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Everyone had soon cleared out of the sitting area of the kitchen. Everyone but Daryl and Isabella - Ginger had left to go see Carl and keep him company. While everyone else disbursed to go and finish what they were doing before Isabella had called them in for lunch. "No big plans?" Isabella asked, looking up and blowing fallen hair out of her face as she washed everyone's dishes. "I was told I was on bed rest for a few days." Daryl responded. His eyes trained on the table under his hands. Noticing carved into the old oak wood was carved, 'Isabella B. Scott '96.'
"I was 10 when I did that. My uncle was so pissed when he found it that night." Isabella chuckled, noticing where Daryl's eyes were trained. Daryl nodded his head, avoiding her eyes and hardly noticing when she left the room. A few short seconds later the woman came back with a torn and beaten book in her hands. "Read much?" Isabella asked Daryl, making him shrug his shoulders looking at the book she was holding out to him. "For whom the Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemmingway.
The man took the book from her hands making her smile proudly. "What's it about?" He asked gazing down at the cover of the old book. "The spanish war. This young american boy volunteers to a unit and is given the task of blowing up a bridge in the attack on Segovia. It really is interesting. I think you might like it." She encouraged, sitting at the table across from him. "I'm not great at reading." The man mumbled, tossing the book onto the table making Isabella take it in her hands.
"Come on." she coaxed, standing up and placing her hand on his shoulder softly, feeling his muscles tense under her. Daryl stood up quietly and followed behind the woman until they reached the porch. Daryl settled down beside her on the porch swing, as he overlooked the fields of wheat and green grass around them. "What are we doing out here?" Daryl asked, rubbing his hands on his pants almost nervous. "We're reading - so listen." She muttered.
"He lay flat on the brown, pine-needle floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees..." The woman read as Daryl's eyes fell on the bright blue sky. The sky was free of clouds and the sun was lighting up the beautiful land they were on. The birds flying through the sky, finally appreciating a sky free of planes and pollution.
Daryl liked the sound of her voice. Most of the time he would shrug someone off for even suggesting to do something like this with him. Telling them to leave him alone and going off to be alone. But she, she was different. There was something about her reading these words out loud that made the man relax, using his legs to rock the swing back and forth slowly. Isabella brought her legs up underneath her, shocking Daryl when she used his good side as a back rest. He looked down to her, realizing that she didn't even think twice about what she was doing as she kept reading on. It was a few moments later when she had stopped reading, and leaned her head back to look at the man.
Her brown eyes reminding Daryl of the coffee he had drank just this morning. Light brown in the centre, like cream dancing around in the dark liquid to give it a smooth texture. Daryl felt as though his own were seemingly nothing compared to hers. "How are you liking it so far?" Isabella asked, a smile lingering as she did so.
"It's good." He muttered. "Come on, let's hear some more." He motioned his hand towards the book making Isabella chuckle and continue reading the next chapter. But Daryl would never admit that he wasn't fully paying attention. No, instead he was too focused on the sound of her voice, a soft as silk - and the fact that someone as gorgeous as her was pressed up against his side. He was too focused on enjoying her presence, the smallest bit of affection tying over his undying crave for something normal in his life.
For thirty years Daryl had longer for the touch of a woman who wasn't drunk and couldn't see straight. He felt content and relaxed for the first time in his life since his mother died. Maybe it was the fact that Isabella was a mother herself. Only 24 and beating the odds of anyone who had a child when they were only nineteen. Not even playing into the fact that the world that they had known only a few months prior had ended. No matter what it was, Daryl knew that Isabella was different. He knew that no matter what was thrown at her, the people she loved would always come first.
Every day since Daryl and the others had arrived, Isabella would call them in for lunch despite her Uncles protests. Whenever one of the woman seemed even the slightest bit cold, she would offer them a sweater. Daryl knew, that much like a lioness Isabella took to her cubs - if they were hers or not. The sound of the screen door slamming shut made Isabella stop reading, and Daryl to stop moving the porch swing.
In front of the two adults was Ginger. Tears pooling out of her eyes, the same eyes as her mothers. "Whats wrong munchkin?" Daryl asked, leaning forward and opening his arms to the girl. Ginger ran into Daryl's arms, allowing him to life her into his lap as she cried into his shirt. "Uncle Hershal said, that I have to say bye to you soon! Where are you going Daryl? I don't want you to go!" Ginger cried as Daryl cradled the girl into his chest humming along as she talked. "Sometimes Munchkin, things are hard to explain. But we all have to go when Carl get's better. Things will be what they were before we got here." Daryl whispered, Isabella looking at the two with her mouth hanging open.
The woman slammed the book down onto the small side table and marched inside. She found her uncle sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a glass of water and reading a passage from his old bible.
"You do not get to tell Ginger things when you know full well I haven't discussed them with her!" Isabella yelled, slamming her hand down onto the table. Hershal placed his glass onto the table and looked up to his niece unamused. "She needed to know, she needed to know that these 'friends' she has made won't be here forever." The man said, emphasizing the word friends as he spoke.
"That is not your job! I'm her mother and it is my job to protect her and save her heart from things like this. It is not your job and never will be to break things to her with what? Tough love? You sound so much like my mother right now it's disgusting." Isabella seethed, making Hershal close his bible and stand up.
"Last I checked. I took the two of you in. Not your mother, not Rick. Me." The man shot back making Isabella laugh. "Well we won't be a problem here anymore. Thank you for the amazing sacrifice you have made for us but we will be leaving as soon as Carl is better." Isabella replied, turning away from the man and walking back towards the front door.
"If you leave with the group Isabella Beatrice, you will never be allowed back in this house again." The words he spoke, he almost instantly regretted. But Hershal was too proud to take them back now.
