Better Choices by Rod Pennington & Jeffery A. Martin

Author:Rod Pennington & Jeffery A. Martin [Pennington, Rod & Martin, Jeffery A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Integration Press LLC
Published: 2020-06-11T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

“I’ll talk to Robert about it,” Edna said.

I snorted. “But you won’t talk to me?”

“None of your damn business.”

“Well,” I said, “since it affects my inheritance, I guess I’ll just have to make it my business.”

“Oh, is that right?” Edna said as she shifted her weight so she could look me straight in the eye. “How are you going to do that?”

“You either tell me right now what the money was for, or I’ll have Beth draw up papers and have you declared incompetent and have you committed to a nursing home.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

For my entire life my mother had always treated me like an annoying child that she either humored or dismissed.

That ends today. Thank you, Aunt Jolene.

“Like you said, I’m finally showing some O’Connor grit. You think your precious Robert can protect you from Beth and me?” I leaned in closer and rested my hands on her motorized wheelchair until we were nose to nose. “Try me.”

At that point, my mom did the most remarkable thing. She began to quiver and a single tear ran down her cheek. “Tillie!” she shouted. “Tillie!” she shouted even louder.

“What do you want, you crazy old bat?” Tillie answered as she came charging out of the new bedroom.

Mom pointed to me. “Repeat what you just said to your aunt so I’ll have a witness.”

In for a penny, in for a pound.

I squared my shoulders and turned to face Tillie. “I want to know about the missing money, and I told her if she didn’t give me a satisfactory answer, I would move to have her declared mentally incompetent and commit her to a nursing home.”

“And.” Mom motioned for me to continue.

“I told her if she thought her precious Robert could protect her from Beth and me, she should try me.”

“Son-of-a-bitch!” Tillie said as she fished some bills out of her front pocket while Mom did the same.

“Can you believe this?” Mom said.

“I’ve seen it every day of my life for the past sixty years,” Tillie answered.

“How the hell does she do it?” Mom asked.

“No idea,” Tillie answered as she took Mom’s cash and combined it with hers, then shouted, “Jolene!”

Aunt Jolene glanced over her shoulder at Tillie, who was waving the cash over her head. “Winner, winner. Chicken dinner.”

Jolene squealed, knocked some flour off her hands and bounded across the room. She snatched the cash out of Tillie’s hand and said, “A pleasure doing business with you.” Jolene counted the cash, then tucked the bills into her bra.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. As my Aunt Tillie, or maybe it was Yogi Berra, might say, ‘It’s déjà vu all over again.’

“What was the wager this time?” I asked.

“When I saw you this morning,” Jolene said, as she gave my cheek a pat, “I knew today would be the day you would finally stand up to your mother.”

“That was the bet?” I said with a horrified expression on my face as I wheeled on my mother. “That I would stand up to you?”

“She was even giving odds,” Edna added dejectedly.

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