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gas money ran out.
     

     
    Jordan 
     
    I didn’t get to see her after the Reverend took her back inside. I knew it was likely that I’d never see her again, certainly not to talk to. She’d have been warned off me by now.
    I didn’t blame the Rev—I wouldn’t want a guy like me spending time with my daughter either.
    I heard her car start. I’d have recognized that engine sound anywhere—Pontiac Firebird—one of the last of that model. It was a damn fine car. I’d spent several minutes checking it out when I arrived this morning. It seemed like an usual car for a woman to drive. Most around here went for compact Japanese cars that were easy on fuel.
    But not this woman. She was different.
    I figured she was going to her job at the diner. Now that I knew she truly hadn’t known who I was, I questioned even more why she’d followed me with that coffee. She’d said I was cute. Maybe she’d been hitting on me, and I’d been too dumb to see it? Well, it wouldn’t happen again, not after her nice little talk with her momma.
    I tried to put all thoughts of the preacher’s daughter out of my head and concentrate on bringing the yard back from the wilderness.
    I finished the lawns then contemplated what needed doing next. It was a long list.
    I started working on the rear section of the Reverend’s yard, hacking back the brambles and rambling roses that had taken over the corner by the property line. I really needed work-gloves for a job like this, since both my hands and my arms were getting cut to pieces. But I didn’t really mind; the pain felt good.
    In prison, a lot of guys had cut. No one talked about it much, but we all knew it went on. I guess it relieved some of the pent up feelings. I thought about trying it once, but the anger and guilt were all I had left of myself, so if I lost those, there’d be nothing. That was a scary thought.
    As I’d gotten toward the end of my sentence—my second sentence—I’d been assigned more of the sought after jobs, like working in the prison garden. It felt good to be outside, working with the sun on my back. I mean, yeah, we were allowed to exercise outside, but really working, growing something, it felt more meaningful.
    I guessed the Rev wasn’t much for tending God’s garden because the place had gone wild. I wondered how long she’d lived here. There sure hadn’t been any lady-preacher when I was growing up. So I figured maybe three or four years: long enough that people paid mind to her, and recent enough that she was still an outsider. Although that might have been because she was a woman preacher and a Yankee. It didn’t take much to make you an outsider around here.
    I worked until the sun was getting lower and a breeze was cooling the sweat on my skin. There was no one around for me to tell I was leaving, and this was no nine to fiver where I needed to punch a clock, so I just packed up and drove home. Dad and Momma had gone out, so I showered, ate my meal in a silent kitchen, and slept in a silent bed. I couldn’t even hear my parents talking to each other when they came in later.
    You know the phrase ‘the silence was deafening’? It sounds like horse shit, right? But in prison it was never silent; there’d be people yelling and doors banging, and a thousand and one different noises echoing from the walls. Even at night, you’d hear people moaning and crying—all those nightmares from the combined crimes of two thousand inmates.
    But here at night—no sounds. No one talked; no one cried out. Unless it was me, and I wasn’t aware. I’d asked Momma if I could sleep in the family room and have the TV on the first night. Dad replied that it was a waste of electricity. It was three nights before I managed to sleep more than a couple of hours, and that was from sheer exhaustion. I’d lie awake, straining to hear the small sounds of the house settling at night, occasionally the hoarse bark of a dog fox, or the whine of a skeeter buzzing around.