The Daughters

Her sister Riley was a cold fish, as cold as their father in his grave.  Why didn’t her sister and brother see what she saw, that their father had been murdered?  How could they be satisfied with the measly twenty thousand their father had left them each in his will.  Twenty thousand?  That wasn’t even enough for a downpayment on the car she wanted, never mind putting her on the road to home ownership.

Twenty thousand.  And if Riley called her the serpent’s tooth one more time she’d—well, she’d do something.

Heidi had been married to their father exactly six months and seven days.  Now he was dead, with the black widow getting everything.  Where’s the payoff for being Dr. Frank’s children?  He was there for everyone but not them.  Patients came first.  That was the lesson they learned very early in life.  Hey, Dad, money isn’t love.

On the other hand—  There’s millions locked up in the condo, the practice, the cars.  Eden didn’t care what the pathologist said, or the EMT’s. She knew the truth.  Bondage and LSD?  Give her a break!  And what did it matter that she had once been caught with drugs herself?  That had been rough.  If Daddy hadn’t previously treated the judge’s wife, who knew where she’d be.  But she had learned her lesson.  No more buying from someone she didn’t know.

Riley could afford to act superior, sitting in her assistant principal’s office, angling to move up whenever an opening occurred.  It didn’t even cost that much to live in the Pittsburgh area.  Not like DC, where Eden scrounged out a living working for the Smithsonian, the best she could get with her art history degree. How would Riley like to live with three roommates, one of whom had both a dog and a gerbil?

“If you don’t like it, move,” Riley told her unsympathetically.  Move where to do what?  She couldn’t move to the southwest. No water.  She couldn’t move to the Outer Banks, they were being washed away.  Florida would be under water soon.  New England, could she stand the cold?  No, she couldn’t.  And she wanted to travel, she wanted to live.  But you can’t live without money.

Oh, the glory days when she was an undergraduate.  That year in France.  The summers in Italy.  Why couldn’t she have that again?

She could if she could prove Heidi murdered her father. Then his estate—  She should check again with Frank, yes her brother, Frank Franklin, Esq.  What would happen with Daddy’s estate if Heidi did commit murder.  Because if it would go to a charity or something, what was the point of bothering?

Maybe her mother—but her mother lately was always crying poor.  Like, really?  She had a job.  Did she think a birthday gift of $500 was really going to cut it anymore?

What to do, what to do!  If only Eden could find someone rich to marry.  Maybe a lobbyist or something.  But the last party she went to was a work event where they talked about trekking through Nepal.  Seriously?  There wasn’t enough weed in the world to get through that one without puking.  Nerds nerds and an assortment of more nerds.  Her roommates were no help.  They were looking for the same things she was.  Escape!

Hells bells where was the fortune that should be waiting for her?  She deserved better than what she has.  And damn it, she was going to find a way to get it.

Eden wondered.  If she actually accused Heidi of murder, like, “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” would Heidi pay her off to shut her up?  Was it worth a try?

One thing Riley Franklin hated in life was whiny people!  Like her sister Eden.  Like the teachers she dealt with.  Never mind the parents, a whole different breed.  Why couldn’t people just suck it up and deal with it?

She knew the teachers hated her.  Or shall we use the word “disrespected.”  It was all because she only taught for one year.  Along with student teaching.  But teaching was never her aim.  Making money was.  One did not make money as a teacher.  That’s why she got her Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh, to move into administration as quickly as possible.  And for her it was up or out.  If she couldn’t find a position of principal open in the district in the next two years, she would look elsewhere or consider the community college.

If Eden got off the drugs, maybe she could understand ambition.  After all, who was the one who fucked up her life by getting a degree in art history?  Fun times, but what’s in the cards for her future?  Unless Eden gets married.  To someone willing to put up with her incessant whiny needs.  Like their father did.

Poor Dad, Riley thought.  What an ignominious way to die.  Or to be discovered in death.  He did so much for them, and she was sure they were all a disappointment to him.  Not that he was ever around that much to steer them in the right direction.  But, oh, how he longed for one of them to take up medicine or at least science.  He had suggested she become a molecular biologist.  Even in high school she couldn’t see crap under the microscope, never mind making slides.  But she was good in math.  However, did she want to become an accountant?  No, she was a people person, she kept telling herself, even if few others saw her that way.  Schools were desperate for math teachers, so she ended up teaching algebra to ninth graders for a year, before taking a break to her further studies.  At least Dad didn’t pay fully for that, as it was part of her continuing education, for which she could access funds from the district.

She sometimes wished she were closer to her brother and sister.  But she was the eldest, Frank in the middle, then Eden, five years younger than she.  Five years means a lot when you’re growing up. And maybe Riley resented the fact that Eden was everyone’s darling, with her strawberry hair, her beguiling smile and her cutsie ways—which wasn’t helping her out much now.

Frank?  What could one say about a brother.   Dad wanted him to go out for sports, like football or baseball.  Riley could still remember the eye roll when Dad dropped that news.  To her, not to their father.  She smiled at the memory.  Frank tried out for the swim team instead, but the constant ear aches make him change to track, after which volley ball, where he broke a finger.  It was still crooked to this day, but at least it wasn’t the middle finger.  Dad finally gave up on making Frank some sort of sports pro.

She at least could have an adult conversation with Frank, unlike with her younger sister.  They didn’t see much of each other or communicate regularly, but at least they were both sensible people.  At the funeral, with Eden suggesting murder, they both told her to shut up or Heidi might sue her for slander. And when Riley suggested how worried she was about their mother, Frank told her about the insurance policy, still in Bernice’s name.  “Thanks to me,” he said sotto voce.  “Dad did want to change it but I said too soon.”

“So Mom—“

“She should be fine, financially.  Unless she changes habits of a lifetime and blows it all.”

“God, I don’t want to get married,” Riley said.

“This has definitely been a turn off,” Frank agreed.  Then he looked over at Eden, crying copious tears.  Could it be for the monthly allowance she’d no longer get?

Families, Riley thought.  Working where she did, living the way she had, she knew that all families were completely fucked.  When her biological clock reached the alarm stage, she was going it alone, as far as motherhood went.

And Dad?  Well, he died the way some men do.  Look at Nelson Rockefeller.  If it could happen to him, well, why not Dad?

A knock at her tightly closed door.  The guidance counsellor.  Riley only hoped she wanted to talk about an academically troubled child and not a potential mass killer.