sssarawolf
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Thank you Kathy, good reading when we got home.
Story Broken Yet Rising (Complete)
- Thread starter Kathy in FL
- Start date
Griz3752
Retired, practising Curmudgeon
This thing started to accelerate hard around Chapter 26-8 or so.
Now, if I was racing, this is whee I'd tap the brake to straighten out a bit, correct my line and nail the throttle!
And that's what I think our Author is setting up for.
I have heart meds so, go for it Ms. Kathy.
By the way, I so recognise some of these character traits. Some people are lucky we can't pick our families like our friends.
Now, if I was racing, this is whee I'd tap the brake to straighten out a bit, correct my line and nail the throttle!
And that's what I think our Author is setting up for.
I have heart meds so, go for it Ms. Kathy.
By the way, I so recognise some of these character traits. Some people are lucky we can't pick our families like our friends.
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Chapter 44
I finally got my courage up and drove down to get the rest of the twins’ stuff out of the house and to try and finalize the sell. The Probate Lawyer said the sooner the better; I was eighteen and the probate needed to be completed or he wanted more of a retainer. He also let me know that neither Tessa nor Doug had offered to help. In point of fact, they said to only contact them through their lawyer letting them know when the money would be wired to them. I forced myself to keep the words that wanted to fly back behind my teeth. It wasn’t easy, not until I thought of the twins.
I hadn’t been able to figure out a way to keep the Twins out of things. I had no one to watch them. I suppose I could have asked Derek Musgrove but then again, this was too personal, and he is dealing with the changes at the Firm.
I told the Twins to wait in the van and that I’d let them know if it made sense for them to come in. I decided to be cautious for their sakes but maybe I was making it out to be a bigger boogey man than I needed to. I walked into an empty house. They’d left the garage door opener and all duplicates of the house keys on the countertop in the kitchen. No explanation. No forwarding phone number or address. Not even a cold kiss-my-butt goodbye so Tessa could have the last word. They moved without notifying me or the probate lawyer who was more than a little cheesed off when he found out. It was he that finally reached Doug to find out that he was already in a new job, and they were temporarily living in a short-term rental until the house sold.
Nat is confused and Knox is still angry about the way Tessa has ended things. I don’t know if that is an issue that needs counseling or not. I’m not as angry as I was when I first started writing, and I’m trying not to be hurt. That wasn’t and isn’t easy, however. The lawyer informed me that they basically did not want their current location, much less their address and new phone number, shared with me. I’d already heard as much from the custody lawyer but got it reinforced by the probate lawyer. I don’t know if I’ve been holding out some hope but yeah, pretty final. It also sounds like they’ve shelved the idea of trying to get custody of the twins. They burned too many bridges. Both the custody and probate lawyers have given me letters that if I need help with any future custody push by Tessa that I can call on them. Never cheese off a lawyer. They’ve got long memories and ways to make your actions look bad regardless of how you might rationalize or justify them.
I decided that the twins and I needed some closure. Maybe I needed it more than the twins at that point. We boondocked right there in the driveway of the old house. I had brought some cleaning chemicals because I had intended to clean out the twins’ shared bedroom so Tessa wouldn’t ride me about leaving a mess behind for her to clean up. Instead, I was the one that had a mess, figuratively and literally, to clean up behind them.
The probate lawyer was going to give me the name of realtors to choose from to get the house on the market. He said he’d wait until I had cleaned and cleaned out the house and was ready, like he expected me to be emotionally ambivalent about things. To me … it was just time, maybe passed time. The ghosts of my parents, grandparents, and brother have all been laid to rest. The memories are still there but the house no longer haunts me, and I refuse to let it haunt the Twins.
The twins helped me to clean out their room, they really didn’t have much besides their beds and a set of dresser drawers and a few other odds and ends. I called for a pickup by a charitable organization who even accepted their mattresses which I thought was unusual until I found out that the mattresses were going to a holding facility for the homeless that were being rounded up to address some problems that were getting serious. The news made it sound like TB was rife and had spread into the social services sector employees that assisted the homeless and may have also started to spread to those people’s families and social networks. They were concerned it would get into the colleges next and it was a drug resistant strain. They also mentioned that several other illnesses were making the rounds as well. Scary stuff … third world country stuff … but the Twins and I were all up-to-date with our vax. I texted Derek and he said Daniel’s school had sent reminders out and he had an appointment in a couple of days.
I removed the secret camera and repaired the little bit of damage to the crown molding with some plaster putty. I wound up finding some things up in the attic when I went up there to complete the job. I brought it down and … it was The Box and the other one. I’m not sure if they forgot them or forgot them on purpose. It looked like a few things had been removed but I wasn’t guessing. I’m really not sure what to do with the contents yet and even if I did, I’m not sure I’m ready to do it. For now, I’ve stored it along with some other items I’m not sure what to do with in a filing cabinet in the attic. I’ll get around to it at some point, but it won’t be soon. I … just can’t.
Mr. Moose pushed his way over while I was cleaning the house. He knew someone looking for a home to purchase and they had the money to do it as an all-cash deal. I’d already gotten an estimate on what the house was valued at. I turned their enquiry over to the lawyer. I also made up some flyers and stuck them on the gate. Wound up being a bit of a fight between four people interested. One didn’t qualify and dropped out. The remaining three were offering “all-cash” deals. Mr. Moose’s people won the bid war, and the closing happened a week later … yeah, they accepted the house “as is” and paid a premium to have it happen that quickly. Never even had to get a realtor involved as the lady of the house had her Florida broker’s license so had all the forms and everything else and the estate lawyer acted as our representative and helped with all the other legal mumbo jumbo. She also turned out to be a relative of Mr. Moose’s wife, so I guess it was meant to be.
The twins and I returned to Tampa for the closing and … it was pretty anticlimactic. Tessa refused to come back and signed a document so the lawyer would be her representative at the table. I’d been dreading a last confrontation of some type. Nothing worse than getting wound up to have a fight and then finding out it wouldn’t happen. I’d already primed Knox and Nat to be nice but then I got angry that she hadn’t even said goodbye to them despite us trying to keep in touch. I’m done. It appears that whatever could have been, isn’t going to be, and that’s that. Another wave of up and down with my emotions that I couldn’t reveal to the twins.
The house closed, the lawyer dealt with wiring the money to the correct accounts and though the house sold for more money than expected, Tessa got less money than she anticipated because the money had been split five ways instead of three. She hadn’t realized that Mitch’s Estate still got 20% and that both Knox and Nat got 20% each. It wasn’t a pittance but then the lawyers … ours and hers … took their cut and her check shrunk even more. Her lawyer came out of her portion so at least there is that. I had to hear it all from the lawyer who was getting more than a little tired of their complaining. By that point I no longer cared, or told myself I didn’t, and apparently neither did Tessa. Nothing was going to happen and I’m learning to live with it and move on.
The other thing that didn’t happen in January is that Mr. Musgrove and Daniel didn’t have to go live in a garage for a few months until he could find them a more permanent residence. They are back living with “Aunt Maggie.” A caregiver for his friend’s sister now lives in the garage apartment and trust me when I say everyone seems very happy. Apparently, or so office rumor went, Mrs. Padfield had been having serious misgivings and heartache and rethought signing her home over to her son Taylor, as we aren’t the only one with some unresolved family issues. They happen in the best of families. That went over better than anyone expected, and it was because of the intervention of Dayton Barnes… the “cousin’s son”. Taylor is going to be working out of Mr. D. Barne’s office in Jacksonville. From the sound of things, that made his family happy as they hadn’t been thrilled to move to some “possum snot” little town and area because they had “life goals” and that sort of thing. There will be the occasional bit of travel, but the only thing that has really changed is the firm’s letterhead. Even the sign out front still just says Barnes and Musgrove like it has for decades.
Dayton Barnes is what they call a high-flyer and knows people and all the rest. But just because his name is on the firm’s legal paperwork now, and he’s a bonafide partner in the firm, doesn’t mean that anything has really changed, not even with Taylor not being around as much as planned.
Mr. Barnes - though I’m not supposed to know about it - is responding to treatment better than expected and the tumor is shrinking to the point that it doesn’t even qualify for the major surgery that he was looking at. He still has the tumor, but his prognosis has gone way up.
So here I am - I mean here we are - and everything has worked out the way that I wanted. I have the twins. The house in Tampa sold along with all of Dad’s other business properties. Tessa and Doug are gone from our lives. That part I suppose calling it something I wanted isn’t true, but hindsight is 20/20. So why do I still feel so anxious? Like a box of shoes are waiting to drop?
I just need to adult properly for the twins’ sake and maybe for my own, so I have no regrets down the road. That’s really how I was able to control myself from blowing up and on Tessa and Doug for the way they once again handled their end of things. They must be some of the most emotionally klutzy people I have ever been exposed to. Maybe leaving the area is what they needed but it didn’t have to end as awful as it did. If they wanted a clean break, they could have had it. I’m left with making sure their “clean break” doesn’t feel like a compound fracture to everyone else. Even if my feelings on the subject don’t matter, it matters for the twins. I don’t want them thinking that is how you do things.
Chapter 45
I’ve paid the taxes (property), insurance (property, liability, and health), and I started on the personal taxes only come to find out I still needed an accountant because of some of the tax complications. I could do the taxes for the remaining LLCs from Dad’s business stuff. The first problem was where all of that folds into the family trust. I managed everything but the schedule K-1’s because of the Partnership that acts as the holding company for all of the little LLCs and because of the distributions from the Family Trust that holds the estate. Little more complicated than my bookkeeping degree equipped me to handle.
I got off light as far as the cost of the tax accountant goes because I bartered with her. She had a client that needed all his accounts on QBO (QuickBooks Online) reconciled, was down a clerk, and because of my degrees we managed to make a deal. I even got to work from home after I scanned and uploaded all the client’s paper statements to the accounting firm’s cloud server.
And due to some digging the accountant had to do, I found that Mitchell had life insurance and other benefits through the military because he died due to his active service duty. He’d purchased a $100,000 life insurance policy where the twins and I were the beneficiaries. I guess it is something the military encourages. That money was sitting in an account that I had known nothing about. And get this, the account had been set up by someone in the benefits department in the military that had been waiting on the “other guardian” - namely me - to sign the paperwork and I should have gotten that information from Tessa and Doug. Also in this account was a $237/month/twin monthly payment since Mitchell’s murder by the enemy. That is in addition to the social security survivors benefits they were already receiving from Dad and Mom. The accountant (Mrs. Kiplinger’s cousin) put me in contact with someone in the military benefits program and I was informed that there are other things like health and dental benefits until the twins turn 18 and I can go to the commissary and base exchange if I can get to Valdosta. No, I am not and was never covered because even though I wasn’t 18 during some of that time, I was emancipated and that meant I wasn’t Mitchell’s dependent.
What really boiled me was that Tessa and Doug had known about that money all along. My only excuse for not picking up on this is that I’d been a wreck at the time and hadn’t really thought about how or why the military had paid for Mitchell’s burial with his flag draped coffin and all the rest. I thought the estate lawyer was handling it, but looking back I feel like an idiot. For a couple of days I was so furious that I used all my resources to find out where Tessa had moved, her phone number, all the rest, and I was going to give her a piece of my mind. But once I had the information I … I just decided I wasn’t going to go there. I was either going to be the better person or not. I decided not to stoop to their stupid, but I just pray I don’t run into any more stuff like this, because I’m not sure how I’ll react next time.
Taxes dealt with and knowing I am going to have to decide what to do with all the old business stuff (like the LLCs and etc.), I put it to the side and focused on trying to wade through everything else on my plate. Namely keeping my job and keeping us fed, now and in the future. January’s food “income” came in the form of broccoli, cabbage, myers lemons, satsumas, navel oranges, tangelos, red grapefruit, white grapefruit, key limes, pineapple oranges, honeybell tangelos, temple oranges, Valencia oranges, avocados, bell peppers, carambolas, guavas, lettuce, mushrooms, passion fruit, peanuts, squash, strawberries, sweet corn, garlic, and onions. The tropical items came from an unexpected road trip to Naples to deliver a legal file on behalf of Mr. Dayton Barnes. Everything else was from local sources.
I also started preparing the garden plot which was hard work and required me learning to use the tractor and how to take off and put on all the implements for it. Thank gawd for YouTube. But for the size garden I was prepared to plant the tractor was too big. I thought about trying to use the golf cart, but it isn’t strong enough and none of the implements fit. The side-by-side would be better but even it can’t pull the farm implements. I took a swing by the tractor repair place, and they actually have a set of ATV/UTV implements - including the lift I would need to attach some of them to use them the correct way - that were repossessed when someone couldn’t finish paying for them. The guy offered me a deal and I said I needed 24 hours to think about it but it’s pretty much a no-brainer after I got home and checked prices online. I’ll probably go get them tomorrow and pay cash for them. I bet the guy has already written off the returned items and then will take the cash under the table and keep a percentage while the rest is gravy for the owner. I don’t know why I should care as long as I’m not getting a raw deal and I’m not. It will make the garden work easier on me and will use less fuel.
The side by side is diesel and has more than enough torque for what I need since the root rake on the tractor has already done that job of deep cleaning the garden plot and removing roots and rocks. The trees are far enough away that they won’t throw shadow in that area. I just hope I’m not too late to set a garden. Might be time to think about chickens too. We already inherited a “barn cat.” Dumb thing nearly scared me out of a year’s growth when I spotted it sitting on the corner of the metal barn where there is a “stop” on the gutters. I thought it was a mini-cougar. There are a couple of petting zoos with some exotic animals and it would be just my luck to run into a Caracal. The one called Mystic Jungle[1] is an educational facility and has several Lynx on top of their other big cats. As it is I still think it is some kind of exotic domestic cat, like maybe an Abyssinian or a Bengal cat. Hard to tell. It is a nosey ol’ thing and acts like it wants you to notice it but not necessarily interact with it. At least yet. I’ve used my phone to take a close picture and I swear the thing has a flea collar on. I’ll give it a week and then I might call Mystique to see if they’re missing an inmate, or know someone who is.
I considered “adventuring” with the twins again, who I took with me to Naples, but in all honesty too many things are changing and too many things are on my plate making the changes even more challenging to cope with. Despite some things concluding, even if some of them needed to conclude, there’s new things like more sour news and things on the horizon that need my energy. The ceasefire is officially over with. I had no sooner gotten back from the Naples trip than they spent a long weekend with tighter travel restrictions because the enemy threw a sucker punch. It was against US troops that were finally starting to pull out of a few of the theaters of war they’d had a long occupation in. Lotta people died or were hurt, not all of them US citizens but certainly enough of them. A bunch of them were US Aid Workers that were assisting injured US Troops evacuate. The country is in shock. And I kinda think some of the people over there are too because losing the support they were being given doesn’t appear like it had been the end result they were looking for or expecting. The US military immediately retaliated before the terrorists could move their base of operations. They retaliated in other ways too. The US government froze all assets from that country in US banks and investment firms, as well as any hard assets like land or stuff in safety deposit boxes, and said they had one week to turn over the terrorists or all those assets were forfeit. No one was really holding their breath that they would do it and sure enough they were shocked to find the US wasn’t bluffing. They are threatening to take it to international court, but the US is basically giving them the middle finger and proving the money is being used to support the injured and families of the casualties. The government is telling everyone to plan for and expect retaliatory attacks.
This has meant that all US military bases have been closed to civilians not already living on them. So much for the commissary and stuff. I’m not worried about that in all honesty, and I got a communication – now that the military knew how to contact me – that I would get cards for the twins that would be like an insurance card so I could get them health and dental insurance off-base. I checked a local dentist, and he was all over that like white on rice and I could get the twins in asap. They hadn’t had their teeth cleaned in almost two years and it was way passed time. Apparently, the government pays its bills better than many regular people do at the moment. I also hooked the twins into a local pediatrician – the one that Daniel sees – and it was the same thing there. And because they were micropreemies their shoes and glasses also fall under the health insurance. I’m not sure how long this will last but I’m taking advantage of it while I can. The enemy stole Mitchell from us, I’m going to make sure the twins get some recompense for that.
[1] Ra – African Caracal
sssarawolf
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Thank you for the 2 new chapters.
Jeepcats27
Senior Member
Thank you for the new chapters Kathy! New twists and turns!
Chapter 46
There have been a few rallies and riots by people supporting the enemy’s rights while denying that US citizens had rights. A lot of religious stuff was all wound up with some of the protests and that has just complicated things over here even more. That said, this time the federal government has decided the time to play nice is over with. They are literally drop-shipping some of the protestors back to their home countries in shipping containers delivered in C-17’s and C-5’s – which Derek assures me aren’t rumors – whether they want to go or not, and whether their country wants them or not. And some that technically have US citizenship have been shipped to prisons - a few to Guantanamo - where they will be awaiting trial and possibly losing that citizenship. There are rumors in the legal community that they will use the argument that the citizenship was fraudulently gained for those that fall under the old DACA laws as well as immigrants granted permanent asylum. Now that right there has been one of the bigger shocks. It will probably make it before the Supreme Court but I’m not hearing a lot of sympathy from any corner. Someone has definitely overplayed their hand this time. War has officially been declared and it looks like the Pentagon is playing to win compared to historically more recent wars and conflicts.
“But wait, there’s more,” says the game show host. (Yes, one of my favorite phrases, so it is used often.) The brown outs are still a thing. Or maybe calling them brown outs isn’t really what they are anymore. The power gets cut at sundown intentionally. Period. Except for places like hospitals, prisons, and critical care nursing homes and a few other “essential” type facilities. But those also aren’t on full power. Instead of a complete shutdown those “essential facilities” get certain things shut down and they are still under the “black out curtain” type restrictions where whatever lights are on can’t be seen from the outside. Elective surgeries are on hold indefinitely, including stuff that is dental related. You either get that tooth pulled, that bridge, or those dentures under general anesthesia or you don’t get. No one is being put under in a surgery set up. The day of the nose, boobs jobs, and face and butt lifts, are gone for now. And trust me there is some squealing out of some certain industries.
Some people complained that prisons were getting preferential treatment. Only kinda sorta. Many prisons are getting emptied as prisoners that are US citizens are offered the opportunity to join the military to shorten their incarceration. But their basic training and eventual duty stations are outside the continental US so it isn’t like they will have a lot of support if they go AWOL. And there were several stories in the beginning that those that attempted AWOL were summarily shot escaping. Non-citizen prisoners usually must complete their sentence, with hard labor, and often without the opportunity for early release. When they do get released, it is straight to a deportation aircraft that returns them to their country of origin. If they are caught in the US again, might be Guantanamo, might be ADX Florence which is a SuperMax prison. Made a lot of people think. Two such have already been caught crossing the border - one at the Southern and one by water - and both were shot and killed before any kind of incarceration could happen. They were tagged as armed and dangerous enemies of the US, I guess an enemy combatant or something like that maybe. Yeah buddy, you should have heard the hanky stompers yowl. At least until they were told to shut up or go help their brethren on some frontline or other as an employee of the US military … or get our or be sent back to their home country, their choice. Willingly or not.
Another ringie-dingie is that there are no longer any pay outs to non-citizens, including minors born here to illegal parents. And no refugees. Period. Not even family members that aren’t immediate family of legal citizens. Those are only given permission to travel if they immediately sign up to start the process towards citizenship and start paying taxes. That caused some complaints by companies and industries that relied on illegals and government payouts to illegals. But again, the people in charge told them to either shut up or take the consequences. It isn’t all on the positive side of the score card. Ultimate power corrupts and that kind of power can go too far and go outside the bounds of legality. And boy have I been getting an earful at the office. Whew. There are other things going on locally.
Curfew has gotten stricter and hardly anyone can finish their business in a single day because of it. With the power off, the internet goes down for most people unless they are running it off their phone or a hotspot like I am. But the businesses and websites they are trying to access also have curfews and brown outs in their areas of operation. Add in the different time zones and it isn’t nearly as easy as most people think it should be. Can we say screwed up online banking? Except financial institutions are considered “essential” and supposedly it is just a matter of working the bugs out of the system. Supposedly. There are a lot of jumps you must make to get from point a to point z and if any of those jumps are shut down, you get stuck in mid jump.
I get online at night when traffic is way down and try and get school stuff printed off for the twins. The virtual school is only reliable because the state is prioritizing power to those servers. Since I don’t know how long that will last, and I don’t know if I will even sign them up for it next year, I am trying to do what mom always did and stay ahead. When I was little we did stuff like unit studies. When I started to dual enroll is when we got away from that and she didn't do it at all with the twins. But I remember really enjoying it so I'm going to try at least for a couple of months to build something for that. It's gotta be better than what's going on in the virtual schools.
I hear a lot of complaints from people that there is nothing to keep the kids entertained and out of trouble. Most kids and families don't see school as something fun. And a lot of the extracurricular activities are no longer available either because there can be no nighttime activities. And sometimes it is even a rush to get from school to home before the curfew sets in. Church, most churches anyway, have had to cancel evening activities. However, to go along with that, some churches are having “Stone Soup” picnic or “dinner on the grounds” every Sunday with people bringing a covered dish or donating something for a soup or other type of meal. It is bringing more people into the churches all over. That’s a good thing because after the church service people network and try and help each other out. Freeloaders are weeded out at the community level therefore charity gets to the people that really need it, or at least that is what is happening at our church. Lots of bartering and trading going on as well.
Chapter 47
The twins and I aren’t freeloaders, but we do take advantage of what is out there. We’ve been busy trading sweat equity for things we can use. I got a lot of gardening supplies out of a house that one of those Nouveau-country people moved out of right before they were served with foreclosure papers. Lock, stock, and barrel. It was a nice, newer house built less than five years ago, but it doesn’t fit the setting and doesn’t even have a wood burning fireplace. There’s a small gas one, but Mr. Musgrove said it was more for looks than function.
Why was he and I there at the same time? Barnes and Musgrove is on tap to do a lot of work for the banks in the area and the other paralegal that does work for the firm has had a political epiphany or something like that based on what she has been spouting. Or maybe she was always like that and just kept it under wraps. Don’t know. Not sure I have any reason to care except I no longer have to listen to her complain about the Firm being treated like a daycare because when I’m there, the twins are there, and the school bus drops Daniel off at the Firm as well. Mr. Barnes let her go when I quietly let them know that I caught her red-handed working against the firm on cases that involved real estate and a couple of the family law cases.
How I found out is because Dayton Barnes was hacked off that he lost a case and he at first thought I had something to do with it. Well, I didn’t, and I was pretty much hacked off myself that he would think so. Mr. Barnes was out that week; more “asthma problems.” Dayton set one of his law clerks to chew on me and I bit back. As soon as we got over what was honestly just a bit of territorialism we started working together. We came to a meeting of the minds and with both of us looking we started seeing a pattern that had only emerged because there were so many new cases of a certain type. I did find circumstantial evidence that she’d been doing this for a long time but far fewer cases, but nothing that I could prove beyond a reasonable doubt. I didn’t have to however, thanks in part to the law clerk’s reputation as sterling, as the “pattern” was enough for Dayton Barnes to speak to Mr. Barnes.
Now I’m not privy to the rest except by innuendo and a little birdy named Daniel that I had to have a discussion with about listening in on adult conversations. I really need to find out how to have a conversation with his adults, without getting him in trouble, watching to make sure there aren't little ears around to hear what they're talking about. Especially if they expect it to stay private.
The story goes that all four partners were in a meeting that lasted most of the day. They kept asking for certain files that I would then bring them. I kept them fueled with snacks and coffee (some from what I bought on my last stop at Bravo as I swung up that direction after Naples since I hadn’t spent all of the per diem that I’d been given). What I didn’t know was some of the files and errands they asked of me that day were tests to see how much I could do, would do, knew not to do, etc. Call me oblivious as the phone was busy that day and the twins were busy helping Daniel with a school project, a diorama for his social studies class. Mr. Musgrove has since told me that after they finally agreed to let the other paralegal go, something Mr. Barnes didn’t want to do because she’d worked for him for a long time (like since his wife was still around) and he knew the family, they started discussing me. Dayton Barnes wanted to know how I got so much work done in one or two days in comparison to what had been getting done in the past, while also acting as receptionist.
Blah, blah, blah and all that. I’m now working three or four days a week at the firm. No one complains about me having the twins with me as most of the time they are doing their schoolwork or reading or MOCing, and that I also keep Daniel when he gets off the bus. Somehow I also got put in charge of bringing the office into this century technologically. Mr. Barnes is resistant to that change as well, but I’ve learned to work around that by simply making sure that we keep all original paperwork in the file room, but everything is also digitized which makes the job of the other three partners easier. It is also making it easier and faster to file stuff with the city and county as they are being forced by the State to join this century as well. They were still doing nearly everything with the old microfiche system. OMG. It is like dealing with Dad and Mitchell times ten on some days, but it isn’t horrible as I’ve mentioned things like back up batteries, adobe acrobat fillable forms, and stuff like that to my counterparts at City Hall.
Lake Lili
Veteran Member
Lol... dragging filing forward was an admin specialty of mine in the early 90s. With WWII exec and their secretaries retiring in droves, companies would be left with filing systems that were a maze because the Secretary (Mrs.) had gone to Miss Simmons Secretarial School (Class of 1946) and learned that system of filing and then personalized it to meet Mr. Executive's quirks and line of business. Read total nightmare once the both had left. I was usually able to reorder the filing systems within 3 weeks. Spent 5-years doing that. Took another decade before there were really dual paper/compter files and even today most businesses I have dealt with still maintain a paper back file.
Chapter 48
January has been so busy that I haven’t had a lot of time to be depressed over what I call “Tessa Redux”. Changing my job description came with a raise in pay which I needed. Fuel is getting more expensive, and rationing goes into effect February 1st. Lucky I had a heads up about what was coming from one of the firm’s clients. I overheard talk it was obvious I wasn’t supposed to have heard. I got the propane topped off again (ouch) and have started filling fuel canisters of both regular and diesel, and storing them in the barn. Those doggone fuel cans were expensive until I found a way to store fuel in a larger system.
I found a way to cut down on the number of gas cans plus a way to make it easier to move and fill whatever I needed the fuel for. First it started out with fuel-rated barrels; those were usually 55-gallon drums. I have a couple for regular fuel, and a couple for diesel. Then came another fined online. It was a rolling, 35-gallon fuel holder. There were two of them; one for regular and one for diesel. The rolling fuel containers have a pump and hose, and even a funnel. That makes it very easy for me to move around heavy fuel. It also means that I can put all the gas in the fuel she that Dad built for all of the potentially explosive stuff that he kept on hand. I had gotten away from that, which was a bad idea. I just need to add more security to the shed so that it can't be casually broken into. That is a lot of money sitting in that shed right now.
The cost of electricity has increased and I’m thankful that we have the wood burning stoves in the house. The trees drop all kinds of limbs that I and the twins drag to the wood pile and cut into proper lengths. Derek told me there is a big gizmo called a log splitter. Some can be hooked to the three-point hitch on the tractor, and some are manual. I’m hoping for an off-season sale to pick one up.
I’m also thankful that I got the twins’ proper winter clothes for north Florida as part of their Christmas. Getting and keeping the solar items charged has helped the most and the 240-acre solar farm income is turning out to be a heck of an investment. Few people know I own it and I’m going to keep it that way as long as possible. Any suspicions that people had there for a while have vaporized with the exit of most of the Johnson/Frell clan to places with bars and locked doors.
But back to the gardening supplies which I got off track from. The reason why I was at a house with Derek Musgrove was to inventory the foreclosed home and to see what needed to be done before it could be auctioned or whatever the bank decides to do with it. As the Junior Partner, that sort of drudgery fell in his lap, and I was instructed to help. The bank, not a local one but a foreign investment group that had bought the mortgage early on, wanted to expend the minimal amount of money. I wondered how paying a lawyer regardless of seniority by the hour to do that kind of work saved any kind of money at all, but I wasn’t going to shoot Mr. Musgrove or myself in the foot.
“What a crock of crap,” Mr. Musgrove groused.
I looked over at the three caballeros who’d discovered a tub of mixed Legos in the family room. They were separating them out by color and shape into some cheap plastic containers that had been left behind as well. Mr. Musgrove had said let ‘em have at it since it was officially abandoned property and kept them out of trouble while we worked.
“So, what are we expected to do besides ‘inventory’ abandoned property?” I asked him.
“Dayton wants us to get rid of it, however it is easiest and cheapest, while still conforming to Florida law. If we store it, things get complicated, and it could open the door to lawfare the firm does not need.”
I peeked inside the kitchen cabinets. Made the mistake of opening the refrigerator and nearly being gak’d out. As soon as I was sure I wasn’t going to hurl I said, “Take the frig outside and hose it out on a tarp. Throw anything that doesn’t wash away in a dumpster. Geez, that smell is awful. Call Mr. McDermott.”
“From church?”
“Yeah. He has a running list, or so I’m told, of people looking for stuff or needing stuff. Let him be the gatekeeper because you know how he is. If it is a want rather than a need …”
“…go to the back of the line.” Derek paused, shot off a text to someone then said, “That might work. And if he won’t take the job, his sister might know someone at the auction house. First off though, is there anything here you might want?” He asked after spotting me looking at what I knew were Swarovski figurines.
“Uh … not if it will bring some money to the Firm. I’ve already got plenty of knick knacks and bric-a-brac gathering dust.”
“Dayton said …”
I rolled my eyes and Mr. Musgrove … who turned into Derek again by the end of the day … chuckled. Dayton Barnes seems to want to have a lot to say without having to deal with the work what he says generates. He isn’t a bad man, and he is a really good lawyer, but he can also be a little full of himself, but I suppose not without reason.
“Seriously, if there is something …”
“Ew! What’s that smell?!”
Nat didn’t find it nearly as funny as Knox and Daniel. “Yeah, yeah. It is pretty disgusting so don’t go near the kitchen. I made the mistake of opening the frig.”
Daniel said, “Smells like when Felicia unplugged the freezer to plug her hair blower and then forgot to plug it back up when she was done. Man oh man was Granny Freddy mad. That’s why we couldn’t stay there anymore.”
All three decided to vacate and take the legos to the back porch. I turned to look cautiously at Derek. “He’s not calling her Momma or anything anymore.”
“No. By her choice. She says when people find out Daniel is hers, and how old he is, they look at her like she is trashy.”
I opened my mouth then closed it. Derek gave a grin and said, “Go ahead and say what you want to.”
“Not where Daniel might hear.”
Derek grinned even more for a moment then got serious and said what I had been thinking. “If people think Felicia is trashy, it isn’t because of Daniel. She’s my sister but I’m not blind. Mom would be horrified. Felicia just…” He shook his head. “She doesn’t make life easy and all I have the energy for these days is being an uncle to Daniel. Felicia doesn’t want him now that she can’t get any kind of financial benefits, and she doesn’t want me telling her how she is screwing up her life. And I’m done letting her screw up Daniel’s life. She claims she is moving to Las Vegas with some friends and so long as I have full legal custody before she leaves, I’m not going to try and stop her. Let’s get back to what we are here for and leave the trash for another day.”
That’s what you call a double entendre if there ever was one.
Jeepcats27
Senior Member
wow, brings back when hospitals went to computers and the staff almost had a revolt!!!!! WHO knew playing Solitaire would convince the staff to learn Windows!!!!! Some of the amazing arguments they would pull out of thin air????
Lake Lili
Veteran Member
Medical clinics are using something similar here wheich is fantastic because we are a heavily underserviced area and most of or doctors are new Canadians, whose written English is not always the best - so they write their notes in Arabic or Farasi or Hindi and the system translates to English. It is also tied into our local pharmacy making perscription renewals much easier and to the blood clinic and hospital making referals fast and dead simple. We also have an excellent Telehealth system so that we don't always have to go into town for an appointment and all notes go into our file. My Dad is with the Diabetes clinic and he has to up load his numbers weekly to the system - takes him 4 minutes to type it in. I'm sure there is a downside but I haven't run into yet.
sssarawolf
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Happy Dance, thank you.Jeepcats27
Senior Member
Kathy, I hope you and your family have a wonderful Easter tomorrow!
Chapter 49
I stuck with needs and filled up the minivan with all the gardening stuff from the foreclosure that would fit in a single load. I had been smart enough to bring a tarp to put down in the back so clean up was minimized but since it all didn’t fit in one load, I was going to have to come back the next day.
“I’ll meet you here as soon as I drop Daniel off at school. Aunt Maggie normally takes him on her way to coffee with those friends of hers, but lately he has started to put up a fuss.” He looked at me before saying, “He wants to be homeschooled like Knox.”
Curious I asked, “What do you think about that?”
“I’m thinking it is a possibility if I could … er … get a little help getting started. I mean I’m not against it. I did some research when we had that case last year for the Abernathy divorce.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it to think about a response then slowly said, “Let me think about it. What works for the twins might not work for Daniel. You’d still have to be like the teacher & principal though I could tutor him. Maybe. Look I just need to check the laws to make sure neither one of us gets in trouble.”
“I’m not asking you to shirk your responsibilities. I know you are already spread a little thin. For that matter so am I. What I’m thinking is telling him that if he finishes out this school year and gets good grades and I don’t have any problem with him over the summer, then we’ll commit to doing it for fifth grade to see how it goes. And we’ll take it year by year from there. Can I ask you something?”
“I .. guess. I mean sure.”
“Do you ever feel … too young for what you’ve taken on?”
Relieved since it was an easy to answer question I said, “I’ve heard that question before. You’ve been listening to the college age and young adult minister at church.” I chuckled darkly then mimicked their spiel. “Because I haven’t had the opportunity to sew my wild oats, one of these days I’m just going to bust out or something like that. I need some grounding and appropriate socialization.” I sneered, “By the way, if you ever want to get most home schoolers riled up start talking about ‘socialization.’ It is a topic a lot of people yak about, but few people really understand what that means.”
Overlooking my snark he admitted, “Let’s just say the pastor made me think. Technically both of us fit into that ministry but I’m not inclined. What’s your excuse?”
“No excuses. I just don’t have anything in common with the ones that I’ve met. They’re not bad people, they just make me feel like telling them how stupid some of the things are that they find important. That they are missing opportunities to get ahead so when they actually take up being an adult, life won’t be so hard on them. I also feel like telling them they’re crazy for going into debt to get a degree that won’t pay for itself … or the ones that are doing that anyway. Some of them make more sense. Like Shelly Curtis.”
“Shelly is getting a nursing degree while she works as an LPN in Lake city. She and I were in the same grade in high school though we had different friends. She was also different back then. Head of the cheer squad and the rest of it. She was in the same crowd as Felicia. For whatever reason though she avoided some of the trouble most of the rest of that group has gotten into since we graduated. But even Shelly complains of feeling old.”
I shrugged. “I suppose it is perspective.”
“Perspective,” he replied like he was trying not to laugh at me.
Didn’t bother me and I answered, “Yeah. Life happens and … if you aren’t careful, you’ll lose what should be the most important things.” I looked out back at my sibs and knew beyond a doubt I’d chosen the right path, even if I didn’t always appreciate it.
I turned back to Derek and said, “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a saint. And you can stop trying not to laugh. I’ve got a mouth and I know it though I’m trying to do better. And there are days that are just hard, and I’d like to play hooky as much as the next person. But it is the hard parts that make the other parts easier to appreciate. I just wish …”
“What?” he asked after I paused.
“That my parents and brother were here to help me with the hard parts. I mean their memories and the things they taught me help … but not like if they were here doing all of this with me. Kinda hard on some days to tell who the enemy is and who isn’t.”
“You’re thinking of the Frell girls.”
“Eh, not especially. They were never my friends and never pretended to be. Just … she who is not to be spoken of again caused me grief I didn’t expect, wasn’t guarding against, and could have cost me my job.” I was referring to the other paralegal. The euphemism is how I had started referring to her to not upset Mr. Barnes who was still hurt by how things turned out. “It’s made it hard to socialize like people expect me to. I must be careful because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but at the same time I just don’t want what some of them are offering because it comes with strings.”
He nodded. “Now that I do understand. And … er … uh …”
I had to laugh. “Relax. We have the twins and Daniel in common. I’m the paralegal in the office. And Mrs. Padfield already warned me more than once to …”
“Now see, that’s what I’m talking about,” he snorted. “I love Aunt Maggie … and Uncle James, even when he gets his crazy on … but I wish they’d lay off the advicing people to death or trying to arrange my life. I was hoping that Taylor’s kids would take that place so there would be more people to spread that around to.”
“Junior?” I asked with a laugh.
“Hey, he needs someone to arrange his life. The boy is a solid gold knothead. Thankfully his coaches keep him from completely going stupid in college.”
Derek was different when he wasn’t in the office or putting on his public face because he represented the Firm. It made me want to ask him about some things I’d been wondering.
Chapter 50
“Do you enjoy being a lawyer?” I asked.
Derek blinked at the change in subject. After a piece of a minute he admitted, “I do. I didn’t think I would, but I enjoy the kind of cases that Uncle James specializes in. I wouldn’t want to spend the majority of my time doing divorce cases, or clean outs like this, but so long as the drama is kept to a minimum and all parties are there in earnest rather than to cheat each other, I accept it is just part of the career field I chose. Why?”
“Because there are days I wonder if it is something I should pursue. I like what I’m doing … the research, writing the filings, all that other etc. But I’ll be honest, I just like researching stuff. I’m not sure that I am cut out to actually represent clients. Some of them make me want to open my mouth and say something to them - yeah, go ahead and laugh - but see you and Mr. Barnes know how not to say stuff to people, or you know how to say that stuff in a way that doesn’t… well it doesn’t make them feel the way how I would say it would make them feel. And… and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m interested in learning how you do it. I’m tired of being lied to. I’m tired of thinking that people can pull something over on me. I’m tired of worrying that I might not be tough enough or anything else enough so that people aren’t going to make it so I can’t take care of the Twins.”
“Mina, everyone goes through times like that. Trust me, they don’t teach that stuff in law school. They don’t even warn you about it. That’s what interning and being a law clerk is for. That’s why you start off as a Junior Lawyer and they don’t expect you to do certain kinds of cases or deal with certain kinds of clients, until you’ve got enough experience not to fall into the trap of … of …”
“Of what?”
“Of thinking you have it figured out. Of falling for … idealism I guess is the word I’m looking for.”
I laughed and it was almost painful. “Idealism? Definitely had that kicked out of me already.”
“But you haven’t let those lessons sour you. That says something about your character. Trust me on that.”
I didn’t know what to make of what he said then he startled me more by asking, “If you could do anything you want to, money not an issue, what would you like to do?”
I snorted. “That’s the problem, I don’t know. There’s things that I’d like to do but not necessarily every day for days on end, like it was a career.”
“For instance?”
“Like I said … research. I like when your aunt and her friends ask me to try and find something in the old records at the courthouse. It’s almost like a treasure hunt. But it only happens ever so often so I’m not sure I would want a constant diet of it. I like looking through the paperwork and finding that needle in a haystack that helps to win a case. I like finding correct boundary lines or … look, I don’t know, not really. I know what I like doing but I’m not sure I want to do it as a career or forever. Then there are all the unfinished projects at the Homeplace. I’m tired of them sitting around unfinished. My mother’s and grandmother’s projects, things Dad always meant to get around to, and even some of my own ideas like the garden I want to plant this year. And the herb garden. And the cactus garden I want to have in the greenhouse.”
“Cactus?!” He laughed.
“Ha. Ha.”
“I … didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” he said seriously.
“You didn’t.”
“Look …”
“I’m serious. You asked. I’m telling. That doesn’t mean I expect you to understand or agree with me. I guess if I had to call anything a name … I like to piddle. But my piddling needs to mean something and have an ending. I’m not my mother and grandmother who could piddle all day long and have a gazillion projects going at one time, but they were satisfied to only complete one or two of the too many and believed they’d get around to finishing the rest at some point.”
“Aunt Maggie is like that. She’s always jumping from interest to interest. Family tree limb to tree limb depending on if she hits one of those brick walls she’s forever complaining about.” He shrugged. “You’ve got time to figure out what you want to do … er …”
“When I grow up?” I said with a laugh.
“That kinda came out wrong.”
“Yeah well … I’m already grown. I don’t have any choice to be. But whatever I eventually wind up doing it needs to help me support the twins.”
“That I do understand. Daniel costs … but I’m … I’m not … I don’t regret stepping up.”
“They make us better.”
He looked at me and slowly nodded. “I think that’s it. The bottom line. I’d like to say that I’m being completely altruistic and loyal to the family by taking in Daniel and raising him but, I’ll be honest, I’m only able to do that because the kid … he gives me the chance to be better, and if not better at least different, from some of the way I was raised. Dad means well, Mom meant well. Even Lorena means well. But their ‘well’ didn’t really work the way they thought it did, at least not for me and I suspect for Daniel as well. It was seeing what I saw as an EMT that made me make other choices. It was the training accident that put me on a completely different path than I ever thought about taking. And that only happened because Uncle James was willing to give me a hand up to see if I could make more of myself. Er … sorry. What’s that you call it? Drama llamas?”
I laughed. “Your drama llamas and my drama llamas could make an entire heard of the ding blasted beasties.”
He gave an appreciative grin and said, “Pretty much. Let’s corral them and get this job finished before Dayton calls and asks me are we finished yet because he has another one for us to work on.”
sssarawolf
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Another thank you from me.
You all ARE members of my family.
Chapter 51
My weird conversations with Derek always gave me something to think about. Figuring out what to do with my future was just one of them. Trying to “corral the drama llamas” was a picture in my head that made me laugh on those days I was near tears. And there have been a few of those. He reminds me of Mitchell on occasion, but he also makes me wonder if Mitchell would have been flexible enough to deal with having his dreams taken from him. I love my brother even though he is gone, but I look back and see that he could be as inflexible as Dad on some things. God forgive me but I sometimes wonder how Mitchell would have reacted had he not come home in a body bag but in a hospital bed with wounds that took away the goals he’d been so invested in. And I wonder if that was maybe why God let him go Home rather than come home. Those are always the most uncomfortable kinds of thoughts. They come to me when I am so lonely late in the night with no one to talk to. The twins would listen, but I dare not say such things to them, they are too young for it not to traumatize them. They are still confused enough; I don’t want to add to it no matter how badly I’ve started wanting someone that I can talk to.
Bottom line, no matter what I might want, I need to keep reality in the forefront of any plans I’m making. There’s enough reality out there to drive me buggy as it is. Because of the news and expenses and my new work schedule, my “adventuring” with the Twins has gotten curtailed. We still do the odd State Park, flea market, and farmer’s market but not with the abandon we did last year. And sometimes Daniel is also with us because no matter what Derek might want, his own work schedule and dealing with his family means that he can’t always give Daniel those kinds of activities.
I explained it to the twins and low and behold, they are fine; all they care about is making sure no one can take them away from me which is a fear they still seem to have. And they don’t want Daniel to get taken away either. I guess there is the occasional noise that gets made about that despite the trouble that Felicia keeps getting involved in. The State is just as stupid here in north Florida as they were back in Tampa. “Family reunification” is the name of the game. Problem is that it isn’t always the bright, shiny, and happy thing that everyone makes it out to be. Too many of the parties involved don’t want to turn away from their less than constructive behaviors and past poor choices. I mean look at my own family, look at the choices that have been made. I don’t think anyone intentionally set out to act like buttheads and make the situation what it is. It was pride and arrogance and hurt feelings and anger that turned into distrust and defensiveness. And I saw it on everyone, myself included. I don’t know how I would have handled it had the Twins wanted to stay with Tessa. It makes me wonder how she felt knowing they wanted to be with me. Why couldn’t she see there was room for everyone? For that matter, why couldn’t I?
I guess I still have as many “unresolved” issues as I believe Tessa does. Now that my anger has stopped being a snapping, snarling thing inside me I can be even more honest about the situation. But I’m also even more convinced that the split was, if not inevitable, perhaps the only healthy option to take. At least for now. I look back over all the legal paperwork and I become determined to keep the door closed all over again. But I also wonder if there might not be room, down the road, for me to take the lock and deadbolt off the door and stick my head out and look around.
Knox caught me off guard one night coming to my bedroom.
“You okay?” I asked him. He just shrugged but got up on my bed like he needed something. “You and Nat have an argument?”
“Nat and I never fight,” he told me what he parked his chin on his knees. “She said she’s afraid I’ll leave.”
“Uh …”
“I don’t want her not to fight because she’s afraid I’m going to be like Tessa.”
“She said that?”
“Kinda.”
“When did this happen?” I asked trying not to worry. Out of all of us, Nat worried me that she was going to grow up and be as sensitive as our mother. Knox is actually good for her in that respect because he helps her be brave but there are still moments I worry.
“This afternoon when you were putting the stinky goop on your legs so you won’t turn into Big Foot’s cousin.” It has always been a running joke in the family about my hairy legs and honestly doesn’t bother me because I don’t like shaving. The “goop” is heavy-duty hair remover. Mitchell used to say I didn’t have hair on my legs, I have bandsaws. He wasn’t wrong. The hair is dark like both sides of my family. It’s thick like Mom’s side. But the rest is all Dad … it goes any direction it has a mind to from one day to the next. I have also always left it long like Mom. I keep the hair on my head braided and twisted into a bun or wrapped around my head. The hair on my legs and arms is also thick and dark so I use the hair remover. It’s that, a weed whacker, or a new five-blade razor every other shave. Thankfully I don’t have facial hair, or like Dad, I would probably be shaving twice a day just to keep it semi-under control.
All that went through my mind in a second and then I asked Knox, “Fine, but was it anything in particular that set her off?”
“Um … I said we were never going to see Tessa again.” I sighed but Knox just kept going. “Because we aren’t. She doesn’t want to see us.”
“Knox …”
“She doesn’t want to see us,” he repeated. “And I don’t want to see her because she just lied about caring about us. It is sad but I can’t change it. I … I kinda wish I could but …”
I gave him a hug. “I know Knox. I would change things if I could if only for you and Nat.”
“Why did she have to be that way?” he asked plaintively.
“No clue,” I admitted as gently as I could. “Wish I did so it would give me some idea of how to change things. But … look, maybe we shouldn’t hammer it into stone. Only God knows for sure what is coming in the future. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we should sit around waiting for it to happen, but maybe we shouldn’t completely ignore the possibility of it happening.”
“You mean we will see her?” There was more doubt than hope in his tone.
Trying to explain I answered, “I’m saying we’ll be healthier leaving it up to God and believing that whatever does happen in the long run is for our good.”
“Hmmm … like the preacher was talking about? All things work to the good of those that love God, not just the fun and easy stuff but all things?”
I told him, “You know, I’m glad you remembered that because I’ve been trying to deal with all this stuff too.”
“Maybe I should tell Nat in case she needs to remember it.”
From the door we both heard a quiet, “I forgot about that.”
Knox moved over and Nat hurried and they were soon both on my bed. I knew what that meant, there was going to be a sleepover.
Chapter 52
I think that was the turning point for them as far as the family drama. No more late-night crying jags. No more bad dreams. Then I caught them watching the news for a school activity and it wasn’t a good thing. What a mess I have on my hands. Thank you, stupid AI teachers. I’m pretty sure I’m going to quit the virtual school at the end of this school year. I’ve never had any teacher training but even I know I can do better than having little kids watching the news for “current events” in the middle of a war. Some of those news stories are pretty graphic and gory and most definitely not age appropriate.
The twins almost don’t want to leave the Homeplace. They’re fine once we do leave but by the end of the day, they’re anxious to get home and they check all the windows and doors when we are. They worry about what they saw on the news, almost getting obsessed, and because of what worries them it has started to worry me. Terrorists. Child stealers and worse. Stealing people to ransom them or traffic them. Age does not matter and sometimes the younger the better. Disgusting.
The twins are scared. They’re also worried for me … and Daniel. They have reason to be, but not the reasons that they think. The nasty neighbors are back, and they’ve brought friends with them. But I can’t just lock us away in the Homeplace. I need to work, and I won’t leave them home alone. I’ve been working on plans, but this isn’t the movies, and I don’t have a clue what I can do until they try and do something to us first.
There’s the Castle Doctrine here in Florida that will let me fight them if they try and come in the house. I mean it is a little more complicated than that - I must be in fear for my life or fear for the twins’ lives - but I can’t even get a Concealed Carry permit because I’m not twenty-one years old. Tomorrow, I go to work and afterwards I must go pick up things that I’ve ordered to take advantage of ship-to-store savings. It might be the last time I am able to do that because one of the credit cards that I used from Dad’s business got caught being used for non-business items. They’ve dropped the limit to $200. That will barely help with fuel. Worse though, they are giving me a problem about paying out the bonus points that I’ve built up using that card. I also got a letter from one of the bank accounts in Tampa that they are closing that account because it is commercial. Everything is getting so fracking crazy. Pardon my French.
Chapter 53
Man I am glad we got home when we did today. I can’t believe it, but our little town has had a riot. I kid you not. And … OMG … I may have shot someone. I mean I am pretty sure that I did. I meant to shoot him, and I think I did. I saw the guy grab his butt and fall - and no I wasn’t aiming at his butt - but he’s not there anymore. Neither is the little Toyota truck he’d been driving.
My brain is pulling a Porky Pig. Let me start at the beginning. The day actually started boring-normal. We got up and I fixed oatmeal so the twins wouldn’t get hungry too soon before lunch. I also grabbed the lunches that I’d fixed last night. I know a lot of people still run down to the Dixie Café for lunch, but I’d go broke if I did that. How people can still afford to eat out I don’t know. Maybe that’s all they do, and they don’t buy groceries. Anyway, work went smoothly even though Taylor was in the office and wanting the same kind of attention he gets in Mr. Dayton Barnes’ Jacksonville office. It meant that I had to keep the twins and Daniel really quiet as well as hop to it and provide whatever was wanted at top speed. I think he’s forgotten how to say thank you. The closest thing I got from him today was a grunt, one that was usually followed with another order. Sigh. Such is the life of a receptionist/paralegal. Oh well.
I was getting a little suspicious at how quiet the kiddos were being, and man did I have reason. I didn’t know it, but they’d created a project for themselves and had been MOC’ing “home defense tools.” Oh, my gawd. I am so lucky that no one figured out what they were doing. They had found an old laptop computer in the office junk room and had figured out how to get it hooked to the internet. They were watching vids on making office weapons[1] and stuff like that. I clued to something was going on when I saw a “shopping list” to start looking for when we were helping to clean out foreclosures.
Well, I knew a conversation was going to happen, but I couldn’t until Taylor left. Only he didn’t, he was working late and then going to dinner with Mr. Barnes and Mr. Musgrove. Geez Louise. That meant someone was going to have to watch Daniel, so yeah. I have the Twins and Daniel hidden in Knox’s walk-in closet in his bedroom on the second floor.
I didn’t think anything of it because it is no longer unusual for me to have Daniel at times other than at the Firm’s office. So, I finished my workday, avoided being asked to stay late to complete “just a few more things”, and took the three caballeros with me to pick up my order at wallyworld. While there I also decided to pick up some stuff that I would need to keep canning. The supplies I was looking for weren’t where they used to be located, which is over in the grocery area. Instead, I decided to look in the kitchen gadget area and booya, they were there but pushed behind some fancy canning jars left over from Christmas. Feeling only a little guilty I took all the various kinds of pectin they had left - Sure-Jell regular and low sugar, MCP brand of the same, and a brand of bulk powdered pectin I’d never heard of called Wincrest, Mrs. Wages brand, Ball brand, and liquid Certo. I winced but got a dozen more half gallon Ball brand jars (all they had) because I needed them for storage of dry bulk items. I figured in for a penny in for a pound and since nothing was getting cheaper, I went back to the grocery area and got the limit allowed of bread flour, cake flour, self-rising flour, baking soda, baking powder, yeast, and cornmeal. I made sandwich bread by the loaf with the automatic bread maker, but I was also planning on turning my hand to Amish Friendship Bread[2] because there were a ton more recipes than I had ever considered. Like 100s of recipes. And since the starter for the bread was easy and didn’t require the yeast needed for the bread machine, I didn’t feel bad about it.
I also picked up several boxes of canning and pickling salt, some boxes of iodized salt, a few boxes of ice cream salt that was on the clearance shelves, some popcorn seasonings left over from Christmas that hadn’t sold, and then a bunch of no-salt seasonings that were also hanging around with the other clearance items. That’s when I noticed they had an entire clearance area just for the grocery section, so I decided to try and see what all they’d put there and if it was worth spending even more money. Uh, most of the stuff was serious junk, a lot of Christmas candy and other food gifts like skillet cookie kits and enough hot sauces and mini liquor bottles to flambé an entire herd of rats. Nope. Wasn’t going to spend money on that stuff. I didn’t need the twins climbing the house like King Kong; they still had candy left over from the fall festival at church last October.
There was some Asian stuff that I grabbed like rice noodles and rice crackers and particularly flavored rice mixes. There were bottles of soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, duck sauce, and a few others that were hot sauces that I’d seen Derek put on food from the packets that came from the oriental deli. There were also some seasoning packets for rice dishes, like fried rice and a few other things that were so cheap I got them even if I didn’t know what they tasted like. They had ghee stocked pretty deep, and since I knew what it was and how to use it, I got almost all they had. And then I saw more seasoning packets for things like sloppy joes, chili, spaghetti sauce, taco seasoning, enchiladas, gravies, chicken wing seasonings, and almost too many more for me to remember. No idea how that stuff made it to the clearance area unless it was because it was in the old packaging. They also had a bunch of kosher stuff as well as stuff that came from the “healthy” food aisle. Why was I able to get so much? They had taken the limits off all clearance items. As promised, they’d instituted rationing on the first of February, though they were careful not to call it that. I decided to take advantage of the clearance exception and then I was going to leave but I decided to check to see if they had my favorite flavors of bubble water back in stock. Sure enough they did, and I got the limit I was allowed. Then I knew I would have to leave or break into money that I hadn’t budgeted to use.
Daniel, I love the kid, but he can be a little clueless. Not as bad as he used to be, even with just a month under the influence of the twins, but he was still oblivious to what I was doing and that was fine. Nat distracted him while Knox helped me to load all the clearance stuff in the bags and then into the buggy in the self-serve check out. I had arranged things in the buggy, so it was easy to ring them up quickly. All finished and out of the store without a door person going over every item to make sure I didn’t try and steal anything. We got it loaded into the minivan and then it was quickly off to rendezvous with Mr. Musgrove only it turns out that they were held up by something going on on that side of town and he asked me to go straight home and get the kids in the center of the house.
“Listen Mina … go straight there right now.”
Hearing what he wasn’t saying I asked, “Is this like what was on the news?”
“Yes. Do you understand what that means?”
“It means you are somewhere you can’t talk, and you need me to take care of Daniel. Don’t worry, I’ve got this. Just do what you gotta.”
“Mina … you too. Do you understand?”
I was fairly certain I did so said, “Yes. Sheepdog rules.”
Then the cell phone started doing what it sometimes does during a storm and kicked out and only had _ _ _ _ where a signal bar(s) should have been. I’d already turned towards the Homeplace, but it was like swimming upstream, and I couldn’t understand why people were driving towards whatever was going on rather than away from it. But I was shocked more to find there was a truck parked in front of my gate.
[1]
[2] Amish Friendship Bread Recipe Box
sssarawolf
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Cliff huh lol, thank you.
Jeepcats27
Senior Member
wow, whose truck is it? Cliffy is messing with the wrong girl!! Thank you for the new chapters!!!
Chapter 54
I recognized Clyde Johnson sitting in the driver seat even with a hat pulled down. It was the tattoo on his arm that gave him away. At least he no longer had the rat tail hairdo and long Elvis sideburns. I kept driving and thought about what I would do. I’d heard the rumors that a lawyer had finally gotten him out of prison so he could enlist. Only apparently he hadn’t and now I was in trouble.
I switched gate clickers and started pushing it as soon as I got it in my hand and had the gate into the solar farm open before I got there and it closed before Clyde Johnson was able to get his brain in gear, start his truck, and catch up with me. It wasn’t easy to get the minivan across the property. The low clearance of the spoiler on the front caught on roots and other things several times making me wince, but I didn’t stop. I finally picked up the road to the Homeplace and I am really booking it and bouncing around because the lime rock needs grading again. The kids know something is going on and both Knox and Daniel have their arms around Nat who was sitting between them.
The garage door is open as soon as I pull up and then closes agonizingly slow behind us. I got all three of them and ran them into the house and then up to the second floor. “Knox …”
“Got it covered Mina.”
“Nat …”
“Everyone uses the bathroom and grabs their pillows and stuff. Just like a storm.”
“Daniel …”
“Is Uncle Derek okay?”
“Yes. And he put me in charge of you. You good with that?”
“I’m staying with Knox and Nat.”
“That’s right. Knox …”
He nodded and said again, “Got it covered Mina.”
“Hurry up you guys.” I knew all the shutters were closed and locked but I still needed something to do until I could get them in the closet. Why that closet? Because I’d been forced to replace the door and door frame when the door split and couldn’t be repaired. The only thing I could find was a metal door of the same size so that’s what I did. And now it has turned out to be a good thing. I still need to find a better way to hide it, maybe sliding barn doors … or maybe not, too obvious. I’m also thinking about putting a keyed deadbolt on both sides of the door to get it flusher. Or maybe a completely hidden door into another area so Knox doesn’t have to lose his closet. I’ve been looking at plans[1] for hidden doors[2] but that’s for another time, maybe a Murphy door or something like that. I’ve got ideas, I just need the skills to make my ideas real.
I know I’m blathering but I’m still processing everything. This is worse than when I got in the fight with the Frell sisters.
As soon as I had the caballeros hidden in the closet with a promise by them not to come out of hiding until I came to get them, I ran to get my guns … the pistol and the rifle that I knew I could shoot and not get dumped on my backside. Why didn’t I have them with me before then? Like in the car? Because I’m not 21 and because Deputy Duff warned me that some of the cops were friends with the Johnsons and Frell families and might try and give me a hard time. I don’t know whether to believe that or not. I mentioned it to Derek - and I’ll call him that since this isn’t about work - and he got a weird look on his face.
“He said that? What were his exact words?”
I told him and he got a look on his face I’d only seen him use with a couple of clients. “Do what Duff says. But …”
“But?”
“You just be careful. People aren’t always who they say they are.”
I’d already learned that lesson, but I didn’t think to apply it to that situation. Fine time to think about it considering I had picked up the phone to report Clyde Johnson was after me. I couldn’t anyway because the 911 system was out of order.
[1]45 Awesome Hidden Door Ideas That Will Amaze You
[2]30 Clever Hidden Door Ideas That Are Practical and Fun
Chapter 55
I started looking through the “arrow slits” that are decorative features on some of the shutters and that’s when I see Clyde Johnson getting out of the little Toyota truck. And I can see that he has a gun of some type stuck in the back of his underwear. His jeans must have been too droopy to keep the gun from falling down his leg or something, but my weird sense of humor started creating rude pictures in my head. I mean it was obvious the man was an accident waiting to happen. On the other hand, I didn’t want his accident to happen to me.
He banged on the roll downs that are all on the downstairs openings, doors, and windows. I couldn’t see what he was doing because the wrap around porch’s roof was in the way but kinda hard to mistake what he was doing passed on the noise he was making. Harder to miss was the growling, cussing, and snarling he started doing when he couldn’t get in. He really started cussing worse when he shot at a couple of them, and they must have caused ricochets. To be honest I just about started cussing too when I ran to check on the caballeros and found them scared near to death. That’s when I got PO’d with a supersize order of I-have-had-enough.
Then I heard Monkey Clyde trying and partially succeeding in climbing the porch railing. He wasn’t just climbing but he was screaming all sorts of promises that I recorded as evidence with the home security system I had set up with backup batteries. Not to mention I still had the game cameras in the woods. He was just about all the way on the roof when I got an angle I thought I could use. He had a gun in his hand and was promising to use it on me in anatomically disgusting ways. I figured that qualified as being in fear for my life and he was trying to get in the house. I reviewed the stuff that Sheepdog’s had forced me to recite over and over again until I had it memorized and how it was important that if I pulled a gun, I had to be prepared to use it for deadly purpose. Best bet was a solid body shot and that’s what I aimed to do. No pun intended.
Only it wasn’t a body shot like Sheepdog’s had taught me. Well, technically it was a body shot but it wasn’t the part of the body I had been going for. I had been aiming for the chest only he slid, and at the same time I joggled trying to correct my aim and I got him square … in the right buttock with two 9 mm rounds. Reminded me of a movie for some reason. Whatever. I must have been more freaked out than I thought because all my imagination came up with was Clyde Johnson dropping his pants so the President could see where he’d been shot.
All of that was going in my head when Clyde squealed and grabbed his butt in shock. In the process he lost his balance and fell, taking part of a trellis and some Confederate Jasmine with him that I had intended taking down before it warmed up and the snakes found a way to use it and maybe take up residence in the attic eaves. Let me tell you that will shock your heart into a giddy up when you aren’t expecting it. I mean finding snakes where they are not meant to be though I’m sure getting shot in the butt was pretty shocking for Clyde. He must have squeezed the trigger of his gun because he shot off a piece of decorative woodwork on the porch stair railing.
I was pretty sure at that point that either I’d killed him with my shot, or he’d broken his neck in the fall because he landed pretty doggone hard. I heard the thud from the second floor, and he wasn’t moving from what I could see. I ran to check on the kids again and nearly got strangled and them begging me not to leave.
“Daniel … can’t breathe Doober.” Once I got my breath back and peeled the three of them off me, I said, “Stay put and I’ll see about bringing you some water and snacks. Gotta say I am totally proud of how brave all three of you are being. By following the rules you are making things better. I mean things are kinda of stupid but we’re working together to make them better.”
“Mina …”
“Yeah Knox?”
“When I’m old enough I want you to teach me that stuff you learn at Sheepdog.”
He was so solemn I couldn’t miss the chance so I told him, “First thing is gun safety. I think they have a gun class for kids at Sheepdog’s more advanced than the BB gun class so I’ll look into it. ‘K?”
He nodded and then the other two surprised me by nodding as well. No clue what Derek is going to say to that one but I’m not worrying about it right now.
I eased down to the kitchen to bring them up drinks and snacks. I listened but didn’t hear anything so I rushed the nibbles up, made them promise not to make a mess that will attract Mousezilla, then I rushed back down to the kitchen to see if I could see whether Clyde was as splatted as I suspected. Only … no Clyde. And no Toyota pickup either. I know he fell because there is a wad of ripped up Confederate Jasmine, one of my good Camilla bushes is broken to pieces (a real tragedy), and I could just see the piece of decorative woodwork that Clyde had shot off laying in the other mess he’d made. I wasn’t going out there to investigate but can see - or I could before it got too dark - what looks like blood all over the place. Not near enough to say Clyde was going to be bleeding to death some place on the property, but most definitely more than what could be stopped with a bandaid of any size unless it was diaper-sized.
Just on the off chance a text could get through at some point I texted Derek that we made it in before it got dark, the kids were okay, but that I’d appreciate it he could come as soon as the curfew lifted because I might be in a mess. And that’s all I said because you never admit to something where anyone but your lawyer can hear you. Derek isn’t a criminal lawyer, but I know he’ll do his best to help me find someone if I need one.
With the drama at a standstill, I brought in the stuff from the car and put it away, made sure Clyde hadn’t made it easier for someone else to get into the house with his stupid banging around and yanking on the roll downs, and then had to get to the bathroom so I could have “a reaction” without the kids hearing me … and so the puke hit the toilet bowl and not the floor. Yeah, some Wonder Woman I am.
I’ve been keeping an eye on the kids while I’ve been setting up various observation stations on the second and third floors. I told them they could make a tent in the closet so long as they picked everything up tomorrow. I even let them use one of the good wind-up lamps. I stood watch while they used the bathroom again and not thirty minutes later all three of them were asleep. Well, two of them were asleep all the way. Last time I checked on them Knox said, “Wake me up if you need some help Mina.”
“Who do you think you are? Monkey Joe?” I asked, jokingly referring to a stack of vintage comic books that we’d found in one of the foreclosures.
“Nah. That was a stupid character. I’m … I’m the oldest boy. Dad and Mitch would expect me to do … whatever I need to do.”
“Oh Knox,” I said just about ready to cry. Instead I gave him a hug and told him that if I needed him I’d call but for now he needed to rest in case I needed help keeping Nat and Daniel calm and occupied.
Geez, what kind of world is this when a nine-year-old boy is willing to take on a man’s responsibilities? That is real ancient history stuff. I don’t want to repeat it. Heck, what am I working so hard for if I can’t help my sibs escape that fate?
Chapter 56
I’ve been up most of the night listening to what I could on the radio. Not the regular radio but my satellite radio and the local ham radio. I can’t transmit on the ham radio yet, only listen. The satellite radio is just for entertainment … or so I thought. Trawling the channels to keep myself distracted, instead “distracted” is the last thing I am. I hit on different news channels and learned that there have been riots all over the Southeast. They tried to start up in TX but the national guard pretty much kicked tail and used real bullets to do it with. They say it was mostly the Southeast because of the weather. It is too cold or wet in other parts of the country yet.
The other places that are taking a beating are Atlanta, GA that deserves its name of Hotlanta due to the overnight fires; Memphis, TN with Elvis fans coming to the rescue of Graceland. A lot of those fans were blue-haired elderly women but from the sound of things they didn’t mind taking up arms in defense of what they viewed as a national treasure. Mobile, AL, Savannah, GA, and Jacksonville, FL were a mess until the US Navy and US Coast Guard took offensive action and went ashore. Remind me never to hack off a Marine. It’s not good for your health. I know other places are in a pickle and it isn’t just the large cities like Miami, Tampa, and Orlando. Small Town USA is taking some hits as well. I think we were getting some off Lake City because that is the crossroads of I75 and I10.
Oh my gawd, please don’t let that be Clyde coming back and banging on the door!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It wasn’t Clyde. It was a very PO’d Derek Musgrove. Why was he PO’d before I even told him about Clyde? Well, he already knew about Clyde because he was helping to man an emergency med station when Clyde gets brought in by a State Trooper that caught him driving erratically on US90 heading towards the interstate. The only reason he wasn’t taken directly to jail as AWOL was because he still had two bullets in his buttock. Now why was he listed as AWOL you might ask. Well, that is because he technically enlisted prior to being allowed out of jail. Yeah. Seems some of them don’t figure it out until it is too late. And it is way too late for Clyde who is now on a train heading out west someplace where he is going to be put to hard labor to teach him you don’t lie to the Army and not show up when you are supposed to. Without the bullets in his butt, but not with what you would call a lot of painkillers either. Consequences. From what I gather Clyde is definitely experiencing some.
Once he’d been brought in, it took two hours to get near to the truth because Clyde kept changing his story. He finally told the truth because no one was going near his butt or the bullets in it until he did. And when he did admit to what he’d been doing to wind up getting the bullets in his butt to begin with, they had to pull Derek out of the “surgery” because he was going to kick Clyde’s butt with the bullets still in it.
Thankfully everyone thinks that it is because of Daniel. And by everyone, I mean everyone that Deputy Duff told of Daniel running to his uncle and jumping into his arms. And the twins and I just sorta standing there watching the mushy stuff.
When Derek was starting to turn blue I finally stepped in. “Daniel, please let your uncle breathe. I told you he’d be here as soon as he could.”
Daniel was crying and saying, “You didn’t leave me. You didn’t leave me.”
I wound up fixing a round of ginger milk for everyone, including the adults present because even they seemed like they were about as jacked up as the kids were.
“Knox, can you take Nat and Daniel back to your room for a few minutes?”
He nodded but said, “Got it covered Mina. But you better show them the movies of that weirdo. He scared Nat and Daniel and you were just protecting us.”
“Go. Please?”
Once they were gone Derek looked like he was about to blow up. I told him, “Hang on.” Then I brought out the security camera footage.
“Well you did shoot him in the ass, dincha,” said the female trooper that had come to take my statement.
“I didn’t do it particularly on purpose.”
She chuckled, “I can see that. You almost fell out the window yourself. Think you need some more practice. Talk to my cousin.”
“Uh …”
“She says you are too nervous. Need to get over that.”
“Er …”
“She married the owner of Sheepdog. I’m starting a class next month. Sign up for it.” Then she looked at Deputy Duff and they just left, leaving me with my mouth hanging open.
It wasn’t until after they left that Derek had anything to say. “You didn’t open the shutter until Johnson started the climb.”
“I didn’t really open the shutter. I fell against it when I was trying to fix my aim when he started to slide and aim his own gun. I had the interior shutter open and the window and took the screen out already. I need to figure out a way to secure the latch on the outside shutters better.” I looked at the video again. “I guess I do look stupid.”
“No. You look desperate and scared.” He shuddered. “I’m sorry no one took the Johnson/Frell issue as seriously as we should have. As big a craphead as Johnson is, I still never thought he’d resort to …” He balled one of his fists and slammed it into the kitchen counter. “Everyone is losing their minds. I had to help sew up people that … that should have known better than … my gawd, even Aunt Maggie took a skillet to some kid’s head that had come with some friends to, and I quote, ‘scare the old bitch that had called the cops on them three years ago for just having a little fun with a bonfire.’ That ******* bonfire burned down twenty acres and took three trailers with it and barely was stopped before it got to her house.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have the coffee I was going to offer. Have you eaten yet?”
“Have I …?!”
“Yeah.” I took a breath and then said, “The bad didn’t happen. I ought to know because I’ve lived through enough real bad happening to know the difference. Daniel will get over this by watching you get over it … or at least through it. I’m going to change a few things around here and …”
“About that.”
“About what?”
When he only made a face and ran his hands through his hair I reached for the Excedrin only he stopped me. He took one of my hands and kissed it and I nearly slid off the stool I was sitting on. “You’re too young and I’m too smart to think either of us is in the place for this. I also don’t know if I can live with Uncle James’ crowing about how he arranged it all. Can you?”
Deciding that I wasn’t hallucinating I answered, “It does kinda of seem … um … off putting. He crows so loud about the weirdest stuff.”
“But I want you to know … to know …”
“Mina! Can we come out now?! We need to go to the bathroom!!”
For some reason all I could do was yell back, “Thanks for letting the neighbors know! Might as well make it a fact then! Wouldn’t want anyone to just guess what you are up to!”
Then Derek and I looked at each other and I don’t know which of us started laughing first. I know most of it was in relief, most of it. I do know he hugged me and then put me back on the stool before the kids stampeded down the stairs demanding to know, “Didja get in trouble for shooting the weirdo in the butt?!”