

We both grab a drink, a sugar free redbull and a bottled iced tea. Mom tells the cashier, “I remember when this place was still called Lucky’s.” The cashier smiles while she rings us up. She’s young, 18 maybe, and has both nostrils pierced.

“Lucky was my Dad’s uncle,” she says, and bags our drinks. “But don’t worry, my family still manages this franchise.” She does finger quotes. “Y’all have a good day.”

We walk toward the exit and activate the automatic door. “Hey,” the girl yells out. We pause. “I don’t know what business y’all have in town, but if you stay in town people will be good to you. There’s some shady business in the trees.” She gives us a concerned smile. “And ma’am, I don’t know what kind of past you have here, but it’s just that, passed.”

My mom hesitates for a moment then settles on a half smile. “Thank you.”

We make our way to the car silently. “That was weird,” I say as I buckle my seatbelt.

“She was nice,” Mom responds. We start driving.

It takes less than 30 minutes to drive through town and to get to the tree line. I squint, looking through the trees as we pass them, but all I see is dense forest. Mom is silent.

After a while her breathing gets a little shakier and more intentional. Her hands look like they did when we were sliding on ice, as she tried to get us back on track.

Eventually we pass the last chance to turn and a little after that the road narrows. I realize the road forward is plowed, but the right turn into the trees is not. A wooden fence takes the place of gravel and snow on either side of us.

The house comes into view from a mile away. I’m not sure at first but it looks like a mansion to me. Just in comparison to the huge trees that were towering over us, it towers over them. It dawns on me that all this time we were driving with that fence around us, we were on the property.

I’m still trying to comprehend the size when we park the car at the end of a massive roundabout. The house is made of red brick, colonial style, I think, with eight windows looking into different rooms on the facade, and a double door made from a dark wood in the middle.

I’m unsteady on my feet, not used to walking on the plowed ice. We grab our luggage, a suitcase each and a backpack, and start making our way to the door.

It opens before we make it to the stone walkway.

Aunt Shelley swings the door open and rushes out to meet us; Morgan follows behind her.

They each take a backpack. My mom and aunt hug for a long time. I think I hear them whispering to each other but when I look back they’re both shaking and weeping, gripping each other tightly.

Morgan hugs me, my backpack on her shoulder, and whispers in my ear “We need to talk.”

She goes to our still weeping mothers and grabs my mom’s luggage, gesturing with her head for me to follow her in.

I don’t have time to examine the inside of the mansion before Morgan grabs my hand and pulls me to a staircase.

“What’s going on? Are you ok?” My suitcase knocks against each wooden stair as I hurry to keep pace with her.

“What? Yeah. Let’s just put these in your rooms.” She doesn’t slow down when we reach the top of the stairs, not even pausing when she drops my moms suitcase in front of another dark wooden door. “That’s my room,” she says as she breezes past the identical door three rooms away. She stops at the next one, turning the ancient looking brass knob and pulling me and my luggage inside.

I set the suitcase down and she tosses my backpack on a chair. I sit on the bed looking around the room. The floors are made of another dark, expensive looking wood, scratched with age. All the furniture matches, deep red wood with decorative carving and black metal details. I notice an oriental rug underfoot, and lush red fabric covering the two chairs in the corner and the bed.

“Did you know grandma was th-“

She cuts me off “there’s something really fucked up going on.” I finally look back to Morgan. Her eyes are wide with concern and she’s biting the inside of her cheek. “Ok wait, what do you know?”

“Grandma,” I say cautiously, “she’s sick?”

“She’s in a coma,” Morgan responds quickly.

“Oh.” I look at my hands. “I didn’t know.”

“Right, ok, what else?” She waves her hand beckoning me to continue.

“I mean that’s it I guess. You and your mom have been here for a while and couldn’t get ahold of us.”

“Three weeks, Max. We’ve been here for three weeks. She’s been in a coma with no life support for, like, over a month. Yesterday, when my mom called Aunt Harper, was the first time either of us have been off the property in two weeks. She had to go tell someone people are here and get someone to plow the road so you could get in.” She taps her foot and looks away from me. “Whatever. The point is there’s some really fucked up shit happening here and I feel like I’m going crazy.” Her voice cracked on the final word. I realized she’s not just tense but terrified. She lets out some uneasy breaths before devolving into a sob.

“Hey, hey, hey,” I stand and ease her towards the bed to sit. “You’re not crazy. What’s going on?”

She lets out a frustrated grunt and wipes her eyes. “You’re gonna find out for yourself soon enough. It’s just,” she grits her teeth and sighs, “it’s not right. Whatever is happening here isn’t right. Like, I feel like someone’s fucking with me.” She grabs my hand tightly and meets my gaze with an intense look in her wet red eyes. “I really need to trust you,” she says slowly, “can I trust you?”

I just nod.

“Ok.” She loosens her grip on my hand and swallows. “Ok,” she repeats. Neither of us speak for a moment. Her hand is shaking in mine and looks so pale. “I feel like someone is always watching me,” she speaks with a slow intensity. “I hear whispers all the time. Maybe I am crazy, but I don’t hear them outside at all. I’m always on edge, constantly. I don’t know why, I’m just terrified to be alone here. I see shit in the corner of my eye all the time. Shadows moving and shit. And I swear to god when my mom was gone I felt someone’s breath on my ear in the middle of the night and it woke me up. These rooms get fucking dark. Zero light. Sleep with a lamp on.” She squeezes her nails into the palms of her hands and takes several slow breaths through her nose.

“I’m,” I look at her gently shaking next to me, “I’m not sure what to say. I do trust you. I promise.”

She clenches her eyes shut and releases a final shaky exhale. “Ok. Good.”

There’s a knock at the bedroom door that makes Morgan jump to her feet. Aunt Shelley cracks the door open and sticks her head in, she opens it all the way when she sees the state Morgan is in. “Hey, what’s going on?”

Morgan wipes her eyes and tries to smile. “We’re just catching up, talking about Grandma.” Aunt Shelley gives us both a sympathetic smile.

“Have you seen her yet?” She asks me.

“No,” I answer too quickly. Morgan grabs my hand and I stand from the bed.

“C’mon, I’ll take you to her room.” She turns her attention to her mom, “Where’s Aunt Harper?”

“She’s already in there. I asked Bonnie to make us a pot of coffee. You want some?”

Morgan nods, “Me and Max will both have a mug,” she answers for me before leading us past her mom out of the room. She glaces over her shoulder to make sure Aunt Shelley is descending the stairs before continuing.

“She looks exactly the same as she did when I got here, like shes sleeping. I swear to god I heard her talking to her nurse the other night.”

“Bonnie?” I ask.

“No, Bonnie is the chef. She lives here for now, says Grandma paid her for the year and she’ll take care of us as long as we need. Her nurse’s name is June. I mean, it’s crazy, she would tell us if Grandma were talking.” Morgan leads me down the hall to the last room, to another heavy red wood door. “Brace yourself,” she mutters and turns the knob.

It’s strange to have the first time you ever meet your grandmother be on her deathbed. I never heard stories about her or saw her picture. I don’t think it makes me a bad person, since meeting her hadn’t been an option that was given to me, but I do feel like I’m intruding. I don’t think I would want a stranger in my room with me while I was dying, even if we share some blood. But I’m not here for her, I’m here for my mother and now for my cousin who seems to need me more.

I wasn’t prepared, but then I don’t think I could have been. I hear my mother crying before we fully open the door, and I see the nurse standing a few feet away from her, frowning sympathetically. Approaching the bed I take in my first look at Grandma. Her cheeks are pink with life and her complexion is warm. I almost expect her to open her eyes and greet us.

Mom doesn’t stop crying or turn to look at us, she just holds a hand behind her back and I grab it, kneeling next to the bed with her. Morgan puts her arms around my mom and squeezes her gently. The sobs only get louder. We sit this way for a few minutes, all of us with our heads bowed and our eyes shut tightly. I hear the door open.

“I have coffee,” Aunt Shelley whispers, pushing the door open with her foot. Morgan gets up and grabs the serving tray from her hands, setting it on the bedside table. Aunt Shelley hands June a mug and then takes my place kneeling with her sister. I take the opportunity to get some distance from everyone.

Morgan hands me a mug before jerking her head to the door. Aunt Shelley begins to cry too before we close the solid door. With a gentle click the hallway is silent once again. She leans her back against the door and sighs loudly. I sip my coffee.