Chapter 7

David ... Dad ... came home during the night. I was asleep.

Oh ... since he was gone ... I rearranged the furniture to suit me. When he stumbled over the settee footstool, I woke up. His baseball bat makes a good club and I nearly nailed him with it.

“Abby ... what the Hell?”

“Hi, I know this sounds like a wife ... but where in the fuck have you been?” I said.

“Language, Abby. Language,” he said.

“Don’t.” I put up my hand, “I’ll use what ever language I want ... you have NO idea what I’ve gone through the past two weeks.”

“Actually ... I do. We’ve been watching,” he said.

“What?” I squawked. “You watched?” I was indignant. “Wait! WE? Who is we?” And in my mind I could see ... the cow faces, a grandfather and Jim. The cow faces had haunted my dreams for weeks at a time ... until I did what they wanted. In my mind ... they waved.

The grandfather I’d met ... the nugget ... in Sydney. Yeah ... him. He was one who watched.

Jim ... he used to live next door. I never met Jim but I knew him. As many stories as Dad had told me ... he might as well be ‘uncle Jim.’

A certain suspicion crossed my mind.

“How closely have you been watching?”

“Nothing after 7pm and we didn’t start until 9am,” he said. It was too fast.

But he looked guilty ... and didn’t meet my eyes.

I hated to do it ... but I took him at his word, “So ... no shower gazing or changing my clothes ... or Alice?”

“Nope,” He said.

I wasn’t convinced. “How about Jim?”

“I wasn’t always with Jim ... I don’t know.”

So ... I looked inward ... Jim ... big grin ... the rat!

“Dad, You haven’t answered the question ... where have you been?”

“Out,” he said.

“I know that ... what have you been doing?”

“Nothing,” he said.

“You do that here. Why go away to do it?”

“I do not do nothing here ... I supervise at the mine,” he said.

“I do all the office work at the mine,” I replied.

“Yup.”

Hr had the nerve to look smug.