For the Best (2 page)

Life changed for the worst before my junior
year. Way before Tanner and I became the “it” couple. My mom
started to become weak again, in bed by seven, losing weight,
strange skin pallor. She started to give up, and with no one but
Tanner privy to my plans, I did everything I could think of to stop
that from happening.

She had taken me for one of our special mom
daughter walks on the beach.

Curious, I asked, “Why didn’t you and Dad
ever have more kids than me?”

She paused, weighing her words. Finally, she
said, “It wasn’t meant to be.”

“Why?” I asked wondering if she had been
sick even back then.

“I don’t know. Once we holed up in the house
for a week because of a hurricane. The whole area was boarded up
and we were told to evacuate but your father and I were young we
decided to wait it out. Seven days with no electricity and not much
to do but talk and play board games. We didn’t make love once.”

I was lagging, contemplating her explanation
when she broached a painful to me subject. “Hanna, are you sexually
active?”

Honesty would have disappointed her, so I
didn’t offer it. “No, we’re waiting.” She wouldn’t have wanted to
know her daughter lost her virginity on the beach tipsy on pilfered
booze at fifteen.

She smiled. “Keep waiting, Hanna. You only
get one first. My first, I thought I loved him but he wasn’t
right.”

“Because he wasn’t Dad?” I asked. No
daughter wanted to think about her mom having sex with anyone but
her dad. I didn’t even want to know about Dad.

She didn’t answer. For some reason, it
popped into my head that it really was Dad. That he wasn’t right.
She sighed. “You don’t know what I mean, do you?” She stroked my
hair as we continued walking.

I remember the wind caused the sand on the
beach to whip and sting our legs as we walked. I remember thinking,
I know what you mean
. I should have said it.

I pulled into my driveway and noticed his
car. He had carpooled with some group to the capitol. He wouldn’t
be home for hours.

With my key in the deadbolt, I watched my
old Akita mix, Gator, barking at me through the side window of the
entry. Inside he sniffed me up and down sizing me up. After a few
scratches behind his head and his rump, Gator determined I passed
inspection. He went over to the backdoor for me to let him out to
pee and then progress on that hole he was digging to China.

Opening the living room closet, I walked to
the back, the storage area under the stairs where the Christmas
decorations I would never use again waited. I grabbed the hidden
backpacks. Dumping their contents on the closet floor, I counted
all the bottles. They were all accounted for, but some were almost
empty. I couldn’t guarantee that Tanner didn’t have a stash of meds
stored in plastic baggies somewhere. Still I gathered what I had
and placed them in a harmless looking department store bag.

I had missed National Take Back Day in
September. On that date, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)
coordinated a collaborative effort with state and local law
enforcement agencies focusing on removing potentially dangerous
controlled substances from the nation's medicine cabinets. I could
have surrendered the unwanted, expired, and unused pharmaceutical
controlled substances and other medications to law enforcement
officers for destruction then. Tanner convinced me not to
relinquish them.

I knew Tanner was taking as well as dealing.
It sickened me and I felt like it was my fault. I should have
protested when he proposed selling Mom’s remaining medications. He
had been so persuasive, telling me it may as well be used to get me
some cash. His point that most of the kids who would buy would get
them from somewhere, why not from him, was accurate. I’d seen my
share of pill popping at parties. Tanner started way before my mom
died. Then the pharms were harder to come by.

The signs were evident when he used. He
would be irritable, evasive, so defensive he’d tell me I was
paranoid or overreacting if I questioned him. I knew the old Tanner
would have never done the things he did to our relationship, our
lives, and me if he had been clean.

Making the decision I should have made
months prior, I called the police department to ask if they were
taking controlled substances on other days throughout the year. The
officer had been kind, telling me of course they would. It was
imperative that they not be flushed down the toilet or the drain,
burned or trashed contaminating the environment by getting in
drinking or ground water. I planned on dropping them off at the
police headquarters.

I listened to my voice mails. Against my
better judgment, I played the one from my dad. The principal had
called. He was on the warpath. I deafened my ear but still caught
mention of military school. Then I laughed. Who sends a daughter
they had written off to military school when she is three months
shy of graduation? The strangest part of the conversation was the
end.

My father asked, “Are you okay?”

After the funeral, after I had the breakdown
at the wake and told my dad I hated him and wished he had been the
one to die, my father asked me the same thing. I hadn’t answered
his question that day either.

I tried to remember the insanity of that
moment. I had been through so much. My dad hadn’t spoken to me for
almost a year before the day of the funeral. He had brought my
stepmom and stepsister to his ex-wife’s funeral. Two women who
looked the same, pale almost white hair, ivory skin, translucent
blue eyes, they reminded me of porcelain dolls. They were strangers
and enemies who battled me for the attention of my father, a person
not worth the war.

My dad’s abrupt leaving without paying child
support, my Mom’s catastrophic medical bills, a mortgage on a house
we didn’t need, utilities, private school tuition, and little
things like food and gas had depleted the paltry amount of money in
my Mom’s savings account about a year ago. Without any parental
consent I used up what was in my college fund to keep us going.
When that disappeared, I just stopped paying the mortgage. The
whole country had been in a recession. I thought I had time. The
bank had sent a foreclosure notice last month.

Dozing on the couch I heard a car door slam
in my driveway. Not wanting to be in a horizontal position, I
rolled myself upright before Tanner came inside.

“I heard you got called in the principal’s
office today. Have you been a bad girl?”

The lame connotation irked me though he had
no idea of what I’d experienced. “I’ve been something. Currently,
I’ve been hungry. You want a sandwich?”

“Sure.”

He followed me into the kitchen and sat at
our island counter. My mom had remodeled our kitchen a few years
ago and put in this beautiful orangey red granite that set off the
black cabinets. After her remission ended, my dad read an article
about some granite exports emitting radon gases. We kept the
countertop. Dad dismissed the chances of any lasting effects by
saying that the emission levels were so low that they didn’t even
register.

Tanner looked at me as I pulled slices of
white bread from the loaf. I wondered if he wanted the oat cluster
kind his mom bought.

I held up mayo slathered on one slice of
bread. “Condiment advisory needed?” I pointed to a jar of banana
peppers, a head of lettuce, mayo, and cheese - the last of my food
supplies.

He laughed. “Give me the works.” I slapped
it on thick and piled a bunch of turkey on top. “So what did he
want?”

“No worries. Tune in and see.”

He took a big bite. My stomach twisted and
cramped diminishing my hunger. I tore off a slice of bread hoping
to calm my belly. A doughy glob stuck to the roof of my overly dry
mouth. I grabbed a paper towel, turned from Tanner and spat the
food into it.

He sighed. “Does your stomach hurt
again?”

I nodded gulping water from the tap.

“What is it now?”

“I’m pretty sure I’m going to hell.”

He laughed. Satan’s lair was what we
referred to as the house of my dad and stepmom. “You want me to
come with?”

“Not this time.”

He studied me tilting his head as if I was
perplexing. Finishing his sandwich in three bites, he opened the
fridge, made no comments about the lack of contents and took the
one drink remaining, swigging down a Diet Coke without asking if he
could have it.

He hand dusted the crumbs into his palm and
shook them into the trash. “Sooo?”

My stomach clenched. “I’ve got a lot of
stuff to do tomorrow. Is it okay if you don’t spend the night?”

“Sure.” He smiled.

Walking him to the door, he opened it. Then
he turned around and hugged me. A deep hug, like he used to give
me...before we changed.

Hanna

My arms pulled in multiple directions, my
feet keeping pace. Three canines trotted alongside me as I filled
my job duties for the day.

Five dogs….number one Poo Poo the Pom he
only had to be let out to pee on days when his owner notified me
via text. Always my first stop because his bladder was the size of
a golf ball. His owner was a flight attendant who had no business
owning a dog with her schedule. She had originally wanted me to
walk him. Poo Poo, aptly named because he left Tootsie Roll size
poop deposits around her house, dawdled on walks preferring to be
carried. Poo Poo’s house was a stop where I let him out to pee on
my other client visits. Number two Bowzer a hundred pound
Rottweiler mix was a beach walk. I liked Bowzer. Nothing messed
with Bowzer. Only I knew that he was a big softie. Number three and
four, Romeo and Juliet, two Brittany spaniels that were crazy
hyper. They accompanied me and their friend Bowzer on said beach
walk. Number five Sox an old Golden Retriever. Sox got special
time, alone full on attention.

Bowzer strutted along deceiving people with
a misplaced stereotype. Romeo and Juliet practically danced down
the sidewalk.

After traversing the boardwalk we stopped to
smell - me the salty, wet air of the ocean, them the stench of the
overflowing trash receptacles and occasional dead fish, cormorants
and sea turtles. I trailed the pack, reflective heat of the sun was
beaming into my scalp, my long dark brown hair saturating the rays,
my skin absorbing the warmth. I half jogged, half loped down the
beach. Different leg heights didn’t allow for a true run.

We reached a hulking piece of driftwood.
Once it had been an impressive tree, now only the trunk remained
thick and leached in a muted shade of gray from the elements. The
dogs sniffed excitedly, stopping only to lavish me with kisses but
when I didn’t join in on their explorations, they grew bored and
scratched the hot surface sand away to lie in the cool damp
beneath.

The walk back was slower, the pink shell
sand a soft struggle for my feet. The dogs all knew that their fun
time was over for the day. Romeo and Juliet had elderly owners who
couldn’t do more than let them out the back door for “potty time”
as they called it. Bowzer belonged to Clay, a young bar manager who
worked twelve hour shifts. I dropped off all of them at their
houses and went to Sox.

Letting myself in my old friend did no more
than wag his tail and lift his head from where the evening sun
glinted inside his domain.

“How was your day?” I stroked his ears and
with mopey old eyes, he replied that his day was uneventful except
for the Amazon package the UPS delivery man left out front. Lifting
Sox’s hind legs, I eased his arthritic hips up and led him to the
back door. Sliding down to sit leaning against the back stucco of
the house I obliterated myself behind a giant Azalea bush.

One quality I loved about Sox was he no
longer cared about marking his territory. He hiked a hind quarter
on the side of the deck, or shakily squatted and deposited behind a
prickly Sago Palm. Then he gently returned to where he sat
dutifully beside me, behind my flower bush. We cuddled and Sox
absorbed my sadness.

Movers were loading my remaining possessions
based on my instructions. They were meeting me at a storage
facility, one on the other side of the city. The monthly rent was
cheaper there and the chances of anyone I knew spotting me
slim.

Gator was staring them down, waiting me out.
If Gator could have talked, he would have explained to these guys
why they were only moving a bed with a mattress, couch and
bric-a-brac out of a near empty house. He would have told them that
I had hocked almost anything of value at a local pawn shop and sold
the rest in an “everything must go” yard sale last year.

One of the moving crew reached down to pat
the dog’s head. Gator didn’t even wag his tail. The AKC website
listed aloofness as a tendency in the breed. I felt lineage did not
make personality, circumstances did. The dog was ecstatic around
me, he just didn’t give a damn about anyone else.

I lifted the urn holding my mother’s
remains, thought about the funeral.

I hadn’t had to make any of the
arrangements. My mom had pre-arranged. She had told Tanner she was
so he would be able to guide me. Catatonically I had gone through
the day. Only Tanner and I saw her deteriorated shell before the
funeral. She hadn’t wanted anyone to see her in that state and had
arranged closed casket with a cremation later. The cremation may
have been to save money. Urns are cheaper than cemetery plots.

Friends and family paid their respects and
offered me their condolences. People from school I had never spoken
to showed up at my mom’s funeral in droves. I hugged bodies I
didn’t even realize were in my classes. I wanted solitude. Instead,
people descended upon me like a swarm of locusts, leaving behind
devastation in the form of lunchmeat, cheese trays, and casseroles
in coolers on my doorstep, and unwanted advice in my head.