noticed it.”
“I’m not blind, you idiot. I was trying to keep out of shit until I was a teacher.” Allen wanted to tease her into a better mood by pointing out that teachers didn’t say shit, but he was much too close to her. “I wish I could have been able to see what was going on with them. It’s bad enough that the cooks are fucking with the deliveries of food.”
“What? The newspaper doesn’t mention anything about the cafeteria. They only mention some children that have been hurt by the staff.” Allie pulled the newspaper to her and started reading the article. Allen started pulling things out of the fridge for their dinner. “I’ve been to the police department twice now. I can’t get in to see anyone about my supposed interview. When you were working, I had a little time. Now that neither of us are, we’re going to be hurting before long. There have been days lately that I wished we’d not moved out here. They’re a very close-knit town here, aren’t they?”
“Yes. I went to the clinic to see if I could get in for us to have our allergy shots set up, and they said I’d have to have a full background check. For a clinic? I’ve had one as a teacher—wait, a hash slinger—but you’ll need one, I guess.” He’d had one when he was in the service. Allen didn’t mention it, however. She was still pissy. “What I wouldn’t do right now for a good paying full-time job. Or a nice wealthy husband. I don’t care if he’s an old man. I’d like to have security in my life. Wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t think I’d enjoy being married to an old man. I don’t care how wealthy or old he was. Not going to happen for me. As for getting a full-time job? I’ve been looking, sweetie.” She told him she knew he had. “But I do understand what you’re saying. It would be nice to have a secure place to live, work, and be able to retire when we’re old enough.”
After having their dinner, they planned what their next move would be. In the morning, he was going to go to the new hospital and see what they were hiring for. Allen had been a medic in the service, but those kinds of jobs, he was finding out, didn’t switch out as well as he had hoped when he’d been discharged. Allen looked down at his leg and wondered daily what would have happened had he just laid there in the field and not called out for anyone to come and get him. Allie would certainly be better off.
At six, they did their nightly ritual. First, the local news, then the world news. After that, they’d watch Jeopardy, then another game show until eight. Allie would turn off the television, he’d pick up the paper where he’d left off, and she’d go and do some online classwork in her pretend classroom. He was sure that if she was ever to get herself a teaching job, she’d have all her yearly schedules filled out until the end of time. Allen’s heart broke for the two of them.
They’d been orphans, the two of them. They weren’t related by blood but did have the same adoptive parents. Bill and Sherri Langley had taken them both when they’d only gone to the place for a little boy. Allie, they told them, was an added bonus. He thought they had been right about that.
Their parents hadn’t had a great deal of material things nor money. However, they had loved them. Neither of them cared what they didn’t have as much as other children did because they’d been chosen, not born to their family. That hadn’t worked as well as they’d hoped it would when they’d been in school that year. But once he started to tower over most of the kids in the school, the kids left the two of them alone.
Allen was six years older than Allie. He’d been ten when they’d been adopted, and her only four. Even to this day, he could never find out why she’d not been adopted from the very first day she’d been at the home. The rumors he’d heard about little Jane Doe number fifty-three were that no one wanted a redhead as a child. She also had the most beautiful green eyes he’d ever seen. Something about them having the power to look into your soul. Bullshit.
“I’m going to