“A dress. Let’s go pick you out something pretty.” With a speed borne of practice, Pam swept the empty coffee containers from the elevated bistro table. Several doors down they passed a shop advertising brand name clothing at discounted prices. When Pam would have passed right by, Adriel redirected her inside.
Modestly dressed herself, Pam’s choices for Adriel were anything but. Cotton sundresses that bared arms, shoulders, and legs were not Adriel’s style. Fifteen minutes flew past while Adriel established parameters for what she considered acceptable.
“What’s wrong with this?” Pam held up a floral number featuring a fitted bodice with a deep V neck. “See, no spaghetti straps.” She fingered the narrow-cut shoulder.
“It’s not decent.”
“I’d wear it if I had the bod. On me it would look like a sack draped over a pile of potatoes.”
“It would not. You have lovely, strong shoulders.” Adriel turned it back on Pam, “You’re a young woman still. Why don’t you try a little color in your wardrobe. Drab gray doesn’t fit your nature.”
“Hah, lot you know. I’m forty-three. That’s middle aged, not young.”
“Forty is the new thirty.” Adriel intoned. She’d read it on the cover of a magazine and not really understood what it meant until now.
Two exhausting hours later, the pair stumbled back out carrying several bags between them. Adriel now owned the basics of a mix and match wardrobe. What’s more, she had even managed to talk Pam into buying a few things for herself.
Exiting from the cool mall atmosphere, the blast of hot, humid air felt like walking into a sauna. Tendrils of hair plastered themselves to Adriel’s neck and face. The walk to the Jeep took them close enough to hear an argument in process. Voices raised to a strident level echoed off the partially enclosed parking structure’s walls. Pam signaled for Adriel to stop. Adriel’s keen hearing picked up the conversation from where she stood.
“Don’t threaten me; I know where all your skeletons are buried, too. Or did you tell your wife about your night with…” the rest was a bit garbled, but it sounded like he said Miss Terry Dancing Pants.
“Leave my wife out of it. If I had any proof of what you did, I’d…”
“You’d do well to be careful about threatening me.”
The two men passed out of hearing range.
“Those voices sounded familiar,” Pam kept playing the conversation back in her head. “With the echo in here, I can’t be certain.”
“It’s a big mall, it could have been anyone from anywhere. It’s none of our business,” But Adriel filed the sounds away in her memory.
Chapter 7
Through slow and steady progress, the number of boxes in the cabin had been reduced by a quarter—not counting the boxes on the far side of the porch. Hamlin’s dirty socks count continued to increase. So far, he had cleaned three trash bags full and dropped them off where they would be found and used by folks who needed them.
Trying to see the glass as half full, Adriel decided she was glad the man had not collected dirty underpants the same way he did his dirty socks. Two boxes of blankets and a box of coats, though, were happily accepted by Hamlin’s friend and distributed to the shelter. Craig’s castoffs were going to good use.
Over the last couple of days, though, box sorting had slowed down in favor of getting certain outside projects done. Using Callum’s trick, Adriel replaced every broken shingle on the outside of the little cabin. After sweeping down more cobwebs than she had ever seen in one place, she sorted through the contents of the small attached shed behind the cabin to find rakes, hoes, a scythe, and an old-fashioned, rotary push mower.
Pushing the beast a mere two feet through overgrown grass was enough to send Adriel back to the shed for the scythe. Oiled and sharpened before it had been stored, it’s blade snicked and sliced with each swing until her upper arms burned and she was forced to take a break. After half an hour of hard slog, she despaired over having cleared hardly any of the area she intended to mow.
Adriel rotated her shoulders to ease the ache, then lifted the long, curling mass of hair off her neck to let the light breeze brush damp sweat into coolness. This whole mowing business needed a rethink. At this rate, it would take weeks to get the lawn into shape. Her scalp felt tender from the sun’s burning heat, and when she caught sight of herself in the mirror, she realized her nose and cheeks had also reddened from its fiery touch.
Sunblock. There had been a tube of it in the medicine cabinet, and now she remembered reading what it was for. SPF-50 still seemed like another language to her, but she slathered it liberally on her face and arms. The idea of rubbing the slightly greasy cream into her hair caused a shudder. No way. Too messy.
Working quickly, she plaited the mass into a single braid, then with a sigh pulled the top off the box of hats waiting in the corner for Hamlin, and pulled out a ball cap with I’d rather be sleeping embroidered across the front.
Actually, the saying seemed most appropriate.
Half an hour later, she had gotten into a rhythm with the scythe, and found a way to swing it less taxing on her shoulders. With body occupied, her mind was free to wander.
And where it wandered was the one place she had been doing her best not to think about. Home. Just as the aching sadness began to fill her, a sound floated across the air; one she had heard before.
Tick, tick, tick.
A playing card flicking past each spoke of a bicycle wheel.
She looked up to see the towheaded boy who had ridden by on the day of Lydia’s accident. This time when he got
