Inherit

Inherit

by

Liz Reinhardt

©
2012 by Liz Reinhardt

All rights reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention.

May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.

Cover Design by Stephanie Mooney.

Chapter 1

When the box passes from the airport customs clerk’s hands to mine, the weight shifts so suddenly, I have to throw one hip out to offset it.

Japanese characters have been stamped all over, haphazardly. I guess they mark the long trip this box made and maybe advertise some dire warnings, too. It’s the first thing I’ve ever received from my relatives in Japan. I actually didn’t think they even acknowledged my existence, and, honestly, I wish they’d started our family gift exchange with a warning phone call or a nice, boring card.

A mysterious voicemail from the airport directing me to immediately pick up an even more mysterious box with almost no other information is just exhausting and kind of rude. My schedule is pretty tight, and I just don’t have time to scurry over to the notoriously congested airport just because some old relative wants to pass an heirloom, or whatever, my way.

But I’m here now, and I have the box, so I decide to make the best of it and get home as fast as I can. This day has already bordered on depressingly exhausting, and I need to check on my grandmother sooner than later.

“Uh, it moved.” I address the statement to the man behind the scarred counter, sour as a bag of lemons and dull as a turnip. He is a feast of unpleasantness, and he clearly wants me to leave quickly and without a fuss.

“It has air holes.” He waggles his pen at me and sighs. “Watch out for urine.”

“Excuse me?” I hold the squirming box far out in front of me, and my arms shake from the effort.

“Urine.” He stretches the word so it bounces and echoes off of the grey walls and dirty, blue chipped laminate counters.

“I’m sorry?” I’m positive I must be mishearing him. He didn’t just tell me to watch for pee. Did he?

He absently flicks one of those nasty pens that don’t work, but are attached by chains like you might bother to steal them. “If it has air holes, it urinates. It will go right through that cardboard.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks.” I back away fast and we exchange smiles. It’s the first and last time he or I smiled during our brief meeting. Parting is such sweet pleasure! Good-bye grouchy airport employees, dismal, rundown airport desk and pacing, grumbling passengers and hello whatever is breathing and possibly urinating inside this box from Japan.

The air outside is wonderful, cool and fresh on my face— a tall, icy glass of water after the gritty desert of that abysmal set of offices. I walk briskly to my truck, shivering in the air that plunges from refreshing to downright icy on my skin in a few seconds. I should have worn a damn coat, but I thought I’d be able to tough it out since it’s technically almost spring.

When I get to my truck, I check the box for pee, and then shake it gently, side to side. I try to navigate one eye close to the air holes to peek in, but I’m afraid of a beak jabbing me or a claw scratching me. Because I’m more of a chicken than I am curious about this ‘gift,’ I don’t get any solid clues about what exactly this is. No pee, only the sound of scratching, like tiny nails scraping the cardboard. I yank the passenger door shut, shimmy over to the driver’s seat, and call my best friend. One hand on the phone, one on the wheel, I back up and pull out carefully, praying my unreliable truck won’t break down before I make it home.

“Nevaeh!” I can hardly hear her on the other end. “Nevaeh, is that you?” A voice pops through, and I feel the citric burn of jealousy I’m working so damn hard on curbing. “Oh. Hi Zivalus.”

My best friend Nevaeh is my rock—the serious, smart, motivated person I anchor myself to when I feel like a kite about to break its string and float away. She pulls me in. Talks me down. Keeps me away from high branches and electrical wires, bodies of water and birds…and whatever else kites need keeping away from.

Well, she
used
to do all those things. Until Zivalus.

He’s nice. So nice. He plays the trumpet like Louis Armstrong, has a 3.75 GPA, manipulates a soccer ball like he was born without arms, and dotes on Nevaeh. A better friend would be happy for them.

I’m working on it. Seriously working on it.

“Hey Wren! Where’ve you been lately? Nevaeh’s missing you. Did you get our message about the movie last night?” His voice is cheery and sweet; Zivalus sounds like a trumpet even when he’s nowhere near a horn.

“Uh, sorry, Zivalus. I was busy. I had a late shift tutoring. I told Nevaeh that.” Why does he have to be my best friend’s mouthpiece? Why do I get a message from ‘them’ instead of ‘her’? I’m being a spoiled brat, but these things irritate me.

“She must’ve forgot.” He sounds honestly upset. “Maybe we can get together tonight?”

“Can’t. Gotta watch Bestemor.” Bestemor is what I call my mother’s mother, my grandmother. She’s a little wicked, a lot funny, and losing her mind fast.

My fingers curl tight on the steering wheel when I think about her pouring dishsoap into her tea, depositing the crossword puzzle at the bank, and leaving all the plants in the shower with the water running for eight hours while I was at school. In the end, all it amounted to was some diarrhea, a confused but entertained bank teller, some soggy plants, and a fat water bill. But these kinds of things are happening more and more often, and it’s eating at my heart.

“Maybe we can drop by?” Zivalus presses.

I grit my teeth.
Maybe you can stop answering Nevaeh’s phone.
“Not tonight. Bestemor’s been really confused lately.”

Last time Zivalus pulled up to take us out, Bestemor wanted to know when we got a driver. I know she didn’t mean it, but it makes my ears burn to remember, and I don’t want him to get offended by something my lovably loony grandmother says.

“We definitely need to hang soon. Well, I’ll tell Nevaeh you called, Wren!”

Zivalus clicks off before I can tell him I need to speak to her. Not him,
her
. And that there is a mysterious box from Ageo, Japan sitting next to me in my truck, silent but alive. I can feel the vibrations of life coming from it, and I imagine I can even sense a heartbeat and breathing.

Curiosity almost beats out fear, and I grab the edge of a piece of tape, ready to pull, when another little set of scratches sends me back to Scaredy Town. I jump back and decide to figure this out at home, with the safety of other people and the police station and ambulances less than five minutes away. Just in case.

I know I have a ton of family in Japan, but I’ve never actually met or corresponded with any of them before. Mom always said we’d make a trip there to see my father’s family, but then she’d disappeared to New York to shack up with a graffiti artist, and I haven’t even had a phone call from her since last Easter. And I certainly don’t know anyone well enough to get a gift from overseas. Especially one that went through a special customs process and had heavy, secretive papers drawn up for its delivery. Whoever sent it has to be pretty powerful to break through the rigid codes of the United States transportation and customs systems. But why now? And what is it?

I try to guess what’s in it like it’s an unopened Christmas gift taunting me from under the tree. The box fits in my arms. Maybe it’s a cat or a dog. A sigh deflates my body at the thought of a new puppy pissing on the rugs and chewing my favorite leopard-print kitten heels. It’s not that I don’t love warm cuddly things; I’m not a heartless freak. But I have Bestemor and myself to take care of, and that’s more than I can handle most days.

I used to have Nevaeh to help take the edge off, but she’s been as flighty as I am lately, now that love with Zivalus has her all atwitter. We’re just two stupid kites flying in opposite directions, about to crash into the first trees we come across.

Since the thing in the box isn’t making any serious attempts to get out and I won’t know if my guesses about it are right until I get home, I let the box sit and do my very best to blissfully ignore it.

I turn up the radio, and the croon of a lyrical genius bubbles out of my spent speakers and sets my fingers thumping on the wheel. I’m catching the lyrics on my tongue and letting them vibrate back into the air when the sudden lurch of the truck breaks my heart in an instant.

I so want to pretend I’m wrong, but no amount of denial can combat the sound of rubber slapping the road, and the fwop, fwop, fwop is a refrain for my immediate despair. Much as I want to believe that this just can’t be happening, tonight of all crappy, exhausting nights, it is. My truck veers into oncoming traffic and I have to hyper-correct my steering to keep from crashing because one tire is undeniably flat.

I have a flat!

Bestemor is probably ironing the couch or opening every single can of soup in the pantry. Nevaeh is listening to Zivalus make funny jokes with his horn of a voice. There is a box with a questionable life form on the seat next to me.

Life pulses in overwhelming shifts and waves. I’m about to give up all hope, lay my head on the steering wheel and weep until I wring my eyes dry, but I see a gas-station, and it’s so close I can coast there safely.

Problems boil in my mind; I have seventeen dollars to my name, my spare is a very crappy donut, Bestemor could be in serious trouble. But it’s not all gloom; this is still a gas-station. It could have been a dentist’s office or a school. And I have my cell phone.

I hit redial and this time I melt into Vee’s sweet voice, but I can’t disclose all my worries right now, much as I want to. I just beg her to drag Zivalus to Bestemor’s and ask her if it’s fine if I’m ridiculously late. And, even though I’ve been pouting about Nevaeh, she makes sure I’m okay, tells me not to worry for one second about my grandma, and that Zivalus will be ready to jump up and run to get me at a minute’s notice if I need.

I let Nevaeh’s love wash over me before I have to face the very bad music about to come. And just when the music seems most off key, Jonas Balto saunters to my truck in grease-stained Dickie work pants, a blue button-down with his name embroidered in a lighter blue oval, and tightly-laced, grease-smeared work boots.

Oh yeah, the particular music I’m facing is like a kid jumping on a set of bagpipes, and seeing Jonas means that awful music just got a whole lot worse.

I drag air into my nostrils and whoosh it back out of my lips. Jonas Balto is not the worst person to have approaching me with a wrench when my truck needs a fixing hand. He and I may not see eye to eye on everything, but the boy is handy with a tool.

“Hey, Wren.” His voice is smooth as driftwood pummeled by a million waves. He’s icy calm and cool—no worries, no hurries.

I shiver and jitter in contrast.

“Hey, Jonas. My truck has a flat. But, listen to me, okay? I have, like, no money. At all. Because I’m on E right now, too, and what I have is barely enough to fill my tank.” I suck air into my lungs and they fill like two hopeful party balloons while I wait.

His eyes comb over me, shift to the flat tire, then sit still on my face. “My shift ends in ten minutes. If you can wait, I’ll fix your tire for free. And if you need some gas money, I’ll spot you. I know you’re good for it.” He chooses each word like he’s sifting through gems, his clear blue eyes cool as twin glaciers.

“Thank you.” My arms bob up to pull him close, but I weigh them down with sense.
You do not go hugging a guy just because he offers to change your tire
, I lecture myself as I let him walk back to the garage unhugged.
Especially if the guy is Jonas Balto
.

Jonas Balto: the same irritating jerk who had it out with me during debate about reparations for American families wronged by the government at the end of last term. Maybe I’d gotten too furious, since I’m half Japanese and there was that whole messy internment period in American history during World War II. And maybe he was just being a good debater, volleying his cool logic about generational responsibility and fulfilled obligation, but it
felt
like more. To me. It felt personal.

Our history teacher had to call a break after the debates, and it took two trips to the water-fountain and a ton of under-my-breath cursing to still my blood. I wish he would have approached me and apologized, but he never did, and that was the nebulous for an ice-age of dislike that I felt like a winter blast every time we passed in the hallway or met eyes across the cafeteria.

The box on my seat shifts. It’s quiet, but it shifts microscopically, and I can sense it. I wonder if the ‘it’ inside the box needs food, water, or to pee, but I’m too scared to open the flaps and see what’s inside. As upset as I would be if it were a puppy or kitten, my stomach lurches when I imagine the possible coils of a snake or the whip-like tail of a huge lizard. I’ll wait until I’m home with Nevaeh and Bestemor. And Zivalus. Possibly armed. Even if his weapon of choice would probably be a trumpet case.