“Sounds good.” After collecting a few things, he made his way to the bathroom door, but stopped on the threshold. “You’ll bounce back from this, Jamie. I know you’re hurting in every possible way right now, but you’re tough. The toughest person I know. The most stubborn too. And if anyone can come away from this kind of situation a stronger, better man, it’s you.”
His eyes watered, and the room blurred. “I’m not so sure that’s true.”
“Well, don’t worry about it too much.” Samuel rapped his knuckles against the metal door frame. “I’m sure enough for the both of us. We’ll get you back on your feet, starting with a few steps after lunch.”
“I’m not ready.”
“You are. Shit will get harder before it gets easier, but you’ll prevail because you don’t quit. You don’t give up. And you don’t give in. You never have, and you never will. It’s not in your nature.”
“SonowI’m the focus of your attention?”
“Unfortunately for you, yes.”
“Not sure I like it.”
Samuel laughed. The sound unexpected from the man who’d never taken the time to joke before. “An hour from now, you’ll hate it for sure, but after you get up and get the stink washed off, you’ll see that I’m right.” Advice dispensed, he slipped into the bathroom, turning on the fan before closing the door.
Left alone, Jamie swiped at his eyes, and the menu came back into focus.
A large meat lover’s pizza. Some hot wings. A side of fries. And a couple of sodas. It wasn’t much, but maybe it was the least he could do for the man who’d saved his life in more ways than one.
* * *
“I need the money.Can’t you ask the Governor for an advance against your next pay?”
Her phone pressed against her ear, Summer stared out the window of the warm diner, her gaze fixed on the man panhandling for change on the cold street. “You’re not listening to me, Mother. I don’t work for Marla Wagner any longer, and until I secure a new position through the agency, I won’t be able to pay your rent.”
“It’s not rent. You know as well as I do it’s anoffering, and the only way Oshram can continue to do good work and spread the message of peace and love to the people.
“An offering due the first of every month,” she grumbled, sliding her empty bowl of chicken noodle soup to the side of the table, and smiling at the waitress who arrived to collect the dirty dish.
“Don’t be bold, young lady. You know you brought this on yourself when you left me high and dry in the middle of the night.”
Highbeing the operative word, she rolled her eyes at the drama in her mother’s tone, then nodded when the waitress asked if she wanted her coffee topped up by hovering the steaming carafe over the thick ceramic mug.
“Either way, I can’t afford to send you any funds right now.” Eager to end their conversation, she cut to the chase as the waitress left a bill and then shuffled off to pour refills at the next table. “Tell Oshram I’ll pay what you owe as soon as possible. It’s the best I can do.”
“Fine. But make sure itisas soonas possible. You know I don’t like to fall too far behind.”
Yeah, she knew. Young. Impressionable. And wracked with guilt for leaving her mother before she could benefit from giving her sixteen-year-old daughter’s virginity to a fifty-six-year-old man with bleached teeth and an orange tan, Summer had made an agreement.
One phone call to her mother per week, plus four hundred dollars a month.
The price of her freedom.
Cherry intact.
Eight years later, and Melanie kept right on collecting. Didn’t matter if Summer could afford it. Didn’t matter if she had a roof over her head or shoes on her feet—so long as Oshram got his money—her mother got to keep the free-loading lifestyle she’d become accustomed to.
The worst part? He wouldn’t even kick her to the curb for missing a couple of payments. Not immediately. The Followers of Oshram didn’t work that way. She wouldn’t go hungry, wouldn’t be without a clean bed, wouldn’t be isolated and alone during the holidays.
She’d simply lose her status as a golden matriarch, and they’d put her to work in the gardens, the laundry, or the kitchen. A fate worse than death to Melanie, who’d once been promised a life of leisure in return for her virgin daughter’s hand in marriage to Oshram himself.
An honor for them both, according to her mother, and an automatic hell-no for Summer.
With nothing more than the clothes she wore, and her father’s guitar slung over her back, she’d left Oshram’s compound the night before her “celestial union” and hadn’t returned since.
Best decision she’d ever made.
