One (13 page)

"Right away."

I gather cups and fill
each one with water. I wash and cut two fresh lemons, gently angling
a slice into each cup. I set everything on an overly large tray, and
push my way through the doors and back to table nine.

"… every cent
will go toward the patients. I can vouch for that."

I hear Pax's strong
voice, and the passion inside it makes my heart do little flips. I
set the tray down, and try to be as unintrusive as possible, not
making a sound even when I set the cup of water in front of them.

"Why are you so
passionate about Hearts of Love?" One of the suits ask. Someone
murmurs "thank you" when I place his cup in front of him.

"Mr. Jones, two
years ago I died."

I freeze.

Pax continues,
seemingly unaware of my presence. "For a full two minutes my
heart stopped. I was devoid of oxygen for so long that it caused
damage to my limbs, my legs in particular. Doctors didn't think I was
going to walk again." He shakes his head. "They didn't
think I would be able to do
anything
. Hearts of Love gave me
hope. They helped me find people who had had similar experiences.
They held events for us." Pax's eyes are alive and expressive.
"We went and visited children and held events for them. Even
though we were wounded, Hearts of Love showed us how we were
needed
.
Every person is important.
Everyone
is significant. I believe
in this organization because I've seen what it can do." Pax
leans in closer. Lulled by his words, I do too. "If you pledge
to support, I promise that Hearts of Love will do wonders. We will
show you how ordinary people can do extraordinary things."

I take a step back,
lifting the empty tray.

"You are a great
speaker, young man," I finally hear a voice say. "The world
is full of men content with their lives; it's nice to see someone who
looks beyond themselves."

I walk away. I admire
what Pax is doing.
He's not just a pretty face after all.
Not
everyone has his resources though. Not everyone can help someone else
when they can barely help themselves. I suppose there has to be a
balance in the world. There are people like me who have to hustle for
themselves, and there are people like Pax who hustle for others. We
each have a role, and we usually don't cross over.

Feeling my chest
tighten, I walk to a computer stand and bend my head, giving myself a
moment to breathe.

"You okay?"

I remain unmoving when
I hear Alex's voice. "Yeah."

"Busy day. Not
ideal for a beginner."

I shrug, turning
around. "It happens."

"Table nine okay?"

"Yeah. Coach, two
football players, and two guys in a suit," I tell him.

"They're usually
in suits."

"How does Anna
know Pax?" I ask after a moment.

"His parents used
to work here. They always brought him along. He used to help out with
little tasks."

"Where do his
parents work now?"

Alex looks at me
strangely. "They're dead."

Three years earlier

Something rotten fills
the air.

It's putrid smelling,
and I pinch my nose, hoping it will stop the odors from invading my
senses. There is no moon tonight. Even though we're far from the
cities, the stars look dim, covered by dense gray clouds. Every
instinct inside me is warning me away, telling me to turn back. My
breath is heavy, but my footsteps are soft. I barely see what's in
front of me so I'm careful when I move, using my other senses to help
me over the overgrown path.

We missed the truck. It
picked up the other workers over an hour ago. I'd waited by our
meeting spot just like she told me to do. The money I'd earned is
still in my pocket, neatly rolled and held together by a hair
scrunchie. My hair sticks to my skin though, wrapping around my neck
like a fragile rope. It itches.

I desperately want to
shout for her, but something tells me it might be dangerous to do so.
I crouch lower, squinting to see into the darkness. She had been
wearing yellow today. Her long sleeved shirt was the color of
sunflowers and the pants she wore were black and dirty, but her shirt
had been clean. I'd washed it myself.

Steadying myself on a
large tree trunk, I struggle to keep moving despite the thick worry
clogging my throat like a baseball. This has never happened before.
Not even when I was five and had to stay at the shed for a whole day
all by myself. She was always there when she said she would be.
Always.

Closing my eyes, I
recall the day's events. I remember waking up and looking outside for
the sun. I didn't find it because it hadn't risen yet. The morning
looked like nighttime, but I didn't complain. I brushed my teeth, and
tied my hair into a ponytail. She reminded me to cut my nails, but it
was more out of habit than anything. I always cut my nails short now.
I eventually learned that long nails and manual labor don't go well
together. It took two instances of a few fingernails ripping off for
that idea to truly set in.

We ate a quick
breakfast of oatmeal. I cut up a few pieces of banana for her. That
inspired her to wear her yellow shirt. "A little sunshine for
this cloudy day," she'd said. I didn't usually work with her at
this particular farm. She didn't want me to. Today she did though.
The truck picked us up at 5:38 am exactly. There were two older men
with us. They didn't speak English and I only spoke a little Spanish
so our conversation fizzled out within minutes.

She whispered things
into my ear. She told me to watch as the fields whipped by, and the
landscape slowly merged into rocky, mountainous terrain. She made me
remember the split log almost covering the road, telling me that was
the half waypoint between home and where we were going. She pointed
backwards. "Take this road all the way down, and you'll see the
stream. Then you can use the stream to get you home." I asked
her why she was telling me these things. She looked grave and
replied, "A woman alone, especially a young one, is a dangerous
temptation."

Her gray eyes had so
much wisdom in them that sometimes it scared me. I can't ever
remember a time where we weren't worried or frantic to keep going.
That's when I realized her wisdom didn't come from happiness; it had
to have come from something darker.

When the truck dropped
the four of us off, I waved to the two older men, wishing them a good
day in Spanish. They looked fragile and gaunt; too delicate to be
doing the work I knew would occur today. Turning to her, I noted that
she looks a little healthier. There's even a slight blush to her
cheeks that make her look more her age. She walked to a large tree.
She pointed to the "X" she'd marked there.

"We meet here at
7:45 pm exactly," she told me. She explained what would happen,
where I would go, what my job was. She walked me to my station. It
was eerily quiet as we continue toward a makeshift path. I saw no
one. There weren't even birds.

When we get to our
site, she showed me how to cut the yellowing leaves, and where to lay
them out in the sun to dry. She demonstrated how to cut the leaf near
the buds, and where to put them. Through it all, I tried not to stare
at what she held in her hands. The plant didn't look familiar.

"What is it?"
I finally asked when she stopped talking.

"Does it matter?"
she asked, looking tired. "Does it ever matter?" I shake my
head in answer.
No, it doesn't matter.
It never will. Watching
her, I know what she valued, what mattered to her. Not school, not
when she dropped out after the eighth grade. Not men, since I've
never seen her with one since I came to live with her. Not make-up
and other feminine things that some women might like. Me? Certainly,
I mattered to her. Because she loved me, I decide the only thing that
mattered to her was survival.

"You are here to
work, Jules," she scolded in a low timber that used to help
fight my nightmares during sleep. "Not to ask questions."

Her words confirmed my
thoughts, and strangely, I felt better. She wasn't a puzzle to me. I
knew her like the palm of my hand. I nod with enthusiasm to show I
understood.

"What time will
you meet me at our pick up spot?" she asked.

"7:45 pm exactly,"
I answered.

"Good. Don't be
late."

"I won't," I
assured her as she turned around to make her own ascent to a place
she doesn't tell me. I watch her retreating back, and observe how her
back seems heavier, and her strides slower. Her dark hair is laced
with gray, and her skin is leathery and tough. Suddenly I wondered
what she looked like when she was fourteen like me. I wondered if she
watched her mother the way I watched her. I wondered if she was
beautiful.

I watched the woods
swallow her. I watched the shadows welcome her. I watched the yellow
fade away until all light disappeared, sucked into a vertical black
hole. Dead silence descended after she left. If I hadn't seen her
with my own eyes, I would've thought no one had been there at all.

I'm jerked out of my
memories when my right foot sinks into mud. Slowly, I pull it out,
trying not to disturb whatever might be living there. I move back,
clutching at the hard trunk to my back. Breathing hard, I know my
initial thought had been right. This place
is
a hole. Shadows
play with my vision. Darkness lures me. Is this what she saw every
time she came here? I shudder. Yet she continued to come.
She is
stronger than me,
I think.

I continue moving
forward, too stubborn to turn back. Suddenly, I see something glint.
It's the barest hint of light, but I catch it. A sliver of hope.
Moving toward my right, I attempt to find it. I bend down on all
fours, slowly crawling along a ground filled with insects and
possible poison ivy. I should be scared, but I'm more scared of not
finding her than of anything else.

The ground is hard and
soft at the same time. My hands find leaves, stems, barks, and twigs.
I feel something furry and soft buzz near me, but I don't swat it
away. The slight sound is my savior in the silence. I let it take
what it wants from me in exchange.

Abruptly, I feel
something hard; something that feels like metal. My fingers curl
around it; relief wants to consume me, but I hold it at bay as I peer
at what I've found. Leaning so my nose almost touches it, I make out
what it is. Dog tags. I feel the bumpy nobs of the necklace they're
on. My heart starts beating faster. My grandfather gave her these. If
there was more light, I might see his name engraved here: Matthew
Adams. He'd tried to scratch her name beneath his: Glen Hendricks.
She had given mom her last name, and mom had done the same for me. We
are the Hendricks women. I almost cry when I feel the scratch marks.
She's here,
I think.
Somewhere.

I continue to move
slowly, my heart almost jumping out of my chest. Images swirl in my
mind of what could have happened. I've accepted that something bad
had happened; it's the only reason she wouldn't have made it by 7:45.
She-

I freeze.

A gun shot.

Birds cry. My whole
body starts shaking, quivering violently.
No, no, no…

I bite my lip so hard I
taste blood. Thick leaves are ahead, stagnant like a wall. I see a
flash of something. A face. It's only a glimpse, but I know it'll be
burned in my head forever.

"That's how it's
done boys," the low masculine voice says in a flat tone. "Next
time, be more alert, and pay attention to your surroundings."
Someone responds in Spanish, and soon a conversation is in full
swing. If I try hard enough I might be able to make out a few words,
but I'm completely numb with shock, too frozen to do anything other
than stay perfectly still.

My survival instincts
are kicking in. Even though I know in my heart she's here, my body's
refusing to move, trying to preserve itself against danger. I don't
know how long I stay like that. I don't know how long the emptiness
covers my mind, making me completely numb to my surroundings, but
eventually I start to hear again. A rustle of leaves. The faint
flutter of bird wings. Then… silence.

The silence is what
jerks me into motion. It's a signal that the danger has passed- for
now. Suddenly I push forward with abandon. It felt like I was
suspended in air, and now I'm abruptly free. I rush forward, my
cheeks numb to the scratches I gain as I push my way through.
Suddenly, I see it- a flash of yellow. I can't hold back. I cry out.
The sound is loud enough to echo.

I stumble over, my
vision blurred by tears. Her shirt is dirty, so much so that only
slivers of yellow show through. She's on her stomach. For a moment,
it looks as if she's sleeping. For a second, I want to believe it,
but the sounds of gunshots reverberate in my head like a bell. My
hand reaches out to touch her.
Cold.
The thought snakes into
my mind like a punch to the gut.

"Grandma," I
whisper to her, my voice wavering. "Wake up". I think I
hear a moan. Encouraged, I take her hand and try to rub warmth into
it. I look down toward her feet, and see that her pants are torn. Her
feet are bare, and there is blood on and around her.
No, no, no,
no…

I stare at her dark
unmoving form. "Grandma…" My whisper sounds like a
denial. My mind is numb. For a second, I feel like I've left my body
and I'm looking down from above as if I'm an owl in the night. I see
everything in slow motion. I see my fingers lift, trembling as I
touch her arm, preparing to turn her over. I see my hand grip her,
trying to find some heat inside. I watch as I slowly turn her toward
me. I see the expression on my face when I finally look at her.

That's the last thing I
see before I hear the screams.