Synopsis:

Moving on.

Story:

Karma Part 13
By Amanda D.

I was lying on the couch watching TV when Rita got back from Phil’s office. To say that she looked upset would be a vast understatement. Skipping the pleasantries I asked, “So what did Phil have to say?”

She chewed her lip for a moment before answering. “He said that he was going to have to get a hold of the judge that signed the order to find out why, but it looks like we’re going to have to move out of here by the end of the month.”

“How can he do that?” I asked in a stunned voice.

“I don’t know Amanda! Phil said he needed to get a hold of the judge. Once he finds out I’m sure he’ll tell us!” she yelled hysterically.

Seeing she was close to going over the edge, I tried to calm her down, “Ma, you need to calm down. Everything will be okay. Phil will get this straightened out.” I said hopefully.

“I hope you’re right,.” she replied.

I tried to put her fears to rest for a while. Eventually she told me that she was getting a headache and was going to go lay down for a while.

After she went up to her room I stood, looking out of the living room window, just rolling the situation around in my head. When I saw the mail truck pull up, having nothing better to do, I threw on my coat and trudged down the drive way to the mail box.

I flipped through the delivery and among the usual bills and such, found a letter addressed to me. I opened the envelope and scanned the letter it contained. It was what I had been waiting for, the final clearance for me to get a drivers license.

According to the form, I had gone ten months with no seizures resulting from my head injury, so I was now considered at normal risk level. Despite the other issues I smile at the thought of not having to be carted around by others all the time. Freedom! Ah, I could almost taste it.

I practically ran back into the house and called Kim. Much to my consternation however, she was working. That kinda bummed me out. I wanted to tell Rita, but she wouldn’t be all that into the news, so I left Kim a message and went back to watching TV.
Later that afternoon Rita reappeared. Being that we were both hungry, we headed into the kitchen to make dinner. I don’t know what we were thinking but about 2/3 of the way through out preparation we realized that we had a lot more food than the two of could eat in a week. Rita stepped over to the phone and after a brief conversation, informed me that Anita, Jack and Charlie would be over shortly to join us.

’Wonderful.’ I thought to myself. I hadn’t really spoken to Jack since my date with Mike. I had heard from Rita that he was still upset about it and I really didn’t want to deal with him if he was. I kinda grumbled under my breath and unfortunately Rita caught some of it.

“What did you say?” she asked indignantly.

Not realizing I was in trouble yet, I replied “What? I didn’t say anything.”

“Amanda! I heard you muttering under your breath. Now tell me what you were saying!” she demanded.

“It was nothing. I was just hoping Jack wasn’t still mad about the Mike incident, that’s all,” I replied meekly.

She shot me a dubious look but said no more.

So for the next half hour we cooked the meal in relative silence. Eventually I got tired of the silent treatment and said “Ma. I really was just concerned about Jack. Why are you mad at me?”

“I’m sorry Amanda. I’m not mad at you. I’m just aggravated at everything tonight,.” Rita replied.

‘Lovely. This ought to be a fun evening then.’ Before I could follow that line of thought any further Anita and family came into the house. “Gamma! Auntie Manda!” we heard a young boy squeal.

“Hmm, wonder who that could be.” I mumbled sarcastically as Charlie burst into the room.

Before I could blink, he went from standing in the doorway to hanging around Rita’s neck. Rita laughed heartily as Charlie mugged her.

As quickly as the attack began, it was over. I stood there warily, knowing it was my turn next. I slowly turned, looking for the rug rat, but he pounced me from behind, knocking me to the floor. Before I could defend myself I was done in by hugs and kisses.

The tide turned quickly however as I began to tickle him. Within seconds he had turned into a wiggly worm, unable to defend himself. Victory was within my grasp when the referee, (Anita,) stepped in and announced the battle a draw.

“All right you, enough mugging Grandma and Auntie Mandy.” she told Charlie as she pulled him off of me.

I stood up smiling, “It’s alright. We were just having some fun.”

I stuck my tongue out at him and he rasberried me back.

“Amanda!” Anita said with minor irritation in her voice, “Don’t teach him those things.”

“Teach? Looks like he’s already learned how, to me,” I retorted.

This time Anita stuck her tongue out at me. “See. What did I tell you?” I said in mock anger.

“Alright you two,” Rita interrupted. “Knock it off“She walked over to Jack and gave him a quick hug. “I don’t know how you manage to live with her,” she joked.

He smiled and replied, “Sometimes I don’t know myself.” At which point Anita gave him a playful smack in the back of the head. “HEY!” he exclaimed as we all laughed.

With Anita’s help we finished preparing the meal quickly. Jack and Charlie set the table, and in short order we were all stuffing our faces.

After we finished eating Rita told Jack and Anita about the eviction notice. They were both stunned and upset and asked pretty much the same type of questions that Rita and I had asked earlier.

“Well Ma, if it comes down to it, you know that the two of you can always stay with us,” Anita announced.

Jack looked at her and raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Oh we couldn’t do that to you,” Rita said.

“Don’t be silly. We have plenty of room. It would be no problem at all,” Anita replied.

Jack grumbled something under his breath and excused himself from the table. As he headed into the living room Anita excused herself too and followed him. Rita and I, with Charlie’s help, started to clear the table.

I was alone in the dining room when I heard Jack saying that while Rita was welcome to stay, he didn’t want me there on any basis. “Ever since the incident with Mike I just don’t want to be around her,” I overheard him say.

“But Jack. She’s my sister. I can’t just leave her homeless!” Anita argued.

“I know, but, ...” he started as I barged in.

“You don’t have to worry about it. I don’t want to stay there anyhow. If by some chance we have to leave here, I already talked to Kim about sharing an apartment.” I proclaimed indignantly. I hadn’t really and actually the though of living with her made me feel a bit ill (Kim was a slob!) but I would be damned if I was going to tell them that.

“So you don’t have to worry about it,” I said over my shoulder as I went back into the dining room.

I stopped in the entrance to get one last lick in. “By the way Jack, I told you all that I didn’t want to go out with him. Yet you all insisted, and look what happened. Maybe next time I tell you that I’m not interested, you’ll listen!” I growled as I left the room.

I was so mad when I started piling the dishes up to bring them into the kitchen, that I almost broke a couple. Anita came in and said “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”

Glaring at the living room door way I said “Don’t worry about it. I’ll just consider the source,” I told her angrily.

She gave me a kinda funny look and fumed, “That source …is my husband you know!”

I rolled my eyes. “Look! I really don’t want to get into this with you. So can we please drop it?” I pleaded.

Unfortunately, for me anyhow, she wasn’t ready to let it go. “He was just trying to be nice, ya know. Setting you up with Mike. He was trying to do you a favor. And you get all stinking drunk and embarrass him, not to mention me, and you wonder why he has an issue with you now?” she ranted at me.

Taking a deep breath I replied as calmly as I could manage “I never said I wondered why he had an issue and it was certainly not my intention to embarrass the two of you. The reason I drank so much that night was because I was nervous. Actually I was scared to death. I wasn’t interested in going out with a guy, and yet I gave it a shot. I’m really sorry it ever happened, but there’s nothing I can do to change it now … so is there any chance that you might forgive me at some point?”

I could feel myself starting to get all emotional, so before she could reply; I picked my stack of dishes and went into the kitchen.

If I wasn’t so irritated, I would have fallen on the floor laughing at the site that presented itself before me. Rita had Charlie helping her wash the dishes. He was standing on a chair next to the sink and he and Rita were throwing soap suds at each other, giggling away like a couple of maniacs. There were more suds on the floor than there were in the sink, and water was everywhere. The best part, was when they noticed me standing there watching them, They both straightened out and tried to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary was going on.

I stepped over to the counter adjacent to the sink and put the stack of dishes down. Moving between the two of them, I gave them each a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for that. I needed something to make me smile. I’m going to go upstairs and lie down for a bit. I’ve got something of a headache,” I said as I headed towards the back stairway to avoid further contact with Anita or Jack.

Sometime later I was lying in my bed watching TV and starting to get depressed about Pat again, when the phone rang. I looked at it for a minute before reluctantly deciding to answer it.

“Hello?” I said picking up the receiver.

“Mandy? It’s Kim,” I heard from the other end.

“Oh … Hey bud! What’s happening?” I asked immediately brightened by the sound of her voice.

(We hadn’t really talked much in the weeks since Pat died.)

She told me about her day and her ongoing issues with her father. Then she mentioned that she had got my message and was calling to see what was up. I told her about the letter from the doctor, and asked if she would give me a ride to the DMV one day this week. She told me that it was great news and that she would check her schedule at work and let me know when she could give me a lift. We made a bit of small talk for a few more minutes and then hung up.

To be honest, while it was great to hear from her, the way we’d had to strain to keep the conversation going bummed me out. Things between us were strained for some reason, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. I guess I just felt guilty every time I spoke to her now. She had never accused me of anything, but it was there none the less.

Early the next morning, (For a lawyer anyhow.), Phil came by the house. I answered the door and led him into the kitchen where Rita was sitting. He took a seat at the table, where he let out a long sigh.

He looked Rita directly in the face and said “Well I’m afraid the news isn’t good. The judge in your divorce case is in the hospital recovering from a heart attack. So the court appointed another judge, Cameron is his name, to oversee the case in his absence.”

“Okay,” I said.

“So it appears that Paul’s new lawyer got a hold of Judge Cameron and somehow convinced him to sign the eviction, apparently, from what one of his staff members told me, even before Cameron had reviewed the case. When I called him to point out that Paul had attacked you here, and that this was pure harassment on Paul’s part, he refused to rescind the order. Instead, he set up a hearing date on the 13th of next month to review the order, but as you know, that will be about two weeks too late.”

“So what are our options?” I asked him.

He let out another deep sigh. “Well, there aren’t a lot of options. Pretty much you can either leave by the date on the order or you can stay and make a sheriff come here and remove you. If you vacate willingly, and the judge winds up ruling in your favor, you’ll have to start eviction proceedings against Paul from the beginning. If you stay here in defiance of the judge’s order, he may look less than favorably on our petition to have the original order rescinded. So you see, it’s kind of a damned if you do, or damned if you don’t situation.”

Talk about depressing news! Jeesh!

Rita looked like she was about to have a nervous breakdown. Even Phil looked bummed out. We all sat there and endured an uncomfortable silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts.

Rita cleared her throat and said “Well thank you for trying, Phil. I’ll have to give what you’ve told us some thought. I’ll let you know how I want to proceed in a couple of days.”

“Okay,” he replied. “Just don’t take to long.” He stood up, gathered his stuff and headed towards the door.

Rita saw him out and came back into the room crying a bit.

“It’ll be alright mom.” I said getting up.

“No, Amanda. I don’t think it will be,” she blubbered.

I tried to hug her but she pulled away. “I’m sorry… I just don’t want to be touched right now,” she said miserably.

“Oh …Okay. I understand.” I replied. “I’m gonna go watch some TV in the living room. If you need anything just give a holler.”

I walked into the living room and plunked myself down on the couch, turned on the TV and mindlessly flipped from channel to channel. I wasn’t really paying any attention to what was on, and before I knew it, I was back at the beginning of the line up. I shut it off, got up and paced the room for awhile. I was so agitated, all of a sudden, I couldn’t sit.

After a short while I got tired of wearing out the carpet, so I decided to take a walk around the block. I grabbed my coat, called to Rita to let her know I was leaving, and headed out.

An hour and a half later, and several trips around the block, I arrived back home. I wasn’t any closer to figuring out how to get us out of the situation we were in, but I was ready to sit down finally.

I called out to Rita as I walked in the door and received no reply. After a quick inspection of the house, I found her sleeping in her bed. Quietly closing the door I went to my room to hang my coat up.

I happened to glance over at the phone and noticed the message light was flashing. I dialed the voice mail number and listened to Kim’s message. She said that she would be available to give me a lift to the Registry tomorrow afternoon, and wanted me to call her back to confirm that the time was good for me as well.

I called her back and told her that tomorrow afternoon was fine with me. I asked her if she wanted to hang out and go to a movie or something. She declined, saying that she was tired and had to get up early to go to work tomorrow morning. We hung up and I headed back down to the living room, where I turned the TV back on and flipped channels until I fell asleep.

It was still dark when I woke myself up by falling off the couch. My heart was beating a mile a minute and my eyes were wide with fear. I whipped my head from side to side; sure that someone was in the room with me. As the seconds ticked by I became more and more convinced that I must have been dreaming.

I pulled myself up and sat down on the couch, where I let out a long, relieved sigh. I took one last look around the room and laughed nervously at myself. While I was now about ninety percent convinced that it had been a dream, there was still a part of me that wasn’t sure. So I found myself looking around the room again as I headed towards the stairs and up to my bed.

At 2:30 the next afternoon, Kim came to get me. After exchanging brief pleasantries with Rita, we headed off to the DMV in Quincy. Several times during the ride over I tried to start conversations with her. Each attempt was a failure. We just couldn’t sustain any subject for long.

Eventually we arrived at the registry. Kim decided to go into one of the clothing stores in the plaza across the street while I was inside.

After finding out where I needed to go and getting my numbered ticket, I headed over to the waiting area, took a seat, and broke out the book I had brought with me and started to read.

It seemed like an eternity before my number was finally called.

When I got to the window I explained to the girl what I was there for and showed her my letter from Dr. Roy. She read it over. Then she excused herself and walked over to another woman and showed her my note. After the second woman read it over the both of then came back to where I was waiting.

“Miss…um David?” she began still looking at the letter in her hand. “My name is Mrs. Grant. I’m the licensing supervisor. I was looking over your doctor’s note and I need to ask you a few questions before we can proceed.”

“Okay. What do you need to know?” I asked.

“Why don’t we go into my office?” she replied, motioning towards a door next to the main desk.

I followed her through the door and she closed it behind her. She offered me a chair and then moved into the one behind her desk. Mrs. Grant put on a pair of glasses and seemed to study the note again for a moment before she spoke. She reached into her desk and pulled out a form.

“Okay. Let’s see. First off, what was the cause of your injury, specifically?” she asked.

“I was hit in the head with a baseball bat and then I fell three stories, landing on a paved street,” I replied.

She gave me a stunned look over the top of her glasses and then scribbled something on the form. “What was the damage caused?” she asked.

“I had bleeding inside my skull and needed to have a hole drilled to drain it,” I answered, starting to get impatient. I wondered what she needed all this information for.

The questioning continued when she next asked “What, if any, were the effects of this injury?”

I let out an audible sigh. “I had some memory loss, but that was about it,” I replied.

Again she wrote something on the form in front of her. When she was finished, she looked up at me and said “any other side effects? Seizures? Headaches? Anything?”

“Nope,” I replied.

She looked at me skeptically and asked, “Are you sure?”

“Yes!” I replied emphatically. “The note in front of you clearly states that I haven’t had any ill effects from the injury. I saw you read it. So why are you grilling me on this?”

She continued to fill the form out and gave me no reply. I sat there trying to be patient.

Finally she finished the form and turned to look at the computer on her desk.
While she waited for something to come up on the screen she explained that she needed to check the DMV records to make sure there was no other reason to deny my application.

The screen she was waiting for came up and she turned to study it. “Hmm.”

“What?” I asked.

She looked away from the screen, “There seems to be a small problem here. According to our records you have two outstanding parking tickets owed to the town of Dedham.”

“Okay?” I said. “So what does that mean?”

“It means that we can’t reinstate you license until the tickets are paid,” she replied.

“Oh.” I said greatly discouraged. “Can I pay the fine now?”

“Unfortunately, no. You need to go to the town hall in Dedham to pay them,” she replied.

“Shit!” I thought to myself. “Okay, well I guess there’s nothing else we can do.”

“If it makes you feel any better, once that’s taken care of you’ll be all set with getting reinstated.” she said as we got up and headed out of her office.

I was somewhat depressed as I entered the clothing store that Kim said she would be in. It took me a few minutes of searching to find her. As would be expected, she had her arms full of clothes to try on.

“How did it go?” she asked.

I sighed and said “I have to pay some old parking tickets before they’ll give me my license back.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,.” she said distractedly as she picked through a clothing rack. “Look at all the cool things I found.”

She showed me the clothes in her arms. I looked through what she had. There were several cute outfits in the mix. I complimented her on the ones I liked and tried to advise her against the ones I didn’t think would look good on her.

For the next hour or so we shopped. Once we were done, we threw our purchases in the car and started to head towards home. I asked her if she wanted to stop and grab a bite to eat. She said that she didn’t want to.

With that response I decided it was time to find out what the problem was. “Kim, what’s going on here? Have I done something to you?” I asked.

“No.” she replied.

“Then how come every time I try to do anything with you, or even try to hold a conversation with you, you blow me off? You’re pretty much the only friend I have left, so if there’s a problem I need you to tell me what it is.” I said emphatically.

She gave me no answer.

“Come on talk to me. Damn it! What’s wrong?” I demanded.

She pulled the car over and looked my straight in the face.

“You! You’re what’s wrong!” she screamed. “The night Pat died, where were the two of you going?”

“We were going to the court house.” I lied.

“BULLSHIT!” she hollered. “Pat left me a message that afternoon saying the two of you were leaving town and that she would call me when you two got settled. So I’ll ask again. Where were you two going?”

I sat there silent for a moment trying to figure out whether to tell her the truth or not.

Before I could say anything, she said sarcastically “Oh, now look who has nothing to say!”

I gave her a helpless look and quietly replied “I wanted to get out of town before I got arrested. Pat came to give me a ride, but she didn’t know that I was supposed to go to the court house. When she found out what I was trying to do, she told me that she was going to take me there, instead of leaving town. We argued about it and then she tried to pull over to turn around …”

Kim was crying and screamed “What? What did you do?”

I was crying myself and trying to work the courage up to finish telling her the truth.

“Finish! Tell me everything!” Kim demanded.

I swallowed hard and whispered “She tried to turn around and I … I panicked…and I grabbed at the steering wheel and when we looked up there was a huge truck bearing down on us … ” I was crying so hard I couldn’t go on.

Kim grabbed my shoulder and pushed me into the door. “Get out!” she growled.

“Kim I …”

“Get OUT!!” she screamed this time. “Get the fuck out of my car!”

“I…” I tried to say but she interrupted me again.

“You killed Pat! And didn’t even have the guts to own up to it! Get the fuck out and don’t ever call me again! OUT! NOW!” she screamed again.

I fumbled with the door handle for a second before I managed to get it open. I pulled my bags out with me as I stepped out. I barely had both of my feet on the ground when she sped off, leaving me stranded there. I collapsed onto the ground, crying as I watched the car disappear in the distance.

I wanted to lay there and die, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen, so after a bit I picked my head up and looked around for a pay phone. I saw one across the street, picked my stuff up and shuffled over to it. I called a cab and sat down on a bus stop bench to wait for it.

It was dark by the time I arrived back at the house. I paid the driver and dragged myself into the house. I was quite happy to see that Rita wasn’t home. I put my bags down on the kitchen counter and looked over at the note lying on the table. It was from Rita and said that she had gone to Anita’s house for dinner.

I crumpled up the note and tossed it into the trash basket, grabbed my bags and schlepped up to my room. I tossed the bags into a corner and flopped down onto my bed. I laid there crying for quietly for a time and eventually fell asleep.

For the next few days I was a nervous wreck. I was depressed at losing Kim’s friendship, but at the same time, I was glad to have finally told someone the truth about what had happened. Then again I was scared shitless that Kim was going to tell someone and I was going to get into trouble. To top it all off, time for me to find a place to live was running out. Like I said, I was a mess. (Not that I deserve any sympathy or anything.)

I was sitting at the table looking through the apartment listings, when Rita came in and asked what I was doing.

“Looking for a place to live,.” I told her.

“Why would you be doing that? Anita has plenty of room for both of us at her house.”

“Ma, Jack doesn’t want me there,” I said plainly.

“What do you mean, he doesn’t want you there? Who told you that?” she asked.

“He did. When they were over for dinner that night,” I replied.

“Nonsense.” She stated.

“It’s true.”

“I’m going to call Anita and find out what’s going on,” she said as she grabbed the phone.

“Ma, don’t. Okay? He doesn’t want me there and I’m not going to have you call them and try to force them to accept me. If you do that, and they agree to let me stay, it will be miserable for everyone. So just let it lie, okay?”

The look on her face told me that she wasn’t going to, so I said, “Please? Don’t get involved. It won’t help anybody if you do.”

With a look of resignation on her face, she agreed.

“If you really want to help me, you can lend me the money to put down on an apartment.” I said to her.

“Of course I will,” she said. “Whatever you need. I’ll even pay the rent for you until we get this place back, if you need me to.”

“Thanks Ma. Hopefully I won’t need that much, but it’s nice to know I’m covered if I do.” I gave her a kiss on the cheek.

A week later I found a cute little one bedroom apartment in Roslindale. Rita, true to her word, gave me enough money to not only cover the required deposit, but also to pay three months rent. I felt guilty taking the cash, but I needed it, so what could I do? I moved in immediately.

The place was small but I was back living in the city. There was nothing like it, in my mind. There was a bus stop around the corner and the library was across the street. I could walk to the grocery store. There were also a couple of nice little restaurants nearby.

Also that week, I managed to get Anita to give me a ride to Dedham to pay the overdue tickets. With that accomplished, I went back to the registry and got my license reinstated. I paid the required fee and was told that it would take about a week before the reinstatement would be official. I went in and got my picture taken and was told my license would be mailed to me. Now, all I needed was a car. A job probably wouldn’t hurt either.

The last day of the month was a bitter day. This had more to do with our mood than it did with the temperature, even though it was cold and snowy. Phil had been unable to make any kind of headway with Judge Cameron, so Rita had to leave. Anita, Jack and I helped get her moved into Anita’s place. The things that she didn’t have room, for were moved into storage.

A couple of times during the move, as we were traveling from one place to the other, I thought I saw Paul’s car. I wasn’t positive, so I kept it to myself. Just the thought of him watching us move Rita out of her house made my blood boil. He never actually showed his face though.

The day ended as most moving days do, with us chowing down some pizza and drinking a couple of beers.

After supper Anita gave me a ride back to my apartment. Being that she hadn’t seen it yet, I gave her the nickel tour. After she left I grabbed a quick shower and climbed into bed. I went out as soon as my head hit the pillow and slept contentedly.

Notes:

Readers, Please Remember to Leave a Comment