T w e n t y S i d e d

The year is 2007, and Lorretta is gone. Kelly and Michael are devastated, as is Logan, although him with much less understanding of what’s happened, only that grandma is gone.

Lorretta has left Kelly and Michael the house in her will, as well as half of what she had saved. Kelly’s older sister got the other half, and Lorretta’s car.

At first, who got what doesn’t seem to matter that much, in the midst of grief and funeral arrangements. Kelly and Michael aren’t celebrating getting the house, they knew that was Lorretta’s plan and it makes plenty of sense to them; they’ve been living in it for the last seven years.

Kelly’s sister, Jen, though? She doesn’t feel like it’s so fair.

She is amicable at the funeral, and polite when she sleeps on their couch overnight before starting her drive back home. It’s when Kelly gets a phone call from Jen while she’s on the road, that her feelings become clear. She doesn’t think it’s fair that her younger sister got the house, and she just got a car. She’d thought that it had been more fair, that maybe her mom had split the money between them 80/20 or 60/40 to make up for the fact Jen was missing out on a house. When she’d realized they’d gotten the same amount, though, that was a different story.

“Just because you got knocked up and dropped out of college doesn’t mean I should be punished for it!”

Jen had always been her mom’s favorite, but everything had changed when Kelly had Logan. Jen thinks that this is because Kelly gave her a grandchild. In reality, this is a failing on Lorretta’s part. She spent the last seven years repairing her relationship with Kelly, who she’d mishandled as a child, but she never stopped to realize she’d messed up with Jen too. Jen had been more suited personality-wise to Lorretta’s parental failings, and so had seemed to ‘come out fine’ from it. More than that, putting in work with Kelly meant she had coasted with Jen, letting their relationship fall to the wayside, even up to her death. Lorretta never stopped to realize it had damaged both of her girls. And now, it’s too late.

Jen thinks that her mom stopped caring about her because she didn’t give her grandchildren, and it’s coming out as vile comments to her sister about the whole thing. Jen is unkind, and angry, and hurt. Her sister has gotten a house to raise her child in, and Jen has gotten a car which is no better or worse than what she has now. She knows she’s being cruel, but she can’t stop herself.

Worse than that, there isn’t much Kelly can do, either. Inheriting the house comes with taxes and costs, she needs the money her mom has left her to deal with that. She doesn’t need all of it, mind you, but she also has a son to think about. Giving up some of her inheritance would affect him. And more than that, she doesn’t want to give her sister anything, because her sister is hurling abuse at her. It’s hard to want to be kind to someone hurting when they’re actively taking it out on you.

When Jen finally hangs up, Kelly is left in tears. They could move on to repair this, they could do better and talk it out. Kelly could explain why their mom left her the same amount, and Jen could explain how she can’t have children, and how she feels abandoned for it. The favoritism wasn’t malicious, it was a slow build of situations that left Lorretta not realizing what her eldest needed. But now it’s too late for Lorretta to do better, and both of her girls are too upset to try.

Jen and Kelly don’t talk about it, and slowly it becomes clear that their bridge is burned.

Bay Jubilee Oldest child of Shamus Young. They/Them