Jena religiously visited Nate throughout the long winter. No matter how iced over the roads were. No matter how tired she was from her exhausting shifts at her job, the gig work she took on, or from dealing with her miserable home life, Jena always made the trip. She sometimes even drove on closed-off roads when the weather was bad to her grave risk. She was diligent about it. Jena feared Ivy-Mae would pull the plug on Nate, thus leaving her in the lurch as the court ruling intended. Although in truth, Jena wasn't so sure she was living in a home or a personal prison as time passed. She spent more and more time daily fantasizing about running away in the night to go live with her mother, something she wanted to do before Nate's overdose.
However, because Turner had made good on his word and kept the house on the KT autopay properties list, Jena lived with her situation, although it was not without discontentment on her part. Jena was not allowed to alter anything about her own home anymore, but at least she still had her car in her name and didn't have to worry about paying the mortgage in the foreseeable future. She wished Nate had gotten better so that she could have handed everything off to someone else and moved on. With Nate in his current status, Jena too was living in a sort of suspended state, stuck between a past of a relationship that had faded away and a future of nothing more than whispers of empty promises, all of which held no value for herself. Nate never saw the greedy wolves he kept as company, whereas Jena spotted them on sight. This made it double the punishment in her mind that she now was the one to fend them off from herself and Nate. All any of it did was make Jena more disenchanted with her surroundings, despite how well-practiced she became in managing it.
By the time the season switched over into spring, Thallea had become a delivery driver for the ghost kitchen, where she had been an order taker. She said it was easier on her because she would plop herself in the van, letting the cooks and other staff load and unload the vehicle for her. Jena thought that it probably wasn't a drawback to Thallea that the job paid double. Still, Jena had no complaints about it. Thallea was at least out of the house more and drinking less. Thallea had even cut back on smoking when Jena lied and said that Turner hated cigarettes. It hadn't taken long for Jena to realize that Thallea had quite the crush on gangly old Turner. Whatever attracted Thallea to him was a mystery in itself. Jena assumed it was his money, because Turner was no looker, and had the personality of a Flordia Man meme interviewee to put it nicely. It didn't bother Jena, because, in a twisted way, Thallea had finally found a form of motivation to be a nearly productive person. Jena was also acutely aware that Turner would have no interest in Thallea because Turner only had flings with women who looked like his ex, Emily. The two could not have been more opposite, therefore Jena was unbothered by what she considered was Thallea's schoolgirl infatuation.
Thallea would often ask Jena things about Turner in passing. Jena utilized those times to lie in an attempt to get Thallea to do something or another or not do something that vexed her. The fact of the matter was that Jena knew very little about Turner. He had been distant from her friend group in high school since he was a loner among the other trailpark kids. Turner had been held back the maximum number of times in school over the years, on top of being put in late by his neglectful mother. Jena had stuck close to the other girls her age, who all eventually moved away from town, as she too had followed through on when the time came. Even Nate had kept Turner at arm's length unless he was calling him to get marijuana before Turner hit it big after striking oil on his family's land. This was why Jena would fill in her information gaps with tall tales of things Turner supposedly did and didn't like when Thallea would ask for specifics. That was until one day Thallea asked about Emily. The question alone made the hair on the back of Jena's neck stand up. It was an ugly story, but for once Jena came clean when pressed by Thallea.
"Why is it such a big deal to ask about Emily? Are they together? Where is she?" Thallea asked Jena who was putting away dishes from the dishwasher. Jena stopped cold in her tracks. "Uh...she was the only person Turner was really with I guess." Memories flashed in Jena's mind as if she were reliving the days that had passed. "What's the big deal?" Thallea continued her interrogation into the subject. "First you'd have to understand that Turner was considered a loser then. He was the greasy kid with dirty clothes back in high school. Emily was the daughter of the only grocery store owner in town. She was the rich girl who looked down her nose at everyone. Then out of nowhere, she had a thing for Turner, and they were together until she got pregnant. There was talk of them getting married. By then I was overseas, but all of a sudden she wasn't pregnant and had moved on from town. Turner didn't take it well and started trucking until his dad died. I don't think Turner ever got over her. No one talks about it because it was a dark time for Turner. For everyone. The town was dying. Everyone including me was pulling up stakes. It didn't look like it does now. It used to be if you drove down the road, there was nothing but abandoned stores or empty fields. Then when Turner got his money he put it back into Meadows Parting. It was like overnight that town was alive again. Bringing up Emily is like giving Turner an excuse to let the town die all over again."
Thallea rocked back and forth in place while she mulled this new information. Jena regretted saying it to Thallea, but also realized if she hadn't Thallea would go asking every person she met until they told her the same. Thallea asked another question of Jena who was ready to put aside this discussion, "So where is Emily now?" Jena reflexively answered, "In New York trying to be a Broadway actress. Or at least that's what her cousin, Michelle told me two years ago at the company Christmas party. Emily moved on from Turner, but Turner never moved on from her." Thallea lit a cigarette, it sucked in the smoke deeply before she responded, "That's fucked." Jena understood that for Thallea that was an insightful remark of the situation as she glared at the multitude of messes that Thallea had made in the barndominium. She had stopped trying to straighten the place up once she realized Ivy-Mae would be the one to inherit it. Jena feeling uncomfortable speaking on such a bitter topic tried to smooth over the conversation with a final point, "I think that's why Turner has a soft spot for single moms of little boys because Emily had been pregnant with a little boy or that's what people were saying at the time." Thallea giggled to herself for a second. Then she grabbed a bag of chips from the pantry as she walked off commenting, "Then he'll be extra nice to me because I've got two boys on the way."
Jena stayed in the kitchen sipping her bourbon on the rocks wondering what happened to Emily. She had lied to Thallea about Emily having moved to New York. Emily had been ostracized from town until one day she just disappeared. Emily had made some very egregious claims about her own family, and when it came time to back them up, everyone including Turner hung her out to dry. Jena remembered hearing of the ordeal as secondhand news from Nate who would gossip to her for hours when she was far away and homesick. He explained it as Turner and Emily going from being hot and heavy, to never speaking again. Jena knew that Turner had greatly cared for Emily, but that Emily never considered him an equal, like so many others. Their relationship was ill-fated from the start. Turner was the only one who believed otherwise.
After the last snow melted off, things finally found a routine since the fallout from Nate's incident. Jena's upended life was coming together in a way that didn't feel so unsurmountable as it had a few months prior. Jena could feel it on her shoulders. They were less slouched than they had been. Jena was even visiting Tiki, although she dared not bring Tiki to stay with her for fear that Thallea would hurt the aged bird from her rough ways. Tiki always seemed to recognize Jena. He was the bright spot Jena looked forward to whenever she had the time. Jena even had the energy, now that things were settled, to visit her mother, Sue more regularly. It was a blessing because she missed her family so much. Beau's middle son was going to have a birthday that upcoming weekend. Thallea swore she couldn't get the day off, an obvious lie, but Jena let it go because she had no interest in being stuck in a car on the way with Thallea, who was only tolerable in small doses. Beau had promised to go. Jena secretly wondered if Thallea was avoiding him by that point.
Jena wanted to give Gage, who often was the forgotten middle child of Beau's something nice for his birthday. Having little cash on hand she instead rummaged through Nate's things knowing much of it was unknown to Ivy-Mae and would not be missed or litigated if Nate was ever declared dead. Nate had so many things that he bought and never used. He had professional camera equipment, a commercial kayak, racing gear for his cars, and suits that would never fit him but that he was too proud to return, the list went on and on. Jena picked through it looking for something age-appropriate for Gage to have, hoping that wasn't an obvious regift.
After a bit, Jena put a bow on a never-used snowboard Nate had bought as a cover story for a trip he took with one of his mistresses, Nate though at the time forgot to take the board. All that week Nate had sent her scheduled text messages of his fantastic days on the slopes, including videos of people who were not him with obscured faces that he represented as himself. Jena of course had already lied to one of his secretaries' and found out that Nate was in Las Vegas at a swinger's hotel resort. Nate was so bold of a lair that it was unlikely that he thought anyone would believe him, but it never stopped him from sticking to his story. Jena not one to miss an opportunity to bring up divorce with her spouse laid the snowboard still in its original plastic wrap across the threshold just to see Nate try to come up with a gaslighting antidote as to why he was the one to have left it there. The memory made Jena angry as if Nate was still there with her as he was before when he was well.
She became upset and kicked a cabinet door in the garage storage area, which opened to show even more of the things Nate had bought for himself, but nothing ever for her other than day-old flowers from the Piggle Wiggly when he had done something terrible instead of apologizing. Jena in a fit took all of those things and pushed them in the back of Nate's old truck that still had the camper top on. Without a word to Thallea who was still at work. Jena drove to her mother's. She couldn't suffer being in that horrible house any longer that day. She couldn't stand the bad memories every single thing in that place held. As the distance grew between herself and Meadows Parting on the road, she felt as if the air were cleaner and her heart lighter. She never wanted to go back and she wouldn't have if it had not been for what happened next.
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