She was the new office girl in charge of order fulfillment. Blond with reddish highlights. A dye job but a good one. In her forties it would turn out but a forties that would make most women jealous. She always smelled like strawberry hand sanitizer.
We just clicked. She'd only been there two days before we were texting after work. Jokes and cat memes at first but soon we took lunch together, then a few dinners. I always left those smiling and starving. Tears in my eyes from the pangs of hunger twisting up my guts.
Audry was like a ray of sunshine. I never smiled more than when she'd call me out of the blue to chat about her day. We didn't have days off together very often so she'd check in on her breaks. I would sit there and listen as she vented about the ordering department screwing up yet another file. Munching on the odd roach that would scurry by. It was on one of our rare days off together that she called in sobbing.
She told me her mother had had a stroke and she had to leave right away. It was a six hour drive. I told her I would be right there, pick her up in my car. She grew silent. You ever watch recordings of bombs going off, like the nuclear test site footage? Remember how quiet it gets right before the bomb explodes? That's what her silence was like. I waited, she took a breath, then the boom. She needed me to watch her baby.
