Excerpt from “The Restoration Man,” by John Michael Emory continued...
“The world’s best, I know,” he said in a twangy accent, rich in Tennessee heritage. “But mister—and no disrespect intended—the good Lord has seen fit to bless me with more work than I can handle. Consequently, I only have a select group of people that I deal with, business owners and such, and don’t have time to fix everythin’ that falls on my doorstep.” It was a polished speech. He brought a cigarette to his lips, ashes long and bending at the end, and took a drag. “Sorry I can’t help ya,” he finished, then began closing the door.
“Wait, please,” I implored. “I think you’ll find this matter most urgent.” Afraid to reveal all of her wounds at once (or—just in case!—to show him that I was only a little bit wrenched rather than a lot), I exposed only Bernadette’s lower right arm, nearly severed at the elbow. “As you can see, the damage here is a bit… peculiar.”
A drop of blood pooled in the cleft of her elbow, then rolled down and fell to the “Welcome” mat.
That sudden widening of his eyes told me right then and there that Bernadette—or rather what she was becoming—was not a hallucination. It was the single most alleviating moment in my entire life. In less than one second, an enormous weight ascended effortlessly from my chest—the same poundage that Jack Daniels had been trying to lift for months but could never even budge.
I could have kissed him—would have kissed him had the cranny been a few inches wider.
He closed the door, hurriedly unlatched the chains, opened it again, peeked out, glanced either direction down the hallway, then furtively waved me in, as if I were a spy coming in from the cold.
