Day Twenty-Eight: Courage – Part VI

Did you miss Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV or Part V?

Edgemont nights were quiet and predictable. Mr. Turner always closed the barber shop at 4:30 in the afternoon so that he’d have time to stop by Lynn’s Deli to get meat for supper before she shut her place down at five. The one grocery store in town locked its doors promptly at 8:00 pm and the only place remotely in operation after nine was the police station which also doubled as the fire station. Bart Stiller had the dubious honor of being the Edgemont Fire and Police Chief, and he usually headed home around ten-thirty. He’d stay just long enough to finish up the paperwork or to make sure the police car and fire engine were ready for the next day. It was not an arduous task, especially since neither had seen emergency use in a number of years. That, however, is what made Edgemont so nice. It was quiet and predictable, and the residents liked it that way. Maybe that’s why they didn’t take too kindly to Billy. He was anything but quiet and predictable.

Billy put down the TV dinner and sat back in the easy chair. It was going on nine and his mother still wasn’t home. The plant had been closed well over an hour and he was starting to worry. He went through all the places that she could have been, calling them and asking if she had been there. Nobody in Edgemont had seen her since she’d left the textile plant at 5:40 pm. She had called Billy at five, worked an extra 40 minutes of overtime, and then what? Where had she been the last three hours? More importantly, where was she now?

Tomorrow: Courage – Part VII

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