Woman in the Green Jacket

Virginia was worried that awful woman in the green jacket would come back again today. It was Virginia’s seventieth birthday and she didn’t want to deal with any strangers knocking at the door.

What was the woman’s name again? Virginia couldn’t recall. She’d thought the woman was Deborah Hunter, her old windbag of a neighbour, but the green jacket woman had insisted that Deborah had not lived in New Brunswick for over thirty years.

“If you’re not Deborah, then who are you and what are you doing here?” Virginia had asked.

The woman answered, but Virginia told herself she didn’t care enough to bother to remember the name. To Virginia she was just an awful woman in a green jacket that arrived unannounced at the front door yesterday, rambling something about being there to help.

Deborah had always been an awful neighbour so Virginia sent the woman away.

Today she’d finally found the little black notebook she’d been searching for, and Virginia didn’t want to be disturbed by anything or anyone. This was the black notebook that contained her notes on where to find an old trunk that’d been missing somewhere in her house for over a decade. The trunk contained all of Virginia’s photo albums, and she’d wanted to reminisce on baby photos of her daughter, August, for some time now.

Ever since August, her only child, had grown and moved away from New Brunswick, Virginia felt lost and abandoned. Her husband, Morton Macke, had divorced her twenty years ago, and Virginia never had any close friends. All she had was herself, her house, and her belongings.

She gripped the notebook tightly in one hand and with the other hand Virginia opened her front door. She peered across the lawn and was relieved when she didn’t see the green jacket woman anywhere.

Yesterday (or maybe it had been earlier that morning) when she found that awful woman sifting through her belongings in the yard, Virginia had hollered at her from inside the house. Eventually the woman left. Afterward Virginia had spent an hour combing through her outside collections to ensure nothing had been stolen.

Now Virginia closed and locked the door, comforted in knowing nobody was in her yard.

She wiped dust from the cover of her notebook and decided she should sit down before reading it. Unfortunately none of Virginia’s chairs could be used as they were all buried beneath mounds of Virginia’s belongings.

There was a large pile of clothes in the living room that Virginia had been using as a bed for many years, and she decided it would be the most comfortable place to sit and peruse her notebook.

Virginia had lots of notebooks; she loved them. She wrote in notebooks every day. Sometimes she would use them for diary entries, sometimes she’d write down recipes, sometimes she would simply note what the weather had been on a particular day, or how many cars had driven by on the old country road she lived beside. Virginia had even taken note in her current book of talking to that awful woman in the green jacket earlier that morning (or maybe it had been yesterday).

Virginia loved notebooks so much that she’d filled a couple thousand of them and kept them in boxes in her bedroom. Unfortunately Virginia had crammed so many of her other belongings into her bedroom as well that she could barely fit herself in there anymore.

That’s why it’d taken her such a long time to find this particular notebook in the first place: it was nearly impossible to find anything in Virginia’s house once it had been misplaced, even a huge trunk.

Virginia used the constricted pathway between piles of her belongings to get from her front door to her makeshift bed in the living room. She had to be careful walking. One misstep and she could fall into one of the piles, which, once disturbed, would likely cause an avalanche and might seriously injure Virginia. Especially if it was one of her piles of hardcover books, or the piles of furniture and tools she had in the garage.

The green jacket woman had been saying something about all the rusty metal in Virginia’s front yard being a hazard to her (Virginia had broken vehicles, jungle gyms, and appliances scattered everywhere out there), but she’d ignored those statements. All of the things in Virginia’s yard were parts of her collection and nobody had the right to take those things away. Virginia planned on having the broken vehicles and appliances fixed someday, or at the very least she’d sell the scrap metal and any working parts.

Virginia had been meaning to accomplish those goals, plus many other fix-up goals around the house, for a long time now but some distraction always seemed to get in her way. For instance: she just spent days trying to find a particular black notebook, and she goes to town twice a week to purchase more items for her collections.

Virginia squeezed through her belongings in the kitchen; past the fridge which hadn’t worked in forever and the sink which had been clogged for so long Virginia couldn’t recall the last time she used it. Roaches and flies scrambled over dinner plates covered with moldy meals that had been sitting on the counter for who-knows-how-long, and a mouse raced past Virginia’s feet; but she ignored those details.

Deep down Virginia knew her house was dirty, infested, and grotesque; but she chose not to dwell on that. Virginia was surrounded by her things – her collections – and those things made her feel safe and happy. If she called a professional to come in and fix the fridge or unclog the sink that person might steal something, or they might put in a complaint that could have her collections taken away, or they might even somehow cause Virginia to be evicted. The thought of losing her house or her belongings the same way she’d lost her husband and her daughter brought Virginia to tears every time.

And why was it that she hadn’t seen or talked to August in so many years? Virginia couldn’t remember, except that her daughter had left in a huff about something and hadn’t returned. That was back when that old windbag Deborah Hunter was still her neighbour. Or maybe Deborah still was her neighbour. Virginia couldn’t remember.

Virginia eventually made it to the pile of clothes she used as a bed, and spent an hour poring over her little, black notebook. Near the back she found where she’d written the location of her trunk filled with photo albums, and she was shocked to discover she was more or less sitting on it.

Under the clothes in the living room was what she’d written, but Virginia couldn’t remember ever hiding anything there. Twenty minutes later and sure enough she found the trunk, though she no longer had a place to sleep with her clothes flung every which way.

Excited to start looking at her albums, Virginia opened the trunk and suddenly had to stop herself from swooning. Inside were the photos albums she’d been looking for, all in a neat pile and pushed to one side; but there were also three plastic grocery bags, each brimming with twenty, ten, and five dollar bills.

Virginia sat and simply stared at the money for an unaccountable amount of time. Where had she gotten it from, and why had she hidden it away in this old trunk?

She racked her brain but couldn’t come up with answers for either of those questions, so Virginia decided not to worry about the details and count the money instead. She fetched her current notebook and one of her many calculators and, after recounting the bills five times, found that she was in possession of exactly twenty thousand dollars.

Oh, the lovely additions to her collections she could buy with that much money.

***

August Macke stood at her mother’s front door, trying to find the confidence to knock and face the person on the other side. She nervously fiddled with the zipper on her green jacket and thought of how she’d left in anger all those years ago.

Back then, just after her father left, August’s mother had always kept her house and yard clean enough to eat off of. August had lived a half hour away with her girlfriend, Rachael; a person whom Virginia had never approved of. It wasn’t that Virginia was homophobic; she simply claimed she didn’t like Rachael because she reminded Virginia of her old neighbour, Deborah Hunter. August felt that her mother was being unreasonable, but still made an effort to visit home once a week.

All that ended fifteen years ago when August told her mother that she and Rachael planned on getting married.

Virginia had been livid, calling her daughter every derogatory name in her repertoire. August was angry too, but willing to forgive the awful things her mother was saying. Her mind changed quickly when Virginia, so riled up that her cheeks were almost molten, admitted she had twenty thousand dollars saved away that she’d been intending to give to August on her wedding day, but only if she intended on marrying someone other than Rachael.

It took immense restraint for August to remain calm. She wasn’t sure if her mother had actually saved that money or if she was simply saying awful things out of anger, but August decided she didn’t care.

“I’m leaving, I’m moving to another province, I’m getting married to Rachael, and I’m not coming back,” she’d said.

And that’s exactly what August did.

Months later Morton Macke attended his daughter’s wedding, but he hadn’t heard any news of Virginia. Nobody that August talked to from back home had any news on her mother. It seemed that Virginia just kept to herself, which is what August assumed she’d always wanted anyway.

August heard nothing for fifteen years, until three days before her mother’s seventieth birthday an old friend, who worked at the supermarket near Virginia, called to say that her mother had been in the store and seemed very confused.

“She couldn’t remember my name, and I’ve known your mother since I was a little girl,” August’s friend said. “And she kept mentioning that it was 1977. I don’t know… I think she might have Alzheimer’s.”

So August had flown home yesterday, and was shocked when she saw the state of the yard and the house. She hadn’t been inside yet, but by the piles of junk out front it was obvious her mother had become a hoarder.

Virginia had screamed at August from inside the house; calling her Deborah Hunter and demanding that August leave her property immediately. August had tried for forty-five minutes to get her mother to open the door, but Virginia wouldn’t budge.

August eventually went back to the motel room she’d rented in tears. It was obvious her mother was suffering from Alzheimer’s, and discovering her surrounded by a filthy hoard was too much for August to take. She called Rachael, who managed to calm August down after a while.

She’d slept on it, and was now back at her mother’s door.

August Macke took a deep breath, raised her fist, and knocked.

***

“Oh no,” Virginia whispered. “Deborah’s at the door.”

She stuffed all the money back in the trunk and dropped her black notebook in there too. Virginia quickly covered the trunk with clothes and started toward the front of the house.

Another knock rattled her door. Virginia turned back and stared at the pile of clothes she used as a bed.

“What was I doing in here again?” she asked herself.

She’d already forgotten the old trunk, the photo albums, her little black notebook, and the twenty thousand dollars.

Virginia shrugged and kept on toward the door. “I’m going to give that old windbag, Deborah Hunter, a good tongue lashing,” she mumbled to herself, “her and her awful green jacket.”