Chapter 44

Jessica entered Casa Edwards at 7:45pm on Friday night. The project she’d been assisting on at the lab had been completed. The professors in charge of the project had taken all the lab assistants, interns, and everyone else who’d poured hours of work into the project this week out to a local college bar where they served great pizza and pretty good beer.

Jessica was the only one not old enough to join the others in alcohol, but enjoyed the free pizza. She was trying to save every bit of money this summer so she’d have a bit more of a cushion once school started. Though they texted each other every day and spoke on the phone at least three times a week, Jessica didn’t talk to her sister about her steady diet of Ramen noodles and PB and J sandwiches.

They’d talked about how Jessica was spending money before and Alyssa couldn’t understand. Their father wasn’t just a vice president of an oil company and earning high six-figures every year, he also came from money--old European money. They each had a trust fund. Each of the Johansson children had trust funds with seven zeros in them. They could each buy ten houses and still have money left over.

“I don’t want to use my trust fund,” Jessica said.

“Ok, then why don’t you take Daddy’s offer? He said he’d give you money for a nicer apartment, sis,” Alyssa said, bewildered by her sister’s behavior.

“I want to do it on my own, Lyss.”

Round and round they went. Alyssa liked nice things. Jessica was indifferent. If it was functional, why would you pay extra for ‘nicer’. Jessica’s practicality was something she got from her mother. Janice and Elizabeth, his aunt and mother respectively, had grown up in relative poverty. Relative to other US Citizens, not the rest of the world. And because of that, it was hard for either of them sometimes to buy impractical niceties when the cheap practical variety would do.

Jessica looked forward to her two meals a week at the Edwards household with her uncle, aunt, and cousin not only because it meant a healthy balanced meal and family for company, but she also brought along her laundry, started it in their washer with their laundry soap on Tuesday, and her Aunt Elizabeth would put finish it and it would be folded in her basket for her to take home with her on Thursday. But this week had been so hectic with extra overtime hours, she wasn’t able to stick to her schedule.

So when she showed up on Friday evening at 7:45pm, she wanted only two things: to do her laundry and to lay on their couch and watch something stupid on Netflix. She wasn’t even counting on seeing her cousin. In fact, Jessica had seen how much improved Jack had been and even marveled at how much he’d grown with his current growth spurt. She actually hoped she’d find him gone from the house--maybe taking that girl across the street on a proper date.

What she found was definitely not on the agenda for the evening. It wasn’t even on the list of possibilities.

When Jessica used her key and walked into the Edwards house, she turned for the laundry room first, starting a load of laundry immediately. She heard the music playing and assumed Jack was sitting out on the patio--maybe even sneaking a bit of Uncle Jackson’s expensive hooch, which Jessica knew Jack wasn’t supposed to drink without him.