Going to her home was strange to Jena. Her house was still hers but she felt like an unwanted guest when she entered despite being alone. It was the early hours of the morning by then. As usual, the house was disgustly kept by Thallea. Jena tried to lie down but found she was too restless to close her eyes. To process her agitation she went to the kitchen and had a coffee. Then out of habit or for distraction, she cleaned each room in the house. It was noon the next day by the time she had begun to get the place to look like it once had before she took in Thallea. There were bags and bags of garbage Jena hauled to the curb. The entirety of which was from what Thallea had littered her home with. After she had gotten the rubbish out of the way, Jena scrubbed the walls, windows, and floors in that order. She was glad when the house looked familiar to her. She washed her hands which were now raw from her work and had another coffee. Jena mulled stopping over to get Tiki from Ms. Flossie's because Thallea would be at the hospital for at least another few days.
Jena put away her cleaning supplies and then plopped down on the designer red suede couch Nate had specially ordered, which had taken eight months to arrive. An odor that reeked of stale cigarette smoke immediately reached Jena's nostrils from the upholstery. Jena whose arms at that moment felt like jelly from the vigorous activity went from tired to enraged once more. She hated that no matter how hard she worked, something Thallea did took away from her feeling of peace, just as Ivy- Mae and Nate did even before. It also occurred to her that as soon as Thallea came back, the cycle of destruction would continue all over again. Jena was so exhausted in her mind, body and soul from always trying to clean up other's messes and mistakes, but never to any solution. One can not stop another who is set in their ways. She couldn't change Ivy-Mae, Nate, or Thallea, but she could at least kick Thallea out for good. Maybe if she had to clean up her own mess she would grow to be more responsible.
With that Jena set her sights on Thallea's room. It was the only one she had not cleaned because it was usually locked. It was also the source of the odor that infuriated Jena so greatly at that precise moment. Jena grabbed a prybar from the tool bench in the garage and hacked at the lock for at least ten minutes before it fell off the door, along with the door knob too. The door's frame was chipped and warped from her hacking at it. Thallea's room was truly filthy. Soiled underwear and piled-up take-out trays full of rotten food were everywhere. Jena stepped in one as soon as she entered. The bedding was wadded up into a ball and the mattress had cigarette burns all over it from Thallea using it as an ashtray. Cigarette butts were left on every surface, there were far too many to count. Jena took her oversized box of trash bags and went to work. She threw out everything that wasn't something she had bought herself for the place. Jena did not differentiate trash from Thallea's things. It all looked the same to her. Thallea could go back to the hole she crawled out of for all she cared.
It took an hour before Jena could see the floor in the room. The formerly light blue walls were fouled with a yellowish tinge from the smoke. The floor was covered in various brown stains. These were things that required replacement to be as it once was. However, Jena opted to use the carpet shampooer on the rug because the house still ultimately belonged to Ivy-Mae. Jena simply had to wait for Nate to be declared dead to be free of the place, but she still wanted to make it livable for herself in the meantime. Jena had thought out all of her problems while she had been working. She decided that she was done helping Beau since she had to be realistic for her own future. Helping Thallea was putting her at the mercy of Ivy-Mae who was now the legal owner of the dwelling. Jena decided to keep the barndominium as close as she could to how it was, not something she would have to worry about too much because Ivy-Mae had hardly ever visited in the first place. By the time Jena had finally gotten the room to look as much as it was going to without serious renovations, she left the window open to allow it to air out for at least a few days and to let the carpet dry.
Jena was a mess herself when it all was done. She had wasted the day away and didn't get a chance to drop by to get her beloved Tiki, who couldn't have been in the house anyway with all the cleaners she had used to scrub the place from top to bottom. Jena took a shower and fell asleep on her unmade bed in her bathrobe because the linen was still in the wash. She jerked awake shortly after slipping into a quick slumber thinking she had missed important calls. Upon realizing there were none, Jena concluded that she only was called when someone wanted something from her. The whole house smelled like a cheap motel, but it was still an upgrade from the aroma of a seedy bar. She opened all the windows in the place despite it being a very chilly day. Then she went outside to mow the lawn since she no longer had the funds to pay someone else to do it. In her mind, it was still the better option versus sitting inside fending off the cold.
KT Construction could have easily sent someone over to help, as they did when Nate was there. However, Jena's requests were ignored no matter how often she reached out. It seemed that Turner would flip flop on whether he was there to help her or hang her out to dry. Jena tried not to fixate on it because she considered herself lucky that through neglect alone she was absolved of paying the mortgage or taxes on the place for the time being. She was for once glad that Nate had used his "spend big or don't buy" attitude toward their landscaping equipment. He had put it toward buying a top-of-the-line riding lawn mower for their acre-sized lot. Jena finished that after not too long and was about to take the power washer to the patio along with the front walkway when a thunderstorm began to rain down hard pellets of hail onto her. Jena took cover in the garage. She went to go inside the house but the cleaning chemicals gave her a headache. She opted instead to take a nap in the back of Nate's truck which was parked inside.
Jena fell into a deep dark sleep. She dreamed of walking with her mother in a beautiful garden. In her dream, she was young and happy. Then she saw a large garden snake that lashed out at her and her mother was gone. Next, she saw she was an adult alone and watching herself cry in her first apartment with Nate. He knocked on the door and she said, "You're dead. That means I'm dead too." Nate unaware of this revelation responded, "Then we can wait here until everyone comes." As he sat next to her. Jena woke up from that which felt so real to her to realize the storm had gotten worse and the wind was howling outside. Still shaken from her dream, Jena jumped out of the truck because she remembered that she had left all of the windows of the house open. Jena closed as many as she could but left Thallea's open because she thought the room could not be more damaged than it already was.
In the pitch of night, Jena finished cleaning the place by putting all of the linens on the beds in the dark because the electricity had gone out. She didn't bother to light any candles. It was the next day now that she was working on reclaiming her home for herself. Jena had no interest in doing anything more, her body had worked to its limit. Feeling like she was dragging herself along, she ate leftover fiber crackers with the only condiment available in her pantry, mustard. Then still feeling rundown to her core went back to sleep on the truck bed this time with a sleeping bag to keep her warm. She planned to use Nate's credit card to go to the store to resupply her cupboards when they opened. In the meanwhile, she made do with what she had, however unsatisfying it was.
The daylight brought in the needed morning. Jena finally felt rested, but sore. The electricity was back on. It had been a freak storm late in the spring, especially to have lasted through the night as it had. The place still stunk. Jena smiled to herself as it was a bit of an unintentional "screw you" to Ivy-Mae too who was set to take over the place.
Jena made the trip to the Piggly Wiggly, the store owned by Emily's family. She thought of her haunting dream as she drove into the quiet town. She took it to mean that Nate was not going to come back and that she was wasting time she needed to be with her aging family. Jena had stopped holding out hope Nate would make any form of a recovery. He was as far gone as the instantly forgotten Amber Coates. They had died together in that bedroom. One was simply wealthy enough to have a delayed funeral than the other. Jena felt sorry for the girl who had died in her home. No one talked about her or cared. It was like she never existed at all. Jena hoped she'd never end up like that, but then she had a thought that maybe she already was. Aside from her mother, she wondered if she would be remembered at all. It made her sad for herself and sad for baby Mickey-Moon who had the misfortune of being Thallea's child. Suddenly, feeling too depressed to risk interaction with anyone for fear of crying. Jena got breakfast from a drive-through coffee shop and returned to the barndominum.
After her phone had charged enough Jena checked her messages to see that Thallea had texted wanting her to bring some of the baby's clothes to the hospital. Jena feeling sympathy for the remaining infant Tiger-Blood, Jena took a still-wrapped baby shower gift to him. The staff recognized Jena when she came in. A social worker, Jena knew as Mrs. Bekemeire took Jena aside in the hallway at the maternity ward front desk. "Just so you know, we've formally opened an investigation into the parental fitness of your brother and his partner. I've talked to the Sheriff on this matter and he's suggested that you take the surviving infant until the investigation is completed since you already work with children. He's tested positive for fetal alcohol syndrome and will likely have respiratory issues for life." Jena cringed at this news but also wasn't surprised. Beau thought he could ignore Thallea when in truth ignoring problems lets them grow. Thallea had become quite the monster at this point. Jena reluctantly agreed until things could get sorted out or at least the baby could go to a good family.
Jena signed what documents were needed before leaving the baby clothes with Mrs. Bekemeire. It seemed as if the powers that be were washing her hands of Thallea without her having to do it herself. Once again Jena was sad for Beau's boys. He tried so hard to keep them and yet he was going to lose them anyway. He was not the man who she once admired. He was just as unfit as Thallea by then because he would not intervene. On the way out Mrs. Bekemeire led her to an officer who would be there for the handoff of the child when Tiger-Blood was stable enough to be released from the hospital. Officer Capshaw asked to go with Jena back to her home to see if she could gather any information for the investigation. Against her judgment, Jena let her go with her because she too wanted to know what Thallea had been doing. Roman might kill her for this but Jena hadn't liked the way that Amber Coates death had been investigated. Jena wanted answers for once in her life, not to passively watch a cover-up.
At the house Officer Capshaw looked around Thallea's room. Jena pointed her to the trash bags she had still sitting on the curb that had water in them now. "I'm sorry, I was not aware an investigation was happening or I would not have cleaned this place like I did. Honestly, I was taking the opportunity to kick the woman out. She's a hoarder and my brother needs to take care of her. I can't watch her all the time, not that she listens to anyone anyway." Capshaw, obviously trying to get Jena to implicate herself bluntly asked, "Did you know she was drinking?" Jena answered, "I saw her sneaking drinks and smoking. I passed along my concerns to my brother and her doctor. They both said they'd talk to her and then I'd catch her again. She's just a bad seed through and through. They were trying to 'fix' her and that's not going to work." Capshaw wrote down something on her notepad. Jena didn't care if she went to jail by that point anyway. She considered her life to be a type of captivity of its own.
Capshaw poked around Thallea's room some more. "Is this window always open?" She pointed to the curtains blowing in the breeze. Jena responded, "Not usually. I shampooed the carpets and wanted to air it out. I'm trying to clean it up before I have to hand the place over to my mother-in-law." Capshaw pulled the sheets up from the bed to check the mattress as she spoke, "Yeah? When's that?" she asked. Jena shrugged her shoulders, "Any day now I'd expect. The County ruled it goes to her when my husband dies, and it doesn't look like he'll pull through." Capshaw shook the bed frame to see if anything would fall out. Then she weakly consoled, "Sorry to hear that." Before she went over to the closet. "Jena feeling awkward sat on the end of the bed. She turned on the TV in the armoire to see if the rain had damaged it. Capshaw walked over to it too. "Cable TV?" She asked, Jena, said, "It's got an app that hooks up to your phone. I just wanted to see if it still works. I guess I should have checked to see if the hail broke it sooner."
Capshaw held out her hand as if to ask for the remote. Jena nonchalantly dropped it into her open palm. Capshaw clicked a few buttons on it, to take it to a settings menu that Jena had never noticed before. Then she pulled up a search history of all the things Thallea had been looking up before her delivery. Things like "how to pass a drug test" and " how to induce labor without other people noticing" were on there. Jena had to blink twice when she saw Turner's address was searched for numerous times, including right before Jena left to go to the Birthday party. Capshaw grinned a little saying, "Bingo. Can I take this back to the station?" Jena without issue agreed. Capshaw almost giddy replied, "Okay, and Bekemeire will be in touch about the baby." Then she yanked the cord out of the wall. Jena then opened the front door for her as she went out.
Jena walked back to the bedroom the window had stayed open in the room because it still smelled terrible in there. Jena concluded that she'd probably leave it like that until she moved out herself. She also reasoned that Thallea's phone might very well still be connected to the TV too. Jena chuckled a little to herself about it but had no hopes of Thallea ever being caught. People like her are bad because the lack of consequences in their lives made them that way, or so she thought to herself as much.
No sooner had Chapshaw been out of sight than Turner came over unannounced. Turner was irate. "How could you let a cop into my house?! Why was she even here? You know not to talk to the police without calling Roman first! What are you doing?!" Jena had never seen Turner so rattled before. She had no idea why he would care that Thallea was losing custody of the baby and she told him that too. Turner's red face suddenly began to change back to its usual color. "Oh, I thought it was about the other girl," Turner said dropping his shoulders. Jena thought of Amber Coates. "What did she look at? Did she take anything?" Jena being open said, "She took the TV Thallea's phone was connected to and she looked in the closet, but I had already cleaned in here yesterday because I'm kicking Thallea out." Turner checked his phone then uninterested mumbled, "Good, good. I've got to go." As he curtly walked out.
Jena was confused. How did he even know she had taken a police officer to the house? They lived far off the beaten path and well out of town. There's no one by her to have accidentally seen other than old Ms. Flossier who wouldn't have told a soul regardless. Jena had used to joke with Nate that Turner had eyes everywhere, maybe the joke was that it was true.
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