He was thinking of the best way to get the yappy females out of the room when he heard that annoying ringing tone from her sister.
"Hi, mom. Oh, you are here? I thought you were coming in tomorrow. Just hang on, okay? I am coming to get you."
"Your mom is here." Thomas blurted it out anxiously as the thought formed in his mind.
"With my dad," Toria said emphatically.
She turned to Reyona before Thomas could say anything. "They were so glad when they heard that you were awake that they couldn't wait another moment. Mum couldn't stand your unconscious state and we had to persuade her to go back. Dad went with her."
"And now they would come back to see my legs in splints," Reyona said with a grimace.
"Silly. They would see you alive. I am sure they are over the moon right now. I will get them. Maxwell can give me a ride."
"Like a son-in-law going to welcome his in-laws," Thomas spat out.
Toria turned to him with her eyebrows raised. "How about it, Tom? Would you like to come instead? I am sure they would love to see you."
He glared at her as he said, "I would stay with my wife."
"Yeah, that is what I thought," Toria said as he kissed Reyona's forehead and to Celia, she said, "You got this?"
"Absolutely. I have Athena here with me, you know. Nothing can get past this one."
"That is right," Toria said with a laugh as she practically skipped out of the room.
Thomas could hear her calling out Maxwell's name down the hall.
If they got here, his problem would double; he needed to do something.
"You look a bit hot there, Mr. Lanoth. Do you need some water?" The small woman's voice made Thomas turn towards her.
Water! Yes, if he sent her to get the water for him, then he could...
As Thomas heard the sound of a car starting outside, he said,
"Yes, I need water. Can you please get it for me?"
The woman smiled and said, "Yes, why not?" Then she simply reached over to the small device with a button close to Reyona.
She pressed it and said, "I need a glass of... no, make that a jar of very cold water, please."
She leapt back in her chair and said, "It would be here soon."
"Here soon. They would all be here soon and things would only get worse," Thomas thought as he looked back towards Reyona, whose eyes were closed on the bed.
He wondered if she had contracted a sleeping sickness while bashing her brains out.
This was supposed to be his chance to talk to her!
Thomas looked back at the woman, who now had her gaze back on her baby as if he did not matter.
He needed to do something.
He needed to do it before they got back.
He needed to do it now!
His gaze landed on the baby.
********
"Please don't do this to me. You can't do this to me. This is not fair!" Ruth Lanoth declared in a pitiful voice as she waved the crinkling paper in her hand.
The Quit Notice written on the letter was bold enough for anyone standing close to see.
When Ruth noticed that her neighbours were stylishly coming out to the porches of their bungalows to see what was going on, she adjusted her stance, lowered her voice, and pleaded with the agent, who stood with a stoic expression on his face.
"Tell Theodore that he can't just do this to us. My husband first leased this place from his father before him. I have also been renewing the lease with Theodore. He just can't do this to me now!"
"Well, I sympathise with you, ma'am, but it is no news that your lease expired two months ago. I think Mr. Sawyer has been very generous with you. No other person on this land has had that privilege. Now you have overused that privilege, ma'am. It is time to go."
"You know what? I will call him myself. I will explain things to him." Ruth patted her short, animal-print boubou as if looking for her phone.
Her hand came away sticky from something on her cloth.
The agent looked at her with a show of distaste on his face and adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses as he said, "That would be a waste of time, ma'am. This land and all the buildings on it no longer belong to the Sawyer family. It belongs to a new owner now."
Ruth, who was about to enter the house in search of her phone, quickly turned back in shock. "Theodore sold my house?"
"It is his to sell, ma'am. He asked me to do you the favour of giving you three days to leave. I have done my job. If I were you, I would start moving right now. I am not sure the new owner would be as generous as Mr Sawyer."
The man turned to leave and Ruth almost faceplanted as she rushed down the porch steps to grab him.
As it was, she grabbed him with the sticky hand.
The man recoiled in disgust and shrugged her hand off. "Ma'am, get your sticky hands off my coat," he shouted, loud enough for people whose houses were way down the street to hear him.
Ruth hung her head in shame as she quickly wiped her hand on her cloth. "I am sorry. I am so sorry. Just please tell me this: Am I the only one given this quit notice or everyone on the land?"
Instead of answering the question directly, the man said, "You are the only one owing."
With that, he crammed his long frame into his Toyota and drove away as "Good Life" music streamed out of his car. Some boys playing football in front of their house down the street sang and jiggled to the song and let out raucous laughter as the man drove away.
Laughter was the last thing on Ruth Lanoth's mind as she watched the messenger of doom leave.
She turned to go back inside and her eyes caught those of the man sitting on the front porch of the bungalow to her left.
"What are you looking at?! Seen enough?" She snarled at the man.
"Nothing to see," the man said as he started fanning his face with his raffia fan.
"Cliff, I don't want any trouble!" A woman's voice called through the opened door of the man's house.
"Mary darling. I did nothing. A man has the right to sit in front of his own house in peace," the man said innocently.
"Idiot," Ruth muttered as she stalked towards her own door.
She entered in a huff and sank against the door in defeat. "Oh my God," she mumbled.
In truth, Ruth was tempted to ask Cliff if he had heard anything about the new ownership of their houses.
A few months ago, she could have easily asked without an issue but then things changed.
Since Thomas had told Ruth that his plan of many years had finally succeeded and he was moving to Luxembourg, from where he would become part of the elites of society and send for his mother in grand style, Ruth had decided that her neighbours and old friends who had no lofty dreams of becoming more in life were now less than her.
She decided that interacting with them would only taint her new status in life.
The mahjong they gather to play from time to time in each other's houses suddenly became the game of the poor for Ruth.
She got some help from her son and started dressing in certain ways.
The money Thomas gave her to use until he came for her was used to get a membership in an elite book club where she could start rubbing shoulders with the elite of the society that she would be a part of one day.
When she couldn't get into the most exclusive ones, she settled for the second most exclusive and started mimicking the mannerisms of the people there.
Ruth started talking in certain ways.
She started walking in certain ways and avoiding every neighbourhood event she was invited to.
After all, she would soon leave all of them behind and have no intention of looking back anytime soon.
Then the Thomas disaster happened.