Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 46587 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 233(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46587 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 233(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
After one last round of goodbyes I hopped in the car and drove off. Forcing myself not to look back as those tears finally worked their way through.
I wiped as fast as they fell and tried to think about anything else but what I was doing. Why is it that at the point of decision something can seem so right, so perfect?
And then when the time comes to execute every doubt in the world begins to plague you and tie you up in knots?
I pressed my hand against those knots and fought back the nausea as it climbed up my throat. Telling myself once again that this was the right move.
For some reason, something that had seemed like the perfect solution only the day before now seemed rather daunting.
Still, I kept my foot on the gas and my eyes trained straight ahead as I left the little town I knew and loved behind. Heading for what I hope were greener pastures.
As I drove, no radio on for distraction and just my mind and thoughts to keep me company, I bypassed the usual and focused instead on what laid ahead.
In many ways I was walking into the unknown. For one, I didn’t even know the family I would be working for. It hadn’t seemed that important.
It was the mother of the husband who’d hired me for the job of babysitting her little granddaughter. At least that’s what I remember.
He’d been on location at the time, which I’d interpreted to mean he was either an actor or some kind of entertainer but who knows. For all I know he could be an FBI agent.
At least those had been my thoughts until a little digging had revealed that he works on an oil rig out in the ocean and is gone weeks and sometimes months at a time.
The wife, or ex-wife to be exact was still around, but they were no longer married. At least I think that’s what she’d said.
There was something about that that keeps niggling at the edges of my mind, but I can’t for the life of me find the thread to tug on.
I have to admit that my head was so full of my own problems at the time that I hardly paid attention to all the details. Not to mention my body hadn’t been entirely healed back then.
My only interest had been in getting as far away from home as possible. I could’ve gone to Europe like my parents wanted me to my last summer before college. Could be with my friends doing the one thing I’d been looking forward to all year.
But somehow the thought of being in brightly lit cities with lots of people around did not appeal. No, when you’ve screwed up as royally as I have it’s best to hide away and lick your wounds.
And that got me to thinking as I drove out of the city headed for the outskirts of town. Why is it that when someone has hurt you, you still carry the blame for your part in it?
Since when is not being in love a bad thing? Something you should be punished for? “Nope; time for the radio.” No way did I want to relive that horror for the thousandth time.
I blasted the radio, singing along with the windows down until that feeling of sadness that had crept up on me passed and I was once again looking forward to this new adventure.
Babysitting isn’t exactly something I would’ve chosen to do with my summer. In fact anyone who knew me would find the choice passing strange.
I’ve always been more the shopping and afternoon lunch type. Traipsing across Europe would’ve been ideal or even another summer spent visiting the historical sites of the South, which is one of my favorite things to do.
But for some odd reason, this seemed to be the answer I needed. In fact, I remember during the interview, feeling like it was the best thing possible, though I still had no idea why I’d even come up with the idea.
It’s just something that had come to me while I was laid up in the hospital. While my parents were showing me brochures of the Louvre and all the other places I’d been looking forward to revisiting.
Poor mom and dad, they had no idea that I had no interest in spending hours looking at paintings, or going for long walks around the Eiffel Tower with the other million tourists.
Not that I’d lost my longing for the sights and sounds of Paris in spring, or Spain in the summer. Not even close. But somehow the prospect of visiting those places alone no longer appealed to me.
Hours later as I made the turnoff for the nineteenth century plantation house that seemed to be at the end of nowhere, I was singing a different tune.