Chapter Four

When she woke up the next morning Jo felt cautiously optimistic for the first time in ages

   Having had to throw away the spoiled leftovers the previous day, she started making a fresh batch of waffles

 After eating she decided to go out and explore the small park near her house

 Whilst there she was lucky enough to find a light beetle, before spending some time reading

 All too soon it was time to go to work, but Jo didn't feel quite so worried about it today, having made friends with Freya the previous day, in fact she was quite looking forward to seeing her again and learning more from her

 

 Poor Jo though was in for a shock when she got to work - Freya had died of old age that morning!

Shocked & sad she headed home after her shift, not even caring that she'd finally had some praise for her performance at work

After grabbing some leftovers from the fridge to eat 

 She wandered down to the river behind her house, feeling so miserable she couldn't rest 

 Staring out at the river she wondered why so many bad things were happening around her

"What's the point?" Jo wondered,  "Just when I thought life might be starting to improve it goes & kicks me in the teeth again"

 "It's like I'm a curse on the people I get to know, my family all dead in a stroke, and just when I finally make friends with someone here she dies too..."

"Would anyone care, or even notice, if I died too?" 

 Eventually she dragged herself back to the house and collapsed in her bed, crying herself to sleep where she dreamed of might-have-beens

Chapter Three

Soon enough Jo had a couple of days off work

 After eating some leftover waffles, she didn't have the will to do the washing up, though she knew she should, so she just piled the dishes up on a table and left them

 Heading out of the shack on her battered old bike

She decided on a whim to swing by the consignment store where she was able to pick up a new cookery book at a massive discount

 She only realised later that she'd need far more cookery knowledge to make sense of it...

After that she headed over to the graveyard

Unable to let her family go, she mourned over their graves for some time

Before settling down on a bench by the pond to read her original cookery book

She stayed there reading late into the evening

 When she received a call from one of her co-workers

 After chatting for a while, she realised how late it was getting and decided to head home 

 Once there she decided she was sick of the mess she was living in

She collected up the plates she'd left around the place since moving in and washed them up, she also picked up her dirty clothes from the floor and chucked them in the tatty laundry basket

Having done that, she notice a horrible smell coming from the fridge, checking inside she discovered some of her leftovers had spoiled so she took them out to the bin

That spurt of cleaning took all her energy, and yet still left her feeling deeply depressed over the state of her 'home' 

 With no more energy, she decided to go straight to bed, it was getting late anyway

 The next morning Jo determined to finish off her first cooking book before doing anything else 

Having done that she then found herself having to throw more leftovers away since they'd spoiled 

Having done that, she made herself some more food

 Before deciding to brave the local library in search of a new cookery book to read 

On arriving, she recognised her boss, Freya Frost

 And, plucking up her courage, went over and asked Freya for some cooking tips

Freya was delighted to pass on some of her great store of knowledge

Even sharing one of her special recipes with Jo

And the two were soon chatting away over the subject and much more 

Chapter Two

Jo woke up on her second day in Riverblossom Hills

 She looked around the shack she now lived in, remembering her family and the home she used to have...

After a quick, cold, shower

She went into what passed for a kitchen and made herself some waffles 

 

 Crying as she did so

 Before making her way back to the graveyard

 to visit, and mourn, her family

 She didn't want to leave them, or go back to her shack, so she found a bench in the corner

 And read her cookery book until it was time to go to work

Her shift was busy, frenetic even, and the constant work left her little time to get to know her co-workers or impress her boss 

 Leaving the restaurant she felt terrible, so many people around had left her almost crippled with shyness and her grief was overpowering

 When she got home all that awaited her were bills in the letterbox

After a quick meal of leftover salad

 And another bout of tears

 She curled up on her bed with her book for a few minutes reading

 Before diving under the covers to sleep

 And dream of her losses 

The next day followed a similar pattern, tears as she got ready for the day

 

Followed by a morning in the graveyard, mourning her family and reading

 Before dashing off to work 

 Another manic shift

 Before heading home for reading

 And sleep, she hadn't even had the energy or motivation to clean the dishes or pick her clothes up from the ground