The Hand You Are Dealt

She sat on the stairs, tears streaming down her face and just watched as they fell on to and soaked the front of her jeans. Her sobs were loud, the wailing that followed full of despair.

As she looked down through the laundry door and the clothes dumped in a pile on the tiles, flecks of what looked like white coconut flakes scattered on the weekly wash, a fresh wave of amger and disbelief hit her. She began to feel a little sick in her stomach and the headache over her eye was getting worse.

The light was dimming when she finally stood up and dried her eyes once again on the crumpled and soggy tissue. A wet pile of them sat on the step she had just left but she didn’t pick them up. She looked back at them and kept walking.

As she reached the top step, she flicked the light on and walked through to the kitchen. The dishes were piled on the side board and she knew they wouldn’t get washed tonight. Her head was throbbing so she took a couple of tablets washed down with tap water. Her stomach heaved as if she was on a rolling boat, seasick with the motion and she grabbed some sweet biscuits from the tin to nibble.

As Linda lay on the old worn couch, she looked around at the peeling paint on the edges of the ceiling and threadbare carpet and sighed. Everything had changed now. It was as if all of her dreams were shattered, once again and all hope gone. “I will never be able to do this place up – just look at it” she said aloud.

Her old faithful dog Benny came in through the dog door and sat down next to her, looking up at her face with worried eyes. He always knew if something was wrong. A little whining noise escaped his mouth and he licked her hand that was hanging down over the arm of the seat, and she touched his ears gently.

“Oh Benny” was all she said and started to cry again, rubbing his soft coat.

As Linda lay there, she began to think about her life and the problems she had encountered along the way. It hadn’t been easy for her and she allowed herself the rare indulgence of self-pity as she thought about it.

An only child born to elderly parents always brought it’s share of difficulties, mainly because your parents were old and most of your friend’s parents weren’t! And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Linda’s mum and dad were very ‘old fashioned’ too. Sometimes people she didn’t know would think they were her grandparents and that was just embarrassing.

They did love her though and had given her a happy childhood, albeit a poor one. Her mother and father were religious people and believed that saving and ‘hoarding’ money was a sin when it could be used to help other not as fortunate. So, they never went on holidays or to the movies or anything like that – they shared their wealth, not that there was much to share.

There was always enough for Linda and her parents to have food on the table and suitable clothing to wear – but not much else. Her mum and dad were just ‘the average Joe’, her mum a secretary when she left school and her dad worked his way up to be the foreman of a tinned goods factory in town.

She stopped crying and sniffing and shifted her thoughts to her mother Anne. She had good memories of her mother, a kind lady, sometimes too kind. Linda thought of the times that she missed out on doing fun things because her mother would say to her “there are people who need it more than us”, usually some of their savings used to buy food or furniture for a family down on their luck. She remembers saying to her mother “I’m not listening, that sounds idiotic to me”

When she was told that she wasn’t going on school camp because wasn’t enough money, she remembers clearly the shouting match between them (it wasn’t actually her mother shouting – she was speaking in a very calm manner) but Linda was telling her mother in a very high-pitched voice, verging on tears, that she thought more of others than her own daughter. “Linda, please don’t ever think that. It’s just that we have so much and we can’t take it with us” her mother said.

“But I’ll still be here when you and dad aren’t. I know you can’t take it with YOU but you can leave it for me. Isn’t blood thicker than water. I can’t believe you two” and she stormed off.

Nothing much had changed after that. So, Linda just learnt to live with the way her life was.

Linda’s parents passed away, within six months of each other, her father first and then her mother. She wasn’t surprised that they left their small modest home to her, but she honestly knew how angry she would have been if they hadn’t! A small amount of money, they left to the church – to be distributed among the needy.

Through her grief and after the packed funeral service Linda realised what good people her mother and father had been – so admired and loved by many. Kind and humble were the words spoken to describe Anne and Ken by friends and family at the wake.

Linda’s thoughts continued to meander through her past years and her demeanour had changed from ‘self-pity’ to ‘resignment’. ‘That’s just the cards that were dealt to me I suppose’ she thought but I know I didn’t feel that sentiment when the house burnt down’.

She had been at work when the girl on the desk rang through to say there was a policeman at the front desk who wanted to speak to her – and for no reason at all she was immediately worried. She had never had anything to do with the police but had watched enough crime shows to know that something must have happened. She felt butterflies in her stomach as she went down in the lift.

He stood at the desk in his dark blue uniform and asked her “Are you Linda Grey, the owner of 6 Valley Street, Lynwood?”

“Um yes, why?”

“I’m sorry to tell you that there has been an incident at your house”.

“What kind of an incident?” she asked, immediately thinking it was perhaps a break in, although it would have been meagre pickings at her place.

“A fire that apparently started at the back of the house, engulfed the whole place and burnt it down”.

“Burnt down as in all gone?” she asked in disbelief.

“Yes, I’m afraid so” he told her “You might want to finish work now and come to the site”

“The site” she said aloud “Oh dear”.

That is all there was when she arrived at her address – no house, just a smouldering site.

She was devastated as she looked at the burnt bricks, wood, ash and all of her personal effects just smouldering. ‘It’s all gone’ she thought in utter shock and disbelief. The letterbox was still standing, the mosaic number 6 still intact. Her mother had made it.

The only photo she had of her mum and dad was in a locket around her neck.

As she walked around to the back of where the house used to be, Benny her faithful companion ran to her and jumped up as if trying to put his arms around her. “Oh, thank goodness, my little darling”. And Linda began to cry.

Her neighbours were walking around the front  but weren’t allowed inside the wire fence. The elderly couple from next door called her over and told her she was definitely staying with them tonight and until she got sorted.

Linda stood and talked to the firemen and the police and it seemed that the fire probably started from a ‘simple electrical fault’. ‘Simple’ she thought ‘doesn’t seem the right word’.

Linda was grateful that she had her handbag with her and all of her bank cards. It would be easy to buy a few articles of clothing to wear, and it was.

Still in shock she asked her kindly neighbours if she could stay with them until all the insurance stuff was sorted as it would make it easier than trying to find a rental to move into without even a tea cup, let alone a bed!

It had already been three weeks since the fire and Linda was getting impatient with the lack of communication from the Insurance company. There was no use trying to look for policies or pieces of paper as nothing except Benny her dog and a few metal ornaments survived the inferno.

She didn’t want to impose any more on Syd and his wife Iris, her neighbours, so went to live with her aunt who didn’t live far away. It was easy to get to her work place and her aunt loved dogs, having two of her own.

Then three weeks later the bomb shell hit…. Linda found out that her mother had cancelled the house insurance two years before she died.

As she sat in the office of the insurance company and was informed the unbelievable, all she could think of was her mother wanting to save the insurance money to give to the ‘bloody needy’.

“Look love” her aunt said to Linda after hearing the bad news. “You are welcome to stay here for as long as you like, you know that. Why don’t you just keep the land the house was on, and one day if you save hard enough, you might be able to build your own place”.

“I’ll think about it” she told her aunt “Thank you for being so very good to me” she told her hugging her tightly.

Life just went on as usual for Linda minus parents, her own home and lightness of heart. She still missed her mum and dad and had long forgiven her mother for the ‘house insurance’ fiasco but wasn’t making much headway with saving to build her own house. She paid her aunt a weekly rent (she said if she didn’t pay rent then she wouldn’t stay).

‘I really should look for another job, a better paying job’ she told herself at least once a month, but Linda was the type of person who once she got comfortable with her workplace and peers then she didn’t want to leave!

She woke up early one morning, the sun peeping through the curtains and Benny asleep on the end of her bed and knew what she wanted to do…. she thought about when she heard someone saying they had a ‘light bulb moment’ and she knew this was how it felt.

At breakfast she told her aunt about her thoughts….. “That sounds like a great idea to me Linda. Let me know when the block is sold and you want to start looking for a flat of your own – I’ll come with you”.

Linda felt as if a big weight had been lifted off her shoulders and at last, she began to see clarity about her life and feel a little excited. The thought of having her own little flat and living by herself once again was giving her renewed energy and after quite a while she had a spring back in her step.

It didn’t take long to sell the land and with some money at last and her aunt, they went flat hunting. She knew it wouldn’t be anything fancy or flash that she could afford to buy but just as long as it was solid, non-leaking and clean.

“This looks perfect to me” she told her aunt on the fourth weekend they were house hunting. “I know it’s a bit run down but I can save up and one day I’ll renovate it. Of course, I shall have a property inspection and then I’ll put an offer on it.”

Linda moved into her small but solid and reasonably clean flat. It was very much in need of painting inside and out, new carpets, an upgrade to the kitchen and a new bathroom but it was hers, and at the beginning this was all that mattered….

As with all things, the ‘shiny’ period wears off and the fact that you can wake up every day in your own place, walk around in your undies, eat toasted sandwiches every night for dinner, was replaced with “I wish I had the money to do this place up NOW. It started to get on her nerves.

The walls look grubby everywhere, the carpet looks filthy, and scrubbing it all made no difference. The taps dripped all the time and the black around the bath wouldn’t come off, no matter what she used to clean it with.

 It was annoying and depressing, especially when she used up all the money buying it, and still hadn’t got a better paying job!

‘Right’ she said to herself one weekend ‘I am using these two days to write job applications. I cannot do anything to this place without money and I can’t save any with what I’m paid’. She applied for three better paying positions and knew all she could do now was wait!

On her birthday her aunt gave her, along with her presents a lottery ticket telling Linda “I have a good feeling about this ticket my love”.

“Oh, I don’t think I’ve ever had one of these tickets, what fun” she told her aunt.

“Well like I said, I have a good feeling!”

“I hope so, that would solve all of my problems in one fell swoop! Imagine being able to do everything I wanted to do to this flat! When are the numbers chosen aunt Kate?”

“I think this coming Tuesday so stick it on your fridge and don’t forget to check it”.

Wednesday morning as Linda sat at her little table, Benny on the floor next to her, eating her toast and tea, she glanced up at the lottery ticket and remembered that it had been drawn the night before. “Oooh Benny, let’s check the ticket” she said to the dog excitedly.

Linda had checked off seven of her eight numbers and all of them were on the ticket sitting on the table in front of her……and all on the one line.

Her heart felt as if it would burst out of her dress and skid across the kitchen floor with the sheer excitement of marking off numbers. “Deep breaths Linda” she told herself aloud, too scared to search for number 14 on the line with all the other numbers.

She sat patting Benny, pen in hand but eyes averted from the ticket. She plucked up the courage after a few minutes and scanned the slip of paper in front of her, blue eyes darting along the line but she couldn’t see the number 14 anywhere. “Oh no please let it be there” she begged the God of lottery tickets, but it just wasn’t there. Not being experienced in lottery tickets she wasn’t sure of what she had actually won. “I should have won something at least – maybe enough to clean the carpets and buy a new lounge?”

She put the ticket in the pocket of her pants, telling the dog she would check it properly after work. “That will be a nice surprise for us. See you after work Ben”.

But Linda, being Linda, forgot about the ticket sitting snugly in the pocket of her pants. Even when she dropped mayonnaise on them at lunchtime it didn’t prompt her, telling herself she would have to wash her pants straight after work if she didn’t want them to stain.

She had popped the pants in the washing machine straight after getting home from work, not a thought of her ticket entering her mind. It wasn’t until she opened the door at the front of the machine that she saw it…the ticket washed into what looked like a million tiny pieces. At first, she thought that a tissue had been left in one of the pockets but on closer inspection she could see some black print on bits of it. As she thought about what it could be, she remembered, and started shaking. “NO, NO, NO” she yelled out loud.

She raced into the kitchen to check in yesterday’s papers for the amount she could have won and that’s when she realised what she had done. The amount of money was a lot, enough to renovate the flat, buy new furniture, with enough for a holiday later on in the year.

“AHHHH” Linda shouted out loud “How could you be so stupid. My chance to get ahead and do the renovations”. She couldn’t believe what had happened.

She was still lying on the couch when the cool night air woke her at about 3am. Her cover had fallen off and she was cold. The throbbing in her head was still there and she felt as if she couldn’t see out of her eyes from all the crying she had done.

Benny came in from being outside and jumped up on to the couch next to her, putting his head on her chest and snuggling in.

The lottery ticket had gone for ever, and she knew her flat would have to stay the way it was for a long time. Sometimes life didn’t seem fair, and although Linda felt miserable and depressed at this very moment, she knew that this feeling wouldn’t last for ever.

Tomorrow was a new day – the sun would shine and the birds would sing! ‘You never know’ she thought ‘I might hear from one of those jobs I applied for”.

Her beautiful and loyal friend looked up adoringly at her with his brown eyes and Linda thought how lucky she was.