Sweet Trouble

Barbara Davis stared at the alarm clock blaring beside her, willing the noise to cease. She had woken long before it rang, lying still in the same position, her gaze fixed on the baby’s picture nestled beside the alarm. The insistent blaring, however, pulled her attention away from those large, brown eyes, and she stubbornly refused to move. Not even to extract her hands from the warm cocoon of her duvet to silence it. Maybe if I ignore it long enough, it’ll stop, she reasoned. Shifting her gaze, she returned to studying the picture—a morning ritual she had grown accustomed to. Except other mornings weren’t this frigid, and she would have silenced the boisterous alarm the instant it blared. One would assume she had memorized every detail of the picture by now, but each day, Barbara discovered something new. A different sparkle in the eyes, a subtle crease above the left eyebrow, the delicate pink of the lips—always something. And she never wanted to miss a single nuance. So she stared. Every morning, she stared. Yet, it was never enough. Her phone’s insistent ringing, somewhere beneath the rumpled covers, drew her attention away once more. She rolled lazily, reaching for it without exposing more than her wrist to the biting air. Squinting at the caller ID, she saw the name CLAUDIANNE displayed in bold letters. A small, lazy smile tugged at her lips as she dragged the green button across the screen, putting the call on speaker before tucking her hand back into the duvet. The heating system had been broken for weeks, and the landlady showed little interest in repairing it. “Barbie,” came the familiar voice of Mrs. Claudianne Charles—her boss, mentor, and self-proclaimed fairy godmother. “Good morning, Dianne,” Barbara greeted, her voice thick with sleep. She often wondered how different life might have been if she had met this woman earlier than four years ago. “You’re still in bed, aren’t you?” Claudianne ignored the greeting. Barbara huffed out a half-hearted “maybe” in response. “You should have been here hours ago!” “Hours ago?” Barbara nearly snorted. “It’s only seventeen minutes past eight, and I start at nine.” “Well, today you don’t. Nora left early this morning for an errand, and my joints have been frozen since I got up. I had to wait for Charles to help me around before I could get anything done. I just got Nora’s message. Now it’s nearly eight-thirty, which means Miriam has been working alone for over an hour!” Barbara rolled her eyes. Typical Claudianne and her exaggerations. Miriam wasn’t alone—the cook, the cleaner, and David, the caregiver, were all there. But she knew what her boss meant. She needed to be there too. Mumbling something about being there in fifteen minutes, Barbara threw off the duvet, instantly regretting it as the cold air pricked her skin. She had no time for a shower—not in this weather. She’d soak in hot water when she returned. Right now, she needed to get dressed and grab something to eat. No matter how rushed her mornings were, she never left without food. Frantically searching through her wardrobe for something warm yet decent, she had almost forgotten about the alarm clock—until it blared again. Startled, she jumped, hitting her head against the wardrobe door in the process. A sharp curse escaped her lips as she stormed over, yanked the alarm from the nightstand, and flung it across the room. The satisfying sound of it shattering momentarily soothed her irritation. Only then did she reach up and feel the growing bump on her forehead. “Great,” she muttered. Just another reason to be late. Twenty minutes later, Barbara stepped out of her front door, wrapped in three sweaters, a muffler, and two caps. She resembled a bundled-up potato but couldn’t care less. In one gloved hand, she clutched her juice pack, handbag—stuffed with last night’s leftovers—and a water bottle. In the other, she pressed an ice pack to her forehead, though two layers of caps separated it from her skin. She wasn’t about to let anything cold touch her bare flesh in this weather. Struggling to unlock the door of her rickety car, she finally managed to get in, tossing everything onto the passenger seat before collapsing into the driver’s seat. Her foster mother would have chastised her for such “unladylike” behavior, but Barbara couldn’t be bothered. Besides, the woman wasn’t here to see it. The drive to Dusk to Dawn Care Home took fifteen minutes—longer on snowy days, but thankfully, today wasn’t one of them. Old Lady Jenkins, as she affectionately called her car, started with little trouble, which was a pleasant surprise. Backing out of her parking space, she felt a small jerk, but the car steadied, and she was off. As she drove, memories crept in—memories of when this car had first arrived on her doorstep on her sixteenth birthday, nearly a year after her father’s passing. Even in death, he had found a way to send her a gift. He had arranged for the car to be delivered a year later, to a specific address. Though she had since changed residences, his best friend had tracked her down and ensured it reached her. It was the first time she had genuinely smiled since losing him. She had jumped around like a child, momentarily forgetting the sneer on her foster mother’s face. For a fleeting second, it felt like her dad was still there. Like he had never left. But the moment was short-lived. The second the delivery man walked away, her foster mother snatched the keys from her hands and tossed them to Michael, her eldest son. “We’ll let Michael drive this for now. That way, Mildred can have his car.” Barbara’s heart plummeted to her feet. The air caught in her throat. “Why can’t I at least get Michael’s car?” her naive sixteen-year-old self had asked. “Because Mildred is struggling with her health. You wouldn’t want her to keep taking the bus every morning, would you?” Mildred has mild asthma! Barbara had wanted to scream. But instead, she smiled and ran into the house, swallowing the injustice. That was the kind of girl she had been—silent, obedient, and ignored. Two years later, she finally got her car back. Two long years of watching Michael drive it while she took the bus or walked to school, crying silently through it all. She had always known she was being treated unfairly, but she had convinced herself she didn’t deserve anything from these people. A roof over her head, an education, and food—that was enough. The next thing she knew, she had arrived at the care home. After parking her car and gathering her belongings, she stepped into her second home in this city. Immediately, she made her way to her small office in the corner to unpack. “Okay!” she announced to the empty room, summoning her professional demeanor. She loved her job, but it often required her to mask her own pain with a smile. As she switched on the lights and prepared for the day, she braced herself for the emotional toll it would soon take. It wasn’t until she removed her caps and ran a hand through her thick, dark brown waves that she remembered the throbbing bump on her forehead. It had subsided slightly, thanks to the ice pack she had abandoned in the car. The heating system in the home was working perfectly, and Barbara finally felt comfortable after shedding her layers of sweaters and settling into jeans. As she stepped out of her office, she noticed a man sitting in the waiting room, a book resting in his hands. However, his gaze was fixed on the empty space before him. She tilted her head in confusion, wondering how she had missed him when she first arrived and who he was. “Um, excuse me, sir?” she asked tentatively, moving closer. When he didn’t respond, a flicker of unease ran through her. “Sir?” she repeated, standing beside him. Still, he didn’t acknowledge her, not even with a flicker of movement. “Excuse me!” she said more urgently, reaching out to tap his shoulder. It was a grave mistake. He seized her hand with lightning speed and flipped her across the room, the force of his action sending her crashing against the wall. A sharp groan escaped her lips as pain radiated through her body. Such a beautiful way to get introduced.