Island life never much suited him to start with, but he sure as hell did like going back to the south. Sobered by living too many damn lives for too long, the events of the time with Dharma weighing heavy on everything he did, he found himself a little place in the back roads of Alabama. Foreclosure -- he wasn't stupid -- and he got the house and the acreage and the scraggly livestock: sheep, goats, the odd cow. And then, only because Oceanic and Ajira gave him more damn money than he knew what to do with, he let the old lady whose family owned the place for a couple hundred years stay there until the day she passed. He hadn't been ready to settle down anyhow.
When her kids came by to collect her stuff, their you don't know how much this has meant to us, Mr. Ford rolling right off his shoulders like rain off a freshly-waxed Mercedes-Benz, the place was finally his. He'd never owned a house a day in his life although he'd lived in too damn many of them, and the first thing he did with this one -- after the cleaners were gone and the place was as spotless as a centuries-old farmhouse could be -- was lock the door on it and head down to the Caribbean for a spell. Place wasn't gonna feel right until he had it furnished island-style after all.
***
Legal fees were nothing trivial. Legal fees after breaking the terms of parole were even less trivial. Hiring the best lawyers, setting the scene for a sympathetic judge: those things all took money but what was the price of freedom? The answer to that question was all of it. Freedom cost everything, but it was so worth it. A motorcycle, a change of clothes, some hair dye, and a stack of brand-new bibles was all it took and the day she finally left California a free woman with a new identity, the breeze in her hair, the little remaining cash in her pocket, she wasn't worried. It was time to move on.
She took the southern route, intent on not unloading any of the bibles until she hit the actual Bible Belt. If she'd made it as far as Ray's farm in Australia without a penny to her name she could make it across this country the same way and she did, taking her time, weaving in and out of mountains and canyons, corn fields and ranches. The bike finally gave out on her somewhere in the wilds of Alabama and as if fate had it planned this way all along, she almost wasn't even surprised at who opened the door when she knocked.
***
"Heard you disappeared, Freckles." Old habits: the nickname slipped out, speaking to a different time and place, but he had no regrets about it.
"And I heard you bought the farm, James. I didn't think they meant it literally." Looking out at the setting sun from a pair of rocking chairs on the porch, sipping mint juleps, was both ridiculous and a comfort. "I feel like I stepped into the pages of a Flannery O'Connor story. You really live here?"
His outrage was all pretense; he laughed down into his bourbon. "Ain't nothin' wrong with Flannery O'Connor, woman. She's the quintessential southern author. She would've had a damn field day with our story."
Kate's nose wrinkled, a moment of self-effacement. "Quintessential. Did you just say quintessential?" Her laugh rang out over the rolling fields, attracting the sheepdog's attention. "I have a confession to make: I never read any Flannery O'Connor."
The words well hell, woman, come check out my library died on his tongue in favor of something a lot simpler, a lot less filled with innuendo, but a hell of a lot more enticing. "You just say the words I Never?" The smile was all in his eyes, every damn bit of it.
no subject
When her kids came by to collect her stuff, their you don't know how much this has meant to us, Mr. Ford rolling right off his shoulders like rain off a freshly-waxed Mercedes-Benz, the place was finally his. He'd never owned a house a day in his life although he'd lived in too damn many of them, and the first thing he did with this one -- after the cleaners were gone and the place was as spotless as a centuries-old farmhouse could be -- was lock the door on it and head down to the Caribbean for a spell. Place wasn't gonna feel right until he had it furnished island-style after all.
***
Legal fees were nothing trivial. Legal fees after breaking the terms of parole were even less trivial. Hiring the best lawyers, setting the scene for a sympathetic judge: those things all took money but what was the price of freedom? The answer to that question was all of it. Freedom cost everything, but it was so worth it. A motorcycle, a change of clothes, some hair dye, and a stack of brand-new bibles was all it took and the day she finally left California a free woman with a new identity, the breeze in her hair, the little remaining cash in her pocket, she wasn't worried. It was time to move on.
She took the southern route, intent on not unloading any of the bibles until she hit the actual Bible Belt. If she'd made it as far as Ray's farm in Australia without a penny to her name she could make it across this country the same way and she did, taking her time, weaving in and out of mountains and canyons, corn fields and ranches. The bike finally gave out on her somewhere in the wilds of Alabama and as if fate had it planned this way all along, she almost wasn't even surprised at who opened the door when she knocked.
***
"Heard you disappeared, Freckles." Old habits: the nickname slipped out, speaking to a different time and place, but he had no regrets about it.
"And I heard you bought the farm, James. I didn't think they meant it literally." Looking out at the setting sun from a pair of rocking chairs on the porch, sipping mint juleps, was both ridiculous and a comfort. "I feel like I stepped into the pages of a Flannery O'Connor story. You really live here?"
His outrage was all pretense; he laughed down into his bourbon. "Ain't nothin' wrong with Flannery O'Connor, woman. She's the quintessential southern author. She would've had a damn field day with our story."
Kate's nose wrinkled, a moment of self-effacement. "Quintessential. Did you just say quintessential?" Her laugh rang out over the rolling fields, attracting the sheepdog's attention. "I have a confession to make: I never read any Flannery O'Connor."
The words well hell, woman, come check out my library died on his tongue in favor of something a lot simpler, a lot less filled with innuendo, but a hell of a lot more enticing. "You just say the words I Never?" The smile was all in his eyes, every damn bit of it.
(The game lasted three years.)