Page 116 of Healed
Cristie hugged Avaleigh then hurried to follow Daniel.
“You have your phone charged?” Avaleigh called after her.
“Yes, ma’am, I do!” Cristie answered before the sound of the door let Avaleigh know she’d left the house.
Ten minutes later, Daniel was back, and taking his seat at the table once again.
“Want me to warm your breakfast for you?” Avaleigh asked.
“No, I’m good love,” Daniel said, rolling up some scrambled eggs in a slice of toast and eating them like a taco.
“That shower was wonderful,” Remi said, walking into the kitchen wearing a pair of his father’s sweat pants and one of his teeshirts.
“Isn’t it amazing, how such a little thing as a shower can bring so much, I don’t know, renewal, cleansing and I don’t mean dirt,” Daniel said.
“Yes. I thought for sure you’d all hear my sigh when I first stepped under the water,” Remi said. “And thanks for laying the clothes out, by the way. Didn’t want to walk across the house naked to get to the few things left in my room with Cristie here.”
“Good call. She was staying in your room while she was here. But, she’s gone. She left just about fifteen minutes ago, heading back to Missouri,” Avaleigh said, watching Remi closely.
Remi nodded, but didn’t seem any more affected than he had before. “Yeah, I figured she’d be going soon. She said as much after you two came in the kitchen.”
Avaleigh walked toward him from the stove, placing a plate of eggs and toast in front of him. “You know, she cares more than you realize.”
“She did once, and that’s just going to have to be enough,” Remi said.
“No, she still does. She was deeply hurt by your rejection, but she still got in her truck and drove down here without hesitation the minute she found out she might be able to help you,” Avaleigh said.
Remi looked up at his mother.
“Eat your food, it’ll get cold, and even your mother’s eggs are not that great when they’re cold,” Daniel said.
“I told you I’d warm your food up,” Avaleigh said.
“I said I didn’t need it,” Daniel said, popping the last bite of his toast and egg ‘taco’ into his mouth and grinning at her as he chewed.
Avaleigh took Daniel’s plate with her back to the stove and filled it again, then filled her own, and took them both back to the table. She slid Daniel’s plate in front of him, and took her seat next to him. “So, what’s next? How can we best support you while you get on your feet again?” Avaleigh asked.
Remi chewed his food, as he thought about his mother’s question. Finally he looked at both her and his father after he swallowed and gave a little shrug. “If you wouldn’t mind too much, I’ll need a new place to stay. I don’t have any money at the moment, and I’ll need to find a new job, so it might be a few weeks, but as soon as I get some income coming in again, I’ll be paying you rent until I can get another place.”
“Sounds reasonable to me,” Daniel said. “Besides, this is always your home. You’ll always have a bed here.”
“You will want to close that account at the bank, and open another before you put any money into it,” Avaleigh said.
“Yeah, definitely,” Remi said. “I’ll take care of that right away. Closing the old one at least. I’ll open another one when I get my first check.”
“Anything else we can do?” Daniel asked.
“No, sir. The rest is on me. Like I said, I have a lot of amends to make. People I hurt, people I let down. It’s not enough to own your behavior and apologize, but it’s a start at least.” He yawned a couple of times in rapid sucession, then stretched before he went back to his food.
“Maybe get you some rest first, then decide where to start,” Daniel said.
“What I really need to do is go look for a job,” Remi said.
“I might have an idea, if it suits you,” Daniel said.
“Oh, yeah?” Remi asked.
“Those people Cristie and I found you with… they got me to thinking. They need help. There was a mother there with two little children, and something she said struck me. She said, the reason she told me where to find you is because I cared. She said she had nobody to care if she and her kids were okay or not. And as I walked around that place, I realized that was probably the case for a lot of them. So, I’ve been talking to Kaid. We decided we’re going to do something about it. We’re buying the land, and putting mini houses on it. It’ll be for anybody who needs a safe place to live. If you’ve got a drug or drinking problem, all you have to do to be able to stay there is attend one of the programs we’ll have active in one of the warehouses. It came with the land and isn’t in bad shape so we decided to keep it and make use of it. We’ll hire counselors to work there. We’ll split the property into an area for families and kids, and another for people who are struggling like you did. I just don’t think it’s a good idea for little bitty kids to see all the addiction, so we’re going to keep it separate. But there is nobody we’ll turn away. If they need more help than we can provide, we’ll find another place that can offer it.”
