Handyman Special

by Pamela Browning

  "I like carrying her," he said. "She's so soft and floppy sometimes. Just like a rag doll."

  "That's a characteristic of Down syndrome children. Didn't you know that?"

  Adam shook his head. "I'm afraid I know very little about them," he said. His busy life hadn't included many children, though he wished it had.

  "Joy—and most children like her—have a certain amount of muscle weakness and poor muscle tone. We've done exercises with her since she was a baby. They've improved her sensory-motor skills a lot. Every task she learns to perform well—such as unwrapping presents like the one you gave her last Saturday night—increases her self-confidence and her willingness to try new things." Sage smoothed Joy's hair back from her face. Joy seemed to delight in the sense of her mother's touch.

  "Will she ever go to school?"

  "She'll start preschool after Christmas. We don't have one for special children in Willoree, but she'll join a class of three-year-olds at our church where the teacher is very sensitive and loving. In a few years, Joy will begin school in the local system with other children who have similar issues. According to tests, Joy is only borderline challenged.

  "Borderline? What does that mean?"

  "She has minor intellectual disability. Her main problem right now is physical development."

  "You mean because she's small for her age?"

  "Yes, and her running is so awkward. Her physical therapist has given her activities that should help her move more normally. Hayley and Greg and I work with her at home."

  "And her future?" Adam would not have asked if Sage didn't seem so forthcoming with the information. She was not at all reticent, only accepting and straightforward.

  "My goal is to help Joy develop to her utmost potential. Then, we'll see. There's every chance that as an adult Joy will be able to function as a worthwhile member of society, either in a sheltered workshop or in a supervised job." Sage rocked Joy gently in her lap, her chin resting on top of Joy's head and her eyes thoughtful.

  It was clear that Sage didn't regard Joy as a problem. Adam had, at first. Because Sage's attitude about her child was so positive, he'd changed his view. He now regarded Joy as a person in her own right, able to make the most of her own unique abilities. Which, when you really think about it, thought Adam, is no different from any of the rest of us.

  Adam watched Sage for a long time as she sat with one graceful hand carelessly caressing her child's hair. She looked motherly and sure of herself and, above all, womanly, even though she wore that sexless coverall thing. And yet, because of her boundless confidence in her child and in herself and because of her faith in her child's future, Sage had never been more attractive to him.

  "Beach, Mommy?" Joy lifted her head and pointed at the ocean.

  "You want to walk on the beach? Again?"

  "I want to dig," said Joy, sliding down from Sage's lap. She retrieved her bucket and shovel.

  "Adam will take you," began Sage, with a glance at Adam, but he was shaking his head.

  "Only if you come with us," he said.

  "I thought I'd start putting on those ceiling tiles," she said, but she saw that it was no use.

  "Come with us," he insisted, "or we won't go." His gaze held hers until she wrenched hers away. In his eyes she saw that she was special to him, and she wasn't used to being special to anyone.

  Her love for him tried to force its way out, but she struggled to hold it in. To hide the struggle, she said, "Joy, go get your windbreaker, please."

  After Joy trotted off, Adam said seriously, "You need a break, Sage. You've been working ever since we got here."

  Sage didn't answer, simply took the blue windbreaker that Joy brought and busied herself zipping it tightly to Joy's neck. Adam's caring was so obvious, but caring and loving were two separate entities. After all, hadn't he cared enough to warn her not to love him?

  Joy was a distraction from such disturbing thoughts. "I wonder if she needs to wear the hood," Sage said.

  "I don't think so," said Adam.

  "Some children with Down syndrome are especially susceptible to chest infections," Sage said, a note of worry in her voice. "Last year Joy caught pneumonia, and she almost died."

  "If she seems uncomfortable, we'll put her hood up later," Adam said, offering Joy one hand and firmly clasping Sage's in the other.

  After picking their way through the dunes, they walked down the beach and finally, when their energy flagged, established themselves on a ridge above the high tide line, where Joy could grub in the sand to her heart's content. Adam helped her dig in a desultory way, making sure that Joy did most of the work.

  Sage leaned back on her hands and inhaled the briny scent of the sea. She'd always loved the beach, but her busy schedule didn't allow frequent visits. When you were in the handyman business, there were always emergencies—overflowing plumbing, trees falling on houses, leaky basements. Other people might have vacations, but Sage was always on call. Well, today she'd relax and enjoy herself. The day provided a welcome change of scene from her usual busy schedule.

  Down the beach a man and a thin blond woman romped with a dog, a spaniel of some sort, the man throwing a yellow Frisbee for the dog to catch. Sage dismissed them as unimportant and watched Joy patting her pile of sand into a mound with her shovel.

  Adam was the picture of total relaxation as he sprawled beside her. He'd had very few days of rest since arriving in Willoree, she knew. But today the tension that she'd regarded as part of his facial expression had disappeared, and the line that often bisected his forehead had smoothed.

  He noticed her watching him. "I've enjoyed Joy," he said, smiling. "She's fun."

  "Do you get to spend much time with your son?" It was something that Sage wouldn't have asked if she hadn't noticed how well he interacted with her own daughter. As soon as the words left her mouth, it was as though a dark cloud passed over Adam's countenance.

  "No" was the abrupt answer.

  After seeing how her question affected him, Sage thought better of asking any more. She tried without success to think of another subject to take the sting out of the last one. The silence between them stretched and became awkward, and Sage was seriously considering taking Joy and going back to the house when Adam spoke.

  "I suppose you want to know about him," Adam said.

  "Only if you want to talk about it."

  Adam drew a deep breath. "Jamie is sixteen and lives with his mother in Hartford."

  "Were you married long?"

  "Too long for her," he said ruefully.

  Sage's cheeks colored. "I didn't mean to pry."

  "You're not. The marriage lasted five years. The end was wrenching, mostly because of Jamie. What Marcia and I had together had been over for a long time."

  "What's she like, Adam?" Sage imagined someone tall and blond and svelte. Someone who never dirtied her hands in buckets of drywall mud or carried a screwdriver in her back pocket.

  "Marcia? She's small and quiet, and she prosecutes criminals. She's an attorney and a former debutante. We met when she was in law school."

  "Oh," Sage said, surprised.

  "We were a total mismatch."

  "And you married because...?"

  "She was pregnant with our son. We thought we were in love and wanted to do the right thing." He shrugged. "The best thing to come out of that mess was Jamie."

  "You must miss him," Sage ventured cautiously. She brushed a bit of seaweed from Joy's hand.

  "I see him for a few weeks in the summer and on alternate Christmases. This Christmas isn't one of them." Something in his voice warned her not to pursue the topic.

  Not knowing what to say, Sage focused her eyes on the couple with the dog. The dog was running closer now, and there was something familiar in the gait of the man. She squinted, trying to make out who it was, but her attention was broken by Joy, who exclaimed, "Look, Mommy, a dog!"

  Joy loved animals, and she pointed at the galumphing spaniel before beginning to strug
gle to her feet.

  "No, Joy," said Sage, moving to restrain her. One thing her trusting daughter needed to learn was that not all dogs were friendly.

  But the Frisbee came winging on a sudden gust of wind to within two feet of Sage's toes, and the man who had thrown it skidded to a stop at her feet and bent to retrieve it.

  Sage quickly pulled Joy aside, Adam turned his head to avoid the spray of sand that spurted up, and the man focused his eyes on Sage's face. When Sage managed to brush the sand from her eyes, she discovered with astonishment and dread that she was staring straight into the face of the man she hadn't seen since he left her and his daughter three years ago, a man who was equally astounded to be looking at her—her ex-husband, Gary McKenna.

  Chapter 9

  The world stopped for a moment. For a split second there was no beach, no Joy, no Adam, no dog, and no blond woman running toward them. For a moment it was just Sage and Gary, caught in the backwash of their failed dreams, overcome to the point of speechlessness at seeing each other after more than three years.

  She'd often wondered what it would feel like to see Gary again. If she ever saw him again. And now that it had happened, she felt—nothing. Just a big blank zilch. Not love, not hate, but indifference. Her complete lack of feeling for him was as much a surprise as seeing him after all these years.

  Gary had changed. He was wearing his hair shorter now, and he'd put on weight. Maybe twenty pounds, which his frame, stocky and of medium height, didn't need.

  Gary straightened slowly and kept staring at her. Suddenly Sage was embarrassed that she wore the heavy denim coveralls, and self-conscious about her hair, which had blown every which way into springy red-gold curls.

  It was he who spoke first. Sage was simply too thunderstruck to say anything.

  "Hello, Sage," he said. The slight blond woman with Gary stopped hesitantly a few feet short of where they were.

  Sage nodded, drawing Joy closer. Joy stuck two fingers in her mouth and stared blankly up at the man.

  It was clear that the child didn't know who he was. Joy quickly lost interest in him, even though Gary was ogling her unashamedly. Instead she focused on the dog, which had bounded off down the beach and was barely staying clear of the waves.

  "This is—?" Gary asked.

  "This is Joy," said Sage, her voice clear and firm.

  Gary's eyes devoured his daughter, as though he could not believe the reality of her. Instinctively, Sage's arms tightened around Joy, protecting her.

  Adam sensed who Gary was immediately. Adam felt like an interloper, and yet he knew he had a right to be there. A right and also a duty to provide Sage with emotional backup if she needed it. He couldn't help assessing Gary McKenna. Adam had always prided himself on being able to size people up. The ability to do so was one of the qualities that made him a leader. The trouble was that in this case he had to put aside his personal feelings of the man as a prize jerk in order to judge him objectively.

  In the first place, he couldn't imagine someone as special as Sage married to such an unremarkable man as Gary McKenna. Gary was the kind of undistinguished, dime-a-dozen guy you saw all over the place. In fact, Sage's former husband was so ordinary you wouldn't pick him out of a crowd of people as superior in looks, intelligence, character or any combination thereof. Gary was about thirty, Adam would guess, and already hanging a belly over his waistband. Gary was the type who would let himself go, spend the next ten years lying in front of a television set guzzling beer and wolfing pretzels, and at age forty he'd wonder how all his muscles had sunk to his gut.

  As far as Adam could see, Sage was lucky that Gary had walked out. Otherwise her loyalty would have made her struggle through the marriage, letting the boredom wear her down and wear her out, and maybe she'd get up the gumption to leave him after the children were grown. Or, at least, that's the scenario that flashed through Adam's mind. He couldn't imagine Sage—beautiful, courageous, intelligent Sage—yoked to a creep like Gary McKenna for life.

  Gary gestured at Joy, who, thankfully, was still watching the dog, a smile lifting the corners of her mouth.

  "She, uh, she swims and everything?"

  Sage lifted her chin. She found Gary's behavior unbelievably churlish. He acted as though Joy were no more than a thing, an object that couldn't hear or see or have feelings. She was glad that Joy's attention was on the dog.

  "Joy hasn't learned to swim yet, but she's skilled at many things," said Sage with dignity. She pulled Joy's hood up over her head and, her hands trembling in anger at Gary's ill-mannered thoughtlessness, tied the string beneath Joy's chin.

  "Gather up your bucket and shovel, sweetheart. It's time to go." She hoped her voice didn't quaver. She gave Joy a little shove toward the bucket, and, as usual, Joy didn't protest but began to do as Sage had asked.

  Sage stood up. Then, belatedly, she remembered that Adam remained sitting beside her, silently watching this whole exchange. Adam stood too, stepping forward as though asserting his claim.

  "Gary, this is Adam Hracek," said Sage.

  Gary pulled his eyes away from Joy long enough to shake hands with Adam, and then, remembering, he motioned to the slight blonde who still stood outside the group, looking dumbfounded and unsure of herself.

  "Sage," he said quickly, as though to get through the unpleasantness as soon as possible, "this is, uh, my wife. Karen."

  Karen shot a surprised look from Sage to Joy and then back again. "And this is—?"

  "Joy," said Sage shortly, taking Joy by the hand. Joy looked up at Gary at that moment and for some reason favored him with the full radiance of her biggest, sunniest smile. In that moment she looked especially, heartbreakingly, beautiful to Sage, for it was when Joy broke into that all-out smile that she was her most appealing.

  Karen looked painfully confused. Poor woman, thought Sage in a rush of empathy. She looks absolutely staggered. Briefly Sage wondered if—and what—Gary had told Karen about his ex-wife and child. Or if Karen had even known of Joy's existence. Judging from the hurt and bewildered expression on her face, it certainly didn't seem likely.

  On an impulse, Adam lifted Joy in his arms, thinking that if he carried her, it would enable them to get away from Gary and his wife all the quicker. If he remained in the man's company any longer, he couldn't be held responsible for his actions. He had a great urge to kick the guy swiftly in the seat of the pants.

  The three of them turned to go, but before they'd taken two steps, they heard a sharp yelp behind them.

  "Wait!" said Gary, catching up. "I'd like to, to see Joy sometime. If that's all right," he amended hastily when he saw the apprehension on Sage's face.

  "No," said Sage in a voice of quiet fury.

  "But a kid should know its father."

  "No," Sage said again with such icy coldness that Adam shot her a look, only to find her staring ahead. Her face had turned chalk-white. "Let's go, Adam."

  They began walking swiftly away, but Gary doggedly followed, his wife, Karen, skipping alongside him, determined to keep up but looking increasingly alarmed and worried. The dog joined them, nipping playfully at the Frisbee in Gary's hand and barking excitedly, and Sage thought, what a sight we must all make, racing down the beach like this! Like a scene from a comedy, only it isn't funny.

  "Sage, be reasonable," puffed Gary. He was unsuccessfully trying to keep pace with Sage, who managed to match Adam's long strides.

  "Leave us alone, Gary," she said stiffly. "That's what you've done for the past three and a half years. Just keep on doing it."

  "Joy's mine, too."

  "You might have thought of that before you left," replied Sage with barely restrained contempt.

  "Sage," Gary pleaded. "I didn't know she'd be like this. Like a real kid. I thought she'd be a vegetable or something."

  Adam had had enough. He felt sudden horror that the man could talk about Joy like that within Joy's hearing. He stopped walking, gently transferred Joy to her mother's arms, and stepped forwa
rd, his head lowered so that he glowered at Gary from under his heavy brows, menace transmitted from every pore of his body. He doubled his hand into a fist and thumped Gary lightly on the shoulder, just hard enough to show him he meant business. It was only one-fourth of what he would have liked to do.

  Sage instinctively moved out of the way, hoping that none of what Gary said had penetrated Joy's consciousness or made any sense to her if it had. Karen hung back, and Sage felt unexpectedly sorry for her. Karen was a tiny little thing, her figure almost boy-straight beneath her warm-up suit. She looked like the kind of person Gary could bully, and she'd bet he bullied Karen plenty. Just as he'd bullied her for too long.

  "Listen," Adam said bluntly, his voice low but highly charged with anger. "You leave Sage alone. You butted out early in the game and Sage is getting along fine without you. If she says you don't see Joy, you don't see Joy. Understand?"

  "You can't tell me what to do," said Gary. "I've got my rights."

  "Leave Sage alone," Adam repeated, his voice so caustic that Gary actually winced.

  Gary addressed his next words to Sage. "You'll hear from me," he said before whirling and stalking off down the beach, followed by his hapless wife and their spaniel, which had given up on wresting the Frisbee from his master's grasp and trotted ahead.

  Neither of them spoke as Sage and Adam resumed their walk, Sage still carrying Joy pressed close to her heart. It wasn't until they stood in the kitchen and Joy had requested and been given a glass of water that Adam said, "Well?"

  Sage was determined not to let Adam know how seeing Gary—and his assertion to a claim on Joy—had upset her.

  "If you'll help me carry the ladder upstairs to the back bedroom, I'll get to work on the ceiling tiles," she said.

  This unnatural calmness wasn't what Adam had expected. He'd expected Sage to collapse, cry, or indicate in some way how seeing her ex-husband had affected her. He had at least thought she'd call Gary a few names, hurl epithets at him. But there were no vengeful threats, no gush of tears.