“Well, let’s start there then.”
The amount of time Reese had spent looking for the best prices on bulk garbage bags had been appalling to her. She was pretty sure it was some sort of mental stalling before attacking the hoard. At this point, she had already gone through around fifty bags. Shehad tossed out anything she could lift. Hardly anything was going to be kept. Between the years of neglect and memories attached to the items, they were no use to her.
The lightness from their doughnut and coffee moment had been replaced with burden and dread as they stood in front of the kitchen threshold. It was the dirtiest part of the house. And she was pretty sure there would be more vodka bottles.
She turned to Matty. “I’m almost positive we’ll run into more alcohol bottles. I can go ahead and try to fish out as many as possible.”
“How about you get the bottles, and I’ll do the rest of the trash? Is there anything we’re not throwing away or are keeping a lookout for?”
“I honestly don’t know. I assume most of this will be garbage and kitchen stuff. I guess just use your best judgment or ask me. There’s honestly not much I want to keep. I plan to transform this place into something completely different. I don’t want to remember it the way it was. I don’t want to remember—” she sighed. “I don’t want to remember her.”
“Well, then let’s get this thing started so you can start actually living in this house.”
They put on gloves and grabbed trash bags. Like most of the house, there were things all over that looked like something from a thrift store or yard sale. A lot still had prices on them, but unlike the living room, there was a lot more trash. Empty two-liter Coke bottles were everywhere, as were the vodka bottles, which had stopped bothering Reese at that point, but it was boxes and wrappers of Little Debbie’s Fudge Rounds and empty bags of Munchos chips that seemed to be hitting her first.
“She really liked Little Debbies, didn’t she?” asked Matty as she stuffed a box into a trash bag.
“She liked to eat the same things. Food was a sensitive topic as I got older. We were on food stamps. Joyce stopped working when I was around ten or eleven, I think. That was when her fourth marriage tanked. My grandfather didn’t live much longer after that, and then it was just us. She started drinking, not a lot at first, but then it picked up and never stopped. We’d argue so much about food.” Reese was a little startled at the tightening in her chest. Did her voice just waver?
“Yeah?” Matty asked with a light tone. Not a hint of judgment.
“Yeah. She would sell the food stamps to get cash. Fifty cents on the dollar. We got about $300 a month. We’d have just awful fights because she eventually left the grocery shopping up to me. She’d drop me off with a list and the card, and I’d have to shop for us.”
“How old were you when that happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Reese paused. Did she mind? She didn’t. Which was surprising. She rarely talked about what happened within the bungalow to anyone other than her therapist and Haley. “I don’t mind. I guess I started shopping on my own around thirteen. Everything she wanted was so expensive, and after she sold at least half of it, we’d have too little left. She would get so mad at me for buying things like canned goods. A can of white beans was so cheap, and I didn’t mind eating a bowl of them for dinner. She wouldn’t touch them until the end of the month when we were running low.”
“That sounds so frustrating.”
“Right? Even at a young age, I understood that if I only had $20, I needed to buy items that lasted longer than a $4 carton of Little Debbies. I could get three cans of beans and two boxes of cheap mac and cheese for that. But she would argue. She would demand that I buy what she wanted. And I would just get so mad at her because if she didn’t sell half of them, then we’d have enough to make it the month,” she spat, tossing a pizza box into a bag.
“So, she wanted what she wanted no matter what it cost you?” Matty asked, the corners of her lips tugging downward.
“Yeah, pretty much. Everything revolved around her. You know, when I graduated from college, she took my diploma from me? Said she already had a spot on the wall. When I told her it was mine, she said that she worked just as hard, if not more, for it because she raised me. My uncle had to pry it out of her hands. She was so pissed,” Reese said with a laugh.
“Reese, that’s awful.”
She shrugged, carefully placing another vodka bottle in a bag. This one was glass. She much preferred the plastic ones since she didn’t have to be as careful with them. “You get used to it. Or rather, you learn to shoulder it. Eventually, your life becomes constant survival. Always on alert. I never knew which mood she would be in. She had bipolar disorder and was unmedicated for most of my life. It wasn’t so bad when my grandpa was alive. He was a good buffer, but after he was gone, between the mental illness, narcissism, alcohol, and failed relationships, I just, I never knew who I was going to deal with whenever I left my room or came home from school.”
Matty reached her hand out, tentatively touching Reese’s shoulder. “Just because you survived it doesn’t mean you should have had to go through it.”
That hit her hard. She pushed back tears as a lump lodged in her throat. This can’t happen. Breaking down was not on the list of things to do today. Today was aboutreclaiming more of the house and spending time with a hot handywoman while doing it. Not letting memories of the past ruin it. Even dead Joyce was getting in the way.
“I know. I really do. It’s just easier to avoid sometimes.”
The hand dropped, leaving the place cold. “It’s none of my business, and you can totally tell me as much, but have you been to therapy for this? I mean, it got so bad that you literally left town.”
Her concern warmed Reese. She smiled. “I have had a lot of therapy. I actually stopped for a while, but picked it back up when I decided to move back. It’s been helpful but slow. I did as much healing as I could in Kentucky, and now this should be the final ride. A little more pain, a little more tears, and eventually, I’ll have a new start with a clearer head.”
“I love that. That’s a great way of viewing it. It seems we’re both starting over.”
Reese beamed at Matty. “We are.”
The hours flew by without hitting another heavy dose of traumatic memories. During that time, they talked off and on about much lighter topics. They discovered they both loved Italian food. Summer was their favorite season, and neither had pets growing up. They also discovered some differences. Matty loved milkshakes, while Reese preferred hot beverages like hot chocolate. Neither liked pistachio ice cream, but Matty liked mint chocolate chip, while Reese maintained it tasted like sweet toothpaste. Reese vowed butter pecan was the best, leaving Matty to call it "old lady ice cream." They further delved into whether "pecan" was pronounced "pea-can" or "pah-con."
It was so refreshing to have someone to banter with. Matty’s laid-back snark kept Reese on her toes and a smile almost always on her face.
“Reese?”
