Page 27 of Half Blind

“Morning,” Helen said, looking about. “I thought Jared slept on the couch. He's up and at'em already?”

Bria asked, “Is he leaving today? I hope he doesn't leave without saying goodbye. I like him. Maybe we can get him one of those tiny houses so he can stay here with us.”

Lemon didn't respond to the girl's constant need for a father figure in her life, which is what had gotten her into trouble. Ayanna wasn't much better, but the past year she'd provided the girls with life skills to work around and through a world governed by men. It didn't seem as if in her nearly thirty-five years she'd done a damned sight better with men herself.

Lemon peered through the curtains of the living room window. Until now, she’d never noticed how sheer the material was or the angle of the couch in relationship to the window. A person standing on the porch could look clearly into her home and see everything, especially if there were a body or people on the couch. The distrusting nature of her soul made her go for her phone.

She opened the camera app on her device. She rewound the recorded footage back eight hours and thirty minutes to the arrival of the Sheriff's vehicle. Lemon closely watched the man in the squad car using high-powered night vision binoculars. His physical reaction to seeing something through the binoculars made him jump out and leave the car. Lemon was furious as she watched the man slink his way onto her porch and stare into the window. He was watching her and Jared.

“Pay attention to the signs,” she repeated snapping. “I sure as hell am.”

She went to disengage the alarm to discover it was already turned off. Again, she checked her phone. The panel showed that she had disarmed it. “What?”

Lemon played the footage from inside of the home, watching carefully as Jared went to the panel, turned off the sound, and entered her pass code into the security monitor. He’d disarmed the system and headed to the barn. Lemon switched screens, watching him check around the floor, under the cot, and even the shower for remnants of him being here at the farm. Finding nothing, he carried his backpack to the truck and tossed it on the back seat.

Helen had taken him into town on several occasions to grab tools. He had also convinced her to get a roadside emergency kit for her vehicle, and he’d purchased one for Lemon and the girls, but handed it to Helen.

“Will you give these to them please,” he told her.

“Whatever is chasing you, can it be taken down?” Helen asked him.

“The bigger concern is will I survive if I try,” he replied, saying no more.

In his mind, the less they knew the better. If his past did catch up, the information each of them knew about him was minimal. He’d told them he had three sisters and one of the sisters had a salon. That was all he’d said, nothing more. They didn't know where he was from since he didn't show the Sheriff his driver's license, but a military ID card.

Lemon wanted some answers. She flung open the front door, stepping onto the porch in the cold wind, which slapped at her face like an interrogator trying to get her attention. Two vehicles were arriving. One was delivering the parts Jared needed to get his truck on the road. The second vehicle was a social worker delivering another young lady.

“Shit, I just can't today,” Lemon said, standing on the porch and feeling the beginning of being defeated.

Helen brought a throw from the back of couch and placed it over her shoulders. “Whatever you need, I got you,” Helen said softly.

Lemon scoffed, “My head examined, that's what I need.”

Helen recognized Pear, the sweeper for the Forbidden Fruits of the Great Lakes. The last time she had seen the woman, was when they shut down a den of horrors called the Field of Flowers. Now, Helen pondered, what did she have in store for Lemon?

“Morning, Pear,” Helen said to the lady as she arrived. Lemon appeared surprised that Helen knew the woman.

“Cranberry. Lemon,” Pear said. “This is Collette Anderson; she's fifteen and your new ward.”

The dirty blond-haired girl didn't want to be here; her cornflower blue eyes said as much. She sure as hell didn't want to live on a farm with a bunch of black women. Her nose was turned in the air as she looked around in distaste.

Lemon spoke first, “You can take her back to wherever you got her and place her under the nasty backwoods rock you overturned to pluck her out. I will not, on this day, or any day, have a chick in my home ungrateful and believing she is better than everyone under my roof. I don't want her. Take her somewhere else.”

The girl's mouth dropped open in surprise. However, Lemon wasn't done. She moved over to get in the girl's face.

“I don't owe you shit. This life doesn't owe you shit. The reason you're here is to give you an opportunity to use your head instead of what is in between your legs,” Lemon said. “You stay here, you go to school, get decent grades, and help around the place. Clean up after yourself, don't steal shit, don't start shit, and don't be a shit. I have enough problems in my life, and your bullshit is not on my Wordle word list for the year. Leave. Be gone. Or stay and act like you are grateful to have a safe place to sleep where some pervert isn't thinking of ways to get you alone to use your body for his pleasures. So, what is going to be?”

“I'm staying,” Colette said, lowering her eyes to the ground.

“Colette, do you intend to trouble me constantly with your nonsense and bullshit? If so, don't let that seat in the van get cold from missing your ass,” Lemon said.

“I'll be no trouble,” the girl replied.

“Are you planning to roll your eyes and neck and suck your teeth when I ask you to do something because if you do, get your ass in the van and be gone,” Lemon said.

“No, ma'am,” Colette replied.

“Bria, Ayanna, come out here,” Lemon called as the girls arrived on the porch. “This is Colette. She's your new sister. Give her the lay of the land and put her in the room with the single bed.”

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