by ML Nystrom
“Uncle Garrett, your girlfriend is rude.”
He imagined one day that young girl would be a prosecuting attorney.
“You brought all your stuff.” Owen added his observations, probably to get Garrett to talk.
“Yeah, I did.”
“Split is real?”
Garrett sighed and picked up a long pipe and dragged it to the crawl space. “Joy and I are over. There’s nothing left to salvage.”
Owen picked up the other end of the pipe to help. His bulky frame didn’t fit well under the house, therefore Garrett would be the one to wriggle into the small space. “Something happened.”
Garrett squatted down and slipped his safety glasses in place. “A lot of somethings happened.” He lay on the ground and began to inch his way into the space. “I’m still processing it myself, but I can talk about it now. I’ll tell you and Connor tonight. I don’t want to repeat it over and over, ’cause it’s pretty bad. Plus I don’t want to spend any more time under here than necessary, so let’s focus on getting this shit done. You need to get home to Melanie and the baby.”
Owen grunted, and Garrett took it as a sound of agreement.
They worked steadily as the sky grayed and got colder. The availability of daylight shortened the workday, but they got the main lines sorted and installed under the middle house. They also made allowances for branch pipes leading to either side house and capped the ends with valves. New water heaters sat in boxes on the porch, ready to be connected in stages.
“Heading home. Shower, then food at Connor’s. Bev’s cooking.”
Garrett nodded tiredly at Owen’s declaration. His stomach rumbled. Beverly was a good cook and had the talent to make a filling meal from whatever ingredients she had on hand. No telling what would be served tonight, but whatever it might be, he was grateful for it.
Owen drove away, his red brake lights flashing once as he turned out of the gravel driveway to the main road. Garrett slammed the tailgate of his truck and looked over at the cottage. Bertie had come out several times to bring them more coffee, offer them sandwiches, and feed the dog. The canine sat watching him from the safety of the cottage wall. Garrett wondered briefly if he should check on Bertie before he left. His feet took him to the porch, and the dog disappeared under the cottage with a growl.
Bertie appeared at the door in leggings, sneakers, coat, and scarf.
“Going somewhere?”
She smiled as she closed and locked the door. “Yes, I’m meeting my sister and a couple of her friends at the weekly yoga class. They are thinking about opening their own studio, and I might invest in it. We’ll see. Right now, I’m just having fun being around other women.”
Her dark hair looked glossy in the deepening dusk. Garrett wanted to touch it badly, but the dirt on his clothes and face kept his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He hadn’t even put on his jacket because of the grime that covered him.
“Be careful. Freezing rain is supposed to start later, and from the reports, it’s going to go on for a while.”
She tugged on a pair of white leather gloves. “I’ll be fine. I lived in Charlotte for years, so I know what winter roads are like. I can handle it.”
“City driving is different. What’s your number?”
Her eyes raised to his. “Why?”
“For peace of mind. Mine. Not yours.”
She gave it to him, and he tapped the numbers on his girly pink phone. A moment later her phone buzzed in her pocket.
“You have my number. Text me when you get home.”
“Bossy much?”
“Please. I only want to know you’re safe.”
She softened, and the look on her face made Garrett take in a sharp breath. “I will.”
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what I wouldn’t give to be clean so I could kiss her.
“Good, and thanks. Enjoy your class.”
He retreated from the porch faster than his normal pace and kept his eyes on his truck. If he looked back over his shoulder, he would run back and fill his need to taste her, shower be damned.
Seven
Connor and Beverly’s house shone like a beacon as he pulled to the back of the house. The boys huddled around the middle of the backyard with their dog, Muttface. All three made a racket loud enough to wake the dead.
“We should have put four tabs on the cone. It’s lopsided.”
“It’ll still fly, right?”
“Yeah, but it might flip over and crash.”
“Coolio!”
Garrett exited his truck. “What are you two doing out here?”
Mattie, his youngest nephew and future stuntman, answered by dancing around his older brother and picking up a bicycle pump. “Jacob found a video on how to build a bottle rocket. We’re gonna test it in a minute. Wanna watch?”
“Sure.”
Garrett stood by as Jacob finished setting up the plastic drink bottle and cardboard creation. “It works because of Newton’s third law that says every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Mattie, start pumping.”
The boy furiously worked the pump handle up and down. The bottle expanded, then shot up in the air with a loud pop. All three males looked up at the black sky.
“Where’d it go?” Mattie leaned so far he almost lost his balance.
“I don’t know. The last three ended up over on Mr. Stark’s house. He got mad about it and told Connor.”
“Can we make another one?”
Jacob shook his head. “Not tonight. We’re out of drink bottles. Hey, did I tell you Mr. Mike at the church told me how to make smoke bombs using stump remover and powdered sugar?”
Mattie lit up with excitement. “Coolio! Let’s do that!”
“Absolutely not.” Beverly came out of the back door just in time to see the homemade rocket shoot off for who knew where.
“Aw, Mom! Please?”
“Listen to me carefully, my little sciency people, and repeat after me: I will never ever make anything that has the word bomb in it.”
Both boys dutifully chorused, “I will never ever make anything that has the word bomb in it.”
“Good. Now go wash up. Dinner is ready.”
“What are we having?”
“Brussels sprouts and fried gizzards.”
Mattie stopped his headlong dash to the house and stared in horror at his mom. A big belly laugh burst from her. “Kidding, Mattie-boo. My version of chicken parmesan and bowtie pasta. I made zucchini noodles too for you guys to try. Salad and broccoli for extra sides. Now scoot. Connor and Abby will be back soon, and Owen, Mellie, and baby Ryan are on the way.”
As if on cue, a pair of headlights illuminated the back yard briefly. Connor’s work truck crept to a cautious halt. Connor got out of the passenger side and Abby the driver side. Both wore a shell-shocked look.
“Uh-oh, I take it the driving lesson was a bit tough?”
Connor staggered to the back steps. “If you love me, you’ll bring me a beer and a shot of Jameson.”
Beverly cringed. “That bad?”
“Not entirely. We did make it home.”
Abby ran up the steps to the second floor and slammed her bedroom door.
Beverly raised her eyes to the ceiling above. “I’ll get you two shots.”
“Just one is fine. I need to have my head in order tonight.”
Dinner, as always, became loud and a little chaotic.
“Jesse says her parents are letting her get an industrial piercing.”
“I found a recipe online for homemade rocket fuel that uses old Halloween candy for the sugar part.”
“Zucchini noodles are gross!”
“Can we have a bird?”
Garrett admired his sister-in-law even more at her calm control over her kids. She dished up chicken parm on plates and handed them around the table as she answered each one.
“Abby, we’ve already talked about tattoos. Not until you’re eighteen and get one for the right reasons. Piercings other than earlo
bes fall under the same category. Jacob, if any recipe you find online or elsewhere is flammable, toxic, volatile, combustible, or anything remotely related to those words, it’s a big fat no. I have regular noodles if you don’t like the zucchini version, Sarah. Don’t call them gross, just say politely that you don’t care for them. No birds, Mattie. We have Muttface.”
“How ’bout a second dog? Muttface needs a playmate.”
“I thought you were his playmate?”
“He needs a doggie playmate.”
Garrett laughed as he accepted a plate of food. “Client of ours adopted a stray today. At least I think she did. Moved in under her cottage and set up squatter’s rights.”
Beverly looked up and passed him the bowl of salad. “He needs shots and neutering if he’s going to live there.”
Mattie slurped a long noodle and wiped at the sauce that whipped across his face. “What’s squatter’s rights?”
Sarah pushed the zucchini noodles to the far edge of her plate. “It’s when you move in someone else’s house and they can’t make you leave.”
Mattie shifted to sit on his knees in excitement. “You mean I can take all my stuff and move into one of the big houses where rich people live and they can’t throw me out?”
Garrett dipped salad onto his plate. “There’s more to it than that, boy-o. The dog may have moved on by now.”
“Sorry we’re late. We had… ah… something we needed to take care of before coming over.”
Melanie popped into the dining area with baby Ryan in her arms. Owen followed close behind carrying a rocker-stroller-car seat contraption.
A chorus of hellos rang around the table before the kids dug back into their food.
Beverly stopped what she was doing and expertly took the baby from Melanie’s arms. “Diaper blowout?”
Owen cleared his throat to cover a gag, and Melanie huffed. “I can’t believe how much that tiny body holds.”
More conversation floated through the air. Questions from the kids, answers from the adults, comments about the day’s work, talk about school events, any and every other topic that could be discussed at a dinner table. Garrett took it all in. Christ, how he wanted this in his life. Not as someone else at the dinner table but having the table as his own. Even when he lived with Joy, the house wasn’t his. She chose everything in it, and he paid the bills. He didn’t get a say in one stick of furniture, curtain, color, fixture, or anything else in that house. Now he was starting over with nothing but the clothes on his back and his tools. Emotion rose in his throat and threatened to overwhelm him.
“Excuse me, please.” He got up from the table and left the dining area for the back deck. He took several large breaths and blew out clouds of steam as he looked out over the tightly parked vehicles and his current living situation in a camper. True, it was more like a tiny house, but still nowhere near what he left in Jersey.
“Here, brother. Beverly sent this out for you.”
Connor came to stand beside him and handed him his jacket. Owen sidled up as well with a whiskey bottle and three glasses. He poured a splash in each one and handed them to the other two men.
“Slainte.”
All three stood at the rail and sipped at the strong liquor. His brothers waited silently and would have waited there all night if Garrett decided not to talk to them. He had so many words crowding his mind all at once. All his thoughts compounded into sentences that he’d practiced over and over to say, and at the moment he couldn’t put any of them into a cohesive order.
“She cheated on me.” He finally uttered. “It wasn’t the first time. She said it happened because she was drunk. She’d come home, cry about it, and tell me she made a mistake. Beg my forgiveness and promise not to do it again. This last time, she was drunk and mad at me. The man she went to is one she’s been with for a while now. I can’t do it anymore.”
“I lost it all,” Garrett started as he continued to stare with unfocused eyes. Long, painful needles pierced his heart as he confessed out loud. “My house, my woman, my life. It’s gone.”
“Don’t take all the blame on yourself. Your woman slept with another man. Deliberately. No excuse for that.” Connor shared his wisdom.
Owen grunted his agreement.
Garrett kept going. “She said she loved me. I thought if I let her have what she wanted, if I gave her everything, she’d keep loving me. It wasn’t enough. It was never going to be enough, was it?”
Connor took another sip. “No, and honestly, boy-o, I’m glad you didn’t end up marrying her. You’ve turned into a husk. Hard on the outside and empty on the inside. She was sucking you dry, and not just your money. You talked a lot about stuff she liked. When was the last time she did something you wanted to do?”
Garrett lifted his glass and thought about it. Little things like going to a movie or a restaurant always ended up being her choice. When he suggested something different, more often than not, she’d wrinkle her nose at it. An Irish music group called Scythian he wanted to see had been playing at a local theater and she refused to go. He said he’d go himself, and she pitched a fit about him leaving her alone. He ended up going to Tommy’s bar with her, watched her get drunk, and safely drove her home.
“Not often.”
Connor leaned over and rested his forearms on the rail with the glass hanging loosely in his hand. “You can’t have one person carry the load. The good book even talks about being unequally yoked. It never lasts long. A person should work hard in this life and share the bounty, but if that person is the only one working and sharing, then eventually he gets burned out and has nothing left to give. Beverly had that with her first husband. She got out of that situation and struggled hard, but now she has me to help. She still works hard, and we still have our struggles, but we do it together and share life’s burdens equally. This is one reason we’re solid and gonna stay that way. You didn’t have that with Joy, and I didn’t see any sign of it ever happening.”
Garrett swallowed the last of his drink. “What’s the other reasons?”
Connor grinned and emptied his own whiskey into his mouth. “There are four of them. Five including the four-legged one.”
“Want kids?” Owen set his empty glass on the rail.
Garrett turned to his twin. “More than anything.” His face fell, and he contemplated the bottom of his glass. “Joy made it clear she did not.”
“Dodged a bullet. Hurts now. Be grateful later.”
Garrett understood what his brother meant. This pain he had in his heart would fade, and someday he would realize this was for the best. He kept the news of his encounter with Bertie to himself. No need to complicate his life any more than necessary at this time. “I’ve already accepted that Joy and I aren’t going to be together. I’m okay with it, but it still hurts. You’re right, Owen. I dodged a bullet, and I’m grateful to be without her.” He put both hands on the rail and held it tight. “It’s more about me, right now. I have nothing. No house, no property, no home, no money. I’m at square one again, and that’s getting to me.” He pressed his lips together to control them. “I’m a goddamned failure.”
He felt Connor’s hand on his shoulder. His older brother squeezed lightly. “Stay here and start over, boy-o. You have your hands, your tools, and your family. There’s plenty of work here to get you on your feet. There’s room here and at Owen’s place or the camper until you find what you want. Eva is not too far away either.”
“You both have wives and families.”
Connor laughed, breaking the quiet solemnity of the conversation. “Have you met my wife? She is first, last, and always about family. To her, you’re a brother, not a bother. She’ll have your feet under her table every night if you let her.”
Owen clapped a heavy hand on Garrett’s other shoulder. “My house has room. Mel still has a condo. Got tenants now. Move out soon. Yours if you want. No rent. Just bills. Camper or Condo. Your choice.”
Garrett’s eyes prickled and he fought th
e quiver in his lower lip. Melanie had bought a house when she found herself pregnant last year. She and Owen got together and moved into that house, leaving her condo vacant. They decided to keep the condo as an Airbnb rental. For them to offer him the space for free blew his mind.
“Might as well take him up on the offer. Melanie is just as stubborn as Bev. She’ll take it as an insult if you don’t accept.”
“I absolutely will.” Both Melanie and Beverly came out on the back deck and pushed through the male bodies. “We don’t need to hear anything else, and yes, we were eavesdropping at the door. You’re family, G-man, and we got your back. Screw that fucking bitch. She lost gold when she lost you.”
Beverly shoe-horned herself between the men and wrapped Garrett in a big hug. Her short motherly body made it awkward, but Garrett sensed the warmth of her caring descend on him like a weighted blanket.
“Love you, bro.”
That’s all it took. Surrounded by his brothers and sisters-in-law, Garrett let go. His arms came up around Beverly’s back and he laid his cheek atop her head. His grief was loud and long, but with every racking sob, his head and heart were freed from the heavy weight.
He finally drained himself and released Beverly from his tight grip. “Sorry, Bev. I made a mess of you.”
She blew a raspberry and waved a dismissive hand. “I’ve birthed and raised four kids and taught high school chorus for years. A little snot won’t faze me. Now, y’all need to get your asses inside and grab some crumble cake before Mattie finishes it.”
Eight
Snow. I loved it! Watching big white flakes drift from gray skies might be anathema to some people, but for me, it was heavenly. Snow meant I would spend the day on my sofa, binge watch something non-cerebral on Netflix, and drink coffee under my favorite blanket. No turning the computer on to check stocks and portfolios, just me and the TV. Not even the MacAteer brothers would come out today. I imagined them staying at their homes enjoying the snow day.