One

“Why did it have to be on Christmas-bloody-day,” was the first thing that Deana heard when she awoke with the hum of the traffic roaring past her grimy window ringing in her ears, and the grey, septic looking half-light from the street seeping through her threadbare curtains.
It was, of course, her Uncle Albany speaking – if you could even call it ‘speaking.’
“Why? Of all the-”
Deana rolled further under her blankets, and pretended that she couldn’t hear the shouting and banging in the next room. She jammed her pillow over the top of the sheets and firmly around her head, and tried to think of other things. A few minutes passed, and her door creaked open.
“Deana? Girl - get up right now, and get out here, pronto.”
With a sigh, Deana poked her head above the blankets, and watched the retreating shadow of her Uncle dance along the wall and out of sight. She liked it considerably better when he stayed asleep for most of the day. There was less chance of him speaking to her, or asking her to do some horrendous chore if he was asleep.
And he hadn’t even stayed to make sure she got up… for a moment Deana was tempted to just roll back under the covers and pretend she hadn’t heard him. But aggravating her Uncle when he was in such a mood was probably not the best of ideas, she thought silently, and besides – she was curious.
Quickly, she got out of bed and crossed the room. Pausing only to throw over her shoulders, a sullen blue dressing gown, she exited the room and padded down the stairs into the kitchen.
Her Uncle was standing in front of the fridge, banging his meaty fists on it. Her cousin, Jamia, was sitting on a blue couch that she had pulled up against the wall.
Deana took this in in a moment, and sat down next to her cousin.
“What on Earth is he going on about now?” she whispered.
For once, Jamia was silent.
Deana’s heart skipped a beat.
“Jamia,” she asked carefully. “What happened?”
There was no response. Her cousin’s eyes didn’t move, or blink. They remained fixed to a central spot somewhere on the adjacent wall.
Thoroughly anxious now, Deana arose from the couch and stalked across the room to her Uncle, and with the anger of the recently bewildered, she turned on him.
“What the hell is going on here?” she asked quietly, but by no means softly. “Why are you so pissed off, and what’s wrong with Jamia?”
Menace laced her voice, and her Uncle turned to look at her, his brief surprise at hearing her speak so strongly quickly turning to anger.
“What’s wrong?” he raged. “What’s wrong? Everything is bloody well wrong! A letter arrived today, Danna, a letter. A single-” Deana ignored his profuse swearing and concentrated on what he had just said.
A letter? She frowned. What sort of letter must it have been to have sent her Uncle into such a rage…? The only people who ever sent letters to him were official people asking for the money that they were owed, and Deana’s parents, whom she hadn’t personally heard from for eight years…
“And I was-… wondering -… why the rent for you bloody kids-… late,” her Uncle was cursing bitterly. She ignored him, and turned back to the wall.
“Jamia, where’s the letter?” she asked softly.
Her cousin was silent, and for a moment Deana thought that she wasn’t going to answer. Inwardly, she cursed. If she had to search the whole kitchen for one measly letter… but thankfully, Jamia pointed it out, nestled amongst the regular stack of unpaid bills that Deana had grown used to in the eight years she’d had to tolerate her Uncle’s ways. The pile had already grown larger since yesterday, she noted, which meant that the money from her parents hadn’t arrived yet…
Her heart began to hammer erratically in her chest. Why hadn’t they paid yet? Had something bad happened to them? But no, not to her parents…
Her fingers trembled as she opened the letter. They fumbled over the address on the back – her parents return address – a place where they had never actually lived – and skimmed across the big red stamp on the front – confidential, urgent. They stroked the different ranges of addresses and prints on the front which indicated that the letter had been los tin the mail for six or so months, and then, finally, they caught at the broken seal on the top and opened it.
A hundred dollar bill was the first things that fell out, followed closely by a thin, crispy piece of paper with writing on one side. Subconsciously, Deana was aware of her Uncle suddenly falling quiet, and she imagined him eyeing up the hundred dollar bill on the floor. A lump rose in her throat, but she forced herself to read the letter instead. The money wasn’t as important as the letter if it had only been written by her parent sown hand…
But it hadn’t. It hadn’t even been ‘written’. No. It was a typed, printed document, much like the bills on the table, but a lot shorter. It read:1

Dear Mr. Rodney Albany2

I am much aggrieved to have to inform you, as the caregiver of Mr. and Mrs. Reid’s daughter that the said Mr. and Mrs. Reid have most unfortunately perished in a terrible storm which flooded their house in Northern California in June, destroying most articles in the afore-mentioned house. As a result, the payments from the said Mr. and Mrs. Reid are to cease. All the money that has been recovered from the house has been dried and sent to you in this package, but as you know, said Mr. and Mrs. Reid did not have a bank account, and much of the money has been lost to the funeral, which took place on September the Second.
I was much aggrieved to not see you there.
In any case, the remaining money, a total of sixteen hundred dollars ninety-eight cents, in cash, has been shipped to you. It is expected that you will use this money to transport the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Reid’s to the estate of Dr. A. B. Alicran, in New Zealand. This was what was mentioned in the said Mr. and Mrs. Reid’s will. The rest of the money is expected to go to the sole daughter and inheritor of said Mr. and Mrs. Reid.3

Yours Sincerely
Mr. A. J. C. Clerk, Solicitor of Mr. and Mrs. Reid4

Deana straightened up. The letter slipped from her grasp. She bent to pick it up, and grasped the hundred dollar bill at the same time.
“Where’s the rest?” she asked.
“What rest?” her Uncle sneered.
“The rest of my parent’s money! The other fifteen hundred dollars!”
Her Uncle Albany just smirked.
“Oh that, you don’t need that. And besides, it’s being used to ship you to New Zealand.”
“All of it?”
“Yep. And any leftovers are going to me as compensation for the money I won’t be earning any longer as a result of our stupid parents’ deaths.”
There was an evil, angry glint in his eyes.
Deana clenched her fists.
“You’re an evil, rotten man,” she exclaimed coolly, “And I’ll be glad to be rid of you.”
And with that she turned, and left the room.
The stairway seemed to stretch on forever, and her knees grew weak halfway up. She sagged, and if it hadn’t been for Jamia, who had crept quietly up behind her, she would’ve fallen and possibly broken something. Either way, it was at that single moment when all of her emotion left her in one, streaming flood.
She began to cry.
And Jamia cried along with her.
In the kitchen, her Uncle raged, obviously furious at the thought of all the money he would no longer be paid for free.
“Why did it have to be on bloody Christmas day?!” he screamed, probably at the fridge.
And Jamia, with her arms wrapped around the silent Deana thought to herself: “Why did it have to be at all?”
And Deana, with her heart falling out of her eyes as it was, thought, and said nothing at all.