was today, it did not mean he was welcome in all areas. There were still plenty of people around who held his surname against him.
Corinne’s only form of revenge to combat Susan’s shocking behavior was to never be the one who gave in first. She wouldn’t let Daniel take Rebecca along either, or let him use her car all because there was a slight chance that he might run into her mother. The whole thing confounded Daniel to no end; even though he reviled his dad, he could not help wishing him alive from time to time.
The overlooked variable in all of this was Rebecca, who only got to spend time with her grandmother on Wednesdays and Thursdays, the two days of the week when she attended the community daycare center while her parents went to work; Daniel with the Maintenance Department and Corrine as the general adjunct to the New Warren Council. Susan Locke once held the title of Director of Housing on the Council, but she left the position shortly after “injuring” her hip. The injury mysteriously happened to coincide with the moment Corinne first left to live with Daniel.
To see Rebecca, Susan would sit outside the Warehouse smoking her pungent cigarillos, waiting for Daniel to drive off in one of the Maintenance Department vehicles from the parking lot across the street. She would then take her electric cart over to City Hall, where the school and daycare were located. This maneuver gained Susan the unfettered access to Rebecca that she desired, without having to deal with Daniel or Corinne. Rebecca never understood why her grandmother always told her not to let her parents know about her visits, but after her mother’s reaction the first time she let it slip she never mentioned it again.
Sporadic trips to the Warehouse bazaar and two days a week working for the Maintenance Department, always on the endless upkeep for the water and power systems, were the extent of Daniel’s forays into the world now. Two years ago, when the Maintenance Department cut his work load down he was unofficially put in charge of raising Rebecca. It was as if parts of his old life withered and died, only to be surreptitiously replaced by the chores of parenthood.
Rebecca and Daniel took their baths together and he always tucked her into bed at night. It was up to him to cook all of the family meals and work on home-schooling her; the public schools were only free to those who lived inside the housing area of the Warehouse. Daniel looked forward to this part. He still had plenty of useful books and enjoyed the act of teaching his daughter new things. Besides, the school was notoriously filled with governmental propaganda.
Even though Corinne only had her part-time job working as admin for the Council, it always consumed the bulk of her weekly allotments of patience, stress and energy. Daniel tried his best to make life bearable for Corinne and pleasant for Rebecca. His empathetic work load was rarely complained about; it was still a far cry better than being alone.
Daniel made it down to his passed-along and thoroughly rusted truck. He looked over his shoulder for the hundredth time, making sure that his new ‘friends’ weren’t following behind. After lifting up the access hatch on the rear of the heavily-patched aluminum cap, he placed the two bags into the bed of the truck. His left knuckles struggled to relax, aching from the constant angry grip that he had been keeping on the burlap.
Manually unlocking the driver’s door, Daniel slid into the threadbare seat of the formerly black extended-cab truck. The key ring still held a dozen keys that no one still alive knew which locks they fit and a key fob, its battery long dead. He only left the useless items dangling from the ring because they had once held some kind of meaning to his father and to take them off seemed like an affront to his memory. For quicker access Daniel pulled the pistol out and wedged it between the exposed foam cushion of his seat and the cloth upholstery of the center jump seat.
After giving the twenty year-old engine a minute to idle out a little smoother, he eased out into the empty seven lanes of Klondike Avenue, rear differential clunking ominously as the truck shifted gears. Despite there being no other cars he still looked both ways for people coming to and from the Warehouse. A practiced right turn followed