CHAPTER TWELVE Helen The sprinklers on the lawn are on. I stay away from the window because I know who and what I would see if I look out. Julie sits on a stool in my kitchen staring at the garden in the back yard. I walk into the kitchen and pour some juice into her glass. She takes a sip of the drink and munches her pancake. "It tastes so good," she says, nodding with her mouth stuffed. With a smile, I take my plate of pancakes and the rest of the juice and walk to a table in the living room, urging her to follow me. She sits opposite me at the table with bar stools. With the way I called her, she must have felt something was wrong with me. Truly, something had been. Everything had been wrong till David came over last night. As I take a bite of my pancake, I wonder if I should tell Julie about last night— about Philip, about David. She might not grasp what was going on within me. Her eyes float to the window and then back to me. She points at the window. "So that's my brother wor

FOURTEEN Helen The chauffeur David hired came a little late. He is a young white man with a chubby body and full beards covering the sides of his face. David handed him the keys to his black sedan without probing him about his lateness then he opened the car door for me to step in. He is in a black shawl lapel tux without a bowtie, leaving his first two buttons open. He seemed to be aiming at casually handsome and he looked like he achieved it. I didn't know how much I loved to see beards on a man till David started growing out his beard which he also shaved to a low even carving around his face. I am wearing the brown strapless gown we had dismissed at first, with my chest nut brown hair which is packed into a pony tail with a few loose curls falling over my face. I look 'brownish'. The gown has a few ropes at the back, but my back is almost as good as bare so whenever David's hands lightly stays there, I feel all exposed to him. He has always been the one with more control, this t

CHAPTER SIXTEENMy phone pings inside my bag. It's from Julie, her usual dancing sticker. I reply with one of my best stickers, sticking out a tongue, then I push back the phone into my bag as I look around the restaurant. There's a queue of people waiting to buy coffee. I was in that queue five minutes ago, drained my first cup of coffee and now I'm tempted to step into line for a second one. I need it to stay pumped with all the meetings I have lined up today, both physical and online meetings. I have always thought of hiring an assistant, but I have never gone through with it. Without knowing it, Philip had actually filled in for that role in the past and now that he's no more. Not like he's dead, just never going to work with me anymore— I now appreciate the things he did, but no regrets. I don't know if Julie would like to take up the offer. I don't trust strangers to handle my personal business effectively. The agent I'm here to meet is not yet here, and a cloud of doubt is beg