by Deborah Reed
“I know you don’t either.”
Then silence.
“It’s your house,” he finally said. “Please. Come whenever you like.”
June was saying something, but his phone began to beep with another call. He held it out and saw that it was Sarah Anne.
“Well. If you really don’t mind,” June said as the phone reached his ear, “there are a few things I want to talk about.”
“Not at all. Listen, I’ve got something coming through on the other line. Do you mind if I call you back?’
“No need. Sit tight. I’ll see you in a bit.”
He nodded and switched over the call, feeling the full discomfort of sweat weighing on his clothes. He backed up and sat in the shade against a white trunk.
“Hi, baby,” Sarah Anne said, an endearment neither of them had used since the children had died.
“Sarah Anne. How are you? How’s the boy today?”
“We’re both well, really well. I’ve got news. I don’t want to get your hopes up, but Melinda called Jessie to ask about the adoption.”
Jessie. It took a moment to realize Jessie was the caseworker’s name. “Oh, you mean . . . she’s asking how to do it? She’s asking how to let him go?” He was glad to be sitting down.
“Yes. That is what I mean. And you sound tired.”
“It’s hot,” he said. “I’m sure it’s even worse for you.”
“Of course it is, but Jameson? Did you hear what I said?”
This heavy wave of fatigue . . . Had he not been getting enough sleep? His dreams had come to him like fleeting, hovering moods, forgotten as soon as he woke.
“Yes, yes, I did, of course, you didn’t call to talk about the weather. You caught me off guard with my hands full.”
“Aren’t you happy? Is everything all right?”
“I’m good, no, this is great, just . . . a little exhausted and all that, but listen, I don’t want you to get your hopes up. Melinda says a lot of things . . .”
“I think she means it. I really do. Jessie had a serious, very honest conversation with her after our last visit. I think . . . well, do you want it, if it’s true?”
“Do I want it? Oh, Sarah Anne. Of course I want it. Of course I want him.” Jameson stood and fanned his shirt. He closed his eyes, opened them, and looked down to see that June was no longer on the lawn. “I’ve got my hands full, like I said. In the middle of a thousand things.”
“I’m sorry. I figured as much. It’s OK. Call me later. Will you call me later?”
“I will. In a little while. I’ll call you by this evening at the latest.”
He hung up and stood, trying to collect himself as sweat ran through the grime and sawdust on his face. He lifted off his T-shirt and crossed the yard, using the fabric to dab his face, and then he thought that June might be watching, and figured the only thing to do was keep walking and dabbing his neck in a way that seemed mannerly and considerate of her seeing him, though it made no sense, and still he steadied his pace so as not to give anything away.
He rinsed his face and neck at the kitchen sink, dried himself off with his dirty shirt, and pulled a clean, wrinkled T-shirt from his duffel. He didn’t know that he could parent that boy. He didn’t know that Sarah Anne could not. He drank two full glasses of water and shook his damp hair like a dog.
21
June began to panic days ago. She had lived long enough to regret plenty of the things she’d done in her life, and she’d spent the past week terrified and certain that if she left the house at all, even to lie out in the yard, she would walk away from the property and down to the store and return home with several bottles of wine. She closed herself off like her father, and understood him in a way she had not before.
But every day that passed she had been sneaking looks at Jameson through the blinds, memorizing his gait, the way he favored his left leg now and again. He often set down whatever he was holding, gripped his hips, and tipped his face to the sun, as if remembering suddenly that it was there. He kept his eyes closed for ten seconds or so before he dropped his head back down and gave it a little shake, as if freeing his mind of the thoughts he’d allowed in. Watching him put her in a trance, and June didn’t trust a trance. A trance was too close to a stupor. Jameson must think her incredibly rude.
But today arrived with a new distraction. It was June’s birthday, which she preferred to forget. Every year Grandmam tried forcing a celebration with cake and presents, as if no one could hear June’s father weeping and pacing upstairs in his room. She needed to get out in the sun.
When she opened the back door, she paused for a long breath and then stepped into the yard and stretched her arms in the air. One year older, more than one month sober, and the air smelled of freshly seared wood, lavender, and the clattering sounds of work next door, and everything tightened June’s chest with relief. Life was about to get better. Surely it was. It was already better. A few bad scenes were not the end of the story.
She got the camp blanket and lay down on it, thinking how she needed to call Jameson. She must go next door finally and introduce herself. She took out her phone.
“Please,” he told her. “Come whenever you like.”
Now she was in her bedroom, about to change clothes and go meet him. She happened to look through the window and see him taking off his shirt in the yard. She lowered herself to the edge of the bed and stared as he dabbed his face and throat with his wadded-up T-shirt. He blotted his cheeks and forehead and swiped the back of his neck, and June did not turn away, though it struck her that his movements, so private and tender, were not meant for her to see.
As he walked shirtless across the yard and into the house, June sat motionless on the bed. Moments later, he returned wearing a different shirt, and June felt her breath shorten at the thought that he had changed his shirt for her. The blinds were angled upward, and she guessed that if he looked over he would see her, too, and she removed her tank top without taking her eyes off him, and, mimicking him, she wiped away the sweat at the nape of her neck and between her breasts, and by the time she’d changed into something new, she was fairly certain that he had not looked up, and was not aware of her at all.
22
Fifteen minutes had passed and Jameson was starting to wonder. The wave of fatigue he’d felt earlier had been replaced by adrenaline, and as he paced the yard and rooms on the first floor, an awareness evolved, a wider disarray coming into view than the one he’d noticed thirty minutes before. He shuffled and scrambled and shoved tools and clothes and takeout boxes from the counter.
And then he waited, leaning into his workbench from the side opposite where he normally stood, gaining leverage while yanking nails from a piece of trim, a little busywork to bide his time. Standing on this side of the bench offered a clear view of the debris along the edge of the yard, and he was thinking about the call he’d have to put in to Van Hicks. Someone needed to haul away all this busted wood and rusted wiring and the gutter pieces and crumbled drywall that Jameson had raked into four separate mounds. It was getting out of hand.
When he woke this morning his right hip and shoulder had ached tender as a bruise, and it was only after three cups of coffee and a slice of banana bread that the soreness had finally disappeared, and he was sure now that he had slept well, because when he’d first walked outside, his right cheek reflected in the windowpanes of the double doors, he saw the lines carved in his face where he must have lain for hours without moving his head from the pillow, lines deep and varied as a map of deltas.
The air suddenly shifted at his back. Jameson turned to find June several yards away, holding a Polaroid camera in one hand and a coffee cup in the other. She took a sip and then lowered the cup, leisurely, to her chest, her face slowly coming into view. Her eyes were large and dark and unblinking. Her cheeks were bright from the sun, and the whole of her seemed as strangely natured and beautiful as he now realized he’d feared. She was a perfect match for the lilting, airy voice on t
he phone.
Jameson rushed to the other side of his bench like a fool running a store, a man caught slacking on the job.
June stepped forward and lifted her hand with the cup as if to touch his arm, though she was too far away to reach him. She was dressed in a thin blue tunic that billowed in the faint breeze, out and around and in between her ankle-length jeans. She seemed to be holding back laughter. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
The blood pounded in his ears and his pulse was so loud he feared he wouldn’t hear whatever it was she’d come to say.
“I hope you don’t mind the intrusion,” she said.
He shook his head. “Of course not.”
“It’s my birthday.” She glanced toward her yard and back. “Sorry, that must sound strange.”
“No,” he said, though it did.
She lifted the camera to her eye, aimed at Jameson, and clicked the red button without a word. The photo spit out the front with a zipping sound he had not heard since he was a child. June plucked it from the camera with the fingers she’d looped through the handle of the coffee cup, and the coffee sloshed over the side.
Jameson stood dumbfounded.
“Well,” she said, fanning the air with the photograph. “Anyway . . .” She turned toward the piles of junk, then peered in the direction of the open double doors into the dining room, where his rolled-up sleeping bag and duffel were stacked against the far wall. She nodded with a sense of propriety, as if to say she approved of everything, and then the cup was at her lips, and Jameson saw how much she resembled her grandmother.
He ought to come around and shake her hand. But the distance between him and any kind of protocol was like a widening river, and besides, she did not have a free hand to shake.
“Oh, I’m June,” she said, “as you may have guessed.”
“Nice to finally meet you.” The piece of trim was still in his hands, and he tore at the nails without looking down. “I suppose it’s pretty clear who I am.”
Did that sound sarcastic? Clarity was a slow train coming, and willing it faster did nothing to help. He looked down at his hands; they might as well have belonged to another man for all the sense they made. He looked up and blinked, then found he couldn’t stop blinking. “Sawdust,” he said, wiping his lids with the back of his hand.
“I meant to say, I’m Jameson.” He yanked a little harder at the nails, and when he looked down, he saw he’d busted several off at the base. When he looked up, the sun had lit the outline of June’s shape through the fabric, the contour of her hips and the sides of her breasts now well defined. Her skin was deeply tanned, and her long hair, a coppery brown, was swept into a twist at the back of her head. Loose strands fell from her temples and others curled at the back of her neck. She was barefoot, but he did not tell her to be mindful of splinters and nails. She had watchful eyes of her own.
“The piles are filling up,” she said.
“Yeah . . .”
“You seem to be making a lot of progress in a short amount of time.”
“It’s not as bad as it might have been. You were right. Your grandfather knew how to look after the place.”
June nodded at the ground. “I’ll give your friend Van Hicks a call.”
“He’s not my friend.”
“Oh?”
“I mean, we worked together in the past, that’s it.”
“All right.”
“I’ll call him.” Jameson’s face burned with heat.
“Are you interested in doing any of the landscape work?” she asked. “I keep forgetting to ask.”
“Depends on what you need.”
“Not much. The hazel tree could use pruning. But I’d like it to remain a bit rascally, as Granddad used to say.”
Jameson let go a small laugh.
“And once the house is done, I’d like a row of cypress planted between the properties for privacy.”
“I can do both of those things if you like.”
His thoughts shifted to Sarah Anne and Ernest, the extra days being tacked on at the end.
“I’ll pay you fairly.”
“I believe you will. Thank you for the check. You didn’t need to pay so much up front.”
“For your trouble,” she said, and he did not contradict her. “I also wanted to mention something about the chimney.”
He let go of the trim and the hammer, wiped his hands down his thighs, and made every attempt to focus on what she was saying.
“The stonework around the mantel is vulnerable in places not visible to the eye. My grandfather made a note of it before he died.”
“I gathered, after poking around.”
“Well.” She took another sip. “It’s just that we really need to take good care.”
“Of course we will. I will.”
“I was thinking we might need to call for backup.”
“How so?”
“I mean, if we end up needing help. Probably not best to wait until the last minute to find someone. I know you like to work alone, and I got so lucky with you on short notice, but I don’t expect that to happen again. How do you feel about working with Van Hicks again?”
Jameson’s jaw tightened. “He’ll do if I need someone, but I don’t think I’ll be needing anyone.” He felt a tightness in his neck. He didn’t know what to make of her request.
“There’s something I need to show you,” he said, as if someone else had stepped up and come to the rescue. “Do you have a minute?”
June swallowed her coffee. “I do.”
She followed him through the dining room, and he turned in time to see her looking down at his belongings.
“You didn’t bring very many things with you,” she said.
He didn’t turn when he spoke. “I don’t need a whole lot.”
“Hmm,” she said, and followed him up the stairs and down the hall.
When they reached the master bedroom, Jameson walked to the far wall and opened the west-facing window all the way, and then he did the same to the one facing east, though barely a crosswind stirred. June stood just inside the doorway. The room was about eleven by fifteen feet and echoey.
June kept the camera at her side, her cup to her chest, and Jameson could see that the coffee was nearly gone. She went over to the window facing the ocean, her movements a kind of graceful, injured elegance. She looked out and drank the last of her coffee, and he could see the shape of the photo she had taken in the front square pocket of her tunic.
“I don’t remember it ever being this warm,” she said. The depth of her sigh was audible.
“That’s because it’s never been.” Jameson slipped on his work gloves and picked up the pry bar in the corner of the room. The gloves were hot on his hands, and his clean shirt was already sweat-spotted. He crouched near a row of planks at the center of the room. “This,” he said, not looking up, but in that moment he was studying the imprints her bare feet made across the dusty floor, and then her toes.
He glanced up. She had the camera raised to her eye. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“No,” he said, but he was feeling strange, pulled into something he didn’t quite understand.
He shifted his weight into the pry bar and yanked hard, popping the rotten wood loose. “This is what I wanted you to see.” He told her the flooring would have to be replaced, and he talked about the leaky roof and the termites, and how he’d expected much worse after seeing the outside.
June clicked the camera and the film zipped free.
Jameson wedged the pry bar deeper and yanked again. This time the dry wood snapped with a violent crack that caught him off balance.
He stood, favoring his left leg in a way he did only in winter. He let the pry bar slip to the floor as if he were alone, and it made a clattering crash that startled them both.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Not to worry,” she said, lowering the camera and fanning the photograph dry.
When he walked over to set the pry bar u
pright in the corner, he realized he was walking with a limp.
“Everything all right?”
“Yes,” he said, and removed his gloves and covered his mouth. Then he dropped his hand and shook his head at the floor before meeting her eyes. “But the chimney,” he said, “I don’t want you to worry about that. It’s a simple fix.”
She started to speak, then stopped.
“Don’t worry about any of this.” He spoke with a kindness he hadn’t expected or even intended, he didn’t think he did, but that was how he said it, and he saw in her face that she’d received it that way, too. The corners of her mouth and eyes lit with a spark of understanding, and Jameson wondered what it would be like if things were turned around. When was the last time, if ever there had been a time, when he’d been told not to worry about any of this? When had he not felt responsible for every last thing in his life and for every last thing in the lives of those closest to him?
A moment of quiet, then June nodded and lowered the mug and thanked him. “There’s that tile around the hearth,” she said. “Are you able to find a match for the broken piece?”
“I’ve got a guy in Portland. I ordered a few extras in case another one cracks.”
“Thank you.”
“Sure.”
“I have to get going,” she said. “Is it all right if I come back tomorrow?” She stepped into the doorway.
“You can come anytime.”
She began to turn away, hesitated, and gripped the doorframe. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said. “But I’m curious.” Her eyes narrowed. “If you don’t mind . . . I’m wondering how you live with the isolation.”
Jameson shifted his hip, leaned into his bad leg, and shifted back. He balled his fists into his front pockets like a boy, wondering what Van had told her about him. She knew. She had to know about his family. She could have been part of the blur of people who’d pitied him and Sarah Anne, that onslaught of sympathy coming at them in the form of hugs and marionberry pies and easy-to-reheat side dishes. Before their hunger had vanished, another stew arrived at the door.
“Are you sure we’ve never met?” he asked.