The knock on the door woke me up, bleery eyed, from where I'd gone to sleep on the couch after Doc Rutheford removed the IV and fed me a couple pills. From the sun, I'd say I'd slept till around noon.

I tried to get up but my muscles were screaming, cramped up, and I fell back on the couch. A shirt fell off the back and next to me.

"It's open!" I called out, pulling on the shirt.

The door opened and a huge battleship in a black dress printed with colorful flowers swung her hips to get inside. She had on a black box hat with flowers around the brim, and wore high heels and black legging.

"Lord God Almighty, Mister English, what in the name of the Holy Ghost did you do up here?" Miss Mary-Beth Brubaker asked, stopping just inside the door and staring around her at the new carpet, fresh paint on the walls, and new counters.

"You said it needed fixed up," I said lamely, grabbing at the blanket the nurse had spread over me and used it to cover my crotch. I was only dressed in my boxers, the nurse having stripped my denim pants off of me.

"Is there anything left of the original?" She asked, shutting the door carefully behind her.

The heat pump kicked on, cool air blowing out of the vents. Doc Rutheford and the nurse had shifted the couch so it was next to one.

"The siding and the frame," I told her honestly.

"The boys been talking about town how you've been up here working, and I've seen the checks you've been writing come in," She said, shaking her head. She sat down on the loveseat across from me. "Charles Lee Slater, he came in talking about how you replaced the pump, had the septic cleaned, and redid the plumbing. Swore by Baby Jesus you did."

"Wanted it to look good," I told her. I didn't feel like telling her I'd tried to run away from Pru's ghost by throwing myself into work with the hope that it killed me.

"That it does, Mister English," She said. She fanned herself with her hat, even though it wasn't hot in the house. "Puts me in a bind, by Jesus."

I frowned. "How so, Miss Brubaker."

"Call me Mary-Beth, hon, everyone does," She said. She looked at me. "People are going to go around town behind my back, saying I took advantage of you."

I gave her a grin and she made a shooing motion at me. "Mister English, that's entirely inappropriate!" she blushed. She stood up. "May I use the bathroom?"

"Take a tour of the house, Mary-Beth," I smiled, waving. "Back bedroom's mine, might not want to go back there, someone might drive up, see you back there, get the wrong idea."

She shooed her hat at me, turning redder, and headed into the kitchen. "By Jesus, you seem like such a nice boy at the bank."

I leaned back on the couch, making sure I was covered, and looked around. Apparently I'd bought pictures and everything to decorate. Ol' Pete had been right, the place looked like a showroom.

She opened the doors on the appliances, checked the freezer, went down the hallway opening doors and looking inside the closets, going inside the rooms. I could hear her opening the closets and dresser drawers. Finally she came back and sat down after examining the digital control for the heat pump.

"I walked about. The good Lord knows I don't think it's looked this good since the 1960's," she said. Her face was a more normal color now. She put her hands in her lap for a moment, looking down. "You put me in an awful spot, Mister English."

"How so, Mary-Beth?" I asked her, wondering again where she was going.

"Place was only worth the land only a month ago, by God," she said. I noticed that her praising the Lord seemed more like a verbal tic than actual piety. "Now, well, people are gonna say you did all this work and by God ol' crooked Mary-Beth is charging you rent like one of the Devil's minions."

I shrugged. "It's your land, Miss Mary-Beth," I told her.

"You've put more into this house and the land than the land was worth when you pulled up in your truck at Gary's gas station, by God."

"Please, call me Sam. What's the problem? Just cut me half off my rent for a while."

"For the next five years? Ten?" She scoffed. "Lord Jesus help me, I do that, everyone will talk behind their hands about me in church."

"I needed to work for a while, Miss Mary-Beth," I told her. "You didn't come here and stand over me with a shotgun while I worked."

She barked a laugh at that. "That's true, Sam, that's true, by Jesus."

"I got no quarrel with you over this, Miss Mary-Beth," I told her.

"Then I heard from that old quack Solomon Rutheford that you'd gone and worked yourself sick, old Army wounds flaring up, and Lord did the looks start," She told me. "I prayed over it last night, and when I woke up, the Good Lord had shown me the way."

I waited quietly. Maybe it wasn't a verbal tic.

Funny thing is, in my experience, a woman that praises God that much late in life was trying to atone for being a very bad girl when she was younger.

"I'll sell you the property for what the county said it was worth last year, Mister Eng - Sam," she said, smiling.

"How much was that?" I asked her, giving her my best Texas squint.

She waved her hat at me. "Don't be giving me that look, Mister English. The Lord showed me the way, I'm not out to cheat you," she paused a moment. "Say, twenty-eight thousand?"

I nodded, waving toward the kitchen counter. "My checkbooks right over there, Mary-Beth. How about you grab it for me, I'll cut you a check if my account can handle it."

She flushed. "I, uh, took the liberty of bringing you today's account balance," she stammered. "I swear in Jesus's name I wasn't being nosy."

I chuckled. "It ain't no sin for a woman to be prudent, Mary-Beth," I reassured her.

She grabbed my checkbook from where it was sitting on a stack of receipts on the counter that separated the dining room from the kitchen and came back, handing it to me.

She wore floral perfume.

She dug in her purse and handed me my bank balance. I'd had my old bank wire the entire contents of my disability pay account to my new account at the Blue Creek Credit Union. I just stared at the balance. Over half a million dollars, between monthly deposits of my 140% VA disability rating landing me 100% disability pay, my initial deposit of the money that was left in my account after Desert Storm and that terrible last winter in Alfenwehr, and a good interest rate that I'd bargained hard for at the time.

I just stared at the balance.

"You didn't know, Sam?" She said. "I checked with your old bank, you've been getting payments for the Department of Veteran's Affairs that increased yearly."

"I... no... I didn't know," I stammered. I blinked a few times and stared at it. Three thousand dollars monthly was a hell of a chunk, but I'd been depositing it since 1991.

I wrote the check for twenty-eight grand and signed it, handing it to her.

"It's a quick-claim form," she told me. I signed the bottom where it was marked by an X. One copy for me, one copy for her.

I pretended I didn't see she was claiming I only paid a dollar for it. I'd seen that kind of thing before.

Crooked Mary-Beth indeed

I sat there for a moment and she cleared her throat. "Well, Mister English, I do believe that settles it," she told me. She cleared her throat again. "You take care, Mister English. I'll pray for your recovery."

"I'd get up, Miss Mary-Beth, but I'm not exactly decent," I told her.

She flushed and got up. "God be with you, Samuel English," she told me. I watched her leave, waiting till I heard her car crunch away across the gravel.

When she was gone I stood up and took a look at myself. My scars stood in stark relief to the sunburned skin and I had blisters all over. I sighed and forced myself to gimp across the front room and into the bathroom. I looked at my back in the mirrors and winced. I remembered the doctor draining the blisters after he gave me some painkillers but my back still looked terrible.

I took a cool shower and picked up my clothing, walking over to where I'd installed the washer and drier and shoving them in the washer.

Walking around naked felt good, and a little weird. I hadn't walked around my room naked since, well, since forever. Pru and I wore pajamas to...

The memory that she was gone hit me again, making me physically stagger.

But it wasn't as bad as it was.

I went into the master bedroom and looked at it. The sleeping bag and pillow that had been in the back of my truck was on the bed, my dufflebags in front of the dresser. I sat down on the bed with a grateful sigh, relaxing for a minute before I bent down and opened my dufflebags.

The dirty clothing one I left alone. I pulled a t-shirt out of the clean one, winced at the stiffness of a new shirt, and just settled with a pair of boxers straight from the package. That done, I carried the dufflebags down and started a load of laundry. Boxers, socks, and t-shirts.

I'd just been buying new clothing and shoving the old ones into the dufflebag.

quit living out of the back of your truck like a hobo

I snickered a little, then laughed, then stood there by the washer and drier, alternating between laughing and sobbing.

It left me exhausted and I went back to the bedroom, pulling the sleeping bag off the bed and laying down on the soft comforter.

I was asleep in seconds.

My dreams were a confusing whirl of colors and sounds, nothing ever solidifying out the blur, no voices, no shapes, nothing.

I woke up and checked my watch.

One in the afternoon.

I wondered what woke me when I heard the doorbell ring again. The first ring must have been what woke me up.

I got up, grabbing one of the pairs of pants and one of the shirts and pulled them on, wincing as the t-shirt dragged over my sunburnt skin.

"Just a moment!" I called out, limping down the hallway.

At least they didn't ring the doorbell again.

When I pulled open the door a woman was standing there. Blonde hair, blue eyes, freckles across her nose, and a tan. I stared at her for a second, speechless.

What the hell was a short blonde doing standing on my porch?

"Mister English?" She asked. She held up a bag that was grease stained. "My uncle asked me to bring this to you."

"Oh! You must be Pete's daughter," I said. "Um, thanks," I told her lamely.

"His niece," She laughed. "He wanted me to check up on you," she held up her other hand and there was a tube of Silvadene in her hand. "He said you got pretty badly sunburnt."

"Oh, thanks," I said.

She laughed again. "You planning on putting this on your back all by your lonesome, Mister English?" She asked.

I flushed, stepping back. "Um, no, I guess not, I mean," I spluttered.

"Doctor Rutheford wanted me to remind you to take your medications," She said.

"Oh," I said.

She arched an eyebrow. "You kind of have to invite me in, Mister English. Didn't you know that women are like vampires?"

That made me laugh as I stepped back. She came in and looked around. "Wow. Uncle Pete wasn't kidding when he said you really worked hard on this place. I thought I had the wrong place the first time and drove back down to the road till I saw the mailbox with your name on it. Then I had to turn around and come back."

"Sorry," I said lamely.

"It's all right," She said. She moved to the kitchen. "Sit down and take off your shirt."

I stopped, hesitating.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

"Um, nothing," I lied, moving up and sitting down in the chair. I flinched as I pulled off my shirt, waiting for the shock of when she saw my scars.

She gasped.

crap