Acedia by Hildred Billings

Author:Hildred Billings [Billings, Hildred]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Lesbian Romance
Publisher: Barachou Press
Published: 2020-09-29T22:00:00+00:00

***

Mercy’s car idled outside the old cottage hidden behind a chain-link fence. Ideally, she wouldn’t have brought a sports car to this neighborhood, but she had sold the old car, convinced she would have no need for it again.

Now she looked up and down the street, convinced that everyone was judging her.

She wasn’t worried about someone stealing her car. She was worried that she simply did not fit in here, and nobody would care about what she had to say.

Luckily, there was only one person she wished to speak to that cloudy fall day. When Mercy emerged from the driver’s side of her car, bedecked in jeans and a baggy sweater, she shuddered as if the chill could touch her. Halloween decorations reminded her what time of the year it was. Cheap cutouts of witches, ghosts, and pumpkins haunted the dead grass of small yards. One house boasted orange and black strings of lights that flashed every time Mercy looked in their direction. When she finally opened the gate before her, she noticed that there wasn’t a shred of Halloween to be seen. Not even an anti-Halloween message, which Mercy occasionally saw as a child, depending on which church she and her mother frequented at the moment.

The woman answering the door looked nothing like her mother.

For one thing, Dina had seemingly aged twenty years. Wrinkles lined her forehead. Gray colored her hair. Her sensible clothes highlighted the flabby arms and prominent veins in her hands. Was she really in her late fifties? Where had the years gone?

Right. Mercy rarely visited her mother, never mind talked to her on the phone. What did any of that matter when they had nothing in common, and a visit to Mom’s was akin to visiting the dentist?

“Nice sweater.” Dina stepped away from the screen door, her phone in hand. “Want something to drink? I’ve got orange juice or coffee.”

“Ah, coffee’s fine.” Mercy took a tepid step, allowing the familiar scents of cinnamon and lavender to fight for attention in her nose. There was never any rhyme or reason when it came to deodorizers, essential oil infusers, and candles lit atop the kitchen table. This place was such a far cry from Bill’s immaculate home in the ‘burbs that Mercy barely believed she grew up in such a house. No, not this exact one. After Grandma died, Dina quickly sold off the old house because she knew she would never afford the property taxes or the second mortgage she would inevitably take out to pay for her and Mercy’s living expenses. Instead, she hopped from apartment to trailer. It wasn’t until Mercy went off to college and Dina was able to pick up a few more part-time jobs that she afforded this tiny two-bedroom house to rent. She had lived there for about twelve years, so it must have been working.

Mercy sat at the kitchen table. Her mother never remembered how Mercy liked her coffee, but it was fine. Mercy would drink it black if it meant saying what needed to be said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.