Page 21 of Half Blind

“I'll have the time to do it. My hours are so normal that it is going to be really nice to end the day at five and be home by half after,” he said. “No late-night stops on dark roads taking chances. I get to have some normalcy, and I am pretty damned eager to get started.”

“Hmph,” the voice said. “Proceed with caution. She's still healing.”

“Hell, aren't we all? This life is traumatic in itself, and the best we can hope for at the end of the day is to come home to another human who is happy you're still in this world. I want some of that, and I'm going to get it.”

The sound of the doorbell ringing announced the movers, who had arrived early. He'd had ten days to prepare the items for shipping and all the possessions of value were secured and triple wrapped in cellophane, like the suitcases in the airport. He had spent a small fortune on tools, and he wasn't going to lose any of them to some pimply-faced kid with sticky fingers.

“The movers have arrived,” he said into the line. “Time to move my life forward. Hey, can I ask, did you have anything to do with this job offer and Indiana of all places?”

“Wouldn't admit it if I did. Talk soon,” the voice said, ending the call.

Mustang held the phone. The silhouette of the mover shadowed the door. A twinge of anger surged through him at the Archangel hanging up on him. “Cousin or not, he's creepy as hell sometimes.”

To the ringer of the doorbell, he called out, “Coming!”

The 26-foot moving truck was parked in his driveway, along with a flatbed that had also arrived. This was it. His Mustang would go on the flatbed to head out. The furniture would be loaded and rolling East by the evening, and in three days, his life in Oregon will have relocated to Indiana where a triple wide instant home waited for him to reset the items in their proper spaces.

“Then the little woman can come frilly up shit,” he said aloud. “Who am I thinking about? Helen doesn't do frills.”

****

OXFORD, OHIO

Jared sat on the old John Deere, surprised it still ran as well as it did, and he made pathways in the soil for planting a small garden. It was a no-frills piece of equipment that did the basics. He thought it would be the perfect patch for the girls to grow tomatoes and possibly some other garden items. No one had asked him to do it, but those girls needed to focus on something other than boys and trying to look cute. The entire interaction with the Delgado kid had the girls in a tizzy, attempting to look older.

“They are just fast,” he mumbled the term his mother used when his sisters started smelling themselves, as she often mumbled to herself while she was baking. If he were honest, the girls were simply testing the waters. However, he didn't understand the relationship between the girls and Myrtle or even why the woman Helen was here. He also didn't understand why it was taking so long for three parts to come in for his truck or the Sheriff doing a daily drive by, which was currently occurring. He waved at the officer as he rode the tractor.

Thus far, he had kept a wide berth of Doc Myrtle, but he was drawn to her. Evidently, the same applied to her as she found him in the barn, covered in sweat from his efforts. She watched him wipe the moisture from his brow.

“Not sure why you're planting a garden. I have a greenhouse. They don't even go in there, and you think they're going to pull weeds on'matersfrom the vine?” Lemon asked him.

“Doc Myrtle, I'm not understanding anything that goes on around here, especially the Sheriff doing a daily drive by. Is he your man or something?”

Lemon actually smiled at him, a warm, lovely smile which came from her center. It shocked Jared how impactful the gesture was to him at this peculiar juncture between them and their arrangement.

“I dated one of his deputies, and it turned bizarre really quick,” she said.

“Sorry, but I see a lot of nasty things in my line of work, and my mind went to the darkness,” he said, testing the air. She didn't respond; therefore, he pressed forward. “I work with women, and I hear the horror stories of a date night, then date blabs to his buddies, and of course the buddies want to try their hand to see if they can score a ride.”

“A ride?” Lemon asked. “Neither the Sheriff nor his Deputy took a ride on the Lemon. As I said, I dated. Two dates to be specific, but that man had too many bitches in his life.”

Jared arched his brows. “Wow, I never expected to hear a term like that from you about other women.”

“What do you call the female of the species used for breeding?”

“A bitch,” he said, cocking his head, wanting the term fully explained from her perspective.

“As I said, him and his bitches,” she said. “Clarifying. On the second date with Officer Nasty, we took a walk down by the lake at the park. There were kids by the playground, and we heard a kid yell Daddy.”

“Oh no!”

“Understatement,” she replied. “Officer Nasty turned around to see the child. A child that happened to be his. That one and nine others who all ran over calling him Daddy. The kids looked like a Benetton ad. He even had a Blasian kid.”

“Blasian. What's that?”

“He made a kid with Mae Lun, a Vietnamese chick,” she said.

“Isn't that racist?”

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