A Vagrant Story (30 page)

He never had much luck with women, so anything pre-destined tended to be whatever came along. He was a short man with skinny features and glasses to booth. He would stutter as he spoke and rarely stood up for himself. Or as Sierra often thought, John could pass for an older version of Henry. John was a dud too, no question about it.

Sierra was a child at the time and unfamiliar with other women so she took an irrational jealously to this intruder taking her place. With the weight of her dead puppy still in her heart her tantrums only increased in folds. In a childish, directionless, way she focused her temper on John’s possessions, stealing money, thrashing furniture and breaking rules. The tantrums increased relevant to the amount of attention she received. It continued until she targeted his most prized possession.

John was a writer. His writing represented the embodiment of his very soul. One day she accessed the writing stored on the laptop only for John to find her in the act. The details of the room and such were hazy to her but she remembered the words exchanged as though they’d been etched in her mind.

***

“Sierra! What are you doing?” John said. 

Sierra recalled slamming the keys with both palms then standing to meet John. “I’m deleting all your writing files!

“What? Why would you want to do something like-“

“You hurt Jess! It was your fault my puppy died. The vet said you weren’t feeding her and didn’t take care of her. That’s why she died.”

“Jess … again.”

“You didn’t have the money to look after her. Other dad’s work so they can make money to look after pets, but all you do is write. You never make enough money, that’s why Jess died.”

“Sierra … none of us could see how things would turn. Look, you have to stop all this. It’s been long enough. You can’t just go around blaming…”

Sierra remembered looking away disobediently.

“Sierra, I might not have made enough money to look after Jess but I earn enough to look after us. If you go deleting my writing then all that is going to change.”

Sierra recalled Maria entering the room around about that time. She wore a nightgown and dried her hair as if out of the shower.

“Another argument is there?” she asked.

“It’s about Jess again,” John replied.

“What has she done this time?”

“She was just playing around with my laptop. No damage done though, she doesn’t even know how to use a computer yet anyway.”

***

It was a trivial argument. Only significant in its place as the last trivial argument Sierra and John ever had. It was the last she shared with Maria when they all lived together, and the last trifling argument she had with John before he died.

Near enough in silence, Sierra and Maria left the park together. As they walked Sierra liked to think Maria was thinking of the same instance, their last family argument, and not the last time they laid eyes on one another.

In unspoken agreement, they wound up ordering tea and scones in a side street cafe. Sierra picked into the food cautiously as not to alert Maria of her true hunger. This woman across the table happened to be the most prevalent adult female in her life. Maria could pass for Sierra’s mother, if ever there was a person deserving of the title. Pity it took Sierra so long to come to that conclusion.

Although John did have a wife with whom he adopted Sierra, as fortune had it she didn’t live long enough for a lasting impression to set. But her name would always be on the adoption papers. In spirit she would remain the closest Sierra had to a legitimately official foster-mother. At least she remained the only one who hadn’t scratched her name from the page. Sierra would always thank her for that. From now until eternity Sierra would know someone through which she could associate the word mother. That was good enough a dream for Sierra. To think some orphans actually dream of finding their real parents. Perhaps Sierra would like to meet her true parents one day, but only to spit on them both.

Maria sat across from Sierra, sipping her tea as if on a casual outing. Sierra recognised the awkwardness of the silence, but she admired Maria’s ability to remain composed throughout. Sierra on the other hand dashed eyes awkwardly about the room in search of a conversation starter.

Waiters dashed to and fro rattling pots and plates for customers eagerly awaiting their first meals of the day. Not that there were many customers so early in the morning.

Maria finished her tea, banging the cup down as to startle Sierra into making eye contact. It worked.

“You are actually Sierra correct? Tell me I haven’t just brought another homeless person out to eat?”

Sierra grinned awkwardly. She couldn’t tell if Maria recognised her living situation, or was just cracking a joke. If Sierra remembered the woman correctly, she would likely do both together.

“Relax, I’m joking. So are you willing to talk to me yet? I haven’t seen you in ten years. The least you could do is say hello. You came all this way with me and now you won’t talk?”

Sierra sipped tea shyly. Thoughts of diving head first into the scones came abound. Despite her earthly temptations, Sierra piped out some words.

“I’m sorry, Maria.”

“We’ll do the easy bits first and leave the hard things for last. Now, what have you been doing this past decade, living the good life I presume?” Maria said, eying Sierra’s shabby clothing. “Is there a girl under all those rags?”

Sierra grinned hesitantly. “Things have been a bit rough.”

“I can see that. Aren’t they paying you enough at…”

“I’m … not working at the moment.”

“I could have guessed.”

“I … quit my last job. My boss was an ass.”

“You developed a tongue too. It’s the first time I’ve heard you swear … to think. I hope you were busy learning something else this whole time. You must be … nearly twenty now. Where did you graduate from?”

“Graduate?”

“What college have you applied for? Come on Sierra, do we have to sit here playing question games until I get answers from you?”

“Maria…”

“Tell me something about yourself. Where do you live?”

“I’m … staying with friends. We fight a lot but they’re nice.”

“I think I know the type. They must keep you supported while you’re out of work.”

“You could say that. One of them did provide the home I live in.”

“Provide the home? Then he must be … not an older man surely?”

“What? No. Yes. No. it’s not like that. I’ve known him quite a while. Actually, I’ve known him since my first night on the … I mean, since the day John … Well, you know what I mean.”

Sierra whisked up a scone as to restore herself. Nibbling like a titmouse she averted whatever effort Maria made to strengthen eye contact. When it seemed Maria gave up, the woman changed her sights once again on Sierra’s clothing.

“I regret letting you go that night, Sierra. Just to think if I hadn’t taken my eyes off you that night I could have brought you back inside and talked things out. I looked for you. I know we never really got along, the two of us, but it’s what John would have wanted. And by the time I started looking expectantly around every corner, I realised it’s what I wanted too.”

“I was a brat.”

“I was around long enough to watch you grow into that brat. You were our brat, mine and John’s. Even if we did break up, I didn’t think that would ever change. Didn’t you think there was something worth holding onto, between the two of us, I mean?”

“There wasn’t much in the way of competition. My last foster-mother practically made me eat dirt.”

“I see.”

“It was a joke.”

“All of it? I have read your adoption papers, you know.”
“Forget it. You were nice. Best mom I ever knew.”

“Another joke?”

“No.”

“I’m quite pleased to hear you say that. Would you believe that’s been something of a weight on me? I often wondered if you’d simply gone away, grown up and forgotten about all of us.”

“Not even if I tried. When people talk of families, I realise I only ever consider one family as my family. I have one family. I’m happier with that.”

“John would be happy too. In the end that’s all he wanted from you.”

“He’ll always be my dad.”   

“That poor fool. He doesn’t know what he missed.” Maria choked on that, pausing to wipe her eye with a tissue. “I hope he can forgive me.”

“It isn’t your fault.”

“I loved him so much. At first it was just a fling but he grew on me so quickly. He was such a sweetheart. I never really understood why we started arguing.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I walked out on him. I still loved him but I was the one who walked away, not him. I wanted to make him feel bad but I never expected him to…”

“He was lonely.”

“If only I was there for him. I should have stood by him.”

“You made him happy. I only knew John for three years but being with you was the happiest I’d ever seen him since his wife died. You made him feel happy. What happened wasn’t your fault.”

“If only I’d been patient with him, John would still be here.”

“It was my fault.”

A memory passed into Sierra’s mind. As she sat there now staring into Maria’s eyes, she could see the very day those petty arguments stopped and the real feud began. Down to the last detail, she could see the very instant Sierra pushed John down with her own special lies.

***

It was a warm day for winter. John was loading the last of Maria’s belongings from her car into the house. Strictly speaking she’d already been living with them for some time, but this final drop off marked the official beginning of her stay.

Sierra remembered sitting on the doorstep, watching John scurry back and forth between the house and car. She declined an offer to help Maria move in.

“Maria owns a lot of stuff,” Sierra said passively to John.

John took a break to respond. “We are moving her whole house into ours. It took a long time but this is finally the last of it all.”

“Won’t she need this stuff in her own house?”

“Not any more, her house is totally empty now. You know what that means?”

Sierra drew blank.

“This is it, Sierra,” John continued. “Maria has finally moved in with us for good.”

“Why does she have to move in with us?”

“She doesn’t have to do anything. She makes me happy and I make her happy. When two adults make each other happy they move in together.”

“But … what about Maria’s money problems?”

“Maria’s money problems?”

“I heard Maria saying she ran out of money for rent.”

“Now where did you hear a thing like that?”

“A while ago, you were out and Maria was minding me. She had her friend in the house, and she told him her landlord was throwing her out. She said she would stay here until she got enough money, and she wouldn’t be able to see her friend again until then.”

“You heard this, did you? Are you sure?”

Sierra nodded.

“This friend of hers, what did he look like?” 

“Can’t remember. Maria has lots of friends over when you’re gone out.”

“Forget it. This is silly, Sierra. It takes a lot of manpower to move home. They’re probably just workmen. You must have heard them chatting and … misinterpreted.”

“Why would workmen talk about your writing?”

“What do you mean?”

“Sometimes when they’re in the house they talk about your writing. They ask Maria about, ‘John’s latest masterpiece’. After that Maria usually says something funny that makes everyone start laughing.”

“Don’t talk like that. You misunderstood. Maria understands how difficult it is to get published these days. She would never do something like that, especially not to me.”

“What do you mean? Is there something wrong with that?”

“No. No Sierra, nothing’s wrong.”

John resumed his work. He moved in and out of the house at a faster rate, carelessly enough to drop a box containing dishes. 

That was the beginning. With one lone seed of doubt to build upon Sierra grew something more ferocious. In time she began planting evidence: a man’s sock or tie under a cushion here and there, prepping bedroom’s to appear hurried out of whenever John retuned home, throwing away John’s own clothes to make it appear Maria gave them to someone else. They were mostly little things, but on the brink of the big lie they each infuriated John’s anxiety, and most of all, his curiosity.

Sierra knew her scheming to be successful when John began asking Sierra to spy on Maria.  

***

Maria placed her mug down.

“Your fault? What ever are you talking about? It wasn’t your fault. It was the fault of two adults behaving like idiots. We should have talked to one another. I should have talked to him. It was all so confusing. One day we were fine, a nice happy couple. The next he started asking me all these bizarre questions, trying to trap me with word play and always trying to catch me out on something I didn’t understand. Of course I never had much patience. He would become suspicious and I’d just shout my way of the room. I was an idiot. If anything made me look guilty it was my own temper. One sentence. I could have resolved everything in one simple sentence if I wasn’t so damned stubborn.”