Page 8 of Night Blind

“It will more than likely take you half a day to figure out what works best for you to get the job done by the end of the week,” he told her, nodding his head and leaving. “Keep on the gloves; it will lessen the blisters.”

“Sure thing, Boss,” she said, looking at the pile of wood. “I’m tough. I’ve survived worse. I can do this. I can cut this wood.”

Fifteen minutes later, she cursed Mr. Slow, his pile of wood, the children he would sire, and the dog he didn’t possess. Next, she cursed her cousin for mating with such a man who could knock her on the ass with one hand and split a log while holding a cup of coffee in the other. He’d made it look so easy.

Her first attempt with the axe, the pain and force of the contact with the wood reverberated up her arm, shaking her lungs. The second try felt like she’d been hit in the chest. On the third try, she actually managed to chip the log.

“Argh!” she yelled, throwing her weight into the fourth effort, which seated the axe head in the wood. She raised the wood with the axed lodge inside, thinking of The Collector, bringing it down hard on the stump. “Shit. Shit. Shit!”

The pain shimmied up her arms and into her midsection. The intensity of the pain felt as if her fallopian tube wrapped itself around an ovary making it spit an egg into nothingness. “If I had a uterus, I would definitely be bleeding from my vag right now.”

She continued to work, managing to split a total of ten logs by lunch, and she was tired. The back door opened to Cherry stepped outside to look at her. “Come inside. I made us some lunch.”

“I didn’t know you had returned,” Helen said, looking at the garages. The way the doors closed she couldn’t tell what vehiclewas inside. Relief covered her at seeing her cousin had made it home safely.

“Quick job; only an hour and some change away,” Cherry said. “I know your hands are hurting.”

“My body is hurting, but I’m not going to quit,” she told Cherry. “This is hard, Abi.”

Abi was the name she called her cousin, which was short for Abigail. Whenever they talked about the job her cousin did, she always referred to her as Cherry, but at this moment, reassurances were needed to get her through the day.

“I know, but try receiving your training from the good ol’ United States Government,” Cherry said. “In Basic Training, there are two weeks of physical conditioning while mind fucking you into submission.”

Helen smiled as she went to the bath to wash her hands. A bowl of hearty beef soup waited for her on the table, and she was truly hungry. Slow liked soups and stews. Meat, potatoes, and a piece of bread to sop up the gravy is what the man considered to be a meal. It worked, but so did the man.

“Speaking of mind fucking,” Helen said, “I’ll pick up Naomi and take her to dance class this evening. After, she and I can head to Mark and Ruth’s for a bite to eat. I know Ruth would love to see her granddaughter on a day other than Sunday. This way, you can make your man a nice dinner and be alone.”

“Helen, you don’t need to do that,” Cherry said, watching her cousin’s face.

“I know, but he deserves it,” she said. “He deserves to come home to a steak dinner with a baked potato fully loaded and oozing with butter, and to be as loud as he’d like making love to you without ears around.”

Cherry arched her brows, “Do you know something I don’t Cuz?”

“Yes, I know your husband’s life has been turned upside down in the past four and a half months,” she told Cherry. “He has made so many adjustments to add three women to his quiet and once solitary world. The house he’s given me, what he’s become for Naomi, what he means to you, even what he means to me, the safe feeling he gives me to not live in total fear is priceless. I am grateful to him. Michael needs a night with you without restrictions.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Cherry responded, taking a seat at the table. “May I ask how you’re doing?”

“Venting my anger on chunks of wood works. Next week, I’ve decided to take a few classes,” she said, skirting the obvious about her training as a Technician. “I think, just to keep in practice, I’m going to help Michael hunt for the winter stores of meat. You know, earn my keep, and I kind of like that venison stew.”

Cherry’s eyes misted. “I love you, Helen,” she confessed. “I love and respect your silent strength when I know, in your head, you’re going through hell.”

“You didn’t leave me behind, Abi. You didn’t leave me behind to figure it out and neither did Michael,” she said softly. “I love you both for allowing me to be a part of this family.”

“You’re all the family I have.”

“Not anymore,” she said, “there’s Mark and Ruth, and of course Rebecca. Michelle is Naomi’s favorite cousin, and Uncle Joe, is a hoot. The family is larger than I expected.”

“I like them all. The Nearys are good people,” Cherry added, starting on her bowl of soup. Her husband Michael Isaac Neary was a good man who deserved a good life. Tonight, he would come home to a steak dinner, a piping hot potato, and an eagerly hot wife. It would be the optimal way to end his day.

****

Thus far, it had been a shit day. His newly appointed right hand Carlotta Boone was a pain in his tuchus. It seemed that every two hours, she had a new idea on how to streamline processes, until finally, he informed her with no emotion in his voice to learn how to walk before she took off running. The tactic worked, and for the remainder of the week, she stayed quiet and focused on the task at hand. The last thing he needed to do on his day job as well as at home was to instruct a student unwilling to listen to learn.

He thought of Helen and the pile of wood. She was a trooper, but her eyes said there was far more trauma in her life than what The Collector had inflicted. Those eyes spoke of a deep-rooted pain of being tossed aside or sacrificed for the larger picture. He knew it happened with single mothers; he simply didn’t know of anyone personally who had grown up in that kind of environment. The silver framed photo on his desk held a family photo of himself, his parents, and his sister, as well as Helen, Cherry, and Naomi. A separate frame held an image of Naomi showing off her tiny little teeth and wearing her hair loose with a yellow headband. The ears protruded from the side of her head like directional antennae, and he’d never seen a more adorable sight in his life.

A knocking at his office door made him look up, drawing him from the moment of joy at looking at his child. The joy completely left him when he spotted Luca Jones, the Human Resource Manager for his department, the Blue Campus of Homeland Security. In his hand, Luca held a gift-wrapped box as he entered through the door and shoved it at Slow.

“I was going over your personal records, Neary, and noticed Naomi had a birthday last week, so I picked up a little something for our dancing queen,” Luca said, holding the gift like it was the Holy Grail.

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