A Taste of Her Own Medicine by Tasha L. Harrison

Author:Tasha L. Harrison
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tasha L. Harrison

Chapter Fifteen

Atlas

A brisk wind rustled the autumn leaves as I peddled toward my mother’s house. I was wearing a skull cap and a hoodie and my down vest, but I still felt the bite of it through my clothes. It was probably time for me to put the bike away and start driving again, but I wasn’t quite ready for that.

I was meeting Mr. Bailey to discuss what needed to be done before terminating services until the next season. There wasn’t much to do, but my mother had asked me to be around to supervise, and I had a few hours until tonight’s class, so I didn’t see any harm in it.

Mr. Bailey and my mom knew each other from high school or church — I could never remember which. My mom had a thing about employing people from the church and the neighborhood, which I supported one hundred percent. Plus, I just liked him. He was an affable dude that was always super polite and gentlemanly with my mom. I heard her when she said she felt like he was too familiar, but I’d never witnessed any disrespect from him. Nor did he strike me as the kind of man who would cross that boundary with mother without express consent.

As I coasted down the slight decline to my mother's house at the bottom of the cul-de-sac, I saw my mother and Mr. Bailey standing at the edge of the yard with their backs to the street. My mother had her hands on her hips as he gestured toward the flower beds with one hand while he kept the one nearest her in his pocket. They looked like a couple. I would be lying if I said the sight wasn’t endearing. And as a kid who grew up with a nearly non-existent father and never seeing my mother with another man, I wondered how my life would have been if the two of them had got together.

“Hey, mama!” I leaned in and kissed her cheek.

“Hey, baby! You rode your bicycle in this weather? Ain’t you cold?”

I shook my head, smiling at her concern. “It ain’t so cold once your blood gets pumping. What’s up, Mr. Bailey?”

The man shook hands with me then gave my mother a sidelong glance. “Your mother was just reading me the riot act. She still seems to think I trimmed the azalea bushes —”

“I told her you didn’t,” I said, shaking my head.

“So explain why they’re not flowering the way they should. This is the worst my azaleas have ever looked.”

Mr. Bailey and I spent the next hour explaining what was going on with Mama’s azaleas. It had been a very dry summer. Azaleas needed at least an inch of rain per week during their growing season, and since my mother never allowed me to put in the irrigation system, they didn’t get the water they needed. Also, the tree in the front yard had grown so large that it was probably throwing too much shade for the usually hardy bushes.

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