“Bye-bye.” He waved.
Abby walked Eunice to the gate. Eunice hugged Abby and kissed her cheek. She said something and then turned away.
Samuel waved back. “Come back soon, little buddy.” Samuel waited at the door while Abby closed the gate and came up the walkway.
“Everything okay, Abby?”
“She was missing her mother and father. They haven’t been gone all that long. She’s still grieving, I think. Moving across country and putting down roots among strangers just brought it to the surface. And Paul has been so busy. . . . ”
“Anything I can do?”
She put her arm around his waist as they walked into the house. “Just what you’ve been doing.” She looked up at him. “Keep praying.” She slipped free again and headed for the kitchen. “I should get started on dinner.”
“Anything specific I should pray about?”
She cast an amused look. “Quit prying.”
“Just wondering.”
“You can’t fix everything, Samuel. Some things only come to rights with time and attention.”
“Well, I . . . ”
“Their time and their attention.”
He gave her a mock scowl. “You know, you’re getting to be a sassy old woman.”
She grinned. “Better than being a nosy old man.”
Stephen parked his GMC at the Atherton project and gathered his paper-work. A quick check confirmed that a full crew had showed up. Hammers were pounding, saber saws screaming as the work progressed.
The underground and site development had gone smoothly. The hill behind the house had been terraced, the curving driveway from Quail Hollow graded. Forms had been built with stubs up through the floor for underground connections of water, sewer, electricity, telephones, cable television, and computers.
Materials were arriving daily as the walls were framed. Roof components were due to arrive by the end of the week. Everything was under the watchful eyes of numerous inspectors who had been in, around, and over the site and structure, making certain everything was done according to the newest updated building codes.
“Well, Decker, I’d say you don’t do anything by halves,” an inspector had said yesterday.
“I like building a house that’ll be around long after I’m gone.”
If everything went according to Stephen’s schedule, the project would be finished in ninety days, including the landscaping. Atherton had said initially that an acre of lawn with a scattering of ornamental trees and shrubs would satisfy him, but his young wife had managed to get his approval for a free-form pool surrounded by natural rock. Oh, and she wanted a waterfall spilling into it. Hence, the terracing. A few days later, she added to her list flagstone pathways and a gazebo with various lattices and built-in benches. Stephen did the research and informed Atherton that Sheila’s latest “want list” would come to more than one hundred thousand dollars. Did Atherton want to stick to the original plans or proceed with the amendments?
“Just do whatever she wants,” Atherton had said in the tone of an executive who had little time to waste and wanted his wife happy.
Building projects, even ones that went relatively smoothly, often caused friction between a husband and wife. But Stephen had the feeling the tensions he sensed between Robert Atherton and his noticeably younger wife had begun long before the ground was broken on this six-thousand-square-foot house.
He heard the crunch of gravel as a vehicle approached. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw a silver Cadillac pull in and park next to his truck. Groaning inwardly, he rolled up the blueprints. A gentleman might have gone over and opened the car door for Sheila Atherton, but Stephen decided instead to keep a safe distance. She rose from her car like Venus from the sea, swinging her long blonde hair back over her shoulder as she came toward him like a model down a Paris runway. She wore figure-hugging black leather pants and a scoop-necked white sweater.
The saber saws screeched to a halt, and the hammers were noticeably silent.
If there was any doubt she knew exactly what response her getup would receive, it was quickly obliterated. She cast a radiant smile toward the crew and waved. “Hi, guys!”
Someone whistled. “Looking good, Mrs. Atherton!” another called.
Annoyed, Stephen realized his men weren’t the only ones staring. “Back to work!”
She laughed. “Oh, they don’t bother me, Stephen. I’mused to that sort of reaction.”
“I’m not surprised.” He tried to keep his tone friendly but neutral.
She put her hand on her hip and tilted her head, a glimmer of challenge in her blue eyes. “I was on my way to Sacramento to do some shopping, and thought I’d drop by and see how things are going.”
“Everything’s right on schedule, Mrs. Atherton.”
Her smile thinned. “How many times do I have to tell you to call me Sheila? You make me feel so old when you call me Mrs. Atherton.” She stepped close enough for him to catch the scent of her expensive perfume. “Why don’t you walk me around and show me what you’ve done since the last time I came by?”
“Not much has changed since the day before yesterday. And I have to get ready for an inspection.” The appointment wasn’t until four in the afternoon, but she didn’t need to know that.
Sheila Atherton shifted. She looked toward the house and then back up at him. “I’ve been thinking.”
He knew exactly what that meant, and gritted his teeth.
“We don’t have any skylights in the house, Stephen.”
“We’re building a skylight into the conservatory. Remember?”
“Oh, that one. I forgot about it. Well, it doesn’t matter. It’s not enough. I want one in the bedroom, a big one so that I can look up at the stars at night.”
“What does Rob think about the idea?”
“Rob doesn’t mind. He isn’t interested in anything but business.” Her eyes took on the look of steel. “He said I can do whatever I want, and I want a skylight in my bedroom.”
“Well, then, I guess we’ll draw up plans to put a skylight in your bedroom.”
“How much extra will it cost?”
“Depends on how many stars you want to see.” His little joke fell flat, so he decided to be blunt. “It’ll mean amendments to the blueprints, approval, structural changes, additional time, additional money, additional inspections.” You didn’t just cut a hole in the roof without it causing a few problems.
“Well, just give me the proposal when it’s ready. Rob will probably tell you to hire more men. He’s getting impatient to move in.”
“I’ll work up the drawings and have an estimate ready for your husband to sign by the end of the week.”
All smiles now, she stepped close. “I know it’s going to be absolutely gorgeous when it’s all finished. Everyone is going to envy me.” She put her hand on his arm and smiled. “Why don’t we have coffee together sometime? There’s a lot we could talk about besides the house.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Rob wouldn’t mind.”
“I doubt that.”
“You’d have coffee with Rob if he asked, wouldn’t you?”
“He wouldn’t ask.”
“Why not?”
“Neither one of us has time to waste.”
All the amusement vanished as her eyes flashed. “You can be downright rude at times!”
“You and your husband hired me to do a job, Mrs. Atherton. That’s where all my energy is going right now.”
Her eyes hardened. “What makes you think I want anything more from you than that?”
She reminded him of his ex-wife, sleek and blonde, hungry for possessions and power, bored and on the prowl when she got them. Poor Atherton. He’d probably started out thinking he had a nice, cuddly little kitten to keep him warm through his winter years, and was learning the hard way that he had a tigress by the tail. He looked Sheila straight in the eye and gave her a half smile. Silence said it better than words.
�
��What an ego you have, Mr. Decker. As if I’d look twice at a blue-collar worker like you!” She marched off to her car.
Relieved she was leaving, Stephen opened the blueprints and started making mental estimates of the time it would take him to add the skylight. For all he knew, she’d be back tomorrow wanting to raise the roof and add dormer windows. She slammed her car door so hard he winced. Backing up, she narrowly missed the driver’s side of his truck. She gave him a venomous look before she hit the gas pedal and sent up a shower of gravel from her spinning back wheels.
“Hey, Boss,” Tree House called from the scaffolding. “What’d’ya say to the lady to get her so ticked off?”
“None of your business!” As the work crew laughed, he turned away and muttered. “And that’s no lady.”
“Señor Decker always has trouble with the ladies,” Hector said from a ladder. “Even Sally at Charlie’s Diner has been asking about you.”
Tree House laughed and lifted a four-by-six into place.
Stephen pointed at his friend. “Keep talking, Hector, and I’ll ship you back to Mexico!”
“Hey, no problem, Decker. I was going back this winter anyway, and I’m taking a big hunk of your money with me!”
Stephen laughed.
Tom Hadley, the inspector, came late and went over the place as though he had a magnifying glass in his hand. Stephen laid out the plans, answered his queries, asked a few of his own, and told a couple of jokes. During his years as an apprentice, Stephen had learned that inspectors could turn a seemingly easy job into a nightmare. It only made sense to see them as men or women with a job to do and a life away from job sites. A strong business was built on the right blend of mutual respect and courtesy. Harboring an adversarial attitude toward inspectors was as constructive as using dynamite to dig a trench.
Hadley was a family man, eager to brag about his son and daughter, who were in college. He was still leaning on the front of his truck and talking when Stephen’s men started heading for their vehicles.
Glancing at his watch, Hadley straightened. “Didn’t realize the time.”
Stephen walked the site one last time. Everything looked good. He never tired of the excitement of designing and building something from the ground up. Still, for all the satisfaction he derived from his work, he couldn’t shake the restlessness that gripped him frequently. He climbed into his truck, slammed the door, and drove down the hill.
He wondered whether he’d be able to talk with his daughter tonight. The past several days, Kathryn had expertly blocked his every attempt. Remembering last night’s conversation set his teeth on edge. “What do you think I want?” he’d asked in response to her less-than-friendly greeting. “I want to talk to my daughter. I’ve been calling every evening, and getting nothing but your answering machine.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“I’m not checking up on you.”
“That’s good because you don’t have the right.”
“Could you get Brittany?”
“She’s in bed.”
“At six? Is she sick?”
“No, she isn’t sick. Not that you’d care if she was.”
“I’m calling, aren’t I? Why is she in bed?”
“She’s being punished. She refused to pick up her toys, and I’m not about to do it for her. She acts just like you sometimes. Stubborn, bull-headed.”
“Let me talk to her.”
“No. She’ll see it as a reward, and that would undermine my authority as her mother.”
“What about my rights as her father? I haven’t gotten to speak with her in eight days, Kathryn. All I’m asking for is a few minutes.”
“That’s rich, Stephen. You never had time for Brittany or me when we were married. How many times did I plead for a minute of your precious time? All you ever cared about was your business or your construction buddies or some football or baseball game on television.”
He clenched his teeth as he remembered the vitriol she’d poured over his head. He’d fought the urge to tell her she’d always loved the martyr role too much for him to interfere. Besides, who would want to spend time with a woman who took every opportunity to spew her litany of complaints? He’d almost asked her if she was still having an affair with her boss.
Kathryn McMurray Decker would have loved to put all the blame on him for her miserable life, but the truth was she’d been unhappy long before they hooked up. Before he married her, she’d blamed her unhappiness on her mother’s weaknesses and her father’s abusive tendencies. When he met them, he could only agree, and that put her on the defensive. She started blaming whatever job or boss she had. She always started a job raving about how wonderful everyone was, and six months later would be grousing because supervisors and coworkers weren’t treating her properly, or weren’t giving her the raise she deserved or the credit she felt she was due.
It had taken him two years of marriage to realize that trying to make her happy was a losing battle. When he stopped trying, she blamed her misery on him. She had self-pity down to a science. But then, to make matters worse, he used her as an excuse to drink. When she told him he’d had one drink already, he’d mix another. If she said he’d had enough, he drank more just to rile her. And so the merry-go-round went, round and round, picking up speed, making them both sick.
Old habits die hard.
Every time he called and heard Kathryn’s voice, the urge rose up in him again. The battle against picking up that first glass of scotch was becoming more and more difficult. He passed a liquor store, and it took every ounce of his willpower not to pull into the parking lot. He broke out in a cold sweat because he could almost taste the scotch on his tongue. He gripped the wheel.
Will this ever get any easier, Jesus?
The urge grew worse when he unlocked the door and walked into his empty apartment. The silence closed in around him like a prison. He flicked on the television and found a sports channel. Problem was it reminded him of how he used to sit in his easy chair with a drink in his hand. He flicked the television off and turned on the radio. He opened the refrigerator, but nothing in it appealed to him. Slamming it, he went back into the living room.
He was going quietly nuts in this apartment. He felt as badly as he had the first few weeks he’d checked himself into the Salvation Army facility. In desperation, he picked up the telephone and pressed one of the stored numbers.
“Hello?”
“Mindy, it’s Stephen.” He glanced at his watch and grimaced. “You’re just sitting down to dinner, aren’t you?” He could hear children’s voices in the background. “I can call back later.”
“No, it’s all right, Stephen, really. Hold on and I’ll get Rick.”
Stephen leaned forward, rubbing the ridge of his nose as he held the telephone.
“Hey, Stephen, I haven’t heard from you in a while. How’re you doing?” his counselor’s deep voice was Stephen’s only lifeline.
“Not so good.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“You’ve heard it all before. Just tell me something, will you? Does it get any easier?”
“Depends on how you look at it: as a curse or a blessing.”
“Right now, it’s a curse.”
“Well, you made the first step in the right direction by calling me instead of pouring that first drink.”
“Don’t congratulate me yet.”
“Are you reading your One Year Bible?”
“Every day.”
“Have you found a church yet?”
He made excuses. No time. Too much work to do.
“You know what you have to do to make it work, Decker. So what’s really stopping you?”
Stephen knew what he had to do all right, but that didn’t make it easy. “I’ve never attended a church other than the services at the facility, and we were all on the same footing. Every man in that place was an alcoholic or drug addict or both.”
“Oh, I get it. You figure you have to clean up your life c
ompletely before you have the right to set foot in a regular church. Right? You know, you don’t have to brand an A on your forehead.”
Stephen gave a low laugh.
“No one expects you to walk into a church and say, ‘Hi, my name is Stephen Decker, and I’m a recovering alcoholic.’ Save that for your AA meetings. By the way, I haven’t seen you at any meetings lately.”
“I know that, but it still galls me that I can’t do this on my own.”
“It galled me, too, Stephen. And the first time, I didn’t make it because I let my pride get in the way. Remember what we talked about? The devil prowls like a lion. Alcoholics tend to live in self-imposed isolation. That makes us easy prey. Have you looked for an AA meeting?”
“There’s no guarantee these feelings will go away if I do start going to church.”
“And no guarantee they won’t. One thing you will have, though.”
“And what’s that?”
“Accountability.”
Back to that again. “Okay. Okay. So what’s the procedure?”
“You walk in the door. You sit down, and you listen.”
“Easier said than done.” The last time he’d walked in, sat down, and listened to a church service, it was because it was required in order to stay in the facility and get the help he needed. By the end of the six months, he’d found himself waiting for Sundays. But he hadn’t attended a service since graduating from rehab. He was thirsty again. Better if he drank deeply from the Living Water than from a bottle of scotch. “Thanks, Rick.”
“Anytime. I’ll pick you up for a meeting or for church. All you have to do is ask. Mindy and I are praying for you, Stephen. Every morning. Just remember. Take it one day at a time.”
“Yeah.” Some days were harder than others.
He hung up, but he still couldn’t rid himself of the restlessness. He was hungry now, but didn’t feel like cooking for himself. Grabbing his keys, he went out to find a place to eat. As he drove down Main Street, he spotted two guys from his crew going into the Wagon Wheel Saloon and Restaurant. It would be easy to pull over and join them, and hard to say no when they ordered the first round of drinks.
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