All Is Fair

When they had seen the apartment with its bare walls and freshly cleaned carpets smelling of baking soda, they had run to the living room to find it completely empty except for a worthless coffee table on which sat three envelopes and a small black notebook. Katerina had taken hers to the staircase, Oliver had leaned against the wall by the window, the sun poking through the letter he held tight in his hand, while Izzy had sat right there on the carpet, in the middle of the room. She hadn’t started reading yet. She was eyeing the notebook. Her siblings. And herself. All three of them were acting like their envelope contained something the other two didn’t. Was it true? Did all three envelopes contain the same cheque for the same amount of money? Or were they supposed to keep it a secret from the other two? One could see the mental math on their faces: how much is twenty thousand dollars, split three ways? Not enough to keep the peace.

As far as they remembered, they had always gotten along. The two youngest, Izzy and Oliver, were very tight even, always laughing and rolling their eyes at the rigidity of their oldest sister. But ever since their mother had gathered them in the basement under the false pretense of wanting “to get rid of their old stuff”, things had taken a different turn. Before any of them could realize it, the family dynamic had suddenly become a matter of being the favorite. Now that their mother was about to die, they were ready to fight for the last crumbs of her attention. Katerina had been the fastest, offering her mother to come live with her and her “fiancé”, Nick. Izzy, although not as objectively smart or quick-witted as her sister, had fought back. She always did.

“Mom hates Nick. Why would she move in with you guys?”

“I don’t hate him,” their mother had protested. But whether the faint tone of her voice was due to illness and fatigue or to her lack of conviction was hard to tell. She had stared at her youngest reproachingly. Izzy had shrugged.

“What?! Everyone hates him.”

“Fuck off, Iz.”

At first, Oliver had stayed out of it. He was always on Izzy’s side, everyone knew it, so why bother? He already had everything going for him. He was the only boy, the only child of the three she had actually bothered to baptize, and he was the one whose personality looked the most like their mother’s. He was stubborn, but not unreasonable. Strong, but sensitive. He enjoyed his pasta with a dash of lemon and too much black pepper on it, and most importantly, had it not been for the fact that he had failed most of his classes four quarters in a row, he probably would’ve become a psychologist, just like her. At least that was what he liked her to believe. Now, he was a part-time VJ at a downtown club that would sometimes be closed for inspection during months on end, but at least, he was already visiting his mother every Sunday before she told them she was sick. Sometimes even without his laundry basket tagging along. Neither of his sisters could say the same. Despite not having any reason to doubt that he was the favorite, Oliver didn’t want to ruin his chances. He had stayed out of the family feuds, at first. When Katerina was too selfish and Izzy too hungover to drive their mother to chemo, he would borrow a second helmet from a friend and pick up his mother half an hour early, early enough to drive his scooter as slowly as legally allowed while she half laughed half cried in the back. This was what he missed the most now that she was gone. The red marks left on his torso after she had held him so tight it felt like the bruises would stay forever. The feeling that he’d be able to remember her laughter, or the color of her hair when she untied her bun. That he’d never forget her.

When things had gotten worse, Oliver had first acted like he didn’t notice. He always found an excuse not to be in the room when nurses finally called his mother’s name in the waiting room, or when his sisters suddenly started whispering for no apparent reason. Or arguing. He averted his eyes when his mother looked more tired, or sick than usual. And while he kept bringing his laundry every other week, there was a sign that he realized how bad things had become: he had started unloading the washing machine himself, now. Izzy, on the other hand, had become insufferable. It was almost as if she was reliving puberty, dragging her whole family along with her. Except this time, Katerina wasn’t away at college, and Oliver wasn’t spending his days smoking weed with his friends. Even though they had all moved out years ago, their world had suddenly become a confined bubble around their dying mother. A bubble they knew was about to burst. While Kat and Oliver were trying their best to keep the bubble intact, Izzy was poking at it with a sewing needle.

She never did it on purpose. The tantrums. They just happened. As if something inside her couldn’t help but scream: You can’t leave. I need you. I’m still a child and I need you. Izzy had always been the baby of the family. Even when they would get old, and wrinkly, she knew she would still be the youngest, the one everyone else would have to indulge, listen to, and look after. She liked having that power over Kat. And she knew Oliver would be by her side no matter what. But what’s a baby without her mother? What was the use of being the littlest one if no one was there to protect you? That’s when the fits would happen. She would blame her mother for not having cared enough to take care of herself. For having let a violent man be the father of her children. For letting him stick around long enough to break her bones, and her spirit. For having smoked cigarettes until well into her thirties. For choosing a stressful job. For not going to the doctor early enough to detect the cancer in time. For anything and everything that was wrong in their lives. Oliver, usually so quiet and poised, would wait until after they had left, once they would be in Izzy’s car on the way to drop him off, to gently scold her. Not even like a slap on the wrist. More like a nudge. “Enjoy mom while she’s still around, he would say. Don’t sweat it. Enjoy whatever time we have left with her.” Those words would infuriate her, but she wouldn’t fight back. She would drop him off at his place and not talk to him until a week later, when they would all visit their mother again. Except then, she would make sure her words would cut deeper. She would get away with it, she thought. She always had.

Until she hadn’t.

“If those are the last words mom ever hears, I will never forget you.”

Oliver had screamed at her one night, not too long ago. She knew he was serious. Everyone did. After that, their mother had spent the night trying to look healthier, and perkier than usual. Kat had kept quiet for once, as if she had finally realized how hearing about a funny joke Nick had told her was the last thing anyone wanted. Izzy had pouted all night, while Oliver hadn’t even looked up from his plate. It was exactly what she feared. The glue of their family was about to die, and with her, any semblance of unity. From then on, every man to himself.

It was the first time Katerina had ever seen her siblings argue about anything. Since the day Izzy was born, these two had had that invisible bond only fictional siblings seemed to have. Katerina could remember Oliver letting go of her hand to give his new sister a hug at the hospital. And almost every day since then. She remembered the board games he left unfinished once Izzy woke up from her naps, and the summer camps he’d let her go to alone rather than leaving Izzy behind. They were each other’s best friend, and it seemed like nothing could ever break their bond. Katerina had been jealous, of course. She had sometimes tricked one of them into doing or saying things she knew would bother the other, or revealed secrets before they could become something bigger. Something she wouldn’t be a part of. What bothered her the most wasn’t how close they were. It was that they never once thought of including her. Not even as a sidekick, or a foe. Whatever resentment she felt against their united front wasn’t reciprocated. It was almost as if she didn’t exist.

When their mother got sick, she saw it as her chance. If she couldn’t be in on her siblings’ friendship, at least she had their mother. She was the firstborn child, and the only one her mother had really wanted. At least that’s what her father had told her one drunken night before he disappeared for good. That had reassured her. For once, she was incontestably the favorite. Not an after-thought. Not a plan B. She had picked Nick for the same reason. He wasn’t the funniest, or the most ambitious man she had ever met. He wasn’t as tall as she wished. He sometimes went to bed without brushing his teeth. But he had a redeeming quality she was willing to give up everything else for: he absolutely adored her. So, she tried. And she made sure her mother did, too. They would have dinner once a week, just the three of them. She would let him do the cooking —his one good skill— and spend alone time with her mother, trying to pick her brain, asking questions she hoped she would be the only one to know the answer to once her mother gone, bonding. Never asking “I’m the favorite, aren’t I?” Always making sure she was. She would insist on clearing the table after dinner, leaving Nick and her mother alone in the living room. When she came back with a cup of tea with two spoonsful of sugar for her mother and a decaf’ for Nick, she almost always walked in on him raving about how amazing she was. What a lucky man he was! Her mother would always nod in agreement. Yes. Yes, he sure was lucky.

When Kat, Oliver and Izzy had seen the apartment with its bare walls and freshly cleaned carpets smelling of baking soda, their first reaction had been to look at each other suspiciously. Had one of them broken their oath to wait until after the funeral and come to the apartment before today? Was anything going to be missing from the long list of things they each believed was rightfully theirs? Now that the apartment was empty and they had read their respective letters, it looked as if any feeling of entitlement had left their body.

“You should open it”, Kat told her sister, who was still staring at the notebook. Izzy looked up at Oliver, who gave her a faint nod. She grabbed it quickly, as if afraid that one of them would change their mind. She pushed the elastic closure and opened the hard cover. On the first page, only five words were written:

“I never had a favorite.”