Feeling half-deranged from her interaction with Thallea, Jena cranked up the music in her car as she pulled out of her driveway for the trip between states she didn't expect to take again so soon. She'd need gas to complete the journey. It was another thing she'd have to put on her already heavily used credit card. It hadn't taken long for this whole fiasco to eat through her savings entirely. As long as she was still considered to be married to Nate she could continue to take out credit cards for herself because their credit score was joined. It would have to do for the time being, but she didn't like it. Sooner rather than later she'd be unable to meet her credit payment minimums. She needed Nate to wake up. It was a worry that felt like it was sitting on her shoulders, the weight of which made them slump. The courthouse still had her request for an emergency power of attorney on the schedule, but with it being so far out she was certainly suffering in the meantime.
Jena let the brisk night air cool her flared temper at the gas station leaving Meadows Parting. She had a light jacket on but suddenly realized that winter had rolled in somewhere during the blurred days. The blood drained from her hands as she worked the pump. She curled her toes in her shoes once she noticed the concrete beneath her feet caused a chill that seeped through her socks. As she stood there, her mind went to the thought of the many miles she had put on her car recently. She calculated the route she would take, gambling the pros and cons of whether her default back road shortcut was worth the trouble. Her GPS wanted her to use the main roads that had street lights and travel along populated areas. Jena though, typically used the old abandoned highways only old timers like herself remembered from her parent's generation because they had dropped off the map. She took into consideration how tired she was, how she was worried her car was already overdue for a tuneup, but most importantly that the roads would be shut down if they were untravelable. However, she ultimately decided to go that way because it had less traffic and fewer stops.
Having established a plan to run over to Colorado and back, Jena threw out the trash from her car. She had filled up on gas station food because she was avoiding being seen by anyone she knew. The questions they had all had depressing answers. Jena hadn't the stomach for passing conversation these days. Full of salty chips and cheap coffee, she felt as ready as she could be to make the drive alone under a new moon away from any form of comfort for the next few hundred miles. To her, anything was better than being still and thinking about the numerous things that were upsetting her. The road was mostly cruise control-friendly driving, except for one corkscrew turn going into Colorado when she was coming off of the backroads to the main highway again. By then Jena knew when it was coming and had perfected her technique maneuvering past it.
Jena collected her thoughts as she drove. She tried her best to make a plan for what was to come but found it to be impossible because there were too many variables to consider. Before she knew it she was on the side of a darkened roadside looking for a place to relieve herself from the coffee she had at the gas station earlier. Being as busy as she was made the concept of time a lucid element of the events surrounding her actions. Jena knelt behind her tailgate, assuming no one was around when out of nowhere a small import car raced past her, narrowly avoiding a collision. The driver hadn't slowed or likely even saw her, but it unsettled her nonetheless. Her heart skipped a beat. The word "reckless" came to her mind. The car must have been going close to 100 miles per hour on the 55-mile-an-hour road. That was the problem with this route, it was used mostly by speeders and those hauling narcotics. Police avoided using it because their radios would cut out. Cops didn't like being unable to call for backup.
Jena quickly got to her feet and adjusted herself feeling a sense of danger. She had urine soaking through her leather loafers from when she fell over. There was dirt on her back and side. Needless to say, she was ready to get this task over with. She got back behind the wheel, wanting to expedite putting miles between her and that place. A light snow had started to fall. She still had three hours to go. On the Colorado side of the highway, the snow was piled up. She wondered why the road hadn't been closed off but continued. The music was turned off in her car. She needed all of her concentration on the path ahead. Every so often another car would pass her going toward Oklahoma, making her assume that the the road was open all the way through. There was snow covering the road. It was unplowed but compacted down in such a way as to allow a foolhardy driver to slowly continue forward.
Jena's sleep deprivation was starting to set in for her after about an hour with no other cars in sight. Her head felt like it was on fire from the lack of rest she had been enduring for far too long. She pulled over just to rest her eyes. She reclined her driver-side seat fully. She didn't have a better jacket or any blankets in the car. The snow silently coated her vehicle. It was so peaceful at that moment. She was perfectly in between the problems behind her and those ahead of her. Jena could have hours before another vehicle passed her. The elevation was higher where she was parked, she realized. It was colder there than it was in Oklahoma, significantly so. A glacial chill crept into her car from the floor peddles up. Her wet feet were instantly numb from the cold. A flash of concern came to her thoughts that she could very well become trapped there and without supplies or proper weather gear, she'd be lucky to only lose a digit or two. Despite that she could bearly keep her eyes open, she had to press on. Worry was the single thing moving her along.
Within an hour she was at the corkscrew turn. She saw flashing lights on the other side of the bend. She glanced at her phone to double-check the time. When her eyes were back on the road in that split second a highway patrolman had walked into the roadway from the blindspot on the mountain. She slammed on her brakes almost sending herself off the cliffside and within an arm's length of crashing into him. They both stared at one another in horror of the near-fatal incident. She slowed down to pull up beside him and rolled down her window. He was aghast with shock, just as much as was she. She thought he'd haul her in or at least ticket her. She wondered why he wasn't wearing any reflective gear, but then she saw the accident he was still in the process of blocking off, which must have been why he was there, to begin with.
Upon observing the scene, Jena saw the import car that had sped past her earlier, had crashed into the mountainside of the corkscrew turn. It must have just happened, Jena thought because the full first responder assistance parties had not completely arrived. The pale officer, probably having seen his life flash before his eyes, waved Jena along, not wanting to speak to her. She didn't hesitate, moving along. She didn't want him to reconsider. She felt like death itself was out that night. She couldn't leave there fast enough.
Once in the city limits by the facility where Nate was Jena hunted a hotel. She was still shaken from the events previously. She sought solace at a nicer establishment. In a proper hotel lobby, a young couple was checking in in front of her. They looked posh like she and Nate had so many times before. When the couple was done, Jena tried to check in too. Jena greeted the concierge, and then asked, "Do you have any rooms available?" In response without so much as pretending to check his computer, said, "I'm sorry, we're all booked up. You'll have to go elsewhere." Jena felt like he was lying, but also didn't want to make a scene. She politely pressed him, "Are you sure there's nothing just for tonight?" He answered, "Nothing at all. I suggest you try the motels on Third Street." The partner of the man who had been in front of her in line sat to the side of her in an ornate chair. Jena couldn't help but notice her practically recoil as she looked her up and down. Jena examined herself. She had an unpleasant odor about her and was overall rattled in disposition as well as appearance. She felt unlike her once well-put-together self but also felt that her money was still good enough to warrant some leeway. Yet at that moment, it was a losing battle. She knew she would find nothing for herself there, and took her leave as those near the front desk stared her down. "Oh, how far I have fallen." Jena thought to herself as she walked away defeated.
The concierge had told her to go to the metro area. Although he was probably being rude, Jena found the Towny Inn keeper to be a palatable woman who saw that she was overwrought, not a degenerate. It was a kindness Jena desperately appreciated. In her room, Jena cleaned up her shoes and clothing with a bar of hand soap that she had broken into two pieces, scrubbing them with a washcloth. To dry her things she placed them on top of the room's heater before she collapsed on the bed naked but wrapped in a bath towel. Everything about her felt frayed. She was amazed that she made it there in one piece.
Knowing she was there on specific business in Colorado, Jena dropped off the replica ring to pass along to Ivy-Mae with the staff at the care facility. If only she had finally gotten a longer night's sleep at the motel, but Jena thought it best to wake up early to avoid her confrontational mother-in-law. She had no interest in seeing Ivy-Mae or Nate at that point. When she finally arrived at her home Jena was annoyed because she had lost the bulk of the day to driving and had to be at work the following morning. It was the only extra shift she could pick up because no one else wanted to take it. Her co-worker, Nikkola, would be there at lunch after she opened by herself. Jena found her to be a decent companion, in short periods. Any longer and then Nikkola had a habit of giving unsolicited advice that was downright silly, but expected from someone who had been divorced four times. Jena knew she meant well, but was taxing all the same, especially when she became bossy.
As soon as she entered her home, after weighing if she should pick up Tiki from Mrs. Flossie or not, Jena decided not to until after she saw the state of things in her house. Thallea had left her soiled clothing scattered on the floor. The house reeked of heavy smoke, with a few ash burns dotting the interior here and there. During her OB/GYN appointments previously, Jena could overhear Thallea telling her doctor that she was quitting or had already quit smoking. It bothered Jena greatly because she knew that Thallea had no care for her unborn children's health. Beau had told her to stay out of it. Jena begrudgingly honored his request, but she was starting to wonder if Beau was taking on more work just to dodge his partner.
Being in no mood to order or to want to go out to eat, Jena went to her kitchen for a meal. A mere few days prior she had bought over a few hundred dollars worth of groceries, expecting it to last for at least the rest of the month. Thallea had been complaining that she didn't like what Jena had at the house, despite the shelves bursting with supplies, more than enough to make anything a person could desire. Upon inspection, Jena found that the groceries were nearly depleted. Her options were canned chilis and expired bread, everything else looked like it had been opened, bitten into, left out to rot, or thrown out. This upset Jena. It was no secret that money had been tight. Things like this were adding to the burdens Jena carried. Each day she seemed to surpass her limit on what she could endure. She resolved to put the next run of dry goods in her closet for safekeeping in the future.
When it had been just her and Nate at the house, Jena would have gone to great lengths to meet his needs. At least Nate had needs that could have been met. With Thallea, the list of demands was endless. She wanted simply to want again, not to accomplish a specific objective. Jena found that these days, she had lost her urge to politely undertake a task in her household because no task had a resolution. Nate had a reason behind his callousness. However, in the moments when Jena tried to appease Thallea, her labors are unrewarded or met with contention, which would lead to another request from the wretch, thus further frustrating Jena more so than at the start. Jena felt a distinctive taste of lowered class within her home due to her constant minding of Thallea's slovenly ways. Thallea would lie, unconvincingly like a child whenever she was confronted, making Jena loathe to address her. By then, Jena had developed a series of methods to circumvent conflict with Thallea. All of these were based on the assumption that Thallea was a lost cause who should be sidestepped or pandered to.
Due to her frazzled state, Jena went downstairs to find Thallea who was in a stained camisole top and ill-fitting panties sitting on the same couch where an unconscious Nate lay what felt like so long ago. In the tone of an exasperated mother Jena questioned, "Thallea, I thought you quit smoking?" Thallea in kind replied, "I did! Jeeze!" Jena looked at the mountain of old cigarettes stamped out on a plate that Thallea had used as an ashtray. Jena suppressed every fiber of her being to not pull Thallea by the hair to dump her on the curb outside. She could have said so much more, but with Thallea, it would have been a fruitless effort. Thallea was an unfixable person and with her brother's love already in the balance, Jena went back upstairs to lock herself away for the night. She missed Tiki who kept her company, but knew it better to leave him where he was. Her sole consolation was that Thallea had work in the afternoon the following day at Turner's ghost kitchen in town. As much as she needed the money, Jena messaged her boss explaining that she would have to leave early, knowing it was time to take stock of what her unwanted guest had been doing to her home in her absence.
At first, Jena fell into a deep restful slumber on her bed. However, after Thallea's loud activities of stomping on the stairs, slamming doors, listening to movies with the base beat speakers on, and calling her friends back home to have roaring conversations, Jena's sleep went into a fevered state that sent her into an anxiety dream of her teeth falling out. This continued all night. Thallea was tucking into bed by the time that Jena was getting into the shower the following morning.
Jena was glad that she got to work with kind-hearted children. The usual early bird families were there in the parking lot when Jena pulled up to start her shift. They were mostly children of local hospital or restaurant workers. Jena welcomed them in and set up the morning breakfast snacks. She liked to play educational cartoons while the kids ate. The day's activity was to make macaroni portraits of their favorite animals after playground time.
After breakfast snack time, Jena was pushing one of the kids on a swing when a man dressed like a utility worker walked up to the playground gate and served her with court documents before he just as briskly went off again. Jena flipped through the packet. She realized now why Ivy-Mae wanted Nate's ring so badly. She likely used it to hire a lawyer so she could take Jena to court over Nate's "Living Estate." Jena was disgusted, but nothing surprised her regarding Ivy-Mae's greedy nature. Contributing to her sense of betrayal was that Ivy-Mae was given a court date in a matter of days when Jena had been filing emergency petitions and requests for court orders that were each pushed back for months. Jena felt like she was working against a tilted stage. She went home as soon as Nikkola arrived. On her Bluetooth, she dialed up Roman's office. His paralegal answered but said that he was unavailable. "Would you like to leave a message for him?" She asked. Jena replied, "Tell him, I'm being taken to court and it looks like it's going to be an ambush."
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