Chapter 14 - The Beggar at the Gates of Winter
The Nebraska autumn had arrived with a brutal,
biting cold,
stripping the trees of their leaves,
leaving the branches bare,
looking like skeletal fingers reaching up toward the gray,
unforgiving sky.
It had been three weeks since Dennis was arrested,
three weeks since my sister was banished,
and three weeks since I had systematically,
ruthlessly,
dismantled the life I used to know.
I was standing in the clinic's exam room,
gently wrapping a bandage around the paw of a nervous golden retriever,
when Sarah,
my assistant,
knocked softly on the door frame,
her face pale,
her eyes wide with uncomfortable urgency.
"Victoria,"
Sarah said,
her voice hushed,
glancing back over her shoulder toward the reception area,
"there is someone here to see you,
and I told her you were busy,
but she refuses to leave."
I finished tying the bandage,
patting the dog's head,
my instincts already flaring,
the cold,
calculating soldier stepping forward,
preparing for a confrontation.
"Who is it?"
I asked,
washing my hands in the sink,
drying them deliberately,
buying time to compose my features into a mask of absolute,
impenetrable ice.
"It's your sister,"
Sarah whispered,
the words hanging in the air,
heavy with the scandalous weight of the town's most vicious gossip.
I did not react,
I did not blink,
I simply threw the paper towel in the trash,
my jaw clenching so tightly my teeth ached,
the rage I had kept locked away bubbling dangerously close to the surface.
"Take the dog out the back door,
Sarah,"
I instructed,
my voice devoid of any emotion,
a flat,
monotone command,
"and do not let anyone else into the waiting room."
I walked out of the exam room,
my boots clicking against the tiles,
each step deliberate,
heavy,
echoing like the ticking of a bomb waiting to detonate.
I pushed through the swinging doors into the reception area,
and there she was,
Serena,
standing near the display of dog collars,
looking like a ghost of the woman she used to be.
She was thin,
dangerously thin,
her expensive clothes wrinkled and stained,
her designer handbag scuffed,
her hair a messy,
unkempt tangle that had lost its shine.
The arrogance,
the vanity,
the sneering superiority she had always carried,
was completely gone,
replaced by a pathetic,
shivering desperation that made her look small,
fragile,
and utterly broken.
"Tori,"
Serena gasped,
taking a step toward me,
her eyes filling with tears,
her hands reaching out in a begging,
pleading gesture.
I held up a single hand,
a sharp,
military halt command,
stopping her dead in her tracks,
refusing to let her come within ten feet of me.
"You have exactly one minute to explain why you are trespassing on my property,
before I call Sheriff Miller and have you arrested,"
I stated,
my voice cutting through the quiet clinic like a serrated blade.
"Please,
Tori,
please listen to me,"
she sobbed,
her shoulders shaking,
tears spilling down her hollow cheeks,
ruining what little makeup she had managed to apply.
"I have nothing,
David won't speak to me,
my friends blocked my number,
I've been sleeping in my car for two weeks,
I have no money,
I have nowhere to go."
I looked at her,
truly looked at the pathetic creature crying in my clinic,
and I felt absolutely,
profoundly nothing.
No pity,
no sisterly love,
no regret,
just a cold,
hollow void where my affection for her used to reside.
"That sounds like a consequence,
Serena,"
I said calmly,
folding my arms across my chest,
standing tall,
an immovable force against her crumbling reality.
"It wasn't supposed to happen this way,
Tori,
he manipulated me,
Dennis lied to me,
he told me you were getting a divorce anyway,
he said he loved me!"
She wailed,
falling to her knees on the linoleum floor,
a dramatic,
disgusting display of self-pity that made my stomach churn with revulsion.
"He threw my child down the stairs,
Serena,"
I whispered,
my voice dropping an octave,
vibrating with a lethal intensity that made her shrink back against the wall.
"And you stood there,
you watched her fall,
you watched her bleed,
and then you drank my whiskey and joked about it."
"I was scared!"
she cried,
clutching her stomach,
"I didn't know what to do,
I'm so sorry,
Tori,
I'm so sorry,
please,
just help me,
give me some money to leave town,
please."
I walked toward her,
my boots stopping inches from her trembling hands,
looking down at her like a deity casting judgment upon a damned soul.
"You are not my sister,"
I declared,
the finality in my voice echoing in the room,
severing the blood tie forever.
"You are a coward,
you are a parasite,
and if I ever see your face again,
if you ever come within a mile of my daughter,
I will not call the police."
I leaned down,
my face inches from hers,
my eyes burning with a dark,
terrifying promise.
"I will handle you myself,
and no one will ever find you."
Serena gasped,
scrambling backward like a crab,
terrified of the monster she had awakened within me,
pulling herself up and running out the front door,
May you like
disappearing into the cold wind,
erased from my life completely.
