AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“And after the birth? I don’t know a ton about having babies. But I know enough that I think you need to rest for a while. Isn’t that the whole point of paid family leave?”
“You’ve got to be crazy if you think that everybody gets paid leave just because they had a baby. This is not some progressive state. This is Georgia. There are no social safety nets for moms. Not even if there are complications, like a botched C-section. That happened to my aunt Shayla, and the family pulled together to help while she recovered enough to hold her baby. Then,” she mimes wiping her hands. “Shayla was back working at her factory job the next week.”
It takes me a few moments to absorb that. “That’s fucked up.”
“That’s the way everybody around here lives. Most of us don’t have the same kind of help that Billion-Dollar Bennetts probably have.”
My head whips around so I can look at her. “Are you saying that a week is an acceptable amount of time to recover from having a baby? Because that seems nuts.”
She purses her lips and doesn’t look at me. She shrugs a shoulder. “That’s just how things are in most of the world.”
Pearl starts jogging toward the cabins, clearly signaling that she doesn’t want to talk about this anymore. I follow her around while she cleans the first cabin in silence.
I hear chirping. Curious, I head back onto the porch. It looks like the gutters haven’t been cleaned in over a year, allowing pine straw to build up at the corners of the roof. Nestled in the pine straw are a family of birds.
I’m going to have to clear that out at some point. Otherwise, one of these days it will rain and the water will back up until it weighs too much. At that point, it’ll find a weak point in the roof and leak into the cabin.
Pearl’s cleaning strategy is nothing if not efficient. She replaces the linens first. Next, she cleans the tiny kitchen and bathroom. Then she mops all the cement floors. In, out, done and dusted in little more that fifteen minutes.
I’m much slower when I start my own cabin. Fumbling with the sheets takes a few minutes. I notice that the top sheet that I’m putting on the bed is so old and worn that it has several sewn-up holes in it.
The kitchen also shows extreme signs of wear and tear. The laminate countertop is chipped and stained. The sheet pan that I wash is rusted. The ancient stovetop is peeling and cracking in patches, and spots of rust dapple the surface.
Cleaning the bathroom is much the same. A large chunk of the laminate counter in the bathroom is missing; you can see straight through to the cabinet underneath.
As I scrub the stained bathtub, I realize that I will not feel bad when I buy Pearl’s family out. They have taken care of these cabins, but even carefully maintained spaces eventually show their age.
Sure, I will feel guilty for embroidering the truth when I talk to Pearl. But this place? I will not lose a single night’s sleep knowing that it has been knocked down.
Mostly I’m wondering who chooses to stay in a cabin so decrepit. How does Pearl’s family continue to rent them out?
“Are you done yet?”
I jump at the sound of Pearl’s voice. Turning around, I find her standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips.
“Just finished.”
“Good. Let’s go.” She walks out the front door.
“Do you want me to start the next cabin?”
Pearl reaches out and touches my arm, softening. “No, River. I already cleaned three more cabins while you were finishing this one.”
I look at my watch and realize that it took me almost forty-five minutes to clean the cabin. Tapping my watch and feeling as though I somehow time warped, I shake my head. “Where did the time go?”
She comes close, twining my arm with hers and taking my hand. “Where it always goes. Into the past.”
Pulling on my hand, she tugs me back toward her trailer. I let her guide me; I would probably follow Pearl off the edge of a cliff if she batted her lashes and smiled at me while we tumbled to our deaths.
Even knowing that, I still allow her to lead me, hoping that eventually the trail will end at her bed.
Twenty
Pearl
River’s soft breaths against my neck stir me from slumber before the morning has fully begun. With eyes still heavy with sleep, I feel his lips graze my shoulder.
It’s a tender kiss that sends a ripple of warmth down my spine.
