“I’m looking for Mercy Noland,” I say.
“They moved,” she says. “That house has been empty for about two years, I think. If I’m recalling it right. A man, woman, and their daughter lived there. Then they up and moved away one day. Odd, really.”
I walk up to her and ask, “Do you remember if their last name was Noland?”
She shakes her head. “Not really. It might have been. Boy, my memory ain’t what it once was. Now ask me anything about when I was a kid and boy you betchya I can recall it like it just happened. But ask me about what I ate for lunch and I couldn’t tell ya.” She laughs, revealing her lack of teeth and I shudder a little.
“So no one lives in the house then,” I say to myself. “I wonder why she’d give this address as hers if it’s not.” I give the old woman a wave as I leave. “Thanks for what you could tell me, mam.”
“You betchya, sexy!” She breaks into a fit of laughter again that leaves her hacking and coughing and stumbling into her little house.
An old mailbox is at the end of the walkway and there are a couple of letters still left on it, revealing an, ‘n’ and an ‘a’ so it’s a clue as to the name of the people who did live here. Noland could’ve been it.
But what in the hell is Mercy hiding from even those she works with. Now my curiosity is out of control. I have to know what the hell she’s hiding.
Just as I get back into my car, my cell rings and her name pops up. I answer it, “Hey you.”
“Hey,” she says, sounding really weak. “I’ve got a virus. I hope you kissing me didn’t give it to you. But to be on the safe side you should stay home for the next twelve hours in case it hits you. Because when it does, it hits you like a brick wall.”
“Mercy, why in the hell wouldn’t you tell me that you felt sick?” I ask as I pull away from the old house and find myself really mad at her. “And also, why do you have some address on file at your work that’s not really yours.”
“Huh?” she asks then I hear her blow her nose. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m leaving an abandoned house that I think may have been yours when you lived with your parents. That’s the address they have for you at your job. Why is that?”
“Why would you ask that? And why are you looking for me? I told Mrs. Cofield to tell you what happened to me. You knew I was sick and yet you stubbornly tried to track me down anyway. Jude, that’s so beyond uncool,” she says then I hear the phone fall on what I think is the floor and her footsteps beat the floor as she runs. Then I can hear puking and I know she really is sick.
I wait for her to come back to the phone as I drive toward my place as it’s evident Mercy has left a path of lies to cover her whereabouts. Not only from me but from everyone.
Some scuffling fills the phone and then I hear more footsteps then Mercy says, “Oh, God! Did you say anything?” I listen hard and hear nothing then I can hear a door close and Mercy is on the line. “Jude?”
“I’m still here, Mercy. Who took the phone to you?” I ask with a ton of apprehension in my voice.
“Huh?” she asks, obviously stalling for time so she can think with her fevered brain to come up with some lie to tell me.
“Mercy, who’s with you?” I ask as I pull into a parking lot and stop. My hands are gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles are white. My body is tense as shit and I can’t tell if I mad, upset, or afraid she’s with a man.
“Jude, I have to go. I’m going to puke again.” She ends the call, leaving me hanging and unsure of anything.
I wish I could understand why this chic has gotten so far under my skin, so damn fast that she has me this fucked up over her. My heart is pounding so hard in my chest I think it just might explode.
So I turn my car off, take the keys, and get out of it. Then I do what I do when I have a lot on my mind. I run.
Running out of the parking lot and down the sidewalk, I try to clear my head. Okay, why am I doing this to myself? Why am I letting this woman make me crazy?
She obviously has some real issues. There is something she’s hiding from the world, not just me. So I should let her go. I should move on and forget about her. I know I should. She’s a mess with hidden things in her life and I should just hang it all up and walk away.
She’d let me too. I know she’d let me go and never even attempt to contact me if I sent her a text telling her I can’t do this anymore. I wouldn’t even have to listen to her cry or ask why.
But why would she let me go that easily?
Chapter 5
MERCY
I fall on my bed in a heap as I drop my phone on the bed beside me. I should be more thankful. The kids have gotten better and are sitting like a couple of quiet, little angels watching cartoons at the foot of my bed.
They seem to understand how I feel. I guess them getting this first gave them more empathy than they usually have. Everything on my body hurts. It even hurts to think but I’m still doing it.
Why was Jude at my parents’ old house? And what must he think?
I should’ve known he’d eventually ask someone from work what my address is. Since I never wanted anyone from work finding out my story, I simply gave them my old address.
Then I’m reminded of the fact that I haven’t gotten around to putting the place up for sale. There’s absolutely no reason to keep it. But something about the process of completely cleaning it out and having to pack away or give away my parents’ things is way too depressing for me to take.
When it all happened, I made a couple of trips back home to get my things, leaving everything else there. Not really knowing at that time what I should do about any of it.
With their death, the mortgage was paid off. Once a year I pay the taxes that come due on it. I’ve shut all the utilities off there. I never really even think about that house. It hurts too much to.
My cell lights up with a text and I don’t even have the strength to pick it up and see what it is or who it’s from. I’m fairly sure it’s from Jude since I have no friends.
I have no friends!
My God, how horrible that sounds. Even thinking it makes me feel even worse than I already did.
When we first moved out here, I still talked to my old friends from back home. I still talked to my college friends up until the day of the accident. Then I went silent. I had to turn my cell phone off because I didn’t want to talk to any of them.
I didn’t want to hear anyone tell me that things were going to be alright. I didn’t want anyone to ask me what they could do for me because no one could’ve done what I needed to be done.
I needed my family back!
Now I know it was shock that had me that way, and I should’ve gotten back in contact with my friends after it wore off. After a whole year of living in a foggy daze, except when I was at work, the shock finally began to wear off.
When I realized I had to go to work, I developed a part of myself that pretended nothing had ever happened to me. I went to my interviews and I was the woman I had been before the accident.
When I got the job as the manager of the spa, I put on a whole persona. That of a confidant woman with no troubles. Nothing personal ever comes up because I won’t let it.
There are times when I’m walking down the hallways at the spa that I overhear the employees talking to each other about what’s happening in their lives. It almost always sends a twinge of need through me. A need to join them and get in on the comradery they all share but I leave myself out of it.
I’m not an idiot. After two years of maintaining that nothing is abnormal with me, it would make the people who work under me look at me with wonder at how I kept that to myself for so damn long.
The thing about keeping things to yourself is that there is a limit on the time you have to let others know about your personal trials and tribulations. What would anyone think of me if they knew I’ve been single handedly taking care of kids all this time? What would they think of me if they knew my whole family was killed and I�
�ve never told even one of them about it?
I can’t even recall the number of times I walked in on conversations people were having about their kids and the funny things they did or the terrible things they did. I never made a comment. I never added anything about my kids.
I’d simply give a smile and a nod and add nothing to the conversation. If I did then I’d be asked how I knew anything about kids. Then I’d have to actually lie and say I didn’t have any.
I don’t consider myself a liar. I think of myself as a person who keeps their personal information to themselves. My therapist tells me I have to open up with other people. I tell her I do. I open up to her and the staff at the daycare. Well, I open up about some things with the staff at the daycare.
They don’t need to know how I cry so much when I take showers. No one really even wants to know that!
My cell screen lights up again and Carter says, “Aunt Mercy, are you going to answer that. It’s probably that man you were talking to a while ago.”
With my eyes still closed because they feel better this way, I answer him, “It might be. I’m too tired to talk to him right now.”
“Yeah, when I was sick, I was too tired to talk too,” he says then his little hand pats me on the leg. “It won’t last too much longer, Aunt Mercy.”
“Thanks, Carter. And thanks for being so good while I’m sick. I really appreciate it, baby boy,” I say as I press my face into the pillow to keep myself from crying.
I feel so weak and lonely, and sad. Most of the time I don’t allow myself to feel so sorry for myself but this damn virus is making me weak in every way possible.
It’s been years since I was sick. My mom was the best at taking care of us when we were sick. She’d make homemade chicken noodle soup that would fill the house with the aroma. That alone would make me feel a little better.
She’d bring the soup and saltine crackers to my bed and prop my pillows up and help me sit up. She had this tray she decorated with yellow daisies to perk up her patients is what she told me.
I can taste the cold, bubbly lemon-lime cola she made us drink. She said the bubbles along with the citrus juice, which I think there was no real juice at all, made us get better faster.
Maybe it did. I don’t know. I just know her tender loving care made me feel better. She had a way of making you feel loved with such small gestures. When we were little she’d cut our sandwiches into heart shapes with cookie cutters.
When we were teens and hard to make happy at all, she’d surprise us with concert tickets every now and then or do a random load of laundry for us. Now that really made my day!
Dad was different. More reserved with his affection. He loved us and he told us now and then but not like Mom did. No one left the house without knowing Mom loved them. No one!
That woman loved everybody. But she loved Dad, me, and Hope the best. Until Cater and Mia came along. But once they came along, everybody loved them the best. Even Dad.
He told those kids he loved them constantly. I can still hear the last words he said before they all left this house that night. “Pawpaw loves you.”
How come they all had to be taken away?
Chapter 6
JUDE
So it’s been fifteen minutes since I left the text asking Mercy if she wanted me to leave her alone forever. Still nothing!
Jogging along the sidewalk in the humid heat, my suit is soaking wet. I’ve had several cars pull up next to me to ask if everything is alright. And I think I’ve ruined these dress shoes. And everything is Armani!
Heading back to my car, I try to get it through my head that something’s wrong with Mercy. Something is wrong in her head. Very wrong and I know I should take her silence and set myself free with it.
The woman has consumed me since I met her. My thoughts have nearly all had something to do with her. No woman has ever done this to me. Why does it have to be this closed off woman with apparent secrets?
I’ve known tons of women. Women from all walks of life. Women of great beauty and poise. Strong women, weak women, and women who wanted me to make them my wife. None of them caught me the way Mercy has.
Now, why is that?
So I ask myself, is Mercy gorgeous?
That answer is, yes. Her shiny blonde hair is full and wavy and smells fantastic. I think she gets her shampoo and conditioner from the spa. It has to be expensive and I don’t think she’s the kind of woman who shells out a lot of money on something as trivial as that.
Her body is perfect. Soft where it ought to be and firm where I like it to be. Her laugh sends joy through me. Her smile fills me with butterflies and rainbows. Her voice can make me hard all on its own.
She has this kind spirit. There’s a strength about her that I’ve never seen before. And just behind that strength is a weakness I’ve never seen before either.
There’s been a couple of times now that I’ve held her and felt her body trying to tell me things her mouth wouldn’t. Her body has melted into mine with abandon. It’s felt as if it was letting me know she needs me but is too afraid to tell me that.
So what is her problem? Why won’t she just tell me what the fuck is going on that has her so secretive?
As I get to my car, I feel a little light headed and pull my suit jacket off. I think I may have gotten too hot. Getting into the car, I turn it on and turn the air conditioner on full blast.
I may have overdone it in the suit!
Then my stomach clenches and I have to open the door and lean out as all the contents of my stomach come out. With a moan, I lie my head back and feel as if the world is spinning.
Crap! The virus has hit me!
Sitting perfectly still to try to stop my head from spinning, I find myself unbuttoning my long sleeve shirt and opening it to let the cool air in to help my body cool off that feels way too hot.
“This isn’t normal,” I say to myself. “I can’t drive like this.”
So I make the call to Zeek. “Hey, bro. Sup?” he answers.
“I need you to get someone to come with you. I’m going to send you the place I’m at and I need you to come get me and someone will have to drive my car home,” I say then feel my stomach lurch again and open the door and puke like I don’t recall puking before.
“Have you been drinking, Jude?” Zeek asks. “It’s like three in the afternoon, dude. So not cool!”
“No,” I say as I reach into the glove compartment for something to wipe my mouth with. “I have a virus. Mercy had one and I kissed her. What an idiot I am!”
“Shit, man. You sound awful,” Zeek says. “I’m coming for you, bro. Don’t try to drive. Rose’s boyfriend is here. I’ll bring him with me.”
“What?” I say. “That little user. Fuck that, Zeek. Not him”
“Sorry, bro. No one else is home. So you really have no choice. You can let him drive your car.”
I cut him off. “No fucking way, Zeek.”
“Or I can drive your car and you can ride in mine with him,” he finishes what he was saying.
“I don’t even want to spend five minutes with the little British cock-sucker,” I say then another wave hits me and I have to open the door to puke again.
“Chill, Jude. We’re on our way,” Zeek says then hangs up.
After I get rid of things I didn’t even know were still inside of me, I lie the seat back and breathe heavily. As my head swims, I think about my poor, poor Mercy and how she must be so sick she can’t even see the text I sent her to be able to answer me.
Then it hits me that I’m a selfish asshole who needs to be shot. Why did I send her that text at this time in her life?
She’s sick! She really is. And now so am I.
I call her and almost cry when I hear her answer, “Jude?”
“Honey, please tell me you didn’t read the text I sent you.” I burp and it tastes awful and almost sends me into another round of barfing.
“No, I don’t really like to open my eyes. They burn too bad when I
do. I’m sorry. Here, I’ll read it now,” she says.
“No!” I shout and feel bad that I did that because it really hurts my head. “Don’t read it. Delete it. I was being a selfish, fucking asshole when I wrote it. Ignore it. I didn’t mean any of it.”
“What was it about?” she asks, sounding weak as hell and making me feel like complete shit.
“It was about me being the spoiled brat you tell me I have been on occasion,” I say as I laugh then stop because it fucking hurts to laugh.
“Oh, Jude, what did you text me?” she asks and I can hear the disappointment in her voice.
“Okay, I’ll tell you,” I say. “I’ll come clean even if you won’t. I asked you if you wanted me to leave you alone, forever.” I wait a beat. “But I don’t care if you do because I can’t leave you alone, baby. I love you, Mercy. I fucking love your ass. I mean it.”
“Jude, are you drunk?” she asks me.
I laugh and stop very quickly. “No. You gave me your virus. You, nasty girl. But I love you, I really do.”
“If I gave you this virus then your mind is about like when you’re drunk so I won’t hold you to what you're blurting out right now,” she says.
“So you won’t tell me that you love me, Mercy?” I ask as I close my eyes to make the world stop spinning.
“Jude?” she asks and I open my eyes and try hard to focus because I’d like to recall everything if she’s about to confess her love for me. “When I tell you those words, I’d like to see your face.”
“Oh!”
It’s not exactly what I wanted to hear but kind of close. “This feeling sucks, Mercy.”
“The virus or what?” she asks.
“All of it. Why can’t you tell me what your hiding? I swear to God I won’t judge you. I mean it. Just tell me, baby. I can take anything.” I belch then add. “Even if it’s that you have a man.”
My heart stops as I wait to see if the virus will make an honest woman out of her. “It’s not a man.”
Then what the fuck is it?
Chapter 7
MERCY
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