Chapter 2: Cindy
"Jeremy, what are your parent's names?" Martin asked as he looked up from the Yellowpages.
"Susan and Fred Morton." He replied, pushing up his glasses.
"Okay, Morton, Morton…" Martin flipped through the pages, "I don't see either of those in here."
"Maybe I could try my number? They could still live at our house." He said, glancing at the page-it skipped from E. Morton to A. Mortunio.
"Sure." Martin handed Jeremy the phone, "You have to put the area code now, otherwise it won't go through."
Jeremy nodded, punching the numbers into the phone, nervously twanging on the cord as it rang.
"Hello?" A woman answered.
"Um, hi, this is Jeremy Morton. I was wondering if you knew Susan or Fred Morton?"
"Morton? Sorry, you don't have the right number-check the phone book." A moment later she'd hung up.
"It's okay, we'll figure it out." Cindy commented, placing a hand on his shoulder, "Maybe they just aren't listed, plenty of people aren't in the phone book."
Jeremy nodded, doubtful, but hoping that maybe Cindy was right.
***FS***
After a call to the Shadyside city office and asking about the Mortons-and enduring six transfers-they eventually ended up with the city clerk in charge of deeds and records.
"Hello, we're trying to find a Susan or Fred Morton, their son Jeremy wants to contact them, but we can't find their information anywhere." Cindy stated, Jeremy slowly kicking his legs back and forth as he sat beside her in one of the mall offices.
"Okay, I'm going to need some information…" The man replied, "…full name, date of birth, and last known address."
After using the information Jeremy provided and thirteen minutes of hold music they had a response, "Hello, Ms. Berman? Are you still there?"
"Yes, I'm here."
"According to city records Mr. Morton passed in 1989 from a cardiac episode and Mrs. Morton in 1991 due to complications with a surgery, the home was sold and developed as part of the new West Shadyside shopping complex where the Grab N Bag is. I apologize that I couldn't give you better news; I hope you have a good day."
"Thank you, you as well." Cindy swallowed dryly as she hung up the phone, a lump in her throat.
"What did he say?" Jeremy asked, a fleeting look of hope in his desperate eyes.
"Um, well…" Cindy bit her lip, "I'm sorry, they aren't alive."
Before she could say anything further the boy had clung onto her shirt, bawling his eyes out onto her chest. Muffled sobs choked through the hitched breathing as Cindy couldn't think of anything more to do than try and comfort the boy by rubbing his back as he wept.
***FS***
"Hello, this is C. Berman."
"Ziggy? Is that you?"
Ziggy felt her skin grow numb as she felt her hands start to shake. She slid down the wall as she clutched the phone, "Cindy?"
"Yes, it's me…" Cindy sniffed, trying to hold back tears.
"No, but you're dead." She paused, vividly recalling that night, "I saw it."
"I know. I was... Now I'm back, Martin says it probably has to do with the curse you helped break- he told me how the Goodes were the ones who made Tommy go homicidal and how you helped to stop that from ever happening again." Cindy paused, "You're a hero Zigg, I'm so proud of you."
"Martin the janitor? Are you at the mall?"
"Yeah, apparently we all just returned wherever we died." Cindy said as she glanced at the stark white walls of the mall office.
"We?" Ziggy paused, "You mean-"
"Everyone except Tommy, the rest of us all are here."
"What's going to happen?"
"I don't know. Apparently there were some murders here not long ago, but all of those people already went back to their families. Almost all of the other Nightwings already got picked up, Alice and Arnie decided to go off and travel the country and got the first bus out of town-Alice promised to write but she said she had to see the world, given how last time she died without ever seeing anything outside Shadyside. Really, right now it's just me and Jeremy and Stacey. Stacey's sister is coming to get her after she gets her daughter from across town, but Jeremy…"
"What about Jeremy?"
Cindy looked across the room at the boy with swollen red eyes staring dismally at his feet. "His parents died, and as far as he knew neither of them had any other living relatives. He's literally the last person left in his family. We don't know what to do. Martin says we might need to try child services."
The line was silent a brief moment, "I'll be there to pick you both up in a few minutes, I just need to get to the car."
"What?"
"Meet me outside the main entrance in 15 minutes."
***FS***
Stacey's sister had picked her up, along with her resurrected teenage niece, shortly before Ziggy arrived, which left Jeremy and Cindy standing out front of the shopping center as the usual crowd milled about going in and out carrying large shopping bags. It was mid-November, and while the holiday shopping season hadn't officially started, there were plenty of people getting early dibs on popular items. Martin had given the two some warmer clothing from the lost and found and had offered to have them stay in an office until Ziggy came, but Cindy had refused, stating that he had done plenty, but she was okay with waiting outside on her own.
A brown station wagon pulled up to the curb and put its flashers on, a moment later a woman stepped out from the car. She had shoulder-length auburn hair and light hazel eyes. She crossed her arms, rubbing her hands against the heavy dark-green knit sweater she was wearing before patting them on her jeans. Cindy stood shocked for a moment as the woman she knew was her sister rounded the car toward them. It amazed her just how much her sister had grown up, but how it was still clearly her sister. It was still Ziggy.
Before any words could be said Cindy was being lifted off the ground in the tightest hug she'd felt in a long time. She felt the warmth of her sister's tears on her neck, and within a moment she was also crying.
"You have no idea what it was like to lose you." Ziggy said as she squeezed her sister tightly. "Even though you were a total pain in the ass, I missed you every single day." I missed you for 5,890 days… She buried her head into her sister's neck, inhaling the smell and warmth of her being alive.
"I'm sorry." Cindy replied, choking back more tears, "I'm sorry I couldn't stop it, I couldn't survive."
"It's okay, it's over now. We're finally together again." Ziggy replied, shaking her head as she released her sister. She dabbed her face a moment before she looked down at the little boy she barely remembered from nearly 15 years prior. "Sorry about that Jeremy, I know it can be a bit embarrassing to watch grown-ups act like that. My sister told me that you need someone to stay with for a while and I figure if you want you could stay with us."
Jeremy slowly glanced up from the spot on the pavement where he'd been staring for the last 15 minutes.
Ziggy tried her best to remember how to act around kids, Given that I haven't seen any regularly since I basically haven't left the house more than once a month for the last decade."Do you like dogs?"
"Yeah." He muttered.
"Well, I have a dog named Major and I think he'd really like you."
Jeremy scuffed one of his sneakers, but seemed at least slightly less miserable.
"Here, come on in the back, we'll be at my house in a few minutes. I'm sure he'll be glad to have some new company."
***FS***
Ziggy was aware that she hadn't been living a "healthy" lifestyle in her sister's absence. Deena had helped her to come to terms with that, and in the month that had passed since the end of the curse she'd started to rely less on the schedule she'd set for herself. She still wrote at the same times-it felt good to be productive, and it paid the bills-but she'd been trying to be less reliant on it dictating every aspect of her life, even if did feel overwhelming at times leaving things up to chance. Mercifully, she'd eliminated most of the clocks from her home, which made it less off-putting when she undid the final of many locks to let the two into the house.
"Sorry, for a long time I had some trouble with dealing with things." Ziggy replied, gesturing to the door, "But I'm working on it." She pushed open the door and Major appeared, trying to bolt out to greet the guests. "Major! Wait until we're inside!" The dog complied, wiggling with anticipation as it sat on the carpet awaiting the two houseguests. Once the three entered he quickly jumped up to greet Jeremy, the boy giggling as the dog licked at his face. The sisters exchanged a relieved look, while they couldn't undo his parent's deaths; maybe there was a chance of helping him get past the loss.
After a long day of getting rooms set up and making lists of things to do-including somehow getting the two now alive murder victims valid ID (apparently Martin knows a guy who makes convincing fakes) so that they could work and go to school-everyone was tired. Jeremy was already dozing in the first guest room wearing a borrowed t-shirt from one of Ziggy's brief romantic relationships as a sleeping shirt, because we'll get you some proper clothes tomorrow when we register you for school, with major curled up at his feet. With the adolescent asleep, it left the sisters to talk in the living room on their own.
Cindy held a cup of tea as she glanced around the room. She had thought that things would change in the decades to follow, but with the quick run-down she'd gotten throughout the day it almost felt like an absolute overload. But beyond the change in politics, culture, and technology, she mostly wanted to know what it had been like for her sister in the 16 years they'd been gone. "You've done really well for yourself; I can't imagine it was easy."
Ziggy smiled sardonically, "Getting told that it should've been me was the highlight of returning home after six months in the hospital."
"Jesus…"
"You were the good one; I was the troublemaking rebel who never listened. Mom was already drinking herself to death; she just started doubling down after you died. You were the one who had a future; you could've gotten out of Shadyside and actually made something of yourself. No one else said it, but whenever she lashed out I knew everyone else thought the same thing. Why the fuck did I lose her? Why did I lose the daughter who actually could've made something of herself. Now I just have this useless piece of shit who doesn't listen to me… all the other surviving campers avoided me. I was a freak and loser, the sister who shouldn't've survived, I should've died like all the others."
"Zigg that isn't true-" Cindy said, shocked that people had said such things.
"I know that now, but back then, well, I was 18 and no one wanted me around. I was almost glad when mom finally dropped dead, that jaundiced bitch leaving me with nothing but a shitty apartment four months behind on rent and all her debt." Ziggy sighed, "Sorry, I guess I shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but at the end mom was a wreck."
"I thought she might be in trouble." Cindy smiled sadly, "I never told you, did I? I got into Ohio State."
"What?"
"Yeah, I wanted to figure out some way to get you to come with me, not to go to college, but to live with me in some apartment or something." Cindy rubbed her finger across the back of her palm, "I was still trying to figure everything out before we went to camp, I figured when we got back we'd talk about it."
"Well, a bit late for that now…"
"Yeah, I guess it's a little late to accept their offer, given how I'm 16 years after the cutoff date." Cindy chuckled, "But what happened with you. How'd you end up okay after mom died?"
"Well, for a while I was working three jobs. I was a waitress during the morning, cleaned a bunch of office buildings in Sunnyvale during the rest of the day, then bartended until 1 or 2 in the morning. It sucked, I was working all the time and I was still coming up short paying all the bills. About two months into it I ended up becoming friendly with a guy who always got drinks at the bar and he suggested I get a job as a writer at the paper. Apparently his uncle helped run it and he said they needed a columnist."
"So you got a job at the paper?"
"Not at first, I didn't want to. Eventually he kept nagging me-apparently he'd seen that I wrote poetry when it was slow and thought it was creative-and I broke down and submitted a few things. Eventually they got noticed, and they picked me up for a daily column. I write under a pseudonym, mainly because I don't want anyone to think I'm just some Sally Homemaker."
"What do you write about?"
"Mostly stuff around the house, I'm like Heloise, only more willing to call out the bullshit that manufacturers try and sell us. I haven't even used laundry soap for the last three years, you can make it for way cheaper and it works better than half the stuff on the shelves. I also sometimes talk about time management and how women can balance housework and a career. It's a decent living; it pays the mortgage, even if I am still a bit living paycheck to paycheck." Ziggy shrugged.
"Zigg, I'm amazed. You going through all the stuff you did, and you still turn out like this. I promise things are going to be better with us; I'm going to help as much as I can around here. We've got a second chance together, I promise I'm going to do my best to be the sister you needed when I wasn't here."
Ziggy hid her blushing as she coughed, "Thanks. Look, this is getting a bit too serious, how about I try and catch you up on some of the stuff you've missed."
"As long as it isn't just all the new music Bowie's made…"
"No, but that will be the first half." Ziggy smiled.
***FS***
The next morning the sisters and Jeremy returned to the mall, Martin had procured the fakes from his friend and handed them off to the two formerly deceased.
"Same names, same birthdays, just changed the years and got you both new socials."
"How'd you get us new social security numbers?" Cindy asked, impressed at the quick turnaround on the ID and the corresponding paperwork.
"I don't ask, he doesn't tell." Martin shrugged, "You learn not to in that kind of business."
"Fair enough."
As they entered the mall proper Cindy looked thoughtfully at the ID for a moment. "I guess I'm the younger sister now." She pointed at the birthdate, 10-8-73.
Ziggy smirked, "Well, you know what that means."
"What?" Jeremy asked, trotting alongside the sisters.
"It means I get to be the overbearing older sister now." Ziggy smiled feigning wickedness.
Cindy huffed, knowing the joke was good-natured, but not wanting to fuel the fire by protesting.
A few minutes later Cindy and Jeremy were both shopping at the JC Penney's. While the boy's attire hadn't changed radically over the last few decades (barring some slight changes to the styles of jeans and t-shirts, the attire was mostly the same) affording Jeremy a relatively easy shopping experience, Cindy was feeling overwhelmed. In addition to it being a larger selection than what she was used to, seemingly none of the clothes were her style, barring a handful of racks in the far back of the store.
"Please tell me you aren't shopping in the old ladies' section…" Ziggy joked as she helped Jeremy place the last of his things into the cart.
"I'm not, but this is the only section with stuff that looks decent. The rest of it is so…"
"I know, it's different." Ziggy conceded, "At least take a look at some of it. You've still got a good enough figure to pull some of it off, unlike those of us who had to age the last decade and a half."
Cindy huffed, but agreed to look around, eventually settling on a few garments from the newer section in addition to the larger number from the "old lady department". After departing the mall they registered Jeremy at the middle school, which was a bit of a challenge. While all the information to register him was valid, he had no school history. Eventually Ziggy managed to bluff her way through it, claiming he'd been homeschooled. They agreed to enroll, but he had to come in and take a few placement tests before he could begin classes, the school not fully trusting the quality of the home education.
"Alright, I'm going to toss your new clothes in the wash, go ahead and get cleaned up, we'll have dinner in a bit." Ziggy commented as she carried a bag of laundry to the washer.
"Okay. Can I play with Major in the yard?"
"Sure, just make sure you wash up afterwards, I don't want a mess at the table."
Cindy smiled, surprised at the domestic scene. For once, I think it's going to be alright.