Chapter 2

The next morning I awoke an slowly opened one eye, yep same place, turning off the alarm five minutes before it was due to go off, I chuckle to myself, same old internal clock, getting dressed in tee an cutoffs, another hot day was expected. While burning some toast for breakfast, I was thinking about last night, with my sis, I was both blushing and giggling to myself, when Mom walked into the kitchen, I was wondering how she managed to look like she'd been up for hours, doing her make up, hair seemed freshly brushed and done up.

"Do you want some breakfast before you go off to do more good deeds today?"

"Just toast an cereal's fine."

"Well you might have to fend for yourself around here before too long, I talked to your Dad last night, and I found a job, just part time for now, but later maybe full time, at the market around the corner."

"That's fine by me, but what about Sue?" About that time I saw sis's cute little grinning face peek around the corner.

"Well that's the good news, I was worried about finding someone to watch her when she told me about the girl next door, so I had a talk with her parents and they seemed fine about having her watch Sue. They said Sue was at their place visiting with her almost daily anyway." I almost lost my mouthful of cereal, that little brat, she knew last night and never said a word, this was going to be real embarrassing for me.

"Isn't she kind of young to be baby sitting?"

"I'm not a baby, and she's already sixteen and has a license to drive, your just embarrassed about last night is all!" Ah, I wished she hadn't said that, I hope Mom didn't pick up on it, no such luck, Mom wants to know about it, think Jim, think, well, When you can't come up with an excuse, I guess the truth or at least close to it.

"Ah, Well, I, Um, just happened to be looking, Um, well when I walked into my bedroom, well, I guess her bedroom is right across from mine, and Um, her light was on and we have nothing covering our windows, so I Well I was kind of seeing into her room."

"That's not all he was doing Mom, He."

"Sue hush up now, I guess I need to get some drapes for your room, huh Son?" Oh boy, good ole Mom, giving me an out.

"Well, Um, That would help, Mom."

"It wouldn't help he'd just peek through them anyway."

"Susan shut up and go to your room, Now!"

"But Mom",

"Don't But Mom me, to your room!"

"Ah, thanks Mom, I, Um, should be going, ok?"

"Hum, well be careful, ok?"

"Sure, bye." A quick hug and I rushed out of there, so much for little sister an secrets, I've got to find a way to get her back, well, nothing drastic, I had to laugh, she was funny trying to get me in into trouble then ending up the one sent to her room, Mom was so cool.

As I was jogging towards George's farm past his fields it seemed like they were ready for cutting, although I'm not familiar with alfalfa hay, when I was thirty or so, I bought a small farm, fifteen acres, also I make the mistake of buying a tractor, sicklebar mower, wheel rake, baler, Yea, the whole works. All for about eight acres of grass hay, didn't pay out too well, nice way of saying I lost my ass, but thinking back I could still remember how to do it. Maybe I'll talk to George about it, he may contract it out, but it looked like he had everything in the barn to do it himself, well before the stroke that is. I'll bet that's worrying him, The fields look like they need to be cut and get some water on them afterwards, with this heat an all they'll dry out pretty quick.

"Good morning Jim, come on in, George is in the dinning room."

"Thanks Martha, how's he doing this morning?"

"Well, he's kind of depressed right now, he just got off the phone with our granddaughter, Christy, and well it's a long story."

"Oh, if you'd rather not talk about it, I'll just start on the handrail out front, ok?"

"Thank you Jim, do you want any breakfast or coffee?"

"Naw, I'll go ahead and get started." I wish I could help, but they're proud people and I'm sure it would take a disaster before they would ask for help. About an hour an a half later, while I finished the fastening the last board on the hand rail, Martha walked out on the porch with a glass of iced tea.

"Oh Jim, that looks so nice, I can't thank you enough."

"Well if that glass of tea is for me that's as much thanks as I need."

"You're the bright spot in my day right now Jim and yes this is for you, why don't you sit with me before you leave." As we sat in the shade of the front porch I noticed moisture in Martha's eyes, knowing this was going to be difficult for her to talk about problems, I thought of an approach that might help.

"Martha it looks like the fields are about ready to be cut, does George hire it out or do it himself normally, if George usually cuts n bails it himself, well, maybe I could get him to show me and I could learn how to make Hay?" Well I went an done it that time, with seconds Martha broke down crying, me holding her, her sobbing and trying to talk all at once, not making any sense at all.

It took better than half an hour, two more glasses of tea, and some hugs before she settled down enough to tell me what problem was. It seems I was right about the fields needing to be tended to along with allot of other things on the farm and her granddaughter, Christy was going to move in with them for the time being and help take care of it. Well to me it seemed allot of work for one person after hearing just some of the work needing to be done. But the real problem was her Son, Christy's father, seems he was a single parent an ran off Christy's mother a couple years ago, Drinkin an Drugs, she said. I knew Martha enough to know when she used the word Asshole in describing Ray, her son, well she just doesn't say something like that unless he deserved it.

"Jim that isn't even the worst of it, Christy didn't want to tell us because of George's stroke, but a week ago Ray and a friend of his got all drunk or whatever, and went to a liquor store. They were short of money for whatever they were wanting, so they just tried to leave with it and the clerk tried to stop them, Oh God, she said they beat the clerk so bad, he's still in the hospital and they don't know if he's going to live or not, I feel so terrible that my Son would ever do something like that."

"Martha your not responsible for something a grown man does, even if he's your son, it's not your fault." After that it took her a while for the rest of the bad news. It seems Ray got arrested, thank God, but then some kind of family services got involved and took custody of Christy so they got a lawyer but they have to go to court or something next week to try and get her released to George and Martha. Well there was nothing I could do about that, but that hay needed to be taken care of before then.