Dirty Faces - Book 2

Chapter 25: Breathe

Chapter 25: Breathe

Adam turned the volume up on the radio so he could hear the game over the all-too-familiar sound of Aunt Susan hacking up a lung. On returning to the couch, he couldn't help but feel a little bad about it. She really must have felt terrible, not only judging by how nasty that cough of hers sounded, but also by the fact that she hadn't gone to work that day; that just wasn't like her.

Ralph and Kody had been gone for a week and Adam found comfort in knowing they were halfway through the run. Only one more week of worry. Having told Kody he would keep an eye on things in his absence, he was finding more and more that he had little to no interest in being the man of the house. Granted, things had gone perfectly smoothly while they had been gone. Ginny came and went as per her usual routine, though she tended to stick around home more this summer than the previous one, helping Aunt Susan and Aunt Betty with household chores and such. And until this day, Aunt Susan had been her usual self. Yes, even though there seemed to be no real cause for concern, there was always the nagging feeling that that could change at any moment, and Adam could certainly do without that.

After the fourth inning, the broadcast took a break for a word from their sponsor. A cheesy jingle for some product they probably didn't carry at the company store came on, but Adam tuned it out. He tugged at a rouge thread sticking out of the arm of the couch, wondering what everybody else was doing elsewhere while he was yet again stuck here.

Though he had no desire to spend any time bonding with Ralph, he still found himself a little jealous of Kody. After all, the only part of the country he'd ever gotten to see was what existed along the road between Mabry's Ridge and Cleveland. There would be sites and real cities along their route and even the desert. He would have liked to have seen the desert.

He wondered- and worried- how long it would be before Uncle Kent and Jack found themselves in some other country. His updates on Jack's whereabouts were strictly from what Kody relayed from letters he received, but, as with all things Jack said, he could never be sure how much of what he heard was credible. The last he'd heard from Uncle Kent he was in Pennsylvania, but like all other things, that could change any day and the postmark on the next letter could very well be from anywhere.

And here he sat on this couch, in this little house, in this holler in the middle of nowhere, crippled, practically helpless. Even his younger girl cousin was out of the house doing something- living life.

The commercial break ended and the baseball game broadcast returned, but Adam found himself even more disgusted as the commentators related the actions of men paid to play a game. There were people who made a living playing a game, and he couldn't even play said game. He snatched up his crutches and hastily made his way to the radio and turned it off.

It had been a while since he last checked on Aunt Susan and she hadn't eaten all day so he headed down the little hallway and opened her bedroom door just a crack. She was still in bed, still in her nightgown, laying with her back toward the door. Adam stood there a moment listening to her wheezing and grew increasingly irritated at the fact that she and everyone else seemed so intent on pretending she was fine when she clearly was not. He shook his head and tried to put it and everything else that was irking him at the back of his mind; he was just irritable this day.

"Aunt Susan?"

"Hm?" She replied, her back still to him.

"Are you hungry?"

"No, darlin', I'm fine. Thank you, though." She sounded very tired.

"You sure? I can make you a sandwich or soup or something."