The Day The Applebaum's Met
Being part of a family which consists of an inventor for a father,
an artist for a mother, and five siblings which differ from each other on every
imaginable level might sound delightful. I can assure you, being in the company
of this particular group of Applebaums is everything but a delight. We try our
very best to avoid gatherings. We keep it simple: a one-on-one meeting is a lot
less volatile. There’s not much potential to get into a heated argument with
just one of us. And if the pawpaw hits the fan the possibility to outrun only
one was far greater. The odds would be favourable in such an instance. And we
have all run away from each other at some point or another. I must admit, when
I see other families getting on like a house on fire I am envious. And when I
say like a house on fire I mean it in a good way, not in the Applebaum way,
like the day we attended our grandmother’s funeral. It was Francis who had
started it. Even though she is the eldest she is by no means the brightest. She
initiated the one topic which, from a moral standpoint, should never be brought
up at a funeral: the inheritance. The rest of us immediately retaliated. From a
distance it almost seemed as if we were operating as a team. We weren’t.
As usual, each of us had his or her own agenda in mind. James, the middle
child, was the first to react.
‘How dare you, Frankie? Is money all you ever think about?’
‘Oh, please, Jamie,’ she rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t tell me you
haven’t thought about it yet.’
‘Of course I have! But at least I have the decency to keep my
mouth shut about it.’
‘Jamie’s right,’ said Juniper, the second youngest. ‘You could at
least have waited until we got home.’
‘Until we got home?’ frowned Robert, the youngest of us. We are
all three years apart with the exception of Robert, who is eight years younger
than Juniper. Out of all of them, he was the one who annoyed me the least. ‘You
are just as disillusioned as the rest, June. Nan didn’t like any of us. We
didn’t inherit anything. ‘
This offended me somewhat. As the second born I was under the
impression that our grandmother liked me very much, more so than the rest at
least. She’d always say how disappointing her first grandchild was and how she
was pleased that I didn’t turn out like Francis. And I couldn’t argue with
that. Francis was rude and arrogant, and completely self-absorbed. The money
from her most recent divorce settlement wasn’t enough to sustain the eccentric
lifestyle she was accustomed to. Did I mention she has three ex-husbands? As
far as I know not Francis, James or Juniper ever visited her at the retirement
village. And then there was young Robert who keeps to himself for the most part.
‘Speak for yourself, Bobby,’ I huffed while I tried fastening my
hair in a pony to help relieve the cold sweat I'd just broken in to. ‘I think
we all know I was her favourite.’
My comment prompted a good chuckle from all of them. Even my
mother couldn’t fail to hide her amusement. I restrained the overwhelming urge
to point out that oil paint under ones finger nails made her look dirty and the
least amount of effort she could have done before she came to the funeral was
to have a bath. She always did have unsightly paint smudges somewhere on her.
‘Really, Cat?’ Francis raised an eyebrow at me. She folded her
arms and shifted her weight to one leg thrusting her hip disproportionally
outward. ‘Is that really what you think? She never even
knew you existed.’
Naturally, a physical fight ensued which involved some
unattractive hair pulling, punching, and even biting. I am not going to deny
it: I started it. I threw my cup of tea at Francis’ face, which to my dismay,
hit her in the chest instead. The tea was cold but it gave her a pretty nasty
bruise which satisfied me greatly. And then the rest eagerly jumped in as I am
sure they’d been dying to do for ages. During the scuffle someone knocked over
a candelabrum which ignited the unsightly crimson velvet curtains. We were too
involved with trying to maim each other to notice and so a fellow mourner took
it upon himself to save not only the building but our miserable lives and my
grandmother’s exposed corpse as well, with a fire extinguisher stuck to one of
the walls nearby.
Towards the end of the service I noticed my father had settled
into deep thought as he watched them lay my grandmother's body to rest. He was
busy studying the electric pulley system which lowered her coffin into the
ground, probably thinking of an invention to speed up the process, when he
cleared his throat in a loud an invasive manner; a clear indication that he was
about to make an announcement. He tilted his grey head sideways and glared at
us through a strained brow full of judgement and condemnation.
‘As executor of my mother’s estate I will decide who gets what.
So, you can all shut the hell up and go back to your homes until further
notice.’
As I mentioned earlier, not a delightful family at all we were. An
unpleasant bunch of self-righteous snobs. But believe it or not, there
came a day where this changed.
It took a fairly traumatic event for all of us to comprehend what
it meant to be a family. It all occurred shortly after the
reading of my grandmother's will. My father was not the executor of her estate
and no one was surprised that he'd lied just to get rid of us that day. Rosanna
Magdalena Applebaum did not leave anyone a cent. Everything went to my father’s
sister, Aunt Mayim and her three daughters. Our pride, of course, prevented us
from ever seeing them again after that day.
My parents loved throwing parties. They had bought a majestic
ranch in the Winelands district of the Western Cape shortly after Robert left
home for the sole purpose of entertaining guests. We never attended any of
these parties, not even as much as a wedding anniversary. We normally congratulated
them in our own separate ways, more than often a couple of days late. I can
safely speak on behalf of all my siblings when I say we were thoroughly
surprised to learn that our parents hadn’t planned anything for their 40th anniversary which happened
exactly two weeks after my gran's funeral. This was an oddity and so I decided
to investigate. Little did I know then, aside from our blonde hair and blue
eyes, my siblings and I had another thing in common: our exceptional curious
nature.
The setting sun tainted the sky in shades of fiery ochre as I
drove over the paved driveway leading up to the manor. This turned out to be
the first sign of the disturbing events that were to follow. In fact I almost
turned around when I saw Francis’ car parked in the driveway. And then I
spotted two other cars which belonged to James and Juniper. It seemed like
Robert was the only one missing from what I anticipated to be a very awkward
impromptu family reunion. I plotted my escape route even before I turned off
the ignition. I parked in such a way that would allow me to leave with haste
and efficiency in case of an emergency evacuation. I took a moment to study the
dark building overrun by ivy creepers and bougainvillea before I got out of my car. No lights
were on and it looked like no one was home. Hesitantly I stepped out of my car
and onto the pebbled driveway, crushing loudly as it gave way under my heels.
There was an ominous scent in the air and it took a few more breaths of it to
confirm that the stench was that of smoke. Something was burning. And then I
heard the anxious neighing of the horses in the stables out back followed by a
gut wrenching scream.
I sprinted around the house as fast as my Nine West stilettos
would allow, nearly stumbling over my own eager feet. As I dashed around the
corner precariously trying to remain upright I saw something which perplexed me
in such a way that for a moment I didn’t know if I was at the right house. My
mother had made a bonfire of sorts outside dangerously close to the stables and
was burning contents of the house including furniture, paintings, and books.
The squealer was Francis who desperately tried to prevent family heirlooms
being rendered to ashes. Juniper was consoling my father who was sitting on the
porch with his head between his knees. I had never seen him cry before. The
entire scene was playing out like some dramatic theatre performance before me
and it was starting to make me feel particularly uncomfortable. I was so fixed
on the flames that I hadn’t heard James’ approach from behind.
‘Tragic, isn’t it?’ he said with that pompous tone I despised so
much. His one hand was resting in his jacket pocket while the other clenched
onto a glass of aromatic whiskey.
‘What’s going on here, Jamie? Has mother lost her mind?’
‘Funny you should say that,’ he said and threw back his head as
and emptied the contents of the tumbler. ‘As a matter of fact, she has. She’s
had Alzheimer’s disease for a while now. No one knew except for father and
Bobby of course. Apparently today has been the worst so far. She doesn’t
recognise any of us.’
Of course she wouldn’t recognise us. We would be the first thing
she would forget. We never had time for our parents. We never cared enough. In
that moment I felt utterly ashamed. But it was my father who I pitied the most.
I had never seen the man appear so defeated before. At that moment we saw young
Robert, who was the last to arrive, walk up to our mother. He pushed the
hysterical Francis quite forcibly to the side. When she resisted James tossed
his tumbler on the ground and leapt to the occasion to restrain her by the
shoulders. To my surprise Francis didn’t fight him. Instead she surrendered and
to my surprise embraced him, staining his expensive white shirt with black
mascara. And he didn’t even seem to mind that much either. Robert placed his
hand on my mother’s neck and stroked her back all the way down her spine, in
the same way he used to do with the horses to calm them. She turned around to
face him and we all held our collective breaths anticipating the worst.
‘Bobby?’ she whispered. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Yes, ma, it’s me. All your children are here now. We love you.
Please come back to us.’
We didn’t have to look at each other to know that we were all
shedding tears at that particularly moment. It was the first time I felt
genuine compassion and love for every member of my family. While the men put an
end to the fire Frankie, June and I tended to my mother inside where we made
her comfortable in the lounge. Robert rubbed her feet while Juniper played with
her hair. James and dad shared some nods while working their way through a
bottle of good bourbon. And Francis and I combined our unskilled forces in the
kitchen to feed the family. Slowly but surely ma had remembered all of our
names as well as her anniversary day. We knew it was temporary, which made the
evening all that more significant. We fondly refer to our parents' 40th as the
day the Applebaums met.
The End.
Copyright © 2017 Erica Livingston. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places,
events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or
used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
or actual events is purely coincidental.