“I will,” Monique replied. “I’ll see you both later.”
When Monique disappeared into her shanty, Dominique and Angelique continued walking on. “I worry about her,” Angelique said. “She’s not as emotionally strong as we are.”
“Mama babied her a lot,” Dominique replied. “She’ll have to grow up fast now.”
“I still worry about her,” Angelique replied.
“She’ll be fine,” Dominique said. “We’re all survivors, sis.”
By that time, they had reached Dominique’s home. The two hugged, and then Angelique continued on her way. It was always good when the three sisters got together. There had never been any sibling rivalry between them; rather they had always been the best of friends.
It was a little after eleven when Angelique walked back into her shanty. She went directly to the back porch and got her generator running, then went back inside and set up her laptop on the kitchen table.
She needed to work for a few hours. When Angelique had decided she wanted a storefront that would sell natural cures that came from the plants and flowers in the swamp, she knew she needed a way to make money.
Much of her time was spent learning from her mother, but she needed a real job she could do at home at various hours of the day. So she had gone through an online course for medical transcribing.
She now worked three afternoons a week for five doctors in town. She would have worked full-time, but on the other two days another woman took over the job. She and the other woman easily coordinated together and so it worked well for both of them.
It didn’t take her long to lose herself in the work. She finished up at five and then closed the computer and focused on making dinner.
Thankfully, the day before she had gone to the grocery store, so she now had a fully stocked cooler and plenty of fruits and vegetables in the bins.
She got out her cooktop and then pulled a piece of fish from her cooler. Fried fish and a salad sounded good, so that’s what she fixed.
She ate and cleaned up the mess and then made sure everything was ready for Daniel’s evening visit. It was when she was putting on a little extra mascara that she stopped herself and wondered what in the heck she was doing?
Daniel coming to see her certainly wasn’t a date. It wasn’t a social call at all. She dropped the mascara back into the case where she kept what little makeup she wore and then headed back into the living room.
She grabbed the hardback notebook that sat on the coffee table and opened it. She had decided to write down all the thingsshe’d learned from her mother about swamp plants and flowers and their medicinal uses.
It would be her bible of sorts in moving forward with her plans to open a shop and try to help the people both in the swamp and in town.
Tomorrow, she intended to head out into the swamp in an effort to find the places where those plants and flowers grew. Her mother had taken her out many times to gather the vegetation she needed and to show Angelique where to gather them, but Angelique would need to find the plants and flowers on her own now.
Angelique was trying to stay busy so her mind wouldn’t take her back to that moment when she’d found her mother in her bed with her throat gaping open. It was a horrendous vision that haunted her, and she knew it would continue to haunt her for years to come.
It was just after nine when her phone rang and it was Daniel. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be able to make it out there tonight. I’ve got a late-night interview, but I’ll fill you in on everything tomorrow night.”
“Okay, I understand,” she replied even as a wave of disappointment swept through her.
“I promise I’ll be there tomorrow night unless something vital comes up,” he replied.
“Then I’ll just see you tomorrow night,” she replied. They said their goodbyes and then she hung up. Was she disappointed that she wasn’t getting an update on the case or because she wouldn’t be seeing Daniel again? She didn’t even want to examine the answer to that.
Instead, she decided to go on to bed. She went outside and turned off the generator, then went back inside and changed into her nightshirt. She made sure the doors were locked and then got into bed.
The sounds of the swamp that drifted in comforted her. It was a lullaby of croaking bullfrogs and the click and whir of insects. Rhythmic waves lapped against the stilts that held the shanty up and occasionally a splash of a fish jumping in the water could be heard.
She must have drifted off to sleep for she awakened suddenly. She bolted upright, her heart racing as fight-or-flight adrenaline raced through her.
What was going on? What had pulled her from her sleep so suddenly? Had it been a bad dream? She drew in and released several deep breaths. Moonlight drifted into the bedroom window and she looked around the room. Everything appeared to be just as it should be.
Maybe it had been a dream and nothing more. She drew in more deep, long breaths as she began to relax once again and her heart slowed its frantic pace.
Then she heard it…the unmistakable tinkle of breaking glass. It came from the living room.
Instantly her heart beat wildly as a new hot adrenaline shot through her veins. Slowly, quietly, she slid out of the bed. She paused and listened. She released a soft gasp as she felt a sudden shift in the air pressure.
