Counting Sheep

Chapter 26

"You can sit down, if you'd like." She offered and Charlene quirked up a sassy brow. "I can stand and help you," She chuckled and moved to stand next to Layla as she grabbed a lemon from the fruit dish sitting atop the counter, moving as though she had been in the house before and known it true at heart. Layla smiled, turning on the stove.

"Would you like any cream?" She asked and Charlene shook her head.

"No, sugar and lemon is fine with me." Charlene continued to slice up the lemon while Layla let herself sit for a moment, feet aching and worry a heavy weight on her shoulders as she wondered where Julian was, what he was doing and if he was alright.

"How do you do it?" Layla asked, the words escaping her lips before she had even realized she thought them.

Charlene turned towards her as she finished, setting the small pairing knife down on the cutting board next to the slices of sour yellow fruit. She knew what Layla was talking about instantly and without question. She sighed and smiled a soft sad smile.

"I grew up in a very catholic household. If you told me in my teens that my husband would one day be working for the mafia, I wouldn't believe you, let alone let myself marry a man like that if I did find later on that it was true. But, I love Dave. I love him with every piece of my heart and soul and I would be lost without him. He is my heart."

Layla chewed nervously on her lower lip. "H-how...how did he get into working with them?" Asked Layla, wondering silently if asking it was wrong.

Even if it was Charlene spoke again anyways. "I told you about how I am unable to have children.  We tried many different things, but none of them worked. We tried adoption, but we were declined. We didn't have the money to go to a really good fertility clinic, so we went to a "back alley" clinic, as some would say. Even though it would cost us money, it wouldn't cost us even a half of what it would cost if we went to one of the fertility clinics we wanted to go to originally, only to find we didn't have the money.

So we found this one and as I said, even though it would cost us money it wouldn't cost as much as the other. The clinic we went to just happened to be owned by the mafia. They had a surrogate picked out for us-chosen specifically to our needs and wants, by doctors who were supposedly at the top of the line. We had the money, too, and it wasn't too long before our surrogate was pregnant." Charlene smiled sadly.

"Dave and I were thrilled. We picked a theme for a nursery. We picked out baby names, but little did we know that our surrogate was addicted to drugs. Seven months into the pregnancy, she miscarried the baby, but the mafia still wanted us to pay. As far as they were concerned, they had done their part of the deal whether we thought it or not. They wanted the money and well..." Charlene's face flushed as she fiddled with her fingers.

Layla's heart sank.

"We...we had planned to leave town with the baby as soon as she was born and go somewhere where nobody could ever find us and then we would live on," Charlene sighed and shook her head. "But things never go as planned in life...do they?"

Layla's eyes burned.

No... She thought. They most certainly do not.

Charlene continued. "So, Dave and I planned to hurry up and leave town anyways but as we were packing the men arrived and they beat Dave badly. Tied me up. When we told them we didn't have the money, they told us we had a debt to pay off and if we didn't pay it off in some way, they would pay it forwards with blood. So, that is when they offered Dave a position of a cleaner. He will work off the debt for the rest of his life, until the day he dies. Then...the debt will fall to me."