Odd Circumstances

Chapter Six

The rest of the day passed somewhat slowly. There was a lot of discussion over what was going to happen in regards to my grandmother, but there was nothing coming close to a conclusion.

“Here’s what I think,” Jackie said. “I think all of you are better off skipping town indefinitely.”

“What? Why?” mum retorted. “I’ve lived here my entire life.”

“Yeah, you have lived here your entire life,” Jackie said. “And take a look at your life. It fucking sucks! You can’t have a family discussion without it turning into a huge argument, you’re all obviously unhappy and none of you have much of a future, except for Phil.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“You’re welcome,” she said. “So the best thing you can do is get out of town. This whole show is a mess.”

“What about you then?” I asked Jackie. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ll go wherever you go,” she said. “I need to get out of this town anyway because my parents have found me and I’d rather not deal with them.”

“Alright, so we’re all skipping town,” I said.

“It’s not really skipping town for me,” grandpa said. “I don’t even live here anymore. I live in Cairns, remember?”

“I’m not skipping town,” mum said. “I have friends here; I have a life here and I’ll be damned if I’m going to be giving that all up while my mother is in hospital dying.”

“I don’t think we have any other choice,” I said. “Look, I know we’ve got a troubled past, but think of it this way. Pretty soon me and grandpa are probably gonna get charged for something; because there’s no way the fuckers at the hospital are gonna believe we didn’t intend for her to get shocked that bad.

“And what do you really have here, mum? You’ve lost your money, you’ve lost your house and I doubt you’d be right here with me if you had any close friends left in this town.”

“Yeah, you guys are fucking crazy,” Jackie said.

“Alright,” she said. “Alright. I’ll go with you two on one condition. We have to come back and see her at some point.”

Grandpa nodded. “Alright. We’ll come back in a year or two and see how things are.”

Jackie shook her head. “It’s better if you make a clean cut,” she said. “When you go, leave all of it. Burn the house down if you want; it’d probably help if you did. Take what you can, but whatever you do you don’t want to come back here after only one year.”

“Then how long should we wait?” I said.

“Two or three minimum. It’d be better if you never came back to this town at all though, because there isn’t really anything left for any of you here, because I’m going with you, remember?”

Mum sighed. “She’s got a point,” she said. “Grandma probably won’t be too happy to see us if we come back.”

“Alright, so we don’t come back,” I said. “What’s the story now?”

“The story now is that we don’t ever come back,” Jackie said. “We just leave, silently, in the middle of the night, never to return.”

There was a universal nod, and in my heart, I knew this was how it was going to go down. There really wasn’t ever going to be a time when I came back to this town now, or at least not any time soon.

I guess this is what it really came down to. Jackie was probably one of the most interesting people I’d ever met, and she came in at quite an interesting time in my life. She was even central to it. And we’ve stayed in contact and to this day, we’re still friends who see each other almost every day.

And, honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.