by C. L. Donley
“Which was?”
“Slowly finding out, in the slowest, hardest, most grueling way possible, that there was no way in hell that you were the one. I don’t mean in a true love, love at first sight kind of way, because I don’t believe in that. I believe that love is mostly hard work. Chris doesn’t like to work hard. And so, he found me… us… less and less appealing.”
“Jo, you know that’s not me.”
“The good part about it— painful as it was—is that I, in turn, found him less appealing more and more. And the pain turned to… something cold and emotionless. And it works really well for co-parenting. Really well.”
“That’s not what I want.”
“What do you want?” Jo humored him.
“I wanna be a dad. I want Judah to have a dad. A real one. All the time. None of that part-time bullshit.”
“And me?”
“And you, what?”
“After I make you a dad… what happens to me?” she faced her fear.
“Jo, I think you know what—”
“I clearly don’t.”
“What, you want me to say it? Last time I did that, you almost jumped out of a movin’ vehicle.” He did a tasteless impression of Jo threatening to kill herself. Eventually, she cracked a smile.
Jo took a breath. “If we’re gonna do this, I need to know. I need to hear it. Everyday. Or else, I’m out. I’m just gonna walk out.”
“Well…. don’t do that,” he said teasingly. He knew she wanted to hear that he loved her. She didn’t even want to admit what she was asking, he could tell. But he was already formulating all the ways he was going to tell her how he felt about her. And if he’d learned anything from that weekend, it’s that the first thing he should do was shut the fuck up.
“So? Let’s hear it,” she said.
“Look here, JoAnn. There’s gonna be some new management around here. You’re my responsibility now, so you can just go on and take your little britches all the way off.”
“I thought you liked me in my britches?”
“I do, but I like ‘em better off.”
They were silent as sexual tension took its place once again between them.
“Know the best part about you being pregnant?”
“What’s that?” Jo raised an eyebrow.
“Not havin’ to worry about gettin’ you pregnant.”
“One of my favorite parts too.”
“Mm.”
“So um… when are you coming back?”
“I’m on my way back,” he grinned.
“How far?”
“You little minx.”
Jo giggled.
“Not far. 20 minutes,” said Adam.
“You going home first?”
“I’m comin’ straight to you,” he said. Jo’s heart nearly took off like a rocket. If her baby was big enough to kick it would have.
“Oh,” she replied.
“Judah’s there?”
“Yeah.”
“You told him anything yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Good. I want you guys both to be surprised tomorrow,” Adam eluded.
“Tomorrow?”
“Yep. We’re going for a drive.”
* * *
“Adam, put your seatbelt on!” Judah counseled him.
“I’m okay buddy.”
“Adam, if you, if you don’t, put your seatbelt on, you’ll go through the windshield and you’ll die. Is that what you want?” Judah asked. Jo looked over at Adam in disbelief.
“Boy, if that don’t sound like your mom’s voice.”
“That’s the most complex sentence he’s ever said,” Jo giggled.
They got to Adam’s property in a little over an hour. Judah asked questions the whole way, meanwhile, Jo just looked out of the window, her arm unconsciously protective around her middle. Adam kept looking over. He could see the subtle changes in her body. It only made him more anxious to get to their destination.
“Judah, what do you think about you and your mom coming to live with me?”
“I think… that would be… awesome,” he said in his strange humor that seemed beyond his years.
“What about you, Jo? Awfully quiet over there.”
“Live with you where?”
“Out here.”
“I don’t know, Adam.” Jo had the same look of apprehension on her face as she did when asked for her number the first time.
“Won’t be right away,” he assured her, “won’t be ‘til next year, at least.”
Jo had a wave of perfect contentment thinking about the last time Adam brought her out here. The idea of it being her home was a bit terrifying, though.
“How am I gonna get to gigs?”
“…We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” he said, a new fatherly wisdom washing over him.
“Is that where we’re gonna live?” Judah asked, the modest shack that instantly flooded her with memories emerging in the distance.
“No, not that one.”
Moments later a second structure was in view, a modest platform of pillars made of OSB, MDF, PVC and every other structural acronym material you could name. It was still modest and meticulous, the yellow of virgin treated wood, the promise of greatness still breathtaking, even in its infant stage.
“Woooaaah!” Judah delivered the dream childlike reaction that Adam was after. Jo was quiet, but she was glued to the window like she didn’t want to face him.
“You like it, Judah?”
“We’re gonna live in a mansion?!” he asked, puzzled.
“Not quite a mansion, but it’ll be pretty big. Enough for you and your mom, and maybe your little brother or sister. You wanna have another little brother, or a sister to play with?”
“A brother,” Judah insisted, like he was ordering off a menu. “Is dad gonna live with us, too?”
“I don’t think he would want that, baby,” Jo answered diplomatically.
They got closer to the structure and it did indeed looked like a mansion once they got close. As soon as the car came to a halt Judah unbuckled his car seat, ready to jump out.
“What do you think, Jojo?” Adam casually asked her.
“S’nice,” she answered.
“You like it?” he asked. She nodded.
Adam got out and retrieved Judah from the backseat, holding him on his hip, pointing and talking. Jo watched from her seat as Judah held on to Adam for safety, his tiny arm slowly slinking from Adam’s shoulder to around his neck. Judah didn’t even wriggle out of Adam’s hold. He wasn’t anxious to be put down and run around in the massive field, or through the tall, maze-like framing.
Jo stayed behind in Adam’s truck to ugly cry in relative peace.
Once he closed Judah’s door she was instantly a blubbering mess, a deluge of quiet sobs overcoming her hormonal body. Eventually I’m gonna build a real house here. When I have a reason to.
He wasn’t on some man cave walkabout these last three weeks. He was building. For his family. Even when he was numb with anger. Even when he thought she didn’t give a shit about him.
“Mom! Come look!” Judah called after her.
“I think your mom’s still mad at me for being gone a little while.”
“No, she said you were mad at her but that you would be back.”
“Did she really say that?” Adam asked. Judah nodded.
“The framing’s on the outside,” Adam suddenly heard behind him. Jo emerged from her seat and slammed the whining rusty passenger door shut.
“Good eye.”
“How you gonna insulate it?”
“It’s going on the exterior. A buddy of mine does it. Better than the traditional way and you gain a little bit of room and character on the inside.”
“I’ll say.”
“It looks really nice, you’ll see.”
“I guess that means you won’t need me to drywall it,” Jo walked up beside them.
“Nope. Honestly Jo, I’d like it i
f you never had to lift a finger outside of taking care of the kids. But I know I can’t talk you out of that.”
“Oh, I don’t know. You could talk me out of putting on my own socks right now.”
“Kenny said you told him how tired you were. Right after he about called me everything but a child of God. You should’ve just picked up the phone, Jo.”
“I know,” she said. “Next time, I will.”
“Next time? You can trust me, you know that right?”
“I know that. I do.”
“JoAnn…” he said, taking her hand.
“What.”
“I love you, woman.”
“I know.”
“Well if you know everything, Jo, then what in the fuck. Start acting like it.”
“Feels good to be back,” she said as he slinked an arm around her.
“Out here, you mean?” he asked, only eluding to the weekend still a guarded topic in his thoughts. She nodded.
“That’s good to hear. Since it’s gonna be home now.”
“Bet it’s beautiful in the fall.”
“It is. And in the winter. And the spring,” he said with his head resting on hers.
“I’m sorry—” Jo instantly had to stop to compose herself. It wasn’t working, so she just plowed through as best she could. The tears fell. Gah, this friggin’ pregnancy.
“I’m sorry that… they can’t be here to help you build this one,” Jo replied with a quiver in her voice. “You just can’t know how sorry I am.”
Adam put Judah down and stood in front of Jo. He held both her hands and fit them around his middle, then wiped her tears with his thumb. She held onto him like he was a tree trunk and looked up at him, the sunlight making her squint.
“I’m not sorry. And I love ‘em. More than you ever could. Don’t go tryin’ to blame yourself for it, either,” he said as she rested her head on his chest.
“That’s your community. That’s everything. Isn’t that what you said?” she sniffed.
“We’re makin’ a new one. There’s already three of us. Soon there’s gonna be four.”
“We’re really gonna do this,” she marveled.
“We are. You scared?”
“…No,” said Jo. They locked eyes and he went in slowly for a kiss.
“Then… fuck it,” Adam said, the two of them swaying as they clung to one another.
“So when we make a family, and that family makes a community, that makes a klan, what are you gonna tell them?”
Adam shrugged. “I’m gonna tell ‘em… hold on to the people that love you back, and… go change the fuckin’ world.”
“Mom! Look how high I can go!” Judah said on top of the framing for the floor.
“Judah, get down.”
“He’s fine, Josie.”
“He’s not fine, Adam, he’s gonna break his arm.”
“He can break an arm, Jo. Hell, my Ganny ran over my arm when I was his age.”
“Dear God in heaven,” Jo sighed.
“Bet you’re scared now, huh, Jojo?” Adam grinned.
She took a deep breath, her relentless fatigue ever-present, but not overpowering.
“Come on, Judah. Your mom ever teach you how to use a nail gun?”
“Adam!”
“For God sakes, he may as well learn now, Jo!”
19
Epilogue
It was early for a Saturday morning. The two early birds of the family were already awake: Judah and his daughter Kacey.
He let his wife Sidney sleep in. Any minute now, the third early bird would be up.
“Jo…”
Right on time.
From his seat at the dining room table downstairs, Judah heard Adam bellow from the upstairs hallway, his gravelly baritone as strong as it ever was. Judah stared straight ahead at the expansive backyard from the dining room, the land that’d only seemed larger as he became an adult, not smaller. How on Earth did he ever get his hands on this place?
“Jo…” Adam’s voice came again.
“We’re downstairs, Dad,” Judah needlessly explained.
He’d long given up on trying to be rational when it came to Adam’s disease, the man that he’d called “Dad” for the last 34 years.
It seemed like a lifetime ago, but Judah never forgot the moment where Adam became “Dad.” Adam had set him down on the not-yet-finished deck overlooking the very backyard he was looking at now. He was hammering down all the deck nails Adam had placed at the edge of all the floorboards. Judah hadn’t seen his real father in over a year.
“Hey, Judah?”
“Yeah.”
“Would you like to start calling me dad? Like your brother and sister?”
“Yeah… if that’s… what you want.”
“Yeah, Judah. That’s what I want.”
And that was it. Judah had to keep wiping his nose and face with his shirt, since he was face down hammering, and didn’t want Adam seeing him cry, even though he had to know full well that he was.
“Jojo…”
Judah clenched. He knew that particular variation of mom’s name meant his dad expected to lay eyes on her when he got to the bottom of the stairs. But she had been dead for two years.
From where he sat at the kitchen table, Judah could just make out the bottom of Adam’s bare feet and his big red and black plaid flannel robe he was wearing.
“Kacey, go get your grandpa and bring him to the kitchen.”
His 8-year-old daughter sprung up from her place on the couch and met Adam when he was halfway down the stairs. She blocked the entryway.
“Hey!” she said playfully.
“Hey!” he matched her tone, grabbing her little face in his big hands and giving her a giant kiss on the side of her face before asking, “Who are you?”
“I’m your granddaughter, Adam,” she laughed.
“You are??” he replied, with dramatic surprise in his voice. Kacey just scurried off, back to her position in front of the TV.
He’d been greeting her the same way for five years, and while they were all pretty sure that he genuinely had no idea who she was or any of the grandkids for that matter, he had a tone of fondness and tender familiarity whenever they were around. As though he didn’t remember them, but didn’t mind. It would come to him eventually.
Adam greeted Judah, an apologetic strain present in his steady gaze as he tried to remember his son. He gave Judah’s shoulder a solid squeeze in lieu of words on the way to the stove.
“You make coffee?”
“Mine’s not strong enough for you dad, you know that.”
Adam gave him a quick little chuckle. He did know that. Muscle memory still allowed Adam access to certain tasks, which gave him comfort, confidence. He didn’t recognize the man at his table, however, in his house. But he seemed to know him. He must be safe.
“Your mom up yet?” a fragmented chunk of routine came bubbling up.
“Not yet,” Judah sighed. Some days it punched him to hear Adam refer to his mom as though she were still living. Some days it made him smile. Today was a mix. At least Kacey had taken Adam’s mind off of seeing her. They were out of the woods for now.
This was how Judah’s morning had gone, virtually every day. For the past two years.
“Anyone home?” Maisie yelled, traipsing through the front door.
“In here, Maisie,” Judah yelled back.
Maisie was his youngest sister. All the siblings had property on their parents’ acreage. Except for Maisie, who went against the family and married a European businessman. Currently, they were separated.
Maisie was staying with their brother Corey and his family, the equivalent of a block away.
“Hey, daddy,” Maisie greeted Adam on her way into the kitchen, giving him a loving kiss on the top of his long silverish blond hair. Maisie looked and sounded the most like their mom in stature and mannerisms, which caused a few unfortunate mishaps, in which Adam mistook her for his wife. They all figured out that
if dad was referring to her as “Josie” it probably was a good indication for Maisie to get out of there until the coast was clear.
“So? Did you see what I sent you?” Maisie asked.
“I did.”
“And?”
“JoAnn!” Adam suddenly bellowed.
That meant he wasn’t happy. Everyone jumped except for Judah. His wife Sidney was certainly awake now.
Being around him this much, Judah suspected it meant he was scared. Judah knew it was Maisie. Maisie’s presence sometimes made him particularly anxious.
“Dad, I started on that shed,” Judah suddenly said, his way of getting Adam to go outside to his workshop for a little while so that he could talk to Maisie about her asinine ideas.
Adam could still build like a son a bitch. When he was diagnosed with dementia, he wanted to give up. It was Judah’s mother Jo that convinced him to fight. Adam kept himself busy, even after Judah took over the business for him. He built cabinets without any modern tools. Tried to calculate and measure as much as he could. He must’ve done something because it was all still there. Who knows how much worse he would be if not for that. Still, Judah removed all the saws for his safety.
“Tell that woman I’m callin’ her,” Adam said as he carried his big burly body out onto the back deck towards the workshop. When his dad was safely out of earshot, Judah responded.
“No.”
“State of the art facility, Judah.”
“It’s over an hour away. In another state.”
“Judah, we can take turns going to see him. Twice a week for everyone.”
“You’re not gonna do that,” Judah shook his head.
“We will,” Maisie insisted. If someone’s taking care of him, we can share that load.”
“You don’t visit him twice a week now, and he’s a stone’s throw away.”
“You can’t take care of him alone.”
“Not gonna happen, May.”
“Judah, look at you,” Maisie held out an arm towards him. “You look terrible. You can’t work a full day. You look like you haven’t slept in two years. When’s the last time you took a break? When’s the last time you went on a date? With your wife?”
Judah rolled his eyes at his sister’s righteous speech. “Well, since that would involve someone other than me taking care of Dad for more than an hour then… I guess the answer would be two years.”