“G-good morning boss…” Orlando murmured as he fell to the ground after accidentally crashing into Jack.
“Morning to you too, Orlando. You’re very early… Are you going to the lumberyard?”
“Yes, sir, I am,” replied the blond young man as he took the hand that Jack offered him.
“You’re kind of distracted today… Is everything okay?”
“Oh… Yes, sir. Just too excited to start my new job. I hope I do well. And I really appreciate the chance you’ve offered me!” Orly remarked excitedly, with a big, bright smile.
The young fledgling looked nervous but full of hope and the younger male Schneider was quite impressed with his new hire’s enthusiasm.
“Last night when I found you near my parent’s house, you told me that you had been looking for a job for quite a while, right?” Jack asked as he began to walk with Orlando right beside him.
Now that Jack knew that they were going to the same place, it was, in a way, good for him, since it would help him focus. After all, going all the way by himself was something he was very much willing to exchange for a conversation with anybody at this point. Even if it is with this new guy who seems to be bothered about something.
The lumberyard boss also noticed that Orlando had big black circles around his eyes. The eager applicant was fit, even slightly muscular, but looked a bit too pale to be considered healthy.
“Hey, did you have breakfast already?” Jack inquired, adding to his previous question. “And where do you live?”
“Uh… no, I usually don’t have breakfast when I go out in the morning. I live beyond Mendez, actually… Pretty much in the middle between this town and the next one towards the East. And yes, that’s correct, Sir. It was really hard to find a job without experience or… Well, living far from everything… But that’s why I’m so thankful that Boss Max helped me to get this one.”
A fog of sadness suddenly passed in front of his face. However, as soon as Jack noticed it, every vestige of it was gone and the rookie kid was smiling once more.
“Well, I guess there’s some merit to him pointing you towards us. But let me remind you, recommendation or not, I would have probably hired you based on your own merits. And you can and will keep this job if you do your best. That being said, I suggest you don’t idolize him that much and give some credit to yourself, alright? You must value what you can do… unless you stalk people’s houses,” Jack quickly added as an afterthought. ‘That’s not right, no matter how desperate you are, okay?”
“Yes, sir,” was Orlando’s humble statement, despite his thoughts being a bit unsure of agreeing.
After all, Jack didn’t know how desperate the youngest and newest member of his workforce was…
And he was VERY desperate!
Most kids his age were thinking of getting money to see the world outside their small village, while others wanted to earn so they could fulfil their spoiled girlfriends’ demands or their own more expensive cravings.
But in Orlando’s case, it was none of those things…
“You know what, man? If you prefer, you can live at the campsite. We have enough space there. You could sleep a bit more instead of walking this much to get to work on time.”
“Oh, no no… I really can’t move out of my house right now,” the younger man hastily answered, clearly without any second thoughts about it.
As if it was forbidden and was an idea that was too outrageous to even consider…
Orlando even jumped a little upon hearing Jack’s suggestion. The more they walked, and the more silence deepened between them, the faces of two beloved little girls became clearer within the inner parts of Lando’s mind.
+++
“Nana, please, open the door!”
There was a screaming voice right outside their door. It was late at night. This unknown person calling for his mother, Adriana, who the neighbors usually called by the pet name, Nana, had awakened Orlando.
Back then, he was just 17 years old.
He got up to go and open the door. However, when he got to the living room, his mom sped past him and then opened the door as if she knew that something was terribly wrong.
“Nana, something terrible happened,” the female neighbor told her.
“Lando, please take good care of your sisters while I’m gone, okay?” she ordered while putting on a jacket, shawl and the first pair of her shoes that she could find, ready to go with their neighbour, who was pale as a ghost as she waited for his mom to join her. “I’ll be back soon, my son,”
She looked back only once, and when she did, the only thing he could do to answer her was to nod sleepily. Orlando was still half-asleep as he wondered if what was happening was a nightmare or something similar to it.
“Christine and Carol will be fine, Mom,” he replied. “Please take care, wherever you’re going,” Orlando added a bit later to the closed door and the empty space surrounding him.
He then carefully walked into his younger sisters’ room.
“What happened, brother?” One little girl asked as she looked up to him as soon as the bedroom door creaked open.
Christine, or Christy, as he liked to call her, was barely eight years old and was the older of his two younger stepsisters. Meanwhile, Carol was five then. And even if she was a bit spoiled and still much a baby, Orlando still loved her very much. Actually, he adored them both. However, he saw the younger as much softer and needed more protection than Christy. Maybe because she was slightly older, and had been the one to always care for their younger sister.
And his mom was now pregnant again because of her new husband, and the strapping teen was very eager to have new siblings after his own father died. Admittedly, his mom’s new spouse was a good man and Lando had learned to call him ‘Dad’ as well.
“They came to get Mom. She’ll be back soon. Don’t worry about it, ok? Just go back to sleep,” he suggested with a soft, comforting smile to try to reassure her as much as himself.
As Lando felt his consciousness awakening, he started to remember that they had waited for their dad’s return that evening. When he didn’t arrive after an hour, their mom smiled at them, got up to reheat their dinner and then they started eating.
“Mommy, where is daddy?” Carol asked with a cute pout.
“He probably had some extra work to do, baby. Don’t worry about it. When you wake up tomorrow, you’ll see him then for sure,” was their mother’s response. Afterwards, they continued eating in silence.
It was very unusual to have dinner without him, especially when he used to insist so much that dinner was family time. After they finished, Nana sent them to sleep, telling them that it was already late and that everything was okay.
But then, that weird call in the middle of the night…
“Please… let everything be ok… please…” Orlando murmured, sitting on the sofa and wrapping himself with the small wool blanket that they had for when they watched movies together.
For the next hour, he stayed awake, hoping and praying that nothing bad had happened to his parents. But there was that weird pain in the pit of his stomach that didn’t let him sleep.
One hour passed, then two, then five. He got up and prepared an easy breakfast for him and his sisters and they sat to eat, in the same uncomfortable silence that they had eaten in the night before.
“Where mommy, Aldo?” Carol asked the question that neither of the older kids could come up with an answer for.
“I don’t know, little sis… I’m sure they’ll come back soon, so don’t worry, please,” he replied, once again. And it’s not just for his sisters this time.
Some more hours passed, and then the phone rang…
“Hello? Oh, aunt! Mom is not here n~”
“Orlando, your mom and her husband are at the hospital… I’m sorry for not calling until now, but many things have happened… There was an accident at his work, and when she got there, she couldn’t be stopped… She got too close and… Both of them are fighting for their lives now, so…”
The phone slipped from his ear as he continued to stand wordlessly in that spot for a few minutes. But Orlando knew that he had to be strong for his two young sisters who were sitting behind him at the dining table.
A call after a few hours confirmed his worst fear… Their parents didn’t make it.
One of their aunts arrived and took care of them for a while. But then she insisted that they should go with her because the place where they lived was in the middle of nowhere. Orlando refused.
“This is the only place my sisters know,” he said with tears in his eyes and a knot in his throat. “They have no mom and no dad. I can’t take them from their few friends… Or from the little that they already know, auntie…”
That was enough to convince their aunt. Sadly, she couldn’t stay much longer.
Another auntie came, stayed for a while and then left as well after about a month. They seemed to be taking turns, at least until he finished middle school. That was when they told him that they couldn’t keep staying there, but that they would try to help them still.
They did help… But things got from bad to worse when the epidemic attacked the district. And not only that but a couple more tragedies came along, while they still were out of reach.
Their far-off neighbors tried to help them as well. However, Orlando knew that he had to get a job… and fast!
“At least I can do that, mom… I will do as I promised,” he decided, but he found out it was really hard to do so… Until Max found him desperate to work on anything at all…
And he agreed as long as he would earn something – ANYTHING – from it!
“Hey, kid… is everything okay?” Jack asked, getting worried as his companion suddenly looked more and more melancholic as they got nearer the lumber camp.
“Oh, sorry. Yes, sir, everything is fine,” was Orlando’s swift answer, as he kept looking away and absentmindedly walking beside his employer. “Everything will be fine, now.”