Card 29: Cherry Bounce
Aged whiskey and tart cherries
[Ethan]
It’s been a week since Ella left. I’ve called Pam. I’ve called Ella. I’ve gotten no answer from either. I don’t expect to see Jacob, so when he arrives at my new home, I’m surprised he knew where to find me. I’ve rented a small cottage just outside town as it’s the offseason, and the house was available.
“Hey,” I greet him as I hold open the door, suggesting he enter my humble and very vacant home. It’s not sleek and modern like Jacob’s. In fact, it needs many improvements, but it’s mine for the time being. I’m enjoying living in a place of my own, one that has more than one room with only a bed and a television set.
Jacob follows me to the kitchen, where I offer him the one stool I own. I lean against the kitchen counter, crossing my ankles as I take in Jacob. He looks out of place in his fancy leather jacket and dark jeans. He looks like a biker more than a writer. Scratch that, he looks like a fighter more than anything. He holds up a glass jar with cherries floating in the bottom.
“Cherry Bounce,” I state. Whiskey mixed with tart cherries is Michigan moonshine, and it’s lethal stuff.
“Found it in the house when I moved in. Took it as a welcome to Michigan gesture from the realtor, but she claims she didn’t put it there.” Jacob holds it up. “I thought we could break the seal.”
“That stuff could kill you, or at least your liver.”
Jacob chuckles. “My liver is already dead.” He isn’t joking. He drinks a lot, according to Pam. It keeps his demons at bay, according to Ella.
“What do you want, Jacob?” I don’t mean to be direct, but as he kicked me out of his house, fired me, and accused me of fucking his sister, I’m not sure he has more to say to me.
“I fucked up.”
I’m shocked by the admission.
“When everything happened the first time with Ella, I followed my parents’ plan for her. She was so entrenched in their lives as the center of it, I allowed them to continue as they always did…manipulating her. They took her to specialists and surgeons, and when all turned hopeless, Ella refused to make any changes to herself. She also didn’t get the therapy she needed to deal with the attack.”
I pause, letting this sink in. It had been two years. Her birthday marked the date.
“After a year of unsuccessful recovery at home, I worried about her mental state, so I suggested she move here with me. The house was plenty big enough for both of us. I thought the quiet, reserved, hidden atmosphere would help. She could heal and think. Be creative, like I always knew she could be, while being on her own, which she desperately needed. No one should still be under their parents’ thumb like that in their twenties, but Ella was their moneymaker.”
I nod, knowing some of this information.
“I should have pushed for therapy, something Pam stressed the moment Ella moved here.” Jacob chuckles. “Hell, from the moment I met Pam, she’s been telling me what to do.”
For some reason, I think that’s what he likes most about Pam. She told him to hire me, so he did.
“Ella went to Pam,” Jacob states the obvious, but I sense something else in his tone. He’s hurt. It stings that Ella went to Pam instead of him for help, just as it aches in me. She chose someone else for support. “I guess it’s a female thing.”
He snorts, but I don’t find the humor.
“Anyway, she’s in New York, staying at my place. I wanted to go see her, but she told me if I do, she’ll move out. She needs time on her own, she says. She’s getting some therapy.” He pauses a second as if considering something. “She also decided on a supplier instead of a design house. She’s going to produce the clothing line herself.”
I weakly smile. “That’s great. I’m sure she’ll be very successful.”
Jacob nods. “It turns out, the guy who attacked her is an old friend of mine.” He huffs. “I use the term friend lightly. He was someone I met at Columbia and introduced to Ella when she was working in the city. I guess he became a little obsessed with her.”
“Ella mentioned she knew him, but at the same time, she didn’t.”
“She knew of him but hadn’t recalled who he was. I guess when he introduced himself again at her birthday party, she got his name wrong on the re-introduction, and it set him off. She hadn’t listened to him, he claimed. He claimed a lot of things about my sister.”
Jacob shivers, and I follow, wondering about the life of a public figure and the unstable people who form unhealthy attachments to them.
“He believed Ella belonged with him, but the only way to make her his was to do what he did.”
I feel sick, and my eyes fall to the Cherry Bounce. Maybe I should drink it to dull the pain in my chest after all.
“Anyway, I wanted to bring you the check I owe you. I was angry, and you left in haste.” Jacob reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cashier’s check. Only I don’t reach for it.
Sixty thousand dollars.
“I’m not taking it.”
Jacob’s brows pinch. “Why not?”
“Because I didn’t sleep with your sister for the money.”
“You worked for the money,” Jacob states. “I get that after speaking with her.”
“You spoke to her?” I ask, and my heart hurts that she’s spoken with him but refuses to speak to me.
“I’m her brother.”
I should question what I am to her, but I’m not fool enough to ask. I’ve gotten the message from her silence.
“She’s told me everything.” He arches one brow, insinuating the word means just what it implies. He knows we’ve slept together, but is there more to it than sex? There was for me, and I’ve already told him how I feel. I’m in love with his sister.
Jacob wiggles the check in his hand at me.
“I don’t want it.”
“But it’s yours.”
I stare back at Jacob. “I’m not taking it.”
“What about your restaurant?” I feel even further betrayed. Ella told her brother about my plan—my future—instead of sharing in that future with me. “She’d want you to have it.”
“I’m getting a loan.”
Jacob lowers the check to his thigh and stands. He reaches out for my counter and sets the check on it along with the Mason jar of Cherry Bounce. “When I was starting out, I wish someone had been there for me.”
Easy to say as he came from money, went to a prestigious college for writing, and got a publishing deal in his early twenties. He hasn’t known a hard life.
“Can you tell me if Ella is coming home?” I ask, hating that I ask and how desperate I sound.
“She says she doesn’t have a home.”
My head nods like a bobblehead or a punching bag vibrating back and forth.
“Well, I wish her luck then,” I say, sarcasm dripping from my voice. I swipe the check off the counter and rip it in half. It’s a hard thing to do when you know you can use that money, especially for my parents, but it also felt damn good not to accept it.
“Is that all you wish?” he asks, peering at me, and I want to knock the smirk off his face.