Free How Loveta Got Her Baby by Nicholas Ruddock Page A

Ferris.”
    â€œIt’s been ten years, she says.”
    â€œTen years, that’s a long time.”
    â€œIt’s a long time but still she cries.”
    â€œClyde’d be some mad, if he heard us talk like this.”
    â€œThat’s true.”
    â€œHe’s got a heart of gold.”
    â€œThat’s for sure.”
    â€œHe knew she was a widow, he’d work for free.”
    â€œClyde would do that. That’s like Clyde.”
    â€œSo we keep it secret. We say, Clyde, don’t you go talk to this old lady. She lost her mind years back, she tells lies.”
    â€œShe tells lies?”
    â€œNot only does she tell lies, but she poisons food with rat poison.”
    â€œRat poison?”
    â€œNot only does she poison food with rat poison, she got fleas inside.”
    â€œInside what?”
    â€œInside the house. She got ten cats.”
    â€œWhy would you go tell Clyde that?”
    â€œYou know Clyde, say she invites him in, cup of tea. He’d go in, he’d listen, he’d get nothing done. It’s for Clyde’s own good, we keep him in the dark.”
    â€œYou’re right. Why the fleas?”
    â€œFleas is for sure when you got ten cats.”
    â€œMathematics.”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œFirst day then, we leave Clyde, we get back, what’s he done?”
    â€œHe got the ground-floor windowsills scraped down. Perfect smooth. Nothing else.”
    â€œAll day, two windowsills.”
    â€œThat’s why Clyde works by the job, not by the hour.”
    â€œThat’s it.”
    â€œFirst week on the job it’s nothing but scraping down. Clyde and the paint chisel.”
    â€œLadder training too.”
    â€œYou ever seen a bucket of paint come down?”
    â€œWhat do you mean, come down?”
    â€œI mean a bucket of paint from the top of the ladder. It’s sitting there and then Clyde makes the wrong move and there’s a bucket of trim, purple trim, turning over and over in the air.”
    â€œI seen that once but it wasn’t Clyde.”
    â€œThe paint, the trim, you got to watch out.”
    â€œI can see that. Strong wind, the purple trim flies out of the can like it’s caught in one of them pinwheels.”
    â€œThen it hits the ground.”
    â€œBoom.”
    â€œMrs. Ferris then, you hope she’s got one of them diseases of the eyes.”
    â€œCataracts.”
    â€œThat’ll do. She wears them google glasses.”
    â€œThat’s it, that’s what you hope.”
    â€œSo out she steps from the door and she says, what was that bang I heard?”
    â€œOh that bang, dear? That’s nothing, the truck door got took by the wind, is all.”
    â€œMeantime the paint’s up to your knees and all over the side of the house.”
    â€œSorry, Mrs. Ferris, sorry.”
    â€œWho says that? Me?”
    â€œNo, that’s what we hear Clyde shouting, from up high. I can hear him now.”
    â€œAnd she’d say, sorry for what, young man?”
    â€œThat’s when we’d say, real fast, we’d talk soft so Clyde couldn’t hear, we’d say, the boy up on the ladder, Mrs. Ferris, he said he’s sorry to see the condition of the roof.”
    â€œThe roof? What’s wrong with the roof?”
    â€œIt’s got holes in it, for the water to get in, Mrs. Ferris. Storm damage from the ice and snow. Common thing here. Shame what it does. It needs fixing.”
    â€œMy my, she might say, I don’t know, I don’t know.”
    â€œThat’s right, that’s what she’d say.”
    â€œHard to take bad news, you’re that old.”
    â€œThey get used to it.”
    â€œFor another four thousand dollars, Mrs. Ferris, that’s a roof we fix up watertight. Mr. Ferris, he’s alive, he’d roll in his grave, he could see that leaky roof over your head. You being a widow. There there, don’t snuffle. Clyde,