Chapter 23: Estate

I checked in at a Motel 6 on the edge of town. The desk clerk frowned as he looked at my credit card and then at me, but then he shook his head and handed me the key. He pointed out what room I was in and I left him to puzzle out what he was thinking. I didn’t recognize him, so I didn’t think he could have anything more than recognition of the last name, if that.

I went to my meeting at Scoval’s office Monday morning and he went over the inheritance. There was a little money in checking and savings that had been used to maintain payments on the house and my mother’s life insurance policy with me as beneficiary. My parents hadn’t been smart enough to have mortgage insurance. When Dad died, Mother had to keep up the payments, mostly out of his life insurance. Property taxes were escrowed, so the money in my mother’s accounts was sufficient to pay for the mortgage until the house sold and settled. I didn’t think it would take long. I wasn’t going to try to make a killing on the property. What I intended to do this week was get it ready to sell. That would mean taking loads of crap to Goodwill. I’d left it all behind, so there was nothing there I planned to take with me.

Great plans.

Scoval gave me the keys and I went to plan my strategy for getting it cleaned up. I had phone numbers for handymen, movers, and three different organizations that picked up donations. I didn’t even care about the tax credit.

Entering the house was like walking into some kind of historical museum. I remembered things all too well, but I felt like I was looking at the artifacts of someone else’s life. Photos on the end table. A sofa I remembered lying on watching soaps. I forgot that I’d done that when Willa started school. A stuffed animal on my bed that I didn’t recognize with a note that just said ‘Someday.’ Clothes in my closet that I’d left behind. A book. It looked familiar, but I couldn’t identify why until I reviewed memories of my former life. I’d pressed my prom corsage between its pages before I knew I was pregnant. This time, I’d just dumped the stupid flower in the garbage.

There was a picture next to Mother’s bed of her pushing me in a swing at the neighborhood park. I didn’t remember that. It looked like we were having fun. If I had it to do over again, maybe I’d wait until Dad died and then try to make contact with the woman she’d become.

I snorted at my stupidity. I was doing it over. And not much better this time than the first time.

I set about packing things in boxes from the liquor store and stacking them on the front porch for pick up by the big green truck.

“Oh, my. Look who’s here,” a familiar voice said. I looked up at Jesse. I knew I should have ordered take-out, but I just wanted to sit with a beer. Might know I’d choose someplace that he frequented. I briefly considered denying that I knew him, but discarded the idea quickly.

“Hello, Jesse,” I said flatly.

“Hey, I heard about your mom. Sorry.” He was actually being nice?

“Thank you. I just came back to get the house on the market.”

“So how have you been? Where have you been?” he asked.

“Look, I’m not really interested in going into that. I appreciate your condolences, but I never got along with my mother and I don’t plan to be back in Fargo again,” I said.

“Okay. Ah ... I’m glad I saw you, though. I just wanted to say thank you.”

“Huh? For what?”

“I know you left town because of what I did to you. I assume you got an abortion someplace. You could have ruined my life instead of just making it impossible to get a date for a year. My mom explained it to me in terms I could get through my thick skull. I just want to say thank you. And I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t do anything for you, Jesse. I got my period the day after prom. You didn’t get me pregnant,” I lied.

“Oh. Well, that’s good then. Um ... anyway, if you need any help cleaning things up at the house, let me know. I’ll tell Rebecca I saw you,” he said.

“Rebecca?”

“I, uh ... married Rebecca Parsons last year. We dated all through college. We both went to Moorhead,” he said.

“Yeah. Well, good luck to both of you.”

Jesse was nice. My fucking husband who drugged and raped me and stayed on the oil rigs as much as possible, who had affair after affair while I raised our daughter alone, had gone to college and married the slut he slept with the week after he knocked me up!

I could not have been wrong about what I did. I couldn’t!

Still, here I was in my hometown confronted with a letter from a mother who said she loved me and the father of my child who turned out to be a nice responsible guy.

It was a nightmare!

My mother loved me. Jesse was a nice guy. Rebecca was happy with her husband.

It was all my fault. I was the one who made everyone so miserable in my other life. How could I have been such a terrible person? I always considered myself the victim. It was me who carried a child alone. Me who labored alone in the hospital. Me who ultimately raised her alone. Me that my husband cheated on. Me that my parents were ashamed of.

How could my existence have been so terrible for so many people?

And if that was the case, was I doing the same thing to Lily and Bruce? To Emily? To Jim and Gordon? Was I going to ruin their lives since I’d failed to ruin so many others?

Did I come back to Fargo to nail on the sixth side of the coffin?

Darrell Farrell taught me everything I knew about real estate. When I went to the local office with my new license, he took me under his wing and showed me the magic power of listing and how much work it took to sell. He’d been the top salesperson for five years running when I donned my gold jacket. And now I sat across from his desk with my attorney and listed my house with him.