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Chapter Four - Addy

“I’ll take a pound and a half of bologna, Mary,” I said to the lady behind the deli counter. She laughed.

“Your dad is stuck in a rut, Addy.”

I shrugged. “I like to think of it as him just being a lifelong supporter of Oscar Meyer,” I said. “Maybe they’ll name a Weiner mobile after him.”

Mary weighed out the bologna and handed me the package. “You going to be in the office this afternoon? I’ve got an appointment for this callus on my heel. It’s a horse’s patoot.”

I smiled. “I’ll be around. I need to get dad caught up on some typing and filing.”

Mary patted my hand before I turned back to my cart. “You’re such a good girl.”

I didn’t know that I would go that far but I smiled and thanked her before heading off towards the fresh fruit. I wanted to get some apples and carrots for Robin Hood’s birthday.

Robin Hood was one of my three horses. He was a beautiful chestnut stallion. The first time I saw him I had this insane vision of me riding him through a forest like Maid Marion. Hence, the name Robin Hood was born.

Thinking of Robin Hood reminded me of the argument I had with Kevin that morning. I couldn’t help but scowl as I threw a few apples into a clear bag. That guy was perpetually waking up on the wrong side of the bed. Not only had he pissed me off, but he was also preventing me from giving my horses proper exercise.

I hoped his stay in town was going to be a short one.

I was halfway through the grocery store and was turning into the paper products aisle when my cart made direct contact with another. The vibration went up through my hands and I stumbled backward from the force of the collision. I looked up to apologize, but stopped before I had managed to even utter a syllable.

Kevin was holding onto his cart, a look of annoyance written all over his face. Mason was buckled into the cart and looked perfectly happy, collision and all.

“Bumble cars! Bumble cars! Boom!”

“I’m sorry,” I finally managed to say. “I didn’t see you.”

“That’s because you took that corner way too fast.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

He scratched his goatee and sighed. “How come I keep running into you?”

“Probably because there’s a little more than 250 people in this town and that’s including the 30 people in the Old Folk’s home,” I said. “The odds of seeing me are better than any lottery ticket.”

I watched Mason open a plastic bag and pull out a chocolate chip cookie. Kevin took it from him and put it back in the bag.

“Oh, he can eat that in the store,” I said. “I used to do it all the time when I was little. As long as you tell them up at checkout it’s fine.”

The look I got from Kevin could have kept my frozen food cold for days. “As his father I think I know what’s best.”

He backed up his cart a little and began to move around me. “Good day, Ms. Selinski.”

“Byeeeee!” Mason called out happily. Mason’s disposition was like night and day compared to Kevin’s.

As I finished my shopping, I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to Mason’s mother.

Was that the cause of Kevin’s bitterness?

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After unloading the groceries at home, I headed to dad’s office. I threw myself into typing and filing. My dad was old school and preferred to keep everything by hand. He had a photographic memory. He knew everyone in town and their ailments. I had seen him walk down Main Street, spot someone limping, and diagnosis them right on the street. He was my hero.

My mother had left town when I was eight years old. As much as I’ve tried to push the day she left out of my mind, it’s burned into my memory like it happened yesterday. I remember coming home from school one day and running into the bedroom where she spent her days watching the afternoon soap operas. The first thing I noticed was that her perfumes and her beautiful silver hairbrush that I had coveted had disappeared from her armoire.

I had gone from room to room calling out her name. Our house only had two bedrooms, a bath, a living room, and a kitchen. It didn’t take me long to realize she wasn’t there. Once I glanced into the closet she shared with my dad, I knew something was wrong. All of her clothes were gone.

When my dad had come home from work several hours later, he had found me sitting on the floor of their closet in the dark, hugging my knees and rocking back and forth. I remember him picking me up and I was so thankful as the smell of rubbing alcohol hit my nose. He always smelled like a hospital; it was the best smell in the world. In the weeks that followed, I never saw him cry. Every day one more picture disappeared off the mantle and their wedding album seeing to vanish in thin air. To this day, I don’t think we’ve talked about mom more than once or twice, and even then not for more than a few seconds. For years I had held out hope that she would come back; I blamed myself. If I hadn’t whined so much, if I hadn’t spilled my milk at dinner…

The experience with my mom was just one more reason I didn’t want a relationship. The last thing I needed was to get attached to someone and then have them up and leave me in the middle of the night. That fear was also the reason I didn’t want children. I knew raising me alone was rough for dad and I wasn’t half as strong as he was.

As I put the last file in the drawer, I couldn’t help but think about Mason again. It seemed odd that a three year old little boy wouldn’t have his mom around him. I knew I shouldn’t care, but something bothered me. Through the coldness of Kevin’s green eyes there was something there that I couldn’t peg…

“Addy, can you go fill this prescription for Mr. Halowitz?”

I jumped in my chair. Dad was standing right behind me and I hadn’t even heard him.

“What?”

He smiled. “Can you go fill this prescription? I hate to have the old fellow go to the pharmacy; it’s in the opposite direction of his house.”

I nodded and took the prescription that my dad held out.

“I’ll be back in ten,” I said. Dad waved nonchalantly.

“No problem. We’re talking about the game. He’s not in a hurry.”

I grabbed my purse, made sure to put out the bell in case anyone else came in, and headed down the block towards the pharmacy.

The thought of getting an old fashioned green river float while I waited for the prescription to be filled was enough to raise my spirits.

Rascal Flatts had it right when they sang about missing Mayberry. Sadieville was my own personal Mayberry, and I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.