by Sabre, Mason
WATCH OVER YOU
Mason Sabre
Watch Over You
Mason Sabre
This book is a work of fiction. All characters in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Author: Mason Sabre
Cover Design and Art: Mason Sabre.
Cover image: Shutterstock
Copyright © 2014 by Mason Sabre. All rights reserved, including the right to publish this book or portions thereof (except for reviews, news media reports, brief quotes with attribution, and purposes of promotion of this book or other novels by Mason Sabre) in any form whatsoever.
Written permission may be obtained from the author.
ISBN-13: 978-0983588603
ISBN-10: 0983588600
www.masonsabre.com
[email protected]
https://www.facebook.com/msabre3
DedicationTo Tony just for being you and to Cynthia for giving me the confidence to do this and not leave yet another story sitting on my hard drive.
Thank you also to Cynthia for the endless hours of editing this for me.
Thank you to Terrie for your help too.
Without both of you I wouldn’t have been able to release this.
Thank you to baby Mycah for making an early appearance in the world.
Chapter One
Tara loved the seat by the window the most – the one in her favourite coffee shop. This one was different. In her usual coffee shop, the seat gave the illusion that the coffee house wasn’t in the city centre. One window overlooked the busy high street, and the other, where Tara liked to sit, gave view to the park. She could fool herself that she was out in the country where it was peaceful and quiet and life seemed to slow down to a nice, easy pace.
She and her husband, Eric, would drive out to the city on Saturday mornings. They’d sit in the coffee shop, which doubled as a bookshop, eat breakfast and chat. It was their time together, away from work and the endless renovations on their house. It was away from everything. In that coffee shop, sitting together, the rest of the world could vanish and it was just her and Eric. Now, the seat opposite only held the vague memory of him. The table between the chairs held one mug and one plate. Tara’s life held a hole that could never be filled again. Eric was dead.
She could never understand why he had died. Why him? He was good. Everything about him was - even down to the bugs that came into the house. He never hurt them. It didn’t make sense. Not then, three years ago, and certainly not now. The guilt still burned inside her; like a sickness that wouldn’t die. She had been driving and their car had crashed. He wasn’t even old - older than Tara by six years, but that was nothing. She faced her thirty-fifth birthday alone - not that she cared about that either. If she had her own way, she’d forget about it altogether. It was just another day, another year, another endless moment that Eric wasn’t a part of. She had frozen at age thirty two - when she had killed him.
Her friends had long since given up on her; it had been too long for them. It was almost three years to the day, but to Tara, it felt like yesterday. She watched the people in this new coffee shop, laughing and joking. She watched how they talked with their hands, absorbed in their own little worlds and no idea of everything around them. She watched the ways their faces lit up when they nodded in understanding to whatever their companion said. She watched as they frowned, disagreed, and some, just sat there in silence. She listened to conversations that to her, seemed pointless. She couldn’t understand why people wasted their time on petty things. She wondered what the point in many things was now. She didn’t have a purpose any longer. The coffee house was the one indulgence she gave herself; it felt like Eric was there with her.
She picked up her mug and wrapped her hands around it, allowing the heat to permeate through the ceramics and into her cold hands. This was the first time she had ventured away from where she and Eric went. She tried to calm the unease that was threatening to creep inside. It’s just a coffee shop. She wasn’t doing anything wrong, she reassured herself, but it didn’t feel that way. It felt as if she was betraying something.
After Eric’s funeral, everyone had wanted to go back to her house for the wake, to celebrate his life and mark his death. Tara wanted them all to get lost and go back to their business and leave her to hers. She didn’t talk to any of them. They left, and she didn’t say goodbye. She wondered why. Would that be the day they forgot about him? Pretended he never existed to begin with? He’d given so much in his life, even though it was only short. Not just to her, but to others too. He spent so many evenings working with the homeless. Sometimes she resented it, but he was always ready to help those less fortunate than himself. Many of those he had helped turned up at his funeral and that had touched her more than any member of her family had. He had touched so many lives; his death didn’t make sense.
She had never been to this coffee shop before. It was at the other side of the city. Her usual one closed for the end of season. Tourists go home as the summer slowly becomes winter. The place she and Eric went closed for refurbishment. She had tried to tell herself one coffee shop is as good as the other; they were all part of a franchise and looked exactly the same inside. Even the seats were in the same spot. If there were no windows, who would know it was a different place?
Sometimes she pondered the idea of trying somewhere else. People always thought it best to move on. Sometimes she worried they were right. Letting go of their place would be a way of doing that, but she could never do it. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye to him yet. She wasn’t sure she ever would be. As she stared at the empty seat, she imagined he had nipped to the men’s room rather than not come with her. If she closed her eyes, he would be back any moment and his death would be nothing more than a distant nightmare. God, if she could make that true. She’d give anything to be able to do that.
Tara glanced around the coffee shop. It was nice and if she was honest with herself, the same, but yet it seemed cleaner and updated. This one was in a busier place, closer to the actual crammed part of the city. Ironic really. She felt calmer. Something about it was easier. Maybe it was herself - she didn’t know.
She placed her mug down and traded it for the book that she was reading. Paranormal trash, her best friend would say to her, but Tara didn’t care. It was an escape for her and it passed time. Today, though, her mind kept wandering from it. She couldn’t keep her focus. She lost count of how many times she suddenly woke and found her attention had slipped to staring out of the window and everyone who walked by. Before she knew it, another ten minutes had passed. Even the end of her latte had grown cold; she scrunched up her face as she discovered that by taking a gulp. Another wouldn’t hurt, she figured. It wasn’t that she had anything else to do. She leant back, stretched her arms out and yawned before standing to take her mug to the counter to order a second.
A couple of women were standing in front of her and another woman in front of them. The woman was middle-aged and formal looking. She wasn’t dressed for business; more like middle class grandmother. Tara liked to watch people and make up stories in her head about them; what they did when they got home. Who was there waiting? It started as something years ago to pass time when she worked on a checkout in a supermarket. Now it was just an amusing habit.
“I’ll have a hot chocolate with cream,” the woman said to the girl behind the counter. “And put two on park.”
Park? Tara wasn’t really paying that much attention until the woman paid and the two women in front of her got to the counter, as well as ordering their own coffees, they also paid for this park thing - five between them both. That was seven. Did they plan on taking up seats for the day with a constant flow
of hot beverages?
The girl behind the counter wrote the women’s orders on the side of their cups, but then she took another seven paper take-out cups and wrote ‘P’ on them. Tara studied the menu board. It even said it there. ‘On park’ and then a price. Had she really paid so little attention or was it possibly an order in this shop only?
She chewed it around in her mind as she ordered her own coffee, but she didn’t dare ask or dare order one. Knowing her luck, she’d get some vile coffee made from the dregs that would either make her vomit or come out with some horrid affliction. Maybe if she asked, she’d sound like an idiot. Those village folk coming into the cities and pretending they know what they are doing. Get out of the rat race if they had any sense about them. In the end, Tara didn’t ask what park was. She got her coffee from the other side when it was ready and went back to her seat and book.
She observed the two women from where she sat; they drank their coffees, laughed and chatted. Then she laughed at herself. What am I doing? She picked up her book and tried in vain to read it, but her eyes had other ideas and kept looking at the women, wandering off in idle curiosity back to them.
They finished their coffee, picked up their bags and pulled on their coats. They waved goodbye to the girl behind the counter. Perhaps the coffees were for later? Like a secret in credit thing. The woman who was by herself was like Tara, only reading a magazine, her hot chocolate finished. Would that be Tara in another ten years? By herself, alone, sipping coffees and reading? The thought scared her. She didn’t want to be alone, but she didn’t want anyone else either. No one other than Eric was right.
She tried to dismiss her musings; she was going to read this chapter if it killed her, but it wasn’t working. The more words she read, the more confused she got about what was happening on the pages. She was reading words, nothing more.
People came and went. She strained her ears each time they ordered, listening for the word ‘park’. Two customers ordered them and the girl did the same as before and added them to a pile at the back.
It was as she was trying to devise ideas for what it meant and what they were going to do with those cups that a man walked in. He looked tired and unshaven as he stayed by the door as if surveying and, for a moment, Tara wondered if he was going to come in. There was something in the way he looked. His eyes - they were tired too, but even from where she sat, she could see a shade of blue that made her stare. He even seemed to be staring at her, but then appeared to catch himself before walking over to the counter.
Tara's insides somersaulted and even that was out of the ordinary for her; any kind of reaction to anything was out of the ordinary. Since Eric, Tara didn’t feel much for anyone. This feeling was making her curious. He looked like a beggar - not in his face, but his clothes seemed to suggest it. They were baggy and dirty, yet functional, she noted. The pockets were torn and there were the odd rips where the padding was showing. Tara imagined he’d selected them for the sensibility of them, rather than a fashion statement. She noticed his boots - ankle boots - had his jeans tucked into them. Eric used to do that. It often made her chuckle, but he liked to cycle everywhere.
He stood patiently at the counter. The sudden realisation that she was being intrusive made Tara fidget in her seat, but she couldn’t help it. There was a bookshelf next to the counter. Tara hadn’t paid it much attention when she was paying at the counter. It overflowed with books and he browsed it as he waited for the girl to finish serving another customer. When the girl saw him, she beamed, her face breaking into a wide smile. “Hey, Devan,” she heard her say.
The man, Devan, took a book from the top shelf and stuffed it under his arm. Tara couldn’t see his face now or see if the greeting was reciprocated with as much enthusiasm. “Are there any on park today?” he asked.
“There are two. Do you want one? The usual?”
His shoulders seemed to relax then, the tension visibly easing out of them.. “I’d love one, please. How are things?”
As Devan and the coffee girl exchanged pleasantries, Tara turned the page in her book and read the first line - three times. She was intrigued by the exchange, especially as he had ordered a park and then didn’t pay. He rubbed his hands together as if they were cold.
“Go sit down,” she said to him. “I’ll bring it over in a second. Do you want a sandwich too? Some soup?”
Devan accepted and thanked the girl. He gave her something that didn’t look like money. It was green and small, and the girl dropped it in a jar on the counter at the back. Then he turned. Tara flushed as his eyes swept over to her and their gazes met briefly. He looked away quickly and focused his attention on the opposite side of the coffee house. Was he trying to be as far away as possible? It was simple moves, but despite that, it made Tara feel an odd sense of paranoia. The only available table was two seats over and rather than watch him, Tara tried to read her book again, but she couldn’t keep her mind focused. Her eyes kept lifting and staring. Unlike the women earlier, Devan noticed. He looked uncomfortable and Tara feared he would select the seat that put his back to her.
Instead, he sat in the seat that faced her and opened his book. After she had continued to stare at him for about a minute or so, he looked up as if unable to help himself any longer. “Is everything okay?” he asked her.
Startled, she sat upright. “I…er...” She took a breath and tried to calm herself. She had gone from slouching to alert in seconds. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare. I was just…” she didn’t know what words to use. “What does it mean about coffee on park?”
He smiled then. Perhaps he feared she would ask something else. Maybe it was just that he was used to being treated badly. She didn’t know, but she was glad of the smile, and she smiled back. Despite his shabby appearance, his smile was warm and inviting. “It’s what people pay for. For people like me.”
“Like you?” she wondered what that meant, and the question left her mouth before she had chance to think. She cringed as she said it.
“On cold days like today, it isn’t easy to get a warm drink. People pay to park them for the homeless, or even the poor. They come here for a hot drink. Sometimes, something to eat.”
“You’re homeless?” she asked, forgetting herself. She realised she had been rude when his face changed to hurt and then he went back to his book without answering her.
She wanted to ask him more questions; they were there in her mind, dancing around to annoy her, but his head was down, and he didn’t pay her any more attention. With a sigh, she decided to leave it alone. Maybe it was time for her to go home. She thought to apologise, but instead she put her book in her bag, stood and pulled on her coat.
As she went to leave, she glanced over to Devan and then the girl from the till who gave him his coffee and walked to pick up an empty mug from by the door. Tara couldn’t leave without buying the next person a coffee. What if tomorrow there were none left?
“Excuse me,” she said to the girl. “She took her purse from her bag. She didn’t have much herself, but at least she was warm. She pulled out a twenty and offered it to the girl. “Can I put this towards the park thing? For food, or coffee, or whatever?”
“Of course,” the girl said and took it. “It’ll be much appreciated. More than you know.”
She didn’t know if she should, but she knew if she didn’t ask, she’d regret it. “That man over there,” she whispered.
“Devan?”
“Yes. He’s homeless?” The girl’s expression changed at that, just as his had before. Was it really such a bad question? “I’m just curious, I didn’t mean any harm,” Tara added before all the walls crashed down on her.
“He came here looking for his sister three years ago; he’s been homeless ever since I’ve known him. He helps people. Fills in forms and things like that.”
“He hasn’t found her?”
“Not my place to say,” she said.
“He helps people?”
“It keeps him busy,”
she said. “He comes here, sits with forms and books and god knows what else. Every street kid he finds, he gets them into a home or somewhere safe, even if it’s just one night. When he is offered something himself, he asks How can I have warmth when children are outside? He gives his spot away every time. He used to work with this guy; I guess that’s how it got started. The guy helped him look for his sister and together they helped others.”
“What happened to the guy?” Tara asked. Some part of her was afraid of the answer.
“He died, not long after I started here. Car accident.” Tara thought she saw the girl’s eyes well up, but she blinked it away. “He got me this job. Without Eric or Devan, I don’t know where I’d be today.” The girl looked over to Devan and then back to Tara. “Thank you for the twenty,” she said and walked away.
Tara couldn’t help but look to where he sat, but all she saw was an empty seat, with a mug and an upturned book. He was gone.
* * *
Devan couldn’t stop the beating of his own damn heart as he slid around the back of the coffee shop when she wasn’t looking. She was so damn close. He could feel her. She was exactly the same, but she had no idea who he was. He had cursed when he’d seen there were no other seats except the one close to her. He didn’t want to be that close to her. He’d thought about taking the seat and not facing her, but he couldn’t. Then he’d spoken. He’d wanted to slap his own hand over his mouth at that moment, and when she had spoken back and he’d heard her voice, he thought he was going to break for sure. He’d tripped over his words, and then she had asked the questions he didn’t want to answer, and he had ignored at her. He saw the hurt in her face, but that didn’t stop her stealing a glance at him when she thought he didn’t see.
When she left, he was so tempted to run after her and tell her who he was. She could help and fix everything. He could feel the sadness radiating off her for her husband. It followed her around like some dark shadow with its claws deeply embedded into her shoulders. He had the answers that she needed, and maybe they would ease her pain a little. Maybe they would ease his too.
