| Subject: Priority Mail 30 |
Author:
Nikita507
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Date Posted: Friday, November 05, 05:48:01pm
In reply to:
Nikita507
's message, "Priority Mail 27+" on Wednesday, November 03, 06:43:33pm
“Joe?” Rhoda called out as she stepped into the church and saw Joe standing at the doorway to the church again. She stood there, staring forward and finally turned away. Rhoda knew that she had heard her call to her. “You can continue to not talk to me, Joe. But I know that you heard me. You can at least look at me and recognize that you heard me.”
Joe stopped and Rhoda saw the glimmer of a tear in her eye. She stepped forward and pressed her hand against Joe’s cheek. Rhoda always cupped anyone’s face that was just on the verge of crying like she did Joe. She had touched Joe like this before.
But Joe pulled away as if she had been touched by fire.
Nervously, Joe’s long fingers reached out and scratched at her neck as she focused on the wall. “Nightmares.”
Rhoda took a step back and gave Joe more space. “Were you looking for solace from the nightmares? Or were you trying to pray to get them to end?”
Joe shook her head from side to side as she took a step backwards, closer to her own room which was Joe’s personal sanctuary. “I deserve them.”
Rhoda parted her lips as Joe took another step back. But Rhoda grasped Joe’s hands and tugged at her to stay where she was. “No one deserves nightmares, Joe. And I have seen all the good things that you do here.”
Joe shook her head from side to side slightly. “Just work.”
“No, it’s not work. You don’t get paid for any of it. You could come and go and do nothing and I wouldn’t treat you any different. But you do so much… and I think you do more than I know,” Rhoda explained as she was turning and now leading Joe towards her room. But it was on Rhoda’s terms and it wasn’t a way for Joe to run away and escape. Rhoda knew that she had to keep Joe talking and that was what she hoped she could do. Words were so precious from this woman.
“Work.” Joe shook her head from side to side again, fighting against Rhoda’s statement that she was doing good things.
“You clean like no one else I know… I probably could eat off of the floor after you have scrubbed it…. You always seem to know where we are not going to have enough people available to help and you do the work of three or four people,” Rhoda continued to point out how helpful Joe was. “The kitchen is organized… and I figured that all the pantry items that are usually put away in no order at all are in order the next morning because you go down and take care of that in the middle of the night.”
Joe kept her eyes diverted but she did not counter Rhoda’s statement. That told Rhoda that Joe was the one who was doing those tasks at night. Rhoda opened up Joe’s door and let go of her hands. Joe moved to her bed and sat down.
“You look so tired, Joe,” Rhoda spoke and she watched as Joe shrugged her shoulders up and down. “Sleep is bad.”
“Why don’t you tell me about the nightmares? Maybe if you talk about them… they will stop,” Rhoda attempted and Joe turned her head to look out the window. That stubborn move told Rhoda that Joe was not going to say a word.
Rhoda sat there and continued to talk about how nightmares couldn’t hurt Joe unless she allowed them to hurt her. For about ten minutes Rhoda talked and then as there was a knock on the door that had been left ajar, Rhoda remembered that she was to meet with Lieutenant McCarty.
“Hello Sister Rhoda,” Nat spoke as he looked into the room. He smiled as he looked and saw Joe had turned her head to look at him. “Hello, Joe.”
He paused and pushed the door slightly more open. “Can I come in?”
Joe moved her head up and down. Nat walked in and leaned against the wall. “I wanted to talk to both of you…. I was hoping that you both would be around tomorrow for a group to come by…. I have some police recruits that I’d like to bring here.”
“Why?” Rhoda inquired and Nat exhaled. “To show them that this could be a good place to volunteer to help out with repairs…. They are all young men, except the one woman, and most have indicated that they wanted to volunteer doing some manual labor…”
“That should be fine with me,” Rhoda answered as she looked at Nat and then to Joe. “He asked you too, Joe.”
“Why?” Joe asked as she wearily looked at Nat with a look that said that she did not trust him.
“I know that you are ok with me around, Joe. But I wanted to be sure that it was ok to bring in more men here. Some of them can look intimidating, although I think some of them are the biggest teddy bears,” Nat explained and Joe glanced to the floor while mutter. “I’m fine.”
“That’s all I needed to talk about today,” Nat looked at Rhoda as he could feel that he was in the middle of something. He looked at Joe who had turned her attention back out the window. He shrugged his shoulders slightly at Rhoda and mouthed the words, “Call me”, before escaping.
Rhoda rubbed her hands along the chair that she was sitting in and waited for Nat to disappear. “That was nice of the Lieutenant to ask you.”
“He loves you,” Joe spoke as she did not even look at Rhoda. Rhoda swallowed hard and looked at Joe.
How could she tell?
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