SICK: Psychological Thriller Series Novella 1 by Christa Wojciechowski Page B

two-story, all brick with white trim to match the mansion. This was the guesthouse. At the very end of the gravel drive was the old servants’ quarters, identical to the guesthouse, though slightly smaller and not as meticulously kept as the rest of the estate. John said when he was a boy, he called the main house the mother duck. The two small houses were her ducklings. We lived in the ugly duckling.
    The ugly duckling became our home after the family corporation collapsed. The Branches were in markets and mergers and other financial trading that was far above my head. John took over after his father died, which was before we were married. The stress was intense and relentless, and John’s and the company’s health declined in tandem. His occasional health problems became chronic, and he was diagnosed with a complicated blood disorder that rendered him weak and bedridden. The board was left up to its own devices, and the man John trusted to manage the family fortune, his Uncle Richard, ran the empire into the ground. I didn’t know the details of the disaster except that the words Uncle Richard were always spoken like a curse instead of a name.
    Whatever was left of the family fortune went to doctors, hospitals, and rehabs. Shortly after our sixth wedding anniversary, we were forced to sell the mother house to a wealthy family from the Middle East. We could never remember if it was Oman or Dubai, but they were from one of those sun-scorched lands of dunes and sand that bubbled from beneath with oil. Their name was difficult to pronounce, so we always referred to them as The Arabs. They allowed us to rent the servants’ quarters from them until we found a new house, but we’d overstayed our temporary arrangement for more than three years.
    It was just John and me now, in the ugly duckling, but we had to be grateful. We could barely afford to pay rent much less move, and The Arabs were very forgiving about our late payments. They also kept the Branch’s long-term employees–Pete, Greta, and a handful of gardeners and maids–so it really didn’t seem that much had changed at all. I never liked the oppressive echoing space of the mother house anyway. It was as if the bitter, dissatisfied spirit of John’s parents infected the mortar, the stone, and the beams. I was a miniature beneath its high ceilings, and the scale of it made me feel isolated and vulnerable.
    The vehicle stopped in front of our duckling. John reluctantly gave up my hand as I pulled away to climb out of the ambulance. The sun was fading into a colorless sky. We were somewhere between summer and fall, a time of year where it could be hot and sticky or dry and chilly. Today the weather leaned more toward fall, and a biting wind began to blow. I sensed Old Pete in my peripheral vision, hovering around and pretending not to be spying on us. I dug the keys from my purse, unlocked the door, and pulled it open as wide as it could go.
    The house was cluttered; stuff was piled up to the ceiling. When we lost the estate, John insisted I try to squeeze in as much as I could of his parents’ vases, paintings, outdated clothing, old records, and furniture. The only area I made sure I kept clear was the hallway to accommodate the constant coming and going of my husband via ambulance.
    It was messier than I liked. I had gotten spoiled by having the maids, but in the tiny, cramped servants’ house, I felt life-sized again. And there were priorities now. Cleaning wasn’t one of them. Taking care of John had become my life’s work, and I did the best I could to keep him happy and comfortable.
    Besides being John’s nurse, I had a full-time job as a medical clerk in the local podiatrist’s office. I held onto that small weekly paycheck for dear life. It afforded us the bare necessities. The rest of my money went directly to medicine and old medical debts. Whenever we got close to paying one off, John would have another complication, and we would slip into the hole