I felt like a gravedigger, like the filthy thief Professor Maclean had accused me of being, but I knew, as had Enid, that the second she passed, this place would be locked away from me forever and she wasn’t wrong—I needed the money, and she wanted me to have it.
Enid wouldn’t have lived in this building if she was a wealthy woman, but when I’d first gone into the apartment, I’d found a letter propped up on her dresser addressed to me.
Baby girl,
I’m hoping you get this letter, and that somehow, you remember that you have a key to my door—I’ll never know why you always insisted on knocking, but I hope you remember before it’s too late, because I’m not sure if I’ll make it long enough for me to give you my keys.
There isn’t much in this place that’s been my home for too many years to count, but what there is, is yours.
Check under the mattress. There’s around three hundred dollars there for starters. I have a few pieces of jewelry that you might get a few hundred for.
Please, take whatever you need. You know as well as I do that Janowicz will steal whatever he can.
I’m writing this as I wait on the ambulance. I could have called for you, but I know you’ll be tired, and I knew, even more so now, that you’d need the rest.
Know this: you brought joy to my world when I was sinking in gloom. Before you, I was alone. With you? I had a family again.
Thank you for that.
I love you and Scottie more than you know. Be strong for us both, go out there and achieve your goals, be who you were born to be.
When you can, take Scottie away from your mother. She won’t argue. Leave her to her personal hell and make a life for yourselves with my blessing.
I wish I could see you grow to become the woman you were destined to be.
With all my love,
Enid
Hours later, my eyes were still wet from reading that letter, and though I’d had her blessing twice over, what I was doing still felt so wrong. I was rubbed raw by what the Professor had accused me of, rightfully so, and this just made me feel even worse.
I gathered the money from under the mattress, hating that she might have scrimped and saved for this very moment—she’d intended on protecting me right from the very beginning.
As I moved around her small apartment, with its tired furnishings and the scent of her floral perfume still lingering in the air, it was hard to believe she hadn’t passed yet.
Everything in here was ready to move on. Ready for this place to be empty, for someone new to live within its walls.
It killed me to think that soon, this apartment wouldn’t be a haven away from my mother. Not just for me, but for Scottie too.
He’d never remember the woman who’d saved him far too many times to count, and I vowed to raise him with the many edicts Enid had passed my way, the recipe for pot roast she swore by, and the stories she’d told me as a girl—stories that had made me aspire to be an English teacher.
Gnawing on my bottom lip, I frowned as I peered inside a drawer in her dresser, feeling like a sneak for going through her things, for seeing stuff I’d never have dreamed of looking at if she were here. Finding a scarf that smelled like her, I pulled it out and wrapped it around my throat. It was light and something she’d have worn to church when she’d been able to go—the priest came to visit her here now—and it would forever remind me of her.
With a sigh, and still feeling like a leech, I methodically moved through her things, finding some books I put in a box I’d brought from the grocery store, keeping a few figurines that I thought I might be able to sell on eBay—and God, didn’t that load me with guilt—until I hit a chest of drawers that was loaded with clothes. They were definitely vintage, but I knew I could wear them.
There were gypsy-style tops and kaftans that would flow nicely in the summer, a couple of dresses that would fit as well. Considering any money would be going toward Scottie’s daycare, I needed every cent I could and didn’t have any to waste on buying weather appropriate clothes.
As I burrowed around for some more, I found a box. It was green leather and was slightly padded. When I saw the emblem on the front, my brows rose.
Rolex.
Popping open the box, it revealed a piece of paper that, upon further inspection, declared the matching ‘his and her’ watches to be authentic pieces.
My eyes widened and hope filled me. These had to be worth something, didn’t they? Were they the jewelry Enid had mentioned in her letter? Otherwise, why hadn’t she told me about them? They were buried under a lot of clothes, but surely she hadn’t forgotten about them?
I wanted to visit her so we could talk about this, but I’d have to be at school in the next two hours. It was a forty-minute bus ride, so I wouldn’t be late, but still, the urge to ask who’d worn the man’s watch filled me.
In all the years I’d known her, she’d never mentioned a man.
Not a husband or a boyfriend.
Heck, she could have been a lesbian and I wouldn’t have known. And there were no pictures tucked in frames that weren’t of me or Scottie, so they were no clue.
Feeling selfish for not having asked, for her not being able to share that with me when I was the only person she saw on a day-to-day basis, I shoved it aside because those thoughts would get me nowhere.
Even as I tucked the authentication certificate back into the box, stroked my finger over the glossy faces of the expensive, vintage watches, I picked it up with great care and tucked it into my bag.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them, but leaving them in my bedroom for my mother to find when she was on the hunt for cash to get some booze was not on my agenda.
I’d have time, hopefully, after class to head to a pawnbroker and pad out my bank account with something that would help me take care of Scottie on the regular.
It was weird feeling relieved and excited when this good fortune came at the expense of my one source of comfort. The incongruous emotions had me reaching for my phone when it buzzed again and answering without looking at the ID.
“Hello?” I asked, surprised to hear I sounded as dazed as I felt. The second I answered, I realized it could be the nurses’ station and terror filled me.
“Why haven’t you been answering my calls?”
The bark had me jolting in place. Even though I felt joy that it wasn’t news on Mrs. Linden, I literally sat up straighter as tension bombarded me on all levels. “Professor?”
“Yes,” he hissed. “If you think you can—”
“I didn’t realize it was you,” I blurted out, annoyed by his anger when I hadn’t done a damn thing wrong.
This time.
“The second you put down the phone, input my goddamn name,” he ground out. “Be in my office after class.”
My heart sank to my stomach. “W-Why?”
“I think you know why.”
And with that, he hung up.
It irked me to instantly obey, but he’d sounded so angry, and even though the Rolexes should ease my situation, I couldn’t afford to lose my jobs or for him to disgrace me by telling my bosses.
Beyond anything, Lorenzo and Maria had been good to me. I didn’t want them to think I was repaying them by treating them so badly. I’d been in a bind, and that bind wasn’t of my own making.
Living so close to the poverty line made getting through each day the equivalent of walking across a battlefield. I’d gone to war and I’d been injured—Professor Maclean was intent on rubbing salt into my damn wounds.