The door jingles as it opens, and the mail carrier enters carrying a package, which she leaves on the counter along with a thick stack of bills. “Here you go, sweetheart.”
“Wait,” I call out as she turns. “I didn’t order anything.”
“It’s addressed to here.” The carrier shrugs and continues out the door.
“Huh.” I read the package’s label and frown. It’s addressed to here, alright, but the label states it’s for JM Enterprises, LLC. Must be a mistake. I’m the first and only tenant since the deed passed from the original owners to the city council. I turn my attention to the envelopes, anxiety stitching like a needle through my heart, drawing it up, tight. After tallying what we owe and comparing it to the balance in my checking, savings, and emergency fund, the feeling only gets worse. Getting fired a month early and paying for expensive COBRA coverage while I wait for my marketplace health insurance to come through dealt a major blow to my cashflow timeline. If something doesn’t change and fast, I’m not sure how we’ll make it through August.
With no customers to wait on, I pull up an espresso machine tutorial online and watch for the fifth time, hoping for a miracle.
JULIAN
“It’s coercion!” I spew into Eric’s voicemail. “He’s forcing me to drop the complaint! He knows if I’m dismissed from the clinic, Philly Gen will take it as proof that I haven’t learned anything, and I’ll lose everything—my entire career!”
I turn sharply into the Wawa parking lot. “Advise me, Eric, or I’m joining Doctors Without Borders and disappearing forever.” I hang up with a percussive sigh, shut off my car, and review Mom’s text again.
Julian. I’m finally ready to discuss your disappointing behavior at Nomi’s Pot Luck. Come to Aunt Edna’s tonight with dinner for everyone, no excuses! You haven’t seen her since you’ve been home, and she’s VERY pissed about it! We want Wawa. Get my usual and loaded fries with extra ham chunks and a cheeseburger with barbecue sauce for Aunt Edna. Don’t forget the ham chunks!!
Ugh.I’d intended to go for a rage run in the next town over, but Mom hasn’t spoken to me directly in weeks, and living with a passive-aggressive South Jersey Italian woman who’s mad at you is one of Dante’s nine circles of hell.
I knead the stress knots in my forehead. The last thing I want is to spend the evening with Mom, a very pissed Aunt Edna, and her perpetually farting dog, BonBon Jovi, while they eat a metric ton of garbage.
But I don’t get the things I want, do I?
Five minutes later, I’m punching in our hot food order one-handed on Wawa’s touch screen. I have to laud Wawa’s commitment to reducing human interaction, allowing me to order my family’s trash food with as much dignity as possible.
When the ticket goes through, the Wawa worker, a thick, hairy thumb of a man, glances up from my order with narrowed eyes.
“You’re Julian D’Angelo? That asshole who filed the zoning complaint?”
Shit.
I hold up a finger, briefly consider lying, but my name’s clearly on my credit card. “Yes, but this entire food order is for my very sick Great Aunt Edna D’Angelo.Pleasedon’t corrupt her food because you love weed.”
The Wawa man aggressively dishes out ham chunks onto Aunt Edna’s fries, his eyes glued to me the whole time.
I squeeze my own shut. I wassupposedto lie low. Keep my head down. Serve out my probation and learn some people skills. So why did I think the best way to do that was by starting a public showdown with Nomi over her dispensary?
Because you have ethics, my brain insists, then helpfully flashes through a slideshow of my most unethical hits—the semi-erection during Nomi’s sutures, laughing aloud when that lifelong smoker asked why he’d developed a cough, the ill-fated night I called Lillian Corrington Van Dyke to her husband’s bedside and put my career on a collision course with a brick wall. Ethics… not the most compelling argument, no.
Because you care about Sparrow Nook’s well-being!
Do I? I guess that’s true, in the same way I wish for world peace, or for Costco to carry my preferred vegan protein shakes. Vaguely, and without a lot of effort.
Because you’re hurt.
I immediately push that theory out of my head. So what if I hurt? I’vealwayshurt, and it doesn’t change a thing.
When I arrive at Aunt Edna’s with her gas station cuisine, the first thing I hear is wild, witchy cackling and Billy Joel blaring over the stereo. “Mom? Aunt Edna?”
“Is that my son, ready to apologize?”
I trudge into the living room, and the sight takes me aback. The 1980s wood paneling is still here, along with the tan paisley velvet couch and coordinating orange armchairs, but a hospital bed’s been shoved in the middle of the room. Aunt Edna’s propped up to sitting, looking like the wrinkly, doll-sized version of herself. Her dyed brown hair has finally been allowed to fade to a soft yellow-white, and she looks, for the first time in my life, trulyold.
Aunt Edna’s always been a force of nature. Irish by heritage, she married into the D’Angelo clan in the 1970s and was louder and brasher than any of my Italian aunts by a long shot. Theylovedher, as did all of Sparrow Nook. She was involved in everything. Secretary of the PTO, president of the South Jersey Rotary Club, she even drove my Uncle Joseph, a Shriner, in one of those little cars in the parades. Every holiday was hosted here since her house was the biggest. The Ohs and I would be relegated to a wobbly card table in the corner, poking the bizarre casseroles Aunt Edna made while our girl cousins sat around a white, curly iron patio table set with fake roses and pink butt cushions.
More than anything, though, Aunt Edna’s always been a stone-cold weirdo, and while she embarrassed the hell out of me growing up, I’ve always loved her, too. Grudgingly, yes, but she feels like home in a way no one else does. She’s in her eighties now, and after a few rough years, she recently decided to forgo treatment for the leukemia storming her system. I can respect that decision, but I can’t quite look it in the face, either. I know her end is near, but part of me has been desperate to preserve the monolith ofAunt Ednathat’s always been such a strong, supportive constant in my life. Seeing her so frail now punches me in the chest, just like I knew it would.
“Get in here, Julie!” Aunt Edna rasps out, then makes grabby hands at me. I walk over, doing my best not to broadcast my emotions, and leanin, closing my eyes for a peck on the cheek. So, when the Wawa bag is ripped from my hand instead, followed by the sound of Aunt Edna’s satisfied grunts as she removes box after greasy box and places them on her TV tray, I’m surprised and slightly miffed.
