CHAPTER 6 : PROBATION

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Rays awakes early on Wednesday morning. Gary will be stopping over this evening to pick him up for a Bible study, but Ray has some things to deal with first. After he stops by the restroom, he shuffles into the kitchen to make breakfast.

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“Man, has this been a while,” he thinks to himself out loud.

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Though Ray had eventually become an inmate worker, his duties had varied only between washing dishes and doing laundry, so it has been a very long time since he’s cooked anything. He furrows his brow as he attempts to recall what the last thing that he cooked for himself even was. Soon, he realizes that he’s coming up empty, and can’t even remember what he ate the day of the…

He closes the refrigerator door and sets the carton on the counter. Soon, he’s got eggs sizzling in hot canola oil. Ray tests his spatula skills on the first one and bursts the yolk before he can even get the egg to flip. His level of success does not increase on his second attempt, so Ray sighs and begins to scramble the mess in the skillet.

Ray knows that he’ll have to check in at the probation office shortly. This will definitely be a common occurrence in his life over the next few years. However, Ray’s probation officer, Ms. Shields, seems like a nice and understanding lady. Still, Ray hasn’t talked to her too much, yet. He had met with her twice before being released, kind of to establish a relationship and to allow Ray to share his plans for after release with his probation officer. He knows there will be some sort of consistency to the check-ins, and that he’ll have to let her know if he has any encounters with law enforcement officers, but that’s not what’s he is concerned about.

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Ray never told her who had set up everything for him out here.

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Simply put, he’s not sure what she’ll think, and he’s still having a bit of a struggle with it himself. If he can’t even wrap his own mind completely around the situation, how can he share that information with someone who will be having such a large amount of authority over his life for years to come?

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Gary has been nothing but incredibly and overly nice to Ray and certainly seems genuine, but still…the fact remains, Ray is the one responsible for the death of Gary's wife.

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That cannot be changed. There is something in the back of Ray’s mind that simply will not disappear. Perhaps it’s his survival instinct warning him of danger. Perhaps it’s just doubt and guilt. Perhaps it’s the Devil. Who knows? With as encouraging and supportive and loving as Gary has been towards Ray for all the years that he was locked up, and now on “the outs” too, Ray cannot help but have a deep feeling of love towards Gary. The love is more than what is common between friends as well; more like the kind of love that brothers share, or even like a son’s love towards his father, but Ray doesn’t really have anything to compare it to anyway, so I don’t think that it fully registers for Ray.

Yet, despite the apparent sincerity of Gary, Ray still almost half expects the man to take him out into the woods and shoot him. Obviously that is a possibility, but it seems too foolish and unlikely for Ray to attempt to give it much thought. Yet, the thought lingers on the perimeter of Ray’s consciousness, and the fact that it will not leave makes Ray a little too uneasy with the whole situation.

Most likely, this is the reason that he hasn’t told Ms. Shields about the relationship that he has with Gary.

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What would she think?

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Well, there’s no more time to consider such thoughts now. The scrambled eggs are gone and Ray has to get to her office soon. He doesn’t want to screw it up the first day. Hopefully, it’ll go well. Ray has no intention of getting into any trouble, but he didn’t that night either.

Ray quickly washes the few dirty dishes he made and gets into the shower. This will be the first time that she has seen him in civilian clothing and he wants to make a good impression. It couldn’t hurt anyway.

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Once Ray arrives at the probation office he quickly finds the door belonging to Ms. Shields. He’s a little early, but there is no way that he wants to be late for this. Plus, he knew he’d need some extra time to find a parking spot downtown and then locate her office once he got inside the building. When they met before, she had came down to a private room in the prison. Thankfully, traffic was light, parking was plentiful, and the car Gary had bought him drove great.

Noticing that her door is left open about halfway, Ray decides to check in. He knocks gently.

“Come in.”

As Ray enters, Ms. Shields looks up and identifies her visitor with her preoccupied mind.

“Ah, Mr. Foster. Please, be seated.”

“Thank you,” Ray replies and then adds, “You can just call me Ray,” as he slides into the seat.

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Ms. Shields looks up again from her computer sternly.

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“I can also call you Mr. Foster, Ray, and so I shall. And you, Mr. Foster may refer to be as Ms. Shields; nothing more, and nothing less. Do you understand?”

Ray nods and wonders. He had always called her Ms. Shields and never protested her referring to him as Mr. Foster, but this seems out of character for her, and he begins to wonder what, if anything, is up with this lady.

“So, if you’re sticking to your plan, your friend should have already gotten you a place to stay and a job, correct?” Ms. Shields begins.

“Yes, M’am, er… Ms. Shields. I’ve got an apartment now and I can start the job on Monday,” Ray answers a little nervously.

“Why does such a simple thing suddenly have to become so hard?” Ray contemplates, suddenly becoming distracted in his thoughts. “How can I not just remember to call her Ms. Shields? It’s like the time that I met the new Warden and was instructed to only answer with ‘Yes, Sir’ and to avoid replying with 'Sure' at all costs. Suddenly, the only thing that I was capable of saying was 'sure!'"

“Mr. Foster?”

Ray has not been paying attention and Ms. Shields is attempting to continue the conversation. This doesn’t look very good on his part.

“Yes, Ma..Ms. Shields?” Again, really?

“Who exactly is this generous friend of yours? I do not believe that we ever discussed that.”

“Why did she have to phrase it like that?” Ray wonders. He’s incredibly nervous now and breathing deeply, quite out of character for him.

“Well, um… his name is Gary.”

Ms. Shields turned from her computer screen again and has not been fully concentrating on her guest. “Mr. Foster, are you doing alright?”

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Ray is gently shaking his head back and forth in response, but not yet verbalizing anything.

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“It’s complicated,” he starts, and then continues by sharing his entire side of the story with her. It’s as if a volcano of feelings, thoughts, and memories has just erupted in her office. Or perhaps like an avalanche of information, quickly burying the probation officer in more than a decade’s worth of the most peculiar relationship that she's ever heard of.

After almost twenty some minutes of Ray not holding anything back, he’s brought his side of the story full circle. Ray finally sighs, slumps backs in his chair and looks as relieved as a child who finally got that bathroom break on a cross country family vacation.

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Ms. Shields is still looking confused and dumbfounded. Her mouth has been left slightly open for a while now and her tongue is dry.

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It almost appears as if all the concern and weight that was resting upon Ray just a half hour ago has been dumped onto her, and she’s not exactly doing too well at attempting to process it all. Simply put, in all of her years of experience as a probation officer, she has never encountered a tale even remotely close to the one that Ray has just shared with her, and she lacks a frame of reference to even attempt to begin sorting through the large volume of strange information that Ray has just blasted her with.

Moments pass in sheer silence. You can hear a keyboard being frantically typed upon down the hall, even with the closed door to Ms. Shield’s office. Ray, for the moment, has nothing more to say, and is so relaxed and relieved, he doesn’t really notice that this silence should be considered very awkward. Ms. Shields is attempting to formulate a sentence, but she still has no clue where to begin.

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The clock ticks, Ms. Shields attempts to process, and Ray is looking around like a happy child riding in the back seat of a car on the way to the circus.

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Indeed, Ray has not been this carefree in years.

Eventually Ms. Shields snaps out of it and in her most official voice states, “Well Mr. Foster, that all sounds very good. You will need to stop back next Wednesday morning at 9 am. Also, you are required to notify me if you have any Police contact. Thank you; you may go now.”

“You’re welcome, Ms. Shields,” Ray easily rolls her “proper name” off his tongue now and rises, turning towards the door.

“That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” Ray reasons and exits the room.

Ms. Shields, however, looks even worse than before, and is actually pale and a little faint.

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The End of Chapter 6

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TO READ THE PREVIOUS CHAPTERS, CLICK BELOW:

• CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

• CHAPTER 2: THE FUNERAL

• CHAPTER 3: MONDAY, & FREEDOM

• CHAPTER 4: TUESDAY

• CHAPTER 5: INTERROGATION

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Thank you, and stay tuned for LOVE LIKE HIS : Chapter 7 - Coming soon to a steemit near you

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