Before they headed out, she hugged them all again, thanking them for everything. The guys came in and said goodbye to her before they took off. After talking to the women for almost an hour, it wasn’t so weird meeting Q’s friends.
She watched the last of them leave out the front, then turned to Q. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I hope it helped to have them over.”
“It did. They’re stopping by during the week. Ellis is getting me a phone, and she’ll teach me how to contact them.”
“Oh, I should have done that.”
“No, you’ve done enough. You saved me out there. I know I would have died if I had stayed out there alone.”
He shook his head, marveling at her resilience. “Based on some of the things you’ve said, I’m sure you’ve never watched TV.”
Her eyebrows shot up as confusion filled her face. “TV? What is that?”
“Television. It’s a way of seeing moving pictures. Television shows are filmed in another location, and you can watch them in your home instead of going to a movie theater. I’m guessing you’ve never been to a movie theater, either?”
She shook her head. “I missed out by growing up in a cult.”
“Cult, hmmm. Did they teach you that word?”
She nodded. “Yes, they did.”
He led her over to the couch and picked up the remote control. “I don’t want you to stumble upon something on the TV and not know what to do. You turn it on by pressing this button.”
She jumped when the TV came on, lighting up the room and filling it with sound. Q lowered the volume to reduce the sound, but still it was odd having the sound of someone speaking coming from a box.
“Right now, the football game is on. But tomorrow, it might be something different. You change the channels by pressing the up or down buttons on the remote.” He pressed the button, and it changed to another football game.
“Wait, is this one different from the other one?”
“Yes. It’s a different team.” The camera panned over the crowd, showing people in coats cheering and waving.
“How many people are there?”
“That stadium holds about seventy or eighty thousand people.”
She shook her head as she stared at the screen. “I can’t imagine.”
“I know this is a lot. To turn off the TV, press this button. I won’t get into streaming services that I have. If you’re not used to it, it can be overwhelming.”
“I don’t think I’d want to watch football.”
He chuckled. “I can see that. But there are other shows, like dramas. And some scary shows, too. It would probably be best not to turn it on.”
She nodded. “I don’t even know why I would.”
“I just don’t want you to not know how to turn it off. Sometimes, there are shows that are intense. They show situations that can be scary and weird. I don’t want you to be afraid when I’m not here.”
Worry crept in. “I’m used to cleaning and preparing meals all day, but there isn’t much to do. Your house is clean, and I looked in your cold box and pantry, and there isn’t much I’ll be able to do tomorrow.”
“You can read, right?”
She nodded. “Yes, I know how to read.”
“I have a history book you could read. It talks about what happened in the twentieth century in our country.”
She wasn’t sure what he meant but smiled. “Sure.”
