Mabe's Burden

Mabe’s Burden

Book One

Saving Shenanigans Series

By

Kelly Abell

This is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as
real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations,
or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © Kelly Abell 2013

Licensing Notes

All rights reserved. No part of this
book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied
in articles and reviews.

Cover: Select-O-Grafix, LLC.

Editor: Laura Garland

Acknowledgements

A series like this never comes together
without the assistance of a great many people. I’d like to thank my
dear friends who live in Monticello, FL for the idea to set this
series in this charming little town. Their help with detail was
invaluable and any mistakes are purely my own.

I’d like to give a special thanks to my
editor. Laura, you made this book the best it can be. And on a
short deadline! For that, I’m forever grateful.

There were many people who helped with
the beta reading, researching and the shaping of this novel into
what it is today. My thanks to Frank, Patty, Pat, Sandy, Marianne,
Gloria, Linda, Dawn, Nancy, Dianne and Marsha, you all are the
BEST.

I wouldn’t be able to spend the time
spinning these tales for you, my wonderful readers, if it weren’t
for the undying and loving support of my husband and two children.
Thank you for all those hours you continually sacrifice to allow me
to pursue my dream of writing. I love you!

Chapter One

A ray of sunshine warmed Mabe’s eyelids
as she stretched her long, thin frame under the sheets. She sighed,
still keeping her eyes closed. It was going to be a busy day at
Shenanigan’s because it was the first day of the playoffs and the
Rays were playing the Sox. The pub would be packed to capacity by
the time the game was aired at 2:00. She threw one arm over her
forehead, mentally checking off all her to do items for the
morning. Rolling over, she eased one eye open just enough to peer
at her iPod on the iHome deck. It read 9:00 am. Shit, she’d
overslept.

Throwing back the sheets,
she swung her legs to the floor, stood and stretched again. Her
back was sore from moving cases around in the beer cooler the day
before.
Damn Paul.
Her Irish temper sparked.
Thinks he
can take the day off when he knew full well he had a beer delivery?
Nobody at Shenanigans crosses me and gets away with it.
She smiled, planning exactly what she would say to
him.
Let him run to Daddy, try to get
sympathy. We’ll see who comes out on top! Ha!

She shuffled to the bathroom, wearing
only a tank with a pair of cotton pajama shorts. Summer in Florida
could be brutal, but this morning, her room was blissfully cool
thanks to the new AC unit she’d had installed for the house. That
had set her and her dad back a pretty penny, but in a house as old
as this one, she had to expect things like that. Thinking of Shane
as she went to the bathroom, she groaned. “I’ll bet he didn’t get
to bed until three,” she moaned. “I’ll never get him up this
morning.”

After flushing the toilet, she grabbed
her toothbrush. Maybe she’d just let him stay in bed today. Knowing
he’d tied on one the night before, he would be hung over and mean
this morning. It was probably best just to let him sleep the day
away. Even with the crowd at Shenanigans, he wouldn’t be much help
anyway. Most days he spent all of his time behind the bar consuming
more than he poured.

She sighed. She’d been the only sister
who’d chosen to stay behind to deal with their father. He’d always
been a drunk, but after their mother died, he’d slid into a
depression that only Mabe had been able to cope with. She was the
youngest of three girls and the apple of her da’s eye. Maybe that
was why she could reason with him when the older two
failed.

Still shuffling, she made her way into
the hallway glancing toward her father’s room. His door stood open,
where she paused a moment, listening for his snores. Not hearing
them, she peered into the room. The bed hadn’t been slept
in.

“
Oh great,” she moaned.
“Da!” She listened for his reply as she made her way down the
stairs. The house was large, but not so large he couldn’t hear her.
“Da!”

On her way down the stairs, she
glimpsed each of the senior portraits of the O’Banyon sisters
mounted on the wall. Mara was the first and the prettiest. The
oldest sister, she was the only blonde of the three. Where that
hair color had come from had always been a source of irritation to
her father. In a drunken rage, he’d often referred to her as “the
bastardess”, a term that hurt Mara tremendously. She wondered how
her oldest sister faired in New York, if she was even still there.
When she’d stormed out over twelve years ago, Mabe had been certain
she’d never see her again. She’d heard through one of the patrons
at the pub Mara was now an executive chef in some hoity-toity
bistro in Manhattan.

The second portrait was of Meg, the
middle child. She was a dark Celt like their mother, but had the
pale freckled face of her father. Her blue eyes and radiant smile
shown from the portrait as if she harbored some inner secret. She
was the only one Mabe had heard from over the past ten years. While
she never revealed her whereabouts, at least Mabe knew she was
alive. An email would arrive about three times a year.

She never really knew why her middle
sister had taken off at the age of seventeen, but she was sure it
had something to do with their father. He was the root of most of
the discontent in her family. Meg was the sister she’d been closest
to. Only twenty months apart, they’d played together most of her
childhood, and it had devastated her when she’d
disappeared.

The final portrait belonged to Mabe.
She grimaced. She’d always hated the portrait. Her fiery red hair
could never be completely tamed. She’d tried to straighten it that
day for the picture, but the Florida humidity had won out. It stuck
out around her head in a mass of curls. Her green eyes looked flat
compared to the way her sisters’ blue eyes sparkled. No amount of
makeup could cover the freckles she so despised on her pale face.
She was what her father had called “red Irish”, and she should be
proud as punch.

She huffed at the memory. Not only had
she gotten stuck with a terrible name, but she’d also had to suffer
all the jokes belayed upon redheads with freckles. Mabe was short
for Mabel, after her grandmother. Why the last-born had to be stuck
with a family name, she couldn’t have answered, but it was a burden
she’d born for years. As a teen, she’d thought about changing her
name, but forgot about it as the years went on. Dealing with her
mother’s death along with her father’s drunkenness had taken
precedence.

“
Da!” Mabe called again as
she hopped off the bottom step, turning down the hall toward the
kitchen.

A sudden bolt of panic shot through her
as she spotted the refrigerator door standing wide open in the
kitchen. She ran the rest of the way, sliding around the center
island. Lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood was her
father.

“
Da!” She knelt next to him,
her knees slipping in the puddle surrounding his head. A large gash
scored the back of his scalp. His face was deathly pale. She wasn’t
sure he was breathing. She laid her ear next to his mouth and
thought she felt a slight movement of air, but she couldn’t be
sure.

“
Da, wake up.” She shook his
shoulders. She shrank back at the coldness of his bare chest. “Oh
God, be merciful,” she moaned. She reached for his wrist, feeling
for a pulse. There was one, but it was terribly faint. She
struggled to gain her footing on the slippery floor and dove for
the phone on the counter. She punched in 911, shaking her other
hand impatiently while she waited for the operator to
answer.

“
Nine one one, what is your
emergency?” A tinny voice answered.

“
I’m Mabe O’Banyon. My
father’s fallen, and I can’t rouse him. We’re at 410 Washington
Street in Monticello. Can you send an ambulance quickly
please?”

“
Is he breathing?” the
operator asked.

“
I think so, but it’s slow,
and his pulse is nearly nonexistent. Please hurry.”

She knelt by her father
again
. What will I do if he dies? I can’t
run Shenanigans by myself.
She squeezed her
eyes closed.
How am I supposed to find my
sisters to let them know what’s happened?
Peering through teary eyelashes at her immobile father, she
bit her lower lip, guilt washing over her.
Oh God, Shenanigans! It’s one of the busiest days of the
year. Da’s depending on me. Who’s going to open the pub?
Shit.

“
Are you still with me,
Mabe?” The operator’s voice jerked her out of her mental
stupor.

“
Yes, I’m here. Please have
them hurry. I don’t think he’s going to make it.”

“
Do you know
CPR?”

“
Yes, but it’s been a long
time. What if I make it worse?”

“
What could be worse? Put me
on speaker. I’ll walk you through it.”

Realizing the validity in the
statement, she punched the speaker button on the phone. She thought
sirens wailed in the distance. The firehouse wasn’t far from where
she lived in town, so it shouldn’t take them long.

“
Okay.” She placed the phone
on the far side of her father’s body away from all the mess.
God, there was so much blood. What had he
done?

“
Position the heels of your
hands two fingers down from the sternum. Can you feel
it?”

“
Yes.” Placing her hands in
the correct spot, she locked them together as she’d been
instructed.

“
Using all your weight, do
thirty compressions then tilt his head back and give him two
breaths.”

Mabe fought the nausea as more blood
oozed from his head while she performed the compressions. Memories
of her CPR training came back. She moved to his mouth, checked his
airway, blew two breaths. Before she’d started the second set of
thirty compressions, someone banged on her front door.

“
EMTs! Can I open the
door?”

“
Shit.” The door was locked.
She couldn’t stop what she was doing. “Break it in.”

The lock snicked open, and footsteps
rushed down the hall. An EMT knelt next to her.

“
We just used the key under
the mat,” the tall man spoke. “Here, I’ll take over
now.”

She stared at him. “Brent?”

“
Hey, Mabe. Scoot on over
here now, so we can work on him.”

Brent Scott had graduated high school
with her. She knew he’d become an EMT. Occasionally, she’d see him
in the pub, but it still surprised her he’d been the one to
respond. She sat on her butt with her back to the kitchen cabinet
while the two men worked on her father.

“
Mabe?”

The voice came from the phone on the
floor by her feet. She reached for it.

“
Yes, I’m here. The EMTs are
here. Thanks so much for walking me through everything.”

“
You’re welcome. I hope your
father is okay. I’m disconnecting now.”

“
Okay. Thanks
again.”

She pressed the end button on the
phone, watching helplessly as the two men worked. The other man
bagged him, while Brent continued compressions, pausing
periodically to check for a pulse.

“
Let’s get him on the
gurney. I’ll work on him on the way to the hospital. Mabe, you ride
with us.”

She started to get up and then looked
down at her blood stained legs. “I….”

“
Grab a robe. Don’t worry
about the blood. You can clean it off at the hospital.”