Clare really enjoyed babysitting for the Martins. A typical weekday evening would involve her just sitting at home on the sofa watching TV, but here she could do exactly that and get paid for it at the same time. Wonderful. The Martins had a great TV system as well, with so many channels she could spend ages channel hopping without visiting the same channel twice, and more DVDs than she ever imagined one family would own.
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Isaiah McDermott shifted his pack to ease the pressure on his shoulders. He rested a bit as he checked his bearings. It appeared as if he was on course toward his destination. According to his map there should be a farm house near by. He had to avoid it at all cost. The "Aggressors" would be watching it. It was on a natural choke point where the roads crossed because of the terrain. The creek and the river in conjunction with the hills made this the easiest way to get to the main highway.
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"Dear Lord, do I feel my age this morning," thought Regina. She got out of bed and hobbled out to the kitchen. She hadn't really wanted to move into this retirement home, but she couldn't keep up the old farmhouse anymore. Her son William had taken over the farm pretty much right after her Frank had passed eight years previous. But Regina had tried to stay on in the house since then. But even that became too much, because it was such a big house to care for.
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Why did I wait so long to clean the house? Nikki could be arriving at any time. At least the dirty clothes were out of the dryer, folded, hangered, and out of the way. When you work full-time, with a part-time job, there never seems to be enough time to get caught up on the stuff that a woman will immediately notice. Fortunately, Nikki understands and forgives my controlled messiness. She never fails to mention that I am too old to properly keep a house and should hire a maid. But, I would have to seriously clean before allowing a stranger to see my clutter.
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Kenny Cho arrived at the Korean restaurant just as the other members of the group arrived. The group comprised of mainly gay Asian men of various ages and nationalities and some of their invited, non-Asian male friends/partners. Once a month the group would dine out at an ethnic restaurant of their choosing. Last month was Vietnamese.
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John got up from the couch and headed down to the apartment complex laundry room. He wished that they would get washing machines and dryers right in the apartments like management had promised but he had to do what he had to do.
John was in his first year of college and his folks had helped him get this off campus place. He was an accounting major of all things and a bit of a recluse. He wasn't bad looking. John was 6' about 180 and had a lean athletic build. For all of that he was still a bit shy with the ladies though.
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I was determined to make it the best summer of my life.
I'd graduated college the first week of May and immediately received an offer for a dream job in San Diego. It meant moving clear across the nation, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up.
The job started in September, so I had several months on my hands. I'd be working fifty hours a week come autumn and probably for some years after, so I decided a prolonged vacation was in order and had just the place in mind.
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My wife Cynthia died on a Monday. She had been unconcerned when she started spotting between her periods and didn't bother me with the concerns of her gynoclogist until the diagnosis came back, uterine cancer. The cancer was stage IV and highly aggressive, the doctor didn't sugarcoat the results. Cynthia fought hard, surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, but in the end the diagnosis had come too late.
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SUNDAY
It was my third time in England and the big British Airways jet came in over London and touched down at Heathrow thirty minutes early. As usual, it seemed to take almost as long to taxi and disembark as it had to cross the Atlantic, but finally I made my way with the other passengers along a carpeted corridor with a one way mirror at the end and came out into the baggage area. I had my laptop, as usual, and a bottle of Scotch I'd bought at O'Hare.
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Shortly after I turned thirty-nine my mother died suddenly of a coronary thrombosis. Dad had died seven years earlier. So since my brother Kenny, a journalist and my only sibling, was living in London at the time, and my daughter was in her second year of college, I was left alone with the task of going through my mother's things and deciding what should be kept and what should be thrown away.
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