“Smart-ass.”
“So are you?”
“Tell you what. I’ll answer that one if you tell me where you got those cans of spray paint I found with you.”
The teasing curiosity in the boy’s face slammed closed faster than any door J.T. had ever seen. “Bought ’em.”
“Where?”
“Store.”
“Isn’t that interesting.” J.T. leaned back, bracing his elbows on the step behind him. “Wonder how you managed that, what with the town passing that by-law that made it illegal to sell spray paint to a minor.”
Silence.
“Okay, so you don’t want to talk about it. Let me tell you one thing, and then I’ll drop the wise-old-man act. I was just about your age when I started acting like an idiot. I had some fun, no doubt about it. But I paid for it, big-time.” Ben opened his mouth to say something, but J.T. shook his head and continued. “I’m not going to tell you what to do. I’m not your mother. But I’ll tell you this—there’s a difference between me and you. I was the one leading the trouble. You’re following someone else. Which means it’s a lot easier for you to get out of it than it ever was for me.”
“You think I’m some dummy who does anything they say?”
“’Course not. You’re too smart for that.” He paused. “At least, that’s what you tell yourself.”
Ben shook his head. “Like you said, you’re not my mom. I don’t have to listen to you.”
“No, you don’t. You can think I’m the biggest nitwit in three counties if you want. Free country and all that. But make damned sure you know that when everything goes to hell, not one of those kids will stand up for you. They’ll run faster than they’ve ever run in their lives and leave the last one out to hold the bag.”
“Bull—”
“No, it’s not. Been there, lived that.” And your dad was one of the ones who ran. Not that he would ever let that slip. It would accomplish absolutely squat. Worse, the last thing Ben needed to hear was that his own father had had some moments of testing limits. No point in encouraging him to see juvenile delinquency as an acceptable option. “If you don’t believe me, then tell me why nobody stayed with you at the school the night you got hurt.”
Ben flushed and stuffed wax paper into his sandwich bag. His jerky movements told J.T. he’d hit a nerve, but he sure didn’t feel like celebrating.
“One more thing,” he said as Ben stood up.
“Yeah?”
“If you really don’t want anyone to know that you got the paint from the kid whose dad owns the hardware store, you might want to be a bit more subtle next time you run into each other.”
The slight flush on Ben’s face was all the confirmation he needed.
Ben gathered up his trash and headed to the cottage. J.T. waited until the kid was out of earshot before indulging in a heartfelt curse. His own misspent adolescence wasn’t nearly enough preparation for this kind of situation.
J.T. had worked with a lot of kids in his time and had pulled a hell of a lot of numbskulls back from the brink. He was no novice at getting through to a kid.
But he’d never had a kid get to him the way Ben did.
Like mother, like son.
* * *
J.T. GOT A BIT CLOSER to understanding Lyddie’s skittishness the next night, helping Iris separate linens into boxes—Pack, Toss, Donate. She chattered about Lyddie taking down Jillian, all while moving items from one location to another whenever she thought J.T. wasn’t looking.
“...then Jillian left. But as Tracy said, you know she’s not going to let things drop.”
No, she wouldn’t. J.T. tossed a handful of monogrammed napkins into the donation box and scowled. Damn Lyddie. Why did she have to start at the top? Couldn’t she have found a slightly less threatening victim on whom to test her new claws?
He had no doubt that there was a boatload of anger simmering under that slightly frazzled exterior she presented. How and why she let it loose was none of his business, of course. But he hated to see her get hurt. And try as he might to talk himself into believing this could work, the sour feeling in his gut told him Lyddie had made a major-league mistake.
“What are you doing?” Iris asked. He pulled himself from his thoughts and realized he was standing frozen with an ancient tablecloth in his hands.
“I’m—uh—deciding. Figuring out whether to keep this or not.”
“You’re keeping that, of course. And the napkins.” She pulled them out of Donate and threw them into Pack. “These were from your father’s family. You can’t give them away.”
“Ma, let’s get real. I’m not a linen kind of guy. And you might have forgotten, but my initials are not PC.”
“All right, so they’re from your father’s mother’s family. They’re still quality pieces. You won’t find that kind of detail today.”
“We can’t keep everything.”
Iris smoothed the fabric in her hands. J.T. looked at her wrists and winced. She was still so damned thin.
Not for the first time, he asked himself if he were doing the right thing. Staying in Comeback Cove could kill her...but taking her away could, too.
He took the napkins and set them gently in the keeper box. “We’ll hold on to these.”
Iris nodded quickly. He saw her blink once, twice, then swallow and shake her head.
“The other thing I heard is that you are being blamed for Lyddie’s sudden change,” she said.
He grunted. “No surprise there.”
“People say you’ve been spending a lot of time with her.”
“I’m selling the buildings to her. Her kid works with me. Of course I spend time with her.”
“Are those the only reasons?”
He saw the hope she didn’t dare speak. Another piece of his heart broke off.
“Ma, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to fall in love with Lydia Brewster and move back here. Don’t even go there, okay?”
“I never said you were.”
But she had been thinking about it. Probably hoping and praying, too.
It was just like when he was seventeen. But then he’d deserved the guilt of knowing he was hurting her. This time it wasn’t all his fault. And damn, that felt even worse than having only himself to blame.
“This is the hardest part,” he said softly. “It gets easier as you go.”
She nodded, head down. “I said that to you on your first day of school.”
“And the first day of band, and at football tryouts, and the first time I got hauled in front of the cops.” He hesitated. “And even though you weren’t with me, it’s all I heard the night I left town for good.”
Iris grabbed one of the monogrammed napkins and pressed it to her eyes. J.T. waited, knowing this had to happen, hating being unable to help.
“I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to have to leave. It’s not... Why do these things have to happen? Why do I have to be so stupid and weak?”
“You’re not stupid, Ma. Or weak. Being sick doesn’t make you either of those things.”
“Sick.” Bitterness twisted her face the way she twisted the napkin. “Other people can cope with this—this thing without losing their homes. I could manage it when your father was here to help. Why can’t I do it now?”
There was no point in even trying to answer. They’d been over this ground too many times, shed too many tears already.
“I’ve been thinking....” She lifted her head, dared to look at him. “Summer isn’t bad for me here. Maybe we don’t have to sell the house. Maybe I could be a snowbird, staying here in the summer, going to Tucson in the winter. I think...I think if I could do that, it would make it easier. If it wasn’t all or nothing.”
It was a good solution, one he kicked himself for not considering earlier. “That could work,” he said cautiously. “And if it would make it easier for you to spend the winters with me, then we should make it happen.” At the sudden brightening of her face, he added, “But I don’t think it wo
uld be practical to keep this house. We should still sell it, maybe keep one of the cabins for —”
But she was shaking her head, shaking away his words.
“No. J.T., you don’t understand. I want to stay here.”
“But—”
Then he got it.
“Because of Dad. Right?”
She inhaled, ragged and shaky. “I miss your father so much.”
“Me, too.”
“I told him not to go out on the water that day. I told him it was too rough, but he just laughed and said he’d seen worse....” She pulled the napkin away and he could see it all, the loneliness and hurt she’d been holding back since he walked through the door. “How can I leave? This is our home. This was where we raised you, this was where he walked and laughed and... I can’t go. He’s here, all around me. I can still feel him watching me, I know what his voice sounded like in this room and in the backyard and...I can’t... If I leave here, how will I remember him?”
He couldn’t give her the answers she needed. All he could do was step over a pile of towels and hold his mother tight as she broke down and cried.
* * *
A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER, when the tears and the talking were over and an exhausted Iris had taken herself to bed, J.T. found himself wandering the house. He couldn’t settle down yet. Everything was too raw, too recent to allow him to sleep.
He needed to move.
He peeked in on Iris, then, satisfied she was okay for the night, sat on the front steps and strapped on his Rollerblades. As soon as he hit the road he knew he’d made the right choice. The streets were quiet, the air, cooling, and the night beckoned.
He stayed away from the river, away from downtown. He didn’t want to see tourists tonight. He skirted the lights and the noise and glided down the back roads, losing himself in the rhythm of his feet skimming over the deserted pavement. He used to ice-skate on the frozen river when he was a kid. When he moved to Tucson he’d feared his skating days were lost forever. The day he’d discovered in-line blades was one of the best of his life.
He didn’t know what to do for his mother. He didn’t know how to make her believe she would be able to go on. But as he pushed himself to go faster, crouching and hurtling into the night and the stars, he realized there was someone who could help.
And he was only mildly surprised when he looked around and saw that he’d unconsciously skated almost to her doorstep.
It wasn’t until he was picking his way carefully among the gravel of the driveway that he realized this might not be good timing. Lyddie could be busy. Her mother-in-law would probably be there, ready to give him one of those glares she dispensed every morning when he came for Ben.
But he had to give it a shot. The women in this house knew what Iris was living. He couldn’t help, but they could.
He sidestepped his way up the porch steps and clomped past the chairs where he and Lyddie had sat and struck their deal—the first time he’d been tempted to kiss her. He couldn’t let himself think of that now. He needed to keep his head on an even keel, stay focused.
Though that might be a lot easier said than done.
A knock on the door brought the slap, slap of rapidly approaching flip-flops. In a moment little Tish came to a dead stop in the hall.
“Hi. Is your mom home?”
Tish looked him up and down. She was off at day camp before he arrived in the mornings, so she was probably trying to figure out if he was friend or foe.
Her and a lot of other people.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“A friend of your mom’s. Is she around?”
She squinted. “I know you.”
“That’s right. You do. I’m J. T. Del—”
“Oh!” She lunged forward and reached for the door. “Graveyard man!”
Okay, so it wasn’t the best thing he’d ever been called, but neither was it the worst. And it got him inside.
“Mommy’s in the kitchen.” Tish pointed toward the back of the house, then started to run upstairs.
“Wait! I can’t just walk in on her. I’ll scare her. Could you tell her I’m here, please?”
She gave a heavy sigh that conveyed her opinion of useless adults. “I guess.”
With a roll of her eyes, she flounced off. J.T. finally released the grin he’d been holding back. That was one little lady who would never let the world boss her around.
In an instant Lyddie hurried into the hall, her surprise matched only by his pleasure at seeing her. He’d expected to feel relief, or maybe nervousness at the topic he had to broach, but instead he slipped into the comfort that always seemed to surround him when she was near.
At least, he was comfortable until he realized she was wearing some of the best-looking cutoffs he’d seen in a long time.
“Hi.” She seemed flustered. “What’s up?”
“I wanted to talk to you about something.”
She pressed her lips together but her expression said it all too clearly: Now?
“I’m sorry, I should have called first, but it was kind of an impulse thing. I can make it another time if—”
“No, that’s okay. I just—” she looked down, brushed at a smear on her shorts with a briskness that made him ache “—we’re making jam. Can we talk while I work? The pectin has been sitting and I need to mix it now.”
“Not a problem. Thanks.”
He unlaced the blades and padded after her into the kitchen where the table and counters were cluttered with measuring cups, bowls, a sack of sugar and box after box of shiny strawberries. It was a sight straight out of Norman Rockwell—
—until the refrigerator door, which had been open, closed to reveal Ruth glowering at him.
“Evening, Mrs. Brewster.” He would stay respectful tonight if it killed him.
“J.T.” She nodded. Why did everyone do that? Was it their secret code, the greeting they all used for an outcast?
“I’m sorry to intrude, but I need some help. From both of you, actually.”
“What is it?” Lyddie asked. Ruth merely tightened her lips.
“It’s my mother. She’s... I’m dealing with things that are out of my league.”
“What do you mean?” Lyddie emptied a small saucepan of pectin into a stainless steel bowl filled with strawberry mush.
“Stir, Lydia. What have you done now, J.T.?”
God, if he made it through this intact, the rest of the summer would be a cakewalk. Lyddie looked pissed but he jumped in before she could attack Ruth the way she had Jillian.
“This isn’t like when I was a kid, Mrs. Brewster. We were talking about my father, and the house, and she kind of fell apart on me, and I need to know—God, there’s no way to ask this without sounding like an idiot, but—”
“You want to know if it’s normal for her to still miss her husband so much that she can’t breathe?”
It was more sarcastic than he would have liked, but probably all he could expect from Ruth.
“That’s about it.”
Lyddie and Ruth exchanged glances across the bowl of mush. Ruth attacked a bowl of whole berries with a potato masher, employing such vigor that he had the feeling she was imagining his head in there. Lyddie stopped stirring and focused on him.
“Yes. It’s normal.”
Such simple words, yet they carried a world of hurt in them.
“I thought so. But it’s been a while now, and sometimes she still seems like it just happened.”
Ruth sighed. “They were together for almost fifty years. She’s not going to get over him in a couple of weeks.”
He felt his shoulders tensing at the condescension in Ruth’s voice, but again he forced himself to stay steady. Ruth didn’t know that Iris was dealing with much more than her grief. And nobody knew how much he worried that she could end up suicidal again.
Instead, he asked the question that had pushed him through the door. “What can I do to help her?”
Ruth gave him a look so filled
with amazement—and not the good kind—that he took a step back. It was all there in her face. Accusation, judgment, condemnation and the certainty that he was somehow the cause for all that had gone wrong in his mother’s life.
The hell with that. He had a lot to answer for, and he knew he’d caused his share of grief back then, but not now. And if he wasn’t going to get any advice, he was out of here.
“Okay. I guess this was a mistake, so I’ll—”
“Wait.” Lyddie’s cheeks were almost as red as the berries in the bowl, though whether from anger or embarrassment, he couldn’t tell. She set her spoon on the counter and addressed Ruth. “I’d like to talk to J.T. alone for a while. You want me to finish up the jam, or do you want to do it?”
“Lydia—”
“Ruth.”
“Fine.” Ruth undid her apron, then tossed it over a chair. “Go ahead and have your little chat. But you might want to remember that it’s easier to prevent a problem than to cause it in the first place.”
With that, she pushed open the screen door and went outside. J.T. watched her go with a mixture of relief and regret. He should have known.
Though to be honest, Ruth Brewster had never been this hostile when he lived here. She hadn’t condoned his actions but he had always sensed a kind of boys-will-be-boys vibe from her back in the day. Now, though, she seemed almost eager to remind him of his guilt, to push him away.
He could think of only two explanations. The first and most likely was that the sheer magnitude of the fire and its fallout had erased any tolerance she might have ever had for him.
The second was that she knew he hadn’t been alone that night. That she knew—or suspected—that Glenn had been in on the action. And that she was terrified he might tell folks about that before he left.
If he knew for sure that she knew, he would let her know she had nothing to fear. There was nothing he could gain from tarnishing Glenn’s reputation. But if she didn’t know—well, he couldn’t broach the topic. If he’d guessed wrong, and she had no idea, he would rot in a well-deserved hell if he were the one to shatter her heroic image of her son. She’d lost enough. He couldn’t take that cold comfort from her.
“Here.” Lyddie pushed the bowl to his side of the table, bringing his focus back to her. “Harley insists on giving us berries every year, way too many. A guilt offering. We can barely keep up. Make yourself useful and start mashing.”
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