TaTa

     Dillon knocked on Evie’s door with his heart in his hands. He should have called first? Yes, you fool. You should have called first. He was about to walk off the porch when she answered the door. His stomach fell directly to his feet. She was wearing a pair of exercise shorts. The kind they wore in gym class that was cut around the curve of your butt and slit to the waist ban. And a skin tight matching shirt with a big sun printed on the front. Instantly, a smile lit his face. She was wearing a pair of thick fuzzy socks that came up at least 3 inches above her ankles. 

     She was talking as she motioned for him to come in, smiling a big tooth filled smile. “This is your story not mine. Tell me what you want to do.” Her voice was calm, even, yet authoritative. It was then that he noticed the headset that was almost bigger than her face and the protruding mic.

     She motioned for him to follow her with the wave of her hand. His stomach growled as she stifled a giggle. “I’m sorry. This is about you. Remember?” A timer went off in the background. “Yes.” She spoke. 

     Whatever she had in the oven, it smelt divine. Dillon suddenly realized he hadn’t ate anything since breakfast. Evie got a box out of the freezer, dumped it on a pan, stuck it in the oven before setting a new timer. 

     A laptop was open on the counter. “Let me look please.” She swiped a couple times. “That will be fine. Yes Simon. Thank you.” She did something on her laptop and took off her headset. 

     Dillon nodded as to direct attention across the road, “Simon?”

     “I have no idea. Clients are discouraged from using their real names. For example,” she touched her chest. “I’m TaTa.”

     He raised an eyebrow, “TaTa.”

     She laughed explaining, “talk talk. TaTa.”

     “That is not where my head went,” he blushed. 

     “It is a great icebreaker and you’re not alone. Most folks minds go there. I’ve gotten every reaction from straight up laughter to hung up on.”

     “TaTa.” It rolled off his tongue. “I can’t call you that in public?”

     A new timer went off. She pulled 2 trays out of the oven. His stomach growled again. “Hungry Mr. Pace?”

     He blushed, “starving.”

     “We can sit on the front porch or in the floor.”

     He thought about her offer. Taking longer than he should have. He really didn’t want to sit outside. Outside is where he had been all day. Pretty much on his stomach, glued to a pair of binoculars. “Inside.” Came his sheepish answer. 

     “Help yourself.” While he was thinking about what he should do next, she had gotten plates and utensils out. Was now filling two glasses with ice then water.  He finally blurted out, “you cooked.”

     “You are my guest.” 

     He scooped a big helping of lasagna on his plate. “What are these?” He asked, holding up one of the little pieces of bread.

     “Garlic knots.”

Sunshine Valley

College words

    College words. Was this something that was always going to be present in his mind? College words. He was by no means stupid. She just had more book learning than he did. He knew how to do things no book could ever teach a person. She really didn’t know how to react to his manner. 

     “Sorry.” Was all she could think to say.

    “Don’t be,” he sighed, turning toward her. “I will take all the new words I can get.”

    “What is bothering you?”

    He looked down at the steps. “I don’t know how to put everything that’s rollin’ around in my head into words that will make sense.”

    “You’re free to try.” Something strong was bothering him. She could only remember a handful of times she’d ever seen him this way.

    “Bradley said something to me at church that has gotten under my skin.” 

    She grinned, “Under your skin?”

    He looked at her directly in the face. Her expression was kind. So none judgmental, urging him to continue. The only trouble was, he didn’t know how.

    “Will you tell me what he said?” Her voice was peaceful and calm.

    “Welcome back. All he said to me was welcome back and it dawned on me for the first time where I’d been.” He rubbed his fingers through his hair. Sometimes she hated men. Not because they could be mean but because they could have the finest hair, great nails, delicate complexions, and knockout eyelashes. Dillon had all of these. “Do you remember Sheriff Russ?” His question brought her back to the situation at hand.

    She smiled, “do I ever. He seemed like the meanest most hateful man in Sunshine Valley. I was so afraid of him. Every time I would see him, I would hold my breath until he was gone.”

    “Maybe a year after you left, he got hurt in the line of duty. So much so that he retired. The town searched for six months for a new sheriff. No one would take the job. So, I decided that I would ask. Here I am years later. I didn’t take the job, Evie because I wanted to do good for the people here. My reasons were never so noble. I had no interest in being anyone’s hero.”

    “Then why?” She still maintained her compassionate manner. It was killing him.

    He lowered his chin to his chest whispering. “I wanted to die. I couldn’t kill myself. I remember somewhere someone told me in general conversation that you couldn’t go to heaven if you took your own life. I couldn’t.” He shuffled his feet, “though my dad tried.”

    She felt like someone had hit her in the chest harder than she had ever been hit before, knocking the wind out of her. Her first instinct was to be angry. But after a moment, she spoke God’s words not her own. “We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord, even as we put our hope in you.”

    “Psalms 33:20 – 22,” he squeaked.

    “Dear,” she never stopped looking at him, he could feel her. “I have to ask why?”

     He couldn’t tell her what he was feeling. The only response he could give her was a shoulder shrug. 

     “What was the last thing you did that caused you to feel something? Even if it was bad?”

     He almost blurted out, this. After a few minutes of watching Teka he said, “it shocked me that you got upset with me about not getting any letters from me when I went to summer camp. To the point of hating me. I didn’t do it on purpose. Because I was a poor kid camp was paid for. But I needed money to buy extras. There was nothing for extras like phone calls or stamps. I didn’t do it to hurt you. There was no money. Everyone did a job but that was to pay for the camp. Trust me when I say, I tried every way I could to make stamp money. I liked a penny earning enough to buy one stamp.”

Before she could speak, he got up going into the house, stopping at the screen door, “that really was the worst summer of my life.”

 Sunshine Valley

 A place to call home

     Evie woke up in a strange room. She didn’t feel scared, not even out of place. In fact a very strong sense of belonging filled her. This room had a very secure feeling to it. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this way. There was always some change going on around her to make her feel just a little unsettled. But not here. There was the fleeting thought of how she had gotten here.

    She wondered down a hall into a living room then to a door leading to the porch. There she saw Dillon stretched out against the banisters watching Teka play in her pen.

    Dusk was approaching; preparing the world for the darkness that followed.

    “Didn’t this used to be the Patterson’s Farm?” She asked from inside the screen door.

    He slowly turned around to face her, “yeah.” His face looked ghostly in the approaching night.

    “Did you buy it all?”

    “Yes.”

    “You’ve done a lot of work. It looks great.” She finally joined him on the porch, sitting across from him, leaning up against the opposite banister. Her feet were at his knees.

    “Thanks. It gives me something to do.”

    She chuckled. “We used to sneak up here all the time. You broke your leg some where around here. It was in a barn. Teka’s barn wasn’t the one.” She pointed into the yard.

    “It’s behind the house a piece.”

    “I remember you was terrified that you’d get in trouble. Did you?”

    Dillon turned to face her. God she was so beautiful. “No, Jack lied for me. He told dad that he was teaching us to ride. A snake scared my horse and he threw me off.” He looked back toward Teka.

    “Your dad always scared me.”

    “He had that effect on people.”

    “Are our names still in the attic?”

   He lowered his head. When he spoke his voice was very dry. “Yes.”

    Evie felt nervous all of a sudden. Dillon never did cause her to feel uneasy. She thought for a moment about what to say next. “Why did you buy this house. When I left to go to college, both Patterson’s had passed and their children had moved away. This house hadn’t been lived in for,” she thought, “10 years?”

    His chest was so tight he couldn’t breathe. He focused his attention back to Teka. 

    She got up to leave. “Don’t go.”

    She sat back down watching him for a moment. He looked lost. Lost in another time perhaps. “I can’t thank you enough for taking such good care of her. She looks so happy here.” 

    “Her greatest pleasure is causin’ me pain.” He didn’t grin or crack a smile.

    “What’s that suppose to mean?” Evie was a little miffed over his comment.

    “She won’t let me near her. I can’t even brush her. Every time I get near her, like you just saw, she acts out.”

    “Maybe it’s because you’re a man. She has had a hard way to go because of men.” Evie was trying to make him feel better. There was a heavy sadness radiating from him.

    “I would believe that if she didn’t like your dad.”

     “Who takes such good care of her?”

     “Simon Ledbetter.”

    “Well,” she sighed. “There goes that hypothesis.”

    The look on Dillon’s face was clueless. “Say what?”

    She couldn’t help but smile, “a hypothesis is an assumption or concession made for the sake of argument.”

    “One of your college words.” His tone was so flat it caused her to shiver.

Sunshine Valley

The worst

    Worst! She turned her head finally looking at him. He was watching her. “Worst?” She was shocked. A trimmer rippled through her.

    “Worst.” He restated. “Why dad sent me to summer camp I have no idea.”

    “Really? The worst?” All of a sudden her throat was really dry.

    He shook his head yes.

    She looked down at the rustic flooring. “I was so mad at you. You promised to write me. Every day I would skip down to the mailbox praying for a letter from you. I would shuffle the mail with youthful anticipation knowing that today would be the day you would send me a letter. And everyday I was heartbroken that I didn’t get one. I cried and cried. By the end of the summer, I had written you off. You were no longer my friend.” She waved her arm in a pushing motion to show how she was pushing him away before resting it back on her lap. “I was so mad at you, hurt, angry, and sad. I never will forget the day before you came back it rained. It was raining so hard that I wouldn’t go check the mail.”

She had just broken his heart. “What made you think of that summer?” His voice was a whisper.

    She just shook her head. “Maybe all of this. The past.” She didn’t say another word. She was staring off into her private space again. Lost in her world.

    “Evie,” her face was so soft. “Come back.”

    A single tear rolled down her cheek. He wiped it away as quickly as it had fallen.

    They didn’t say another word. He just sat there with her. Just to be there if she needed him. 

Just incase.  

Sunshine Valley