Page 43 of Grounds for Love

Chapter 14

Jen

“Hey,Jen!”Joycalls down the stairs as I’m tossing out another bag of rancid coffee beans.

“Yeah.”

“Do you know where my birth certificate is? I’m registering.”

Joy decided to take a few online college classes in marketing. “It should be in the box marked records that we stored in the hall closet.”

“I looked there, but couldn’t find it.”

“I’ll be right up. Let me throw out this bag of beans.”

I hear her footsteps running downstairs. “Another one?”

“Yes. I can’t believe it.”

“That’s the third bag. Let me throw them away; you look positively green.”

I gladly hand the bag over. “I’ll go look for your birth certificate.”

I’m only two steps up when Joy stops me. “Jen…”

I turn back to find her sniffing the bag. Just seeing her do that makes my stomach roll. “Yeah?”

“There’s nothing wrong with these beans.”

“What? Yes, there is. They smell like rotten cheese and dirty socks mixed together.”

“No. They smell like coffee beans. Rich, dark, coffee beans.”

To prove her point, she buries her face in the bag and inhales. I press my hand to my stomach and a glob of bile rises in my throat. I swallow it down and take a few deep breaths. Unfortunately, I smell the bad beans. “Just get rid of them before I throw up.”

I don’t wait around. I rush up the stairs and straight to the bathroom where I toss cold water on my face. I don’t care what the distributor says, the beans are bad and I’m not paying for those bags.

Joy walks into the bathroom. I can see her in the mirror.

“Are you okay, sis?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I must have gotten overheated in the kitchen. It’s so hot out today. Why don’t you turn up the air conditioning while I look for your birth certificate?”

“Sure. But you look like you need to sit down. Maybe take a nap?”

I chuckle. After the day we’ve had in the shop, a nap sounds incredible, but that’s not going to happen. I’ve been spending so much time with Rod that things have built up at home. I can’t remember the last time I vacuumed or changed the sheets on my bed. Granted, I’ve not slept in them much since I sleep over at Rod’s a lot, but they still need to be washed. And then I need to go over the bills. Joy does the bookkeeping for the shop, but I still go over the invoices and sign off on every expense.

“I’ll make us some sweet tea.”

“That sounds great. And do we have the fixings for your chicken parm? I think I could eat my weight in that cheesy goodness.”

“I think so. Let me check.”

When I open the closet door, I understand why Joy couldn’t find the box. When we moved in, we stuffed anything we didn’t need in there. It’s a jumbled, disorganized mess. Before we moved, I’d cleaned out the office that my dad and then Bryan had used. I didn’t go through anything. I just boxed the papers up intending to go through them later when things settled down. Things haven’t ever settled down, but now that I’ve seen the mess, I have to do something about it.

I start pulling out boxes and organizing them in piles. Banking, medical, legal, personal, and miscellaneous.

“What are you doing?” Joy asks.

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