TSHS Turned Short Story: THE PACKAGE

“I am truly sorry Ms. Moore.”

Nina pushed the end call button as hard as she could, but there was no satisfying thud. She missed home phones, the ones with the cord you could twist, and the receiver you could cradle. Or slam. Did they ever make that app for slamming a cell phone?

Three weeks the bank was giving her. Three weeks to pick up her kids and her whole life to go...where?

Goddammit Jefferson. Just had to wait til you died to fuck me, huh?

Bridget sped into the living room, almost dropping her mom’s old dinosaur of a laptop, a Dell more than half her size.

“Mommy can you get me the Zoom thingy? Miss Rogers said I need it, remember?”

What a way to start first grade, Nina thought bitterly. She pasted on a smile and went through the motions. Home-school-prepping and crazy-question-answering, and favorite-breakfast-making and all the things a good mother of two was supposed to do. But right before they started their first virtual lessons, she held on to her little boy and girl for dear life, squeezing them a bit too tight as she cried silently into their hair. And her little angels let her, not moving a muscle, even when the laptop dinged that school was about to begin.

—

Boxes. In rows along the walls of the dining room, piled high on beds and in towers throughout their mess of a kitchen and near-empty living room. Their little cottage was once filled with love and light and laughter and all those bullshit things she hated as a teenager, longed for as a coed and lost by the time she was old enough to appreciate them. But she still had her babies. And that was enough.

Nina snapped the last plastic container shut and escaped to the back yard for some fresh air.

The house might feel dark and empty to her now, but this garden. This garden gave her life. She sat in the dirt among the vegetables and sunk her fingers into the soil, rich and warm. She started to hum softly, an overture from the last play she directed.

“Eh ehm.”

She spun around to find a strange man standing in her back yard.

“The fuck…”

He held his hands out in a non-threatening way.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry. I’m Hill, Hill Rivera from next door. I was just doing some landscaping and found this gate in the fence. I heard you humming and followed the sound. It was nice. I’m sorry. That was insane of me.“

She stood and wiped her hands on her pants and the tears from her cheeks. She touched her hair, trying to remember what state it was in today, but only succeeded in making sure she was covered in dirt from head to toe.

“It’s fine, it’s fine, no worries. Nina.”

She held up her dirty hand apologetically. “Not sure how much worse good old fashioned dirt could be than Covid these days, but can’t shake your hand either way.”

Lame, ugh. Goofy. She was normally fantastic with people. It was part of her job to read them, understand them, to make them comfortable enough to trust her so she could bring out the best in their performance. But she must have misplaced her social skills somewhere behind the cafeteria counter she’d been working these past few months. She was grateful to have the income, but besides her kids, her only interaction was with doctors, nurses and hospital staff, all run down and short on patience. Understandable considering the nightmare they’ve been through. Most just wanted their food and a nap, but usually ate on the run or sat down for five minutes before rushing back to stem the tide of the city’s pandemic.

The man was watching her with a faint smile on his face. Creepy. No, not creepy, shit Nina, snap out of it. Jefferson’s done a number on your paranoia.

“Did you move in recently? We’ve been caught up in our own little quarantined world over here…”

“Yes, uh, about four months ago. Agnes Rivera was my aunt. Used to visit her here decades ago, but I’ve been living out west. Didn't even know she was sick until it was too late.”

Decades? She thought. He didn’t look that old, but maybe he could be middle-aged. Strange, his face was pretty nondescript. No major defining features, no beard, no wrinkles, average nose, basic brown hair with a standard cut. No glasses, simple button down. Couldn’t even identify what kind of pants those were. Sneakers, meh. His dark eyes didn’t express anything in particular; no profound joy or sadness. Maybe he’d been hollowed out by this year, just like her. Scraped clean. All the more space for her anxiety to rattle around in.

“Right Mrs. Rivera, I was sorry to hear about her. Agnes was always kind to us. Even watched the kids a couple times when we were in a pinch.”

“Oh, you have children.”

Was that a question or a statement or…

“Yea, a boy and a girl. Nine and six. It’s been tough trying to help them out with school at home during the day and then having to work late hours at night…”

“I’m sure your husband must be a godsend during such difficult time.”

The laugh came suddenly, up from her gut, and out with a snort. A godsend, ha! The specter of her husband’s memory had been creeping into her bed every night since he died in March. Their relationship had been toe-tagged even before he passed, but now that he was gone, she felt his presence more than she had in years.

“My husband’s dead.”

He looked startled by her reaction. And rightfully so. She probably looked asylum-bound with her old track suit—the only semi-clean thing liberated from her neglected piles of laundry—now covered in dirt, hair sticking up, laughing about her dead husband. And hadn’t she been humming alone in a vegetable patch when he first came in? Jesus H—

“I gotta go,” she said, turning back to the house. “Nice meeting you, neighbor.”

“Likewise,” he said so softly she could’ve have imagined it.

Her new neighbor was still standing where she left him as she slid her back door closed.

—

Nina dropped the plastic container onto the crumbling carpet with a puff of dust and the sound of something skittering off along the floorboards.

“Just nasty” she sighed, too tired to hunt down whatever it was—roach, rodent, or otherwise.

“Wha?”

“Nothin, Mama.”

She’d just spent the past two and a half weeks organizing, packing, cleaning and moving, only to have to start the entire process again in reverse.

She kicked the stupid Walmart container, somehow cracked from the forty-five minute drive from the burbs to downtown Philly. Her granny panties were already trying to make their escape.

“This is why I said I can’t stand cheap shit, Jefferson,” she admonished her dead husband, who felt so real everywhere she went, she half expected him to respond. This was his fault, all of it. The container, the house, the debt, his death. Always trying to to take shortcuts and cut corners. She’d mistaken his money-grubbing as a pro when they first met; better than the guy she once dated who’d worn a $300 Gucci belt while living rent-free in his mother’s basement. But, after a while, it became a con, especially after the kids. It couldn’t have been more clear when the “gold” necklace he’d given her for their ten year anniversary turned her neck green.

She fingered the chain around her neck. She’d gotten it refinished after he died, wore it every day. A frivolous expense during a pandemic, one she could hardly afford, but well worth it to keep him close, even if it was just to haunt her.

Her mother hobbled from the kitchen, bent-backed and surly. She couldn’t remember the last time she saw her mother’s smile. Wasn’t even sure if she still had her original teeth.

“Did you get that package from Verizon yet? We’re gonna need WiFi for the kids.”

“Who the hell is Why-fi?”

“Never mind, Mom.” Nina started checking boxes by the front door.

“You done yet? I got things to do.”

“What you gotta do Mama? I know it’s not cleaning.”

Her mother raised her cane to smack her, but Nina stood her ground. She might have cowered once upon a time, but she was grown. She wouldn’t be terrorized by the old witch anymore. Her mother wasn’t even that old, just didn’t take care of herself. Not herself, not the house, and certainly not her daughter.

Maybe that’s why she’d fallen for Jefferson so young. Besides the fact that every young woman and gay man at Temple had wanted the track star, the big man on campus. And he’d only wanted her; the overgrown theater kid, the introverted playwright still living at home and working her way through school.

He’d been her one way ticket out of Hell. And into Purgatory, as it turned out.

At least he'd taught her not to be afraid of absolutely everything. By his side, she’d flourished, gaining the confidence and stability to move out, sell a play, direct another, and get hired by the Philadelphia playhouse on a permanent basis. Maybe it was no one's fault, per se. Maybe they’d just lost each other along the way.

“Stop it, Jefferson!” She jumped at the sound of her daughter shouting her husband’s name, her son’s name. The witch halted her cane and redirected it towards her grandchildren careening around the corner from the parlor.

Before she knew it, Nina had the cane in her grip and the full force of her mother’s hateful gaze. She returned it with equal disdain. She was her daughter, after all. But a much better mother.

“Look here. This may be your shitty old house, but those are my children. Any finger you lay on them will get broken, understood?”

Her mother scoffed and spit on her own carpet, right at her Nina's feet. She wrenched back her cane and thunked her way back to the kitchen.

Nina’s children had stopped in their tracks, forgetting all about whatever they’d been fighting over. She’d tried to protect them from this part of her life. To keep them away from this decrepit old house, one of the only Victorians left in the city, though it should’ve been condemned with everything inside it—stubborn old resident included. But this was 2020. This was life now. Shit fits and plot twists. Promising theater directors turned lonely, widowed, single-mother cafeteria workers.

But she’d be damned if they didn’t have WiFi.

“Alright guys, come here. I know this is tough but I’m gonna need y’all to be tougher, ok?”

They nodded. They were good kids. She would fix this for them. She had to.

“Mommy’s gotta run to the old house to look for the WiFi ok? Be good and...stay away from your gramma.” She kissed their heads, the smell giving her the strength to make the hour and a half round trip.

—

Sure enough, there, on the front stoop, was the package. They must have delivered it to her billing address instead of the mailing address she knew she updated. She picked it up and had her keys in the door—deciding she might as well do one last sweep of the house while she was there—before she noticed her next door neighbor on the way back from checking his mail.

“Moving day?”

“Oh hey!” She said, shifting the box and keys to lower her mask with an apologetic smile. I’m so sorry, I should have told you today was our last day.” She didn’t know why she was apologizing, exactly. Sure, he’d been pretty helpful over the past few weeks. Mowed the lawn, helped her load her car a couple times, even watched the kids for an hour while she went to grab groceries, but it’s not like she owed him anything.

He looked back at her in his strange way for a moment too long.

He only spoke when she started turning her keys in the lock. “Just want the best for you and your amazing children. I will miss you. You guys. Very much.”

“Um, ok. Thank you. For everything, really. Bye, now.”

She didn’t wait for a response before slipping inside the dark, empty house.

Nina dropped the package on the kitchen counter and leaned against the edge of the sink to cool her forehead on the window pane. Her head was pounding and fatigue was settling in. Maybe she was coming down with something. Maybe it was just stress. She took one last look at her garden, already browning with the sudden turn in the weather.

“Well Jefferson. It’s been real. Real...something. Look, I know we struggled the past few years. I still don’t know why you pulled away from me, but I’ve decided to let that go, alright? I can’t hold on to you anymore, not you and the kids. I’m not strong enough. And if we didn’t agree on anything, we agreed those kids would always come first. Always. So I’m choosing them. Don’t worry, I am taking the good times with me, all the things you taught me, like how to use every single tool in your granddad’s toolbox, and how to stand up for myself. But I’m leaving you here alright? You stay here. Don’t need you and Mama on my back, I’m sure you can understand that.”

Now whether she said this aloud or not was anyone’s guess, but she swore she could feel a pressure on her shoulder and a soft breath in her ear. And then nothing. He was gone. She removed his necklace and the weight of their entire marriage and dropped it in their now empty junk drawer.

Felt better there.

She selected the longest key on her keychain and took a stab at the package. Better to know now if anything was missing before she had to face her Mama again. And again, and every day for the rest of her...Focus, Nina. Strange there weren’t any Verizon logo prints on the outside. Probably to deter theft. Made sense. Couple swipes of the key and it was open.

Nina shoved the box and backed away until her lower back hit the opposite counter. Out tumbled a rubber doll. Brown-skinned, grey-eyed, curly-haired. Just like her. But this thing had triple D’s and holes and a gaping mouth. She swallowed bile as her ears started ringing. Ringing. Bell. Door. Nina numbly shoved the rubber sex doll that looked like her back into its oddly small UPS box and stumbled towards the sound of the doorbell.

“I think you must have gotten my package by mistake,” her neighbor said gently, shoving her back inside.