River Town Box Set

by Grant C. Holland

  “Here, here!” A woman behind Ross’ shoulder shouted in agreement. A round of spontaneous applause erupted from the crowd. They celebrated the unexpected hero who ended the emotional trauma brought on by the shrieks of an unhappy, pint-sized future grocery customer.

  It took only seconds to ring up Ross’s box of cereal, half-gallon of milk, and chewing gum. When he left the checkout line with a plastic bag holding the purchases, the baby’s father was still arranging blankets and zipping up a dark blue parka in preparation to face the frigid Minnesota winter weather outside.

  “Do you need any help getting to the car?” asked Ross. “I’ve just got the one little bag.”

  Up close, dark circles of fatigue appeared under the father’s eyes. They were the calling card of a new parent. “Are you for real? I think I can make it, but yeah, help is appreciated.” After pulling a stocking cap on over his head, the man reached a hand out to shake. He said, “The name is Puck. It’s as short and sharp as it sounds.”

  “I’m Ross. I love babies, but I know they’re a handful. My sister had to deal with hers on her own. I stepped in to help when I could, and I learned a few tips and tricks along the way.”

  Puck was a striking man. Despite his haggard and harried expression, his body was sturdy and wiry. Cords of muscle stood out on his tattooed forearms. Ross liked the way the corners of his eyes crinkled when he finally smiled.

  Puck tugged on a pair of black leather gloves that didn’t look like a winter design. They were thin and skintight meant for a good grip when riding a motorcycle. “If you don’t mind, could you carry my bag of stuff to the car? I’ll handle Addie, and that way I can make sure she doesn’t get cold out there. They say the snow might cut loose again any minute. That’s why I needed to rush to the store. The fridge and cupboard were getting empty.”

  “Oh, sure. Addie, that’s a pretty name.” Ross wondered about Addie’s mother, but he guessed that she might have been up all night, and Puck was a gentleman father taking care of the early evening shift.

  The weather words were prophetic. Halfway to the car, a cobalt blue SUV, the snowfall intensified. Fortunately, the wind didn’t pick up, but the snowflakes were suddenly twice as big and multiplied by the second. Visibility fell by the minute.

  The parking lot was already full of small snow mountains pushed up against lamp posts. They were the remnants of earlier storms. Forecasters predicted the third three-inch snowfall for Coldbrook Bend in just over a week.

  As Puck punched his key fob to unlock the doors, Ross reached forward to open the rear door of the SUV. He was relieved to see a car seat strapped into place waiting for its little occupant.

  Setting the carrier on the back seat of the SUV, Puck began to unwrap the blankets wrapped around his precious parcel. “She’s asleep now. Wouldn’t you know it?”

  Ross sensed that he was no longer needed. “It’s been great meeting you. I’ll leave you to the drive home.”

  “Hey, don’t leave yet.” Puck focused on Addie but continued to speak. “I haven’t had enough human contact lately. I go back to work in two days. I’m one of the lucky ones. They gave me a full eight weeks of leave. The law only requires six. Did your sister have to work while her kid was a baby?”

  “Yep, forty hours a week. I did some babysitting, and my parents pitched in, too. Did your wife get leave from work?”

  Puck froze in place and frowned. He spoke slowly in a low tone. “She’s gone.”

  Ross began to form the obvious question with his mouth, and then he held his tongue. He saw the pain in addition to fatigue in Puck’s dark eyes. He decided against a question, and his voice came out in a whisper. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s okay. I need to get used to the questions, and I’m sure I’ll need to tell the story a thousand times when I’m back at work. My wife, Miranda, died about twelve hours after Addie was born. It was sudden and a shock. It was something to do with high blood pressure. No one saw it coming. She didn’t either. She was so happy when she first held Addie in her arms. At least she got to have that.”

  Opening and closing his mouth, Ross struggled for words. A small tear formed in the corner of his eye while the snowflakes continued to drift to the ground.

  Puck held up one of his leather-clad hands. “Don’t worry about what to say. It’s horrible. I know that. I’ve got lawyers who are trying to convince me to sue, but I can’t deal with that right now. Taking care of Addie is my limit. It’s all I can do. Doing all the right stuff by her is about all that keeps me holding it together.”

  “If I can…”

  “Don’t think I don’t appreciate the help. I really do, but you don’t know me. We’re total strangers. It’s a sad story, but we’ll make it. Life goes on.” Puck turned away and began tucking blankets back in against Addie. He appeared to be repeating the same actions he’d performed just a few minutes earlier.

  Ross rubbed his hands together. During all the talk, he’d forgotten to put on his own stocking cap and gloves, and his hands were beginning to feel numb from the cold. He tried to imagine himself in the position of a widower with an infant child. He couldn’t. It was a completely different situation from that of Ross’s friends Brody and Dak, and their baby Penelope. He knew how to relate to them.

  “Drive safe on your way home.” Ross turned to look for his car in the parking lot. In the midst of the story, he’d forgotten about that, too. Suddenly, half of the cars looked the same.

  “Will do. It’s only about a five-minute drive away. And buddy, thanks again. I do appreciate it.”

  For the rest of the evening, Ross couldn’t get Puck and his daughter Addie out of his mind. He was a good-looking, roughhewn man. He stood out from the mostly ordinary residents of Coldbrook Bend.

  Most of the hardworking men weren’t handsome, and the good-looking ones walked around town with their noses in the air. Puck was different. As Addie grew older, Ross knew that she would be proud to introduce Puck as her father.

  His hair was buzzed tight on the sides of his head, and, understandably, it looked like Puck hadn’t shaved for at least a week. Still, Ross remembered a sparkle in those weary eyes.

  Addie was adorable. She had that bright-eyed baby look that swept into utter fury at the drop of a hat. When the keys dangled in front of her face, Addie’s smile returned before the tears could dry on her little cheeks. A lilting giggle accompanied the happy, cooing sounds..

  That night, after lying in bed unable to sleep for an hour, Ross got back up. Wearing only boxer shorts, he padded to the second bedroom of the apartment. It was a makeshift art studio. Old area rugs splattered with paint covered the hardwood floor. A large easel sat in one corner of the room, and three nearly completed canvases rested in a stack near the door.

  Ross had one fresh, empty canvas remaining before needing to return to the art supply store in Rochester. He propped it up on the easel and set to work preparing the paints. On most days, Ross was too tired and distracted at the end of a workday for painting. It was important to take advantage of sudden bursts of inspiration even though they might carry him into the wee hours of the morning without sleep.

  The process of first sketching the basics and then planning the colors filled Ross’s chest with pleasurable, warm sensations. He couldn’t remember for sure the last time that an idea throbbed in his head so hard that it had to be committed to canvas. When Ross pulled ideas like that out of his mind, he knew that they were the genesis of his best work.

  It was nearly 3:30 a.m. before sleep finally crept forward urgently enough to force a return to bed. Before turning off the light in the studio, Ross looked at the image of Puck and baby Addie he’d created. It was abstracted into a vibrant display of blues, purples, and grays. The specific people might not have been immediately recognizable, but he successfully captured their mood and emotion. Ross was confident that someday he would find Puck again and share his creation.

  2

  The Artist

  Auntie Erin
reached an aged, mottled hand upward to rest it on Ross’s thigh. She was a mentally spry woman in her late 80s. However, respiratory difficulties caused her body to tire quickly. A few years earlier, the constant exhaustion forced her from her home of sixty years to an assisted-living apartment. The transition was easier than expected, and it was the catalyst for bringing Auntie Erin’s great-nephew, Alan, to town.

  “Please be careful, Ross. I knew that I should have borrowed a small stepladder from the maintenance office. Standing on a stool like that isn’t safe. I’ll never forgive myself if you fall. Why don’t you come down, and we’ll do this the right way.”

  Ross didn’t mind taking some risk. The picture hanging was a cause for celebration. It was the first painting he’d ever sold. The bold brushstrokes depicted an early morning impression of the Mississippi River. Deep, vibrant colors filled the canvas. Ross was particularly proud of how he captured the fingers of sizzling color that spread across the sky at sunrise on summer days in the upper Midwest.

  Alan discovered the work in progress one day while visiting Ross. It rested on an easel in the center of the home studio. Alan showed photos of the painting to his Auntie Erin, and she immediately fell in love with the work. “It’s beautiful! It’s perfect, too! It can replace that tired old print that’s hung over my couch in the living room since I moved. Whatever he’s asking for it, tell your friend I’ll give him $100 extra. It is for sale, isn’t it?”

  Auntie Erin’s interest was enough to encourage Ross to finally finish the work more than eighteen months after it began. The price for the painting was a mystery. After phone discussions with two different college art friends, Ross placed a $600 price tag on it. He said to Alan, “That includes the extra $100.”

  Stepping backward with her cane in hand, Auntie Erin held fingertips up to her mouth and exhaled with relief knowing that the hanging process was nearly complete. “I think it is tilted slightly to the right. Can you straighten it back the other direction?”

  “Like this?” Ross shifted it toward the left and wavered on the stool. Auntie Erin gasped. After brief visions of reflexively sticking his hand right through the center of the stretched canvas to catch himself. Ross managed to regain his balance. The wall below the painting was a much better place to touch as he his right foot to the rung of the stool just below the seat.

  Auntie Erin waved her hands. “Oh, please, do be careful. Did Alan tell you what happened to him when he was a teenager? It was horrifying.”

  “I think he told me multiple stories about his life as a teenager. He hated high school. He said that he hung out in a stairwell during lunch hours with two other friends to avoid bullies. At least that was at one of the three high schools. What’s the story you were thinking about?”

  “Please, come down all the way, and we’ll move the stool back to the kitchen. I’ll fetch you a glass of iced tea, and we can sit and chat on the couch.”

  “That sounds perfect, but don’t you move that stool. I’ll take care of it. Go ahead and make the iced tea.”

  Ross carried the small stool to the kitchen and washed his hands in the kitchen sink. Auntie Erin filled glasses with ice cubes from an old-fashioned metal tray. Ross said, “I still can’t believe you bought my painting. I hope you do like it, and I hope you aren’t buying it just to be nice.”

  “I don’t hang things on my walls that I don’t love.” Ross blushed in response to her comment. A bright pink color spread across his face up to his hairline.

  Ross said, “And you were telling a story.”

  The ice cubes clinked in Auntie Erin’s glass as she set it on the coffee table. “Oh yes! Alan was probably only fifteen years old. He decided to change the bulb in the light fixture attached to a ceiling fan in his bedroom. Against his mother’s request, he chose to stand on a chair to reach the fan.”

  “And he fell?”

  “He not only fell, but he also tumbled into his dresser. It held a ceramic lamp that Alan loved since he was a little boy. The lamp shattered, and he landed in the middle of the floor with cuts on his face and a broken arm. I was visiting at the time, and I can still remember the blood-curdling screams as his mother raced up the stairs.”

  “Wow. No, he hasn’t told me that one. Is that the scar above his right eyebrow? It gives him character.”

  Auntie Erin nodded and smiled. Ross gazed into her eyes. He was grateful that Alan brought them together. He missed his Grandmother Spencer a little less with Auntie Erin in his life.

  Auntie Erin’s eyes were the windows to a lifetime of valuable wisdom. The only problem was figuring out how to draw it out. She tapped her glass with a fingernail. “What are your dreams as a painter?”

  “Dreams? I’ve not thought of it that way. I just enjoy painting when I have the time to do it.”

  “Do you mean to tell me you have no dreams for painting in the future? You have tremendous talent. Are you keeping those dreams hidden?”

  Ross sighed and shook his head. “I guess I dream of being noticed someday. What painter doesn’t have those dreams?”

  “And there’s something more?”

  Ross squirmed on the couch suddenly feeling slightly uncomfortable. He didn’t like the heat of the spotlight. More often, he preferred to fade into the background helping out others when needed.

  Swallowing hard, Ross said, “I dream of being a painter. That’s what I want to do with my life. I feel most alive with an easel, canvas, and brush.”

  Auntie Erin smiled. “There, doesn’t that feel better? Never keep your dreams inside. They exist for you to make them come true.”

  “Well, right now, I’m trying to earn enough money to keep paying my rent. I don’t need to worry much about painting. It’s not like the world’s beating a path to my door. That one up there on the wall is the first I’ve ever sold.”

  “And it is lovely,” said Auntie Erin. She sipped her tea slowly. “Do you work on commission? Most artists work on commission, don’t they?”

  The question felt overwhelming. Ross loved the idea of working on commission, but no one ever approached him about it. He painted in college, but it wasn’t his major, so he didn’t take part in the senior art show where many of his friends sold their works and some received commissions for new pieces. Working on commission sounded like the foreign territory of a legitimate artist.

  “I’ve never had a commission, so I guess the answer is no.”

  “I think I’d like to commission a painting.”

  Ross was instantly sorry when he blurted out, “Please don’t do that because you feel sorry for me.”

  “I think you know me well enough already to know that I wouldn’t do that.” Auntie Erin gestured up toward the painting above the couch. “You did a lovely painting of the river. Could you do one of a house?”

  “I suppose so. I usually work from photographs. Is there something in particular you want?”

  “I’d like you to do a piece for Alan and Diego, and I’d like you to feature my old house where they live.”

  Ross’ palms began to sweat. He rubbed his hands on his jeans and nodded. “Yes, I think I could do that.” His nerves felt taut as rubber bands as he imagined seeing one of his paintings every time that he visited his good friend Alan and his partner, Diego.

  “Take your time with it, but I will pay you $1,000 when it’s complete.”

  “I’ll try to finish it before…” Ross broke into a sweat when the dollar figure registered. He held the cold glass of iced tea against his forehead.

  “Before? You like to keep your thoughts to yourself. Don’t cut yourself off.”

  “Please don’t tell Alan or any of my other friends. I’m thinking about moving. I wonder if I need to go to the Twin Cities or Des Moines.”

  “You’re thinking of leaving Coldbrook Bend? What do you expect to find somewhere else?”

  “I…I don’t know if I should be talking about personal things like this. Are you sure that it’s okay?”

  Auntie Eri
n laughed softly. “I’m an old woman. I like to think that on occasion I have some useful thoughts to share with younger generations.” Then she leaned close across the couch. “And on other days I’m just a nosy old woman.”

  “Honestly, you make me miss my grandmother. She was so smart. I always thought she could see right through me. I’m a little lonely here in Coldbrook Bend. Finding men here is hard. Alan found Diego, but he was like the bright shiny needle in a haystack, and they met somewhere else first. With more men to choose from in a city, I think I’ll stand a better chance.”

  “Maybe you’re trying too hard.”

  “Or maybe I’m not trying at all.”

  Auntie Erin’s voice sounded wistful as she said, “Single isn’t so bad either. My husband passed almost thirty years ago. Many of my family members, Alan’s parents included, insisted that I should look for someone else. I was lonely, but I never did look. I learned to value myself, and it was a good lesson to learn.”

  Ross nodded. “It was nothing like being married, but I was in a relationship for two years back home in Middleton.”

  “Is it okay if this nosy old woman asks what happened?”

  “I don’t think we ever saw eye to eye. Maybe it was the age difference. Ultimately, Andrew let me go. I cried for three days. He had a photo of us together on a side table next to the sofa in his living room, but the only thing he said at the end was, ‘Perhaps it is for the best.’ Andrew talked like that. He’s a lawyer in Middleton, and the whole town thinks he’s great.”

  Auntie Erin tapped the side of her cheek with her fingernail. “He let you go?”

  “I wanted to move. I wanted us to go to the Twin Cities where he had clients, but he loved Middleton. I still don’t understand why. We didn’t even have a coffee shop, and the grocery store was more of a quick stop.”

  Ross hadn’t spoken with anyone about Andrew in months. As he formed the words, he remembered those moments when Andrew shed his shirt and revealed his chiseled hairy chest, and he smiled showing those crinkly little wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. Ross loved kissing him. Andrew was fifteen years older, and he was a man with years of experience who knew how to kiss.