Party Plans

by Liz Betz

 

[Editor’s Note: This piece is part of the “Topical” series, with each piece solely submitted to and chosen by the Final Reader Pietra Dunmore.]

 

Each time Louise’s daughters have another idea about the proposed we won the lottery party; hats and noisemakers, a DJ with a light show, they high five each other or hug each other or dissolve into giggles.

Jack is watching them and smiling. He looks as though he’d like to join his daughter’s in their little fantasy game, but it would take more money than this to have him relax, Louise knows. She leaves the celebrators and goes into the kitchen where she plugs in the kettle so she can offer everyone a cup of hot chocolate; her little celebration. Jack follows her.

“Well. Has it sunk in yet?”

He refers, of course, to the lottery win.

“I don’t think so. Not really. It seems about as real as those party plans.”

“Isn’t this incredible?” Jack sets out mugs for the hot chocolate. “But party aside, we can go ahead with a few plans ourselves.”
Did they have some plans? Waiting for when they won the lottery. She ventures her guesses.

“Like a new house? Or a trip around the world?” She receives Jack’s patented ‘let’s get serious’ look.

“I’m thinking we could buy an apartment complex in Edmonton. It would be an investment, and both girls could stay there when they go to university! Imagine. Our girls in university, Louise!” A delight in the words glimmers a moment before his gaze settles on her as if she is a shoelace undone. His tone changes.

“This is a perfectly fine house. And where in the world is it safe to travel? I mean really. Where?”

His questions mean her suggestions did register. Barely. There is little that she can say to Jack’s logic, although it is on the tip of her tongue to tell him that it’s her lottery win and not his. But that isn’t true. Winnings becomes mutual property between married people.

As she now recalls, even if there isn’t a marriage. She heard of a woman who left her live-in-boyfriend when she won a lottery and he took the matter to court and got half of the money in the end.
Mentally she halves the amount of the winning. The possibility of change, that is the scent of money. She can smell…something.

 

Liz Betz is a retired rancher who loves to write fiction. Her pastime seems to help her days go by, her brain to stay active and sometimes keeps her out of trouble. An overactive imagination is a wonderful thing to harness, but left alone…Her publication credits are many and varied as she explores the fictional world of mostly somewhat older but not necessarily mature characters.

 

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