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ONE MONTH LATER...
one story similar to thousands like it-
Tessa hung up the phone as she shouted for her husband, Blake. She didn’t receive a reply and found him in their unfinished basement with a measuring tape and a pile of magazines on the floor.
Tessa was trying hard to keep a huge grin off her face. She placed her hand on Blake’s shoulder and said, “That was Stacy. She was hard to understand, but she told me we needed to come right away.” Tessa grabbed Blake by his shoulders, looked into his eyes, and softly said, “I think this is it.”
Blake sighed deeply, “We’ve gotten false alarms before,” he said, and folded his arms across his chest. “Stacy is a great nurse and companion for Aunt Vera, but we shouldn’t get our hopes up. She tends to cry wolf quite a bit.”
“So you’re not getting your hopes up?” Tracy said, pointing to the stack of home theater magazines on the basement floor.
“Well,” Blake muttered and cleared his throat. “It doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”
“Stacy was crying, Blake. This really could be it.”
Blake and Tessa looked at each other and simultaneously broke into enormous, grins jumping up and down holding each other’s hands. Blake started singing, “Three million dollars, three million dollars, crazy, dried up old Aunt Vera and her dried up doll collection.”
“You don’t have to comb those creepy dolls’ hair and dress them up in their smelly old clothes, complete with moldy bloomers, every visit.” Tessa smirked.
“What are we doing here? Let’s start practicing our sad faces and get on over there,” Blake shouted as he pulled Tessa up the stairs.
Stacy met them at the door of Aunt Vera’s ten-acre estate. The house was a monstrosity of ugly. The building was turd colored brick, shoe box in shape, with no landscaping to break up the ugliness of the design. Its filthy windows had brown grids, which make the house look as though it had bars on its windows rather than an interesting design feature.
Stacy’s eyes were red and puffy. “It happened all so fast” she sniffled, grasping Blake’s hand. He took this opportunity to practice his sad face and was trying to squeeze out a tear. “I know I should’ve asked your permission, but she had been going downhill and had been in so much pain, that I...”
“No, don’t say anything Stacy” interrupted Blake. “What matters most is that she is no longer in pain. Isn’t that right, Tessa? We couldn’t bear to see Aunt Vera suffer anymore. What happened in this house doesn’t leave this house.”
“I’m so glad you feel that way. She told me she didn’t have anything to lose, that she might as well try it,” Stacy sobbed while patting Blake’s hand.
Blake suddenly had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Try what? What did you try?”
Tessa’s screams behind him interrupted any further conversation. He turned to look at his wife and saw an expression of extreme horror. She pointed at something coming down the staircase behind him. Blake heard a voice, a loud, healthy voice coming from behind him. Whoever was descending the steps was doing so quickly. He turned and saw Aunt Vera bouncing down the steps. She was waving to him and Tessa with one hand and had a hideous doll in the other.
“Isn’t it a miracle, sir? That face cream gave her a new life. She has many more years left in her. Isn’t it wonderful, sir?”
Stacy was talking to thin air as both Tessa and Blake had sunk to the floor in a dead faint before Aunt Vera reached the bottom step in a bouncy skip.