Chapter 8

I lived in my house for eight years without meeting any of my neighbors. Sure, I knew that certain people belong to certain houses, and we would do the obligatory wave, but to actually stop and talk to them, no. In my defense, I was typical of all my neighbors.

Ten years ago, this was a corn field. As a bedroom community, we have all the benefits of Des Moines' water, sewer, gas and electric, but we actually live outside city limits. Because of the location and the size of the lots, houses here run from one to two million. In Iowa, two million gets you a very nice three bedroom two story house with a full finished basement complete with three car garage on half an acre of land. I actually designed the layout of my house which was way cool.

Fast forward three years from when Beth first arrived. I now know everyone who lives in this community of twenty houses, all thanks to my "wife", Beth. She knows not only their names, but most of their life histories. She is friends with most if not all of them. She has even babysat for most of the younger kids and is like a big sister to the older ones. They all realize there is an age difference between the two of us but none would guess that she is only eighteen.

Beth and I have spent a lot of time and money transforming our back yard. We now have a full deck with swimming pool and hot tub. We built a nice brick barbeque area along with a nice fire pit; brick by brick from scratch. We even built our own storage bin to store firewood, which we now cut and split ourselves. I bought some timberland along the river north of us so we have cleared out quite a bit of the dead trees.

Whether we have people over or it's just the two of us snuggled up by the fire pit, we spend a lot of time outside. Before Beth, I would go days without even leaving the house. All in all, I don't think either Beth or I had one unhappy moment these last three years. But then, we get a visitor.

Even though I was in the back, I could hear Beth. She wasn't quite yelling, but close. I quickly made my way to the front door and immediately saw why she was upset. My sister, Brenda, had come to visit. I had never seen Beth so upset. I couldn't hear what my sister was saying but it would seem she was trying to gain entry. "You are not welcome here." "You will not come into this house." "Go back to where you came from."

I came up behind Beth and placed my hands on her upper arms. I could feel her physically trembling. She turned to me and with tears in her eyes, she pleaded, "Please don't let this person into our home." With that, she ran from the room, leaving me with my dear sister.

My sister looked like she had fallen on hard times, which I guess seems to be the story of her life. She had sort of a throw-back to the sixties look going on; a hippy chick. Obviously she wore no bra under her stained t-shirt as her big boobs jiggled even as she stood still. Her jean shorts were tattered and torn. Her long greasy hair was pulled back in some sort of ponytail / braid.

As I looked out past the drive, I could see a man standing next to an old worn out sedan with Texas plates. Clearly he had brought her up from Texas. He looked like a dirt bag in every way which I guess made them look like a perfect couple.

Brenda looked to me and then past me. I'm not sure if she was making sure Beth was truly gone or perhaps she was just checking out the house, "Can I come in?"

I took a deep breath. "How about we go somewhere for a coffee. Maybe I can buy you a late breakfast?"