This is a work of fiction.
It had been a crazy week, as the owner of a software company I had to make sure the projects were on schedule fortunately this latest one was almost done just taking care of the bugs. As such I was looking forward to the weekend. Our parking space was across the street from the office and as I was waiting for the light to change I saw her.
Her name was Christy and the last time I had seen her was 10 years back before we moved to this town and despite all that time she hadn’t changed much although she looked tired. With her was a little girl who appeared to be about four maybe five years old (I later learnt she was four). She was just like I remembered she always had her hair in a neat pony tail and always wore long skirts. Come to think of it I had never seen her with her hair down or wearing pants. I asked her about it once but she just changed the subject so I never asked her again.
I waited until I was a few feet then called out her name, I didn’t know if she would recognize me because I had grown my hair and had a small pony tail and also had a small goatee. But she did and her face light up with a huge smile.
“Jake? I don’t believe it. You look different but I would recognize you anywhere,” she said then she hugged me.
At that point I turned my attention to the little girl.
“This is my daughter Cindy,” and to my surprise she reached up so that I could lift her and when I did, she gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
“She’s never done that with anyone she just met,” Christy said surprised.
“What can I say? Kids love me,” I replied with a laugh.
She then reached up and stroked my cheek and smiled then all of a sudden it hit me how much she resembled her mum right down to the dimples. I then turned to Christy and asked her where she was staying. At this point her expression changed to one of somberness.
“I was waiting to hail a taxi and check into a motel,” she answered after a pause. Then I noticed she had a suitcase with her. “Eric and I are divorcing, he kicked us out, and in the past six months we’ve been living with friends. But they all have families of their own and can’t house us for long. He doesn’t want anything to do with us he froze my accounts and I can’t afford to fight him.”
“First of all, you are not checking into a motel. My mum would kill me if she found out I let you do that. You are coming home with me. Secondly, next week we are getting you a lawyer, don’t worry he owes me one. And thirdly, lets get something to eat.”
And with that, I led her to my car. I still held Cindy in my arms and she had her arms around my neck and hadn’t uttered a word.
“She does talk right?” I asked Christy, to which she nodded. I lived about twenty minutes out which put me outside the city limits and as such the homes were further apart and generally bigger with huge backyards.
“Wow this place is big. How much did it cost? I’m sorry that’s none of my business.”
“It’s okay would you believe half a million but now I understand if I sold I could make two million easy. Anyway lets go in we’ll catch up as we eat.” I showed them their rooms and each one came with its own bathroom, the previous owner had several grand kids so two of the rooms were you could say customized for kids which suited Cindy just fine.
It was still light outside so I decided to show them my back yard before we ate. I had a small playground which had everything swings, seesaws and jungle Jim, a raised pool and hot tub. Naturally Cindy wanted to go and play and after reassuring Christy that the place had been child proofed she let her go which gave us some time to talk.
“Thanks for doing this, I don’t know what I would have done because I’m almost out of cash and we haven’t had a decent meal in a while.”
“Are you kidding, this is the least I could for what you did for me eleven years ago. I know you told me not to ask you how you did it but I still have to ask, how did you do it?”
After a pause she smiled and started, “Remember the cop who arrested you?” she asked. “I went to high school with him and during out senior year I caught him in a compromising situation with another male student.”
“You mean he was gay?” I asked, shocked.
‘Yes and in the town I grew up in you didn’t want something like that coming out so I promised to keep quiet.”
“What did you get in return?”
“An IOU but I never got to cash it until that night you called. Actually I expected to just pay some bail or fine and take you home but when I saw him there I decided to cash it and the rest is history. One thing I don’t understand though you could have called Betty why didn’t you?”
At this point I blushed a little and said, “I figured since you are only four years older than me, I could talk you into keeping this quiet from my parents and Betty as you know was a gossip and that was the last thing I wanted to put my parents through. I’m glad for that because some of the other kids ended up doing time in juvenile jail.”
“Actually I did tell Victoria but talked her out of punishing you and telling your dad.”
I didn’t realize this but I had a shocked look that made her laugh and for the first time in ten years I remembered why I liked her… actually loved her. She had a beautiful laugh that made you want to laugh too. Then Cindy came in and asked if one of us could come out and push her on the swing. We both followed her out and took turns pushing her.
After a while we decided it was time to have dinner. Cindy didn’t want to come in so we had to convince her that she would have the whole of the next day to play as much as she liked. My fridge was always stocked thanks to my mum.
After my girlfriend left, she would come in every week and cook food and pack it freezer bags so all I had to do is heat it up. I tried to talk her out of it but she wouldn’t hear any of it so it became a ritual with us.
Cindy seemed to enjoy the lasagna and it turned out it was one of her favorite dishes. I on the other hand was glad to have some company. Usually, I would take my food into the den and work on a project but tonight I would eat on the dinner table might as well make use of it.
