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Oh God! She was such a fool. She talked about actions and reactions and consequences every day. She force-fed the story to her students every chance she got. Now she was suffering her own set of consequences. She worked herself to pure exhaustion so she could simply fall into bed once she made it home.

The only person complaining had been Eliza, but even she seemed to understand.

Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, Kacie Jo heard a bell ring, but she couldn’t force her eyes to open. She wanted to stay in this peaceful silence a few more minutes. If that stupid bell would quit ringing, maybe she’d get some real rest.

After a few seconds, the bell finally did stop and she smiled at the quiet moment. At least she smiled until a hand shook her shoulder and a voice sounded from far away. “Kacie Jo, wake up. Kacie Jo are you okay?”

“What?” Kacie Jo’s head shot up from the table and she looked around to see where she was.

For a few disoriented seconds she thought she was back home, but then she saw she was still in the lounge, her water bottle and uneaten lunch sitting on the table. The new math teacher, Kacie Jo couldn’t remember her name for the life of her, stood there looking concerned.

“Are you okay?” she asked again.

 
Kacie Jo blinked once, then twice and shook her head. Oh yeah, Louise. The teacher’s name was Louise Fairbanks and she liked to dye her hair different colors every three months, and she hated high school football, and Kacie Jo bet a million dollars the board wasn’t cutting her classes next year.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so.” As she spoke the words, Kacie Jo couldn’t be sure. Her throat dried up and her mouth tasted the way burnt paper smelled.

Louise didn’t look convinced. “Your class asked me to check on you. They’re working on their essays, and they figured you’d be there in a minute, but they asked if I’d make sure.”

“Oh crap!” Kacie Jo shoved her lunch into the bag and tossed the bag into the trash. “I slept right through the stupid bell. What was I thinking?"

Louise stood in the doorway, an unsure frown on her face. “I can watch your kids for a few minutes if you need me to, or I can see if a sub can cover if you need to go home.”

Kacie Jo shook her head, embarrassed. Home was the last place she needed to go. Work, work was her salvation.
 

“No. I’ll be fine.” But even as she said the words, she worried. Judging by the look on the new teacher's face she wasn't the only one unsure.

Donovan slammed the tequila shot, embracing its citrusy burn, then ordered another from the bartender. His only friend.

“José, my man, why don’t you hand me the whole dang bottle. Don’t bother with the lime. I’ll drink it straight.”

The bartender did as he asked with a silent frown and Donovan slid a wrinkled US $100 bill toward the man and poured himself another round.

José looked around the room as if expecting someone to take the bill away. The someone scooped the money away and frowned with consternation and concern.

The someone was José’s wife, Carlita. “If you’re wanting to get yourself killed, I can think of some better ways to make it happen,” she said in a tone that told him she was serious.

Donovan paused before downing the third shot. Suicide hadn’t been his intent, but maybe the lady was on to something.

Carlita and José had ushered him to his room on three occasions this week already. Not a problem since the bar and hotel were the same establishment, and he seemed to be the only occupant these days.
 

Out of all the places in the world he could’ve run to, he’d chosen Juarez, Mexico. Drug wars, gang fights, the missing person capitol of the universe. The place more reporters died than any other.

But he wasn’t a reporter any more. He wasn’t searching for a story. Or righting a wrong. He was Donovan Nelson. A sorry assed excuse for a human being.
 

He gulped the next shot and set the bottle down on the bar as the room’s edges finally started to soften, as his nerves loosened. The tightrope feeling of barely hanging on became something a little more elastic.
 

Through the static on the TV screen above José’s head, Donovan could make out the images of a soccer game. News reports ran across the bottom of the screen. Something about a drone accident in Afghanistan caught his attention and everything he’d run from barreled back across his mind. Anaj’s forgiving eyes blended into Kacie Jo’s welcoming arms, and he threw the shot glass across the room where it shattered. He started to drink directly from the bottle instead, but before he could, José’s wife Carlita was there her hand on his, stopping him.

Carlita’s size made him think of a mama chihuahua, but her ferocity was more pitbull. “You want to make a mess, you go to your room. Drown your sorrows, chase your demons, do whatever it is you need to do. But you don’t do it here.”

Guilt hit Donovan at her words, and he let her take the bottle. Tried to make amends.

“I’m sorry, Carlita. Get me the broom. I’ll clean it up. Hell, get me the mop and I’ll scrub the whole place.” He reached for his wallet, pulled out two more hundreds, tried to hand them to her. “Take this. It ought to make up for the mess.”

She pushed his hand away and nodded toward José before sitting across from him. The two seemed to have one of those silent conversations that meant something bad for the person not in on the story. Once upon a time Donovan had been an expert silent convo decipherer. His boss said he was better at figuring out what hadn’t been said than any other reporter on the front lines. Back when there were front lines.
 

Donovan tightened his hand on the edge of the bar and he told himself not to lose it. Not yet.
 

Thankfully, Carlita’s voice anchored him in the present. “You want to be throwing money away, you ought to make it count for something other than a hangover. I know just the thing to help you.”

Behind them José told Carlita to leave him alone, to let him drink his misery away, but Carlita refused.
 

“You owe me for this last week of hauling you up to your room like an old drunk. Come on. We’re going.”

Curiosity warred with a desire to lose himself in the haze of alcohol induced apathy. Curiosity won. He saluted toward the grumbling José, then squinted his eyes as he followed Carlita walked out into the sunlight and into the alley behind the bar.
 

He halfway expected to get jumped, but no one seemed surprised by the sight of a disheveled, half drunk man following the slightly round, middle aged, dress-wearing Carlita Sanchez. She carried a flyswatter in one hand and a large stick in the other. He figured both were for him if he got out of line.

“Miss Carlita, you want to tell me where we’re going?”

“No,” she said and kept on walking.

Interesting. He followed her around a corner and down another alley, past dogs and men sitting on door stoops and kids running around in bare feet and ragged clothes. The scene felt eerily familiar, and Donovan wished he’d grabbed the bottle to bring with because the tightrope in his chest was back.

And then they were standing in front of a ramshackle house that looked much like the other ramshackle houses on the street. Except this one had been added onto more than once and not to any building code specification. A handful of kids were playing in the dirt packed yard and he could see the brown sandaled feet of a woman as she hung sheets on a line to dry.

“My sister Maria could use your help. You work days, you drink nights. No complaints from me or José unless you turn destructive. You do that, we call the police. Got it?”

Panic sliced through him. “Carlita, I’m not....”

She pushed him forward without waiting to hear his refusal.
 

“Maria, I brought you someone.”

The woman who peered around the sheet met his eyes and frowned. Her silver hair and
 
deeply lined face spoke of a long, hard life. But her smile spoke of peace made with the road she’d chosen. At least it did until she deciphered her sister’s intent. Maria didn’t hide her frown as she looked him up and down and found him wanting.

She clipped the sheet to the line, brushed her hands on a red floral dress, then walked forward to meet him and, he figured, to tell her sister she was crazy.

Instead she clasped his hand in hers and spoke in Spanish so fast he almost couldn’t keep up.

“Thank God you are here. Our fence is down and the guard warned me if I didn’t fix it, I would have to send the babies away. They have nowhere to go. You are a lifesaver.”

Funny.

Donovan knew he resembled a drunk bum and smelled like one too, but the woman speaking to him treated him like a Messiah. As her hand enveloped his, something in him shifted.

“I don’t work with kids,” he said. He’d do whatever she needed, but she had to understand. He didn’t trust himself to be around children. Not now. Not since...he pushed the memories away.

She waved away his words. “Not to worry. They’ll be back in school when you fix our fence.”

He turned to Carlita. “I work days and drink nights. That’s our deal, right?”

Carlita held out her hand. “Deal.”

Definitely doable.

A few hours later the heat of the Juarez sun beat down on Donovan’s head. He pulled a nail from a coffee can and focused on not hammering his thumb as he attempted to construct a new fence around old posts still standing.

So far he’d discovered Maria ran an orphanage for neighborhood children. It started with one child and nightly meals, turned into meals and place to sleep, then the child brought another and another. Now twenty children from five to fourteen lived in the house with Maria. She fed them, clothed them, sent them to school, gave them a safer place than the streets.
 

A week ago someone had knocked down the fence around her property and now a government official wanted the fence up or the the youngest of the children gone. The official left the name of the company Maria should use to construct the fence with his warning. On the surface it looked like a concerned man keeping children safe. In reality, the official took kickbacks from the company and did who knew what with the children. Government corruption at its finest. He burned to write about it. Force the people back home to see the disaster these children teetered on the edge of daily. But he knew the truth. The people back home didn’t care and his stories wouldn’t change anything, and so he’d just nail one post after another after another until the damn fence was done. And he’d go back to the hotel at nights and drink away the uselessness of it all.

He wiped a bit of salty sweat from his eyes and started to hammer again but a voice stopped him. “You’re doing it wrong.”

The little girl was maybe seven and she seemed to be the leader of a small group of even younger children, one of whom kept his thumb in his mouth as he stared at Donovan like he was some sort of devil.

“I probably am,” he acknowledged with a sigh.

“If you don’t hold the nail straight it will bend when you hit it, and then it won’t go in right and it will rip our clothes like this.” She held out her what used to be white Madonna t-shirt to show him the long rip across the bottom.

“You should come play with us instead,” she said.
 

Donovan searched the yard for salvation, but it was empty except for the chickens running around in the dirt and the sheets blowing in the wind. No kids. He’d made that clear.
 

He forced his voice to stay steady. “I’ve got to get this fence up or....”

The little girl put her finger to her lips and looked at the four smaller children behind her as if to tell him he was an idiot for speaking.

“You could play soccer with us first.”

Donovan wiped the sweat off his forehead and squinted at the girl.

“How about I finish the fence then we’ll see.”

She sighed and turned back to the others. “I told you,” she said and led them away. They followed, but the thumbsucker stared back at him as they moved across the yard. Relief flooded him as they slunk away from him.

A few minutes later a heavy thunk, thunk, thunk interrupted his work. He searched for the sound and found the source of the thunk. All five kids attempting to play soccer with a ridiculously flat ball. Geez.

He tried to ignore their solemn looks and continued hammering nails, making sure they were even with the wood so they wouldn’t catch on the kids’ clothes or skin.
 

The flat ball rolled toward him and the little girl ran over to get it.

“We’re not supposed to talk to you. I guess you’re a bad man.”

Truth.
 

Donovan tried a glower and kept hammering.

“You must not be too bad or Tia Carlita wouldn’t have brought you to us. She told Maria you’re a haunted soul. You need to see the curandero. She’ll put an egg under your bed and bless you and you’ll be better. Then you can play soccer with us. They might take Manuel away tomorrow. They found his father under the bridge last week.” She pointed to where the youngest of the bunch stood watching them, his thumb back in his mouth.

Donovan wiped sweat from his eyes. He’d heard about the bridge. The men found there were more body parts than bodies. No telling what they’d done to get on the wrong side of the cartels.