Disclaimer: Any sexual acts depicted involve only characters ages 18 or older. This is a work of fiction.
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Linda Yu, mother of two, felt lucky. No, not just lucky. Blessed.
"You've already told me a hundred times, Mom, You worry too much!" she said over the phone with a healthy dose of exasperation. "The girls will be FINE. We'll be safe. And yes, I got the emergency health insurance while traveling abroad for all three of us. Now can we PLEASE focus on the positive and stop fretting? It'll be a trip they will never forget."
The 32-year-old woman had two daughters, Tara and Olivia. Tara was 14 and Olivia had just turned 10. For a surprise for her girls, Linda had made arrangements for a three-week trip to Japan next month. She couldn't wait to see her daughters' reactions. They had been begging to go on an international trip for years.
"I know you'll be careful. You're a good mother," Linda's mother's paper-thin voice admitted with some reluctance. "But those are my only two grandbabies. It's my prerogative to worry."
"I know, I know." Linda poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the refurbished oak dining table which looked out over open fields and gentle hills. After her husband had died three years ago, she had bought this farm and moved her family out into the country. In the hustle and bustle of New York, there had seemed no time or place to grieve. Rural Virginia felt... different. There was a healing power in this place that Linda couldn't quite explain. Working from home as a healthcare consultant had proved lucrative enough to make the move permanent after Harry's life insurance proceeds had begun to dwindle. It was a far cry from their old life in New York, but in many ways a better one. It only saddened Linda when she thought about how the investment proceeds from the life insurance constituted the very funds that made this trip to Japan possible.
'Harry, I hope you'd be proud of me and our girls,' she thought.
"Honey, are you there?"
Linda snapped back to the present at the sound of her mother's voice.
"Sorry. Yes, I'm here. Just distracted."
"You were thinking about Harry again, weren't you. Wishing he could go on this trip with you and the girls." Her mother's sad voice was filled with love and sympathy. She always could read Linda's mind. Linda sighed.
"You know me too well."
"You always were the easiest to read," Linda's mom piped back.
The two women chuckled. Their mother-daughter bond was fierce, and Linda reflected that it was very likely because of her close relationship with her mother that she had such a strong bond with her own two daughters.
Linda checked the time. It was almost 8:00AM. "Mom, I should get going. The front yard isn't going to cut itself."
Linda's mother made a scoffing sound. "Really, Linda, why don't you just hire someone to do that? Your time is so much more valuable."
"Thank you for the unsolicited advice, mother," Linda teased. "This is me going. Love you. Bye..."
Her mother tried to sneak in a few more words edgewise before Linda swiped off the call with a smile. She adored her mom, but Anna Cheung did not understand the sense of satisfaction that manual labor could give. There was something about the smell of freshly cut grass and the feel of sun on her skin that Linda cherished. Simple work brought simple pleasures, but sometimes those pleasures were profound.
The Asian American woman finished her coffee, put the mug in the sink and rinsed it. She was just about to change out of her sleep shirt and pajama bottoms into a decent outdoor work outfit when she heard a knock at the front door.
Linda frowned. She wasn't expecting anyone. Living isolated out in such a rural area as a single woman, she wasn't stupid. She had a front door camera. Pulling up the app, she checked the camera feed as she made a slow walk toward the front of the house.
'Was there a package I ordered and need to sign for?' she wondered. Linda succumbed to the occasional shopping frenzy. Sometimes she had trouble keeping track of everything she'd purchased.
The beautiful young mother walked toward the door. Her long, radiant black hair hung thickly down to just below her shoulders, and the rims of her round glasses hung perfectly on her finely chiseled face. Her deep brown eyes crinkled with a frown when she saw a young man on her front stoop. He wore only a white undershirt and a dirty pair of ripped blue jeans. She spoke through the camera without answering the door.
"Can I help you?"
The young man looked to be 19, maybe 20, with a closely shaved head, a narrow face, and intense gray-blue eyes. He reminded her of a coiled predator about to strike. Just the look of him unsettled her. There was no way she was answering that door.