She cupped his cheek in her hand, being what she could be for him, a friend. Words could not express the sorrow she felt on his behalf: imagining Adam lonely and bereft when he realized he'd been abandoned, feeling his sorrow that he no longer had his beloved violin, his anguish when he realized that his parents had taken money for him. For their own child. It sickened her. She felt his pain.
"So now you know. There's one part of gypsy life that I couldn't shake—the moving around. I'm still a gypsy in that sense. Once a gypsy, always a gypsy." The words were tormented. Tonight he had found that even his music wasn't enough to banish the loneliness and his need for someone who cared about him. Restlessly he sat up and walked to the window. He felt hollow inside. He felt as though his strength had been drained.
Sage wrapped the bedspread around her and followed him. His body, naked, was truly magnificent. He stood outlined against the view of the black lake.
"I was abandoned, too," she said softly as she stood beside him. "Not by my parents, but by my husband."
He put his arm around her. "Does the pain of it ever go away?" It was a rhetorical question, not meant to be answered. He thought the answer was obvious. For him the pain was there always.
She surprised him. "It did for me."
She saw his throat working. "How did you make it stop?" he asked.
"My family. A support group to help me through the bad times."
He thought for a moment. He could see that her solution had worked for her. He and Sage had each handled their own abandonment in a different way. She had addressed it by making a commitment to other people. He'd handled it by running, and he was still running.
"I'm glad it worked for you" was all he said. But what she had said—and his subsequent self-examination—made an impression on him. It was different for Sage, he thought. She had Joy. In Sage's life, there was something that she absolutely could not lose, and that was her child. It gave her a point of reference for everything else, a bottom line.
For Adam, there was nothing that he absolutely could not lose. He had already lost everything that was important to him.
It was a bleak thought. But through it he felt the faint stirrings of hope. He felt like a blind person groping and fumbling in the dark toward something he wasn't sure existed. He didn't know what he would find when he found it. He only hoped that if he ever got there, Sage would be there too.
* * *
Sage was profoundly affected by Adam's story. She was glad he'd told her. It underscored her first impression that there was something special and different about him, and that specialness included his struggle to rise above the difficulties of his circumstance. After that night when he'd revealed his history, the two of them felt closer than ever. They began to feel like a couple, and deep down, Sage believed that their relationship was meant to be.
Also, Sage's satisfaction grew day by day as work progressed at Kalmia Hill. The electrician and the plumber finished their work, and Sage supervised the modernizing of the kitchen.
She loved working in the house, delighted in being surrounded by its beauty, and soon began to perceive that the house had its own personality. It was like a gracious Southern lady, refined and dignified and elegant. She would miss Kalmia Hill when her work there was finished, much in the way that she would miss a good friend. She hoped she'd find a buyer for the house who would appreciate its special qualities.
Often at night she and Adam would sit before the fire and hold hands, talking. Sage loved those evenings at Kalmia Hill with Adam. She was, she realized with gratitude, no longer lonely. Those evenings were what she'd wished for in her marriage—a joining together at the end of the day, discussing problems, sharing ideas, helping each other. Of course, she and Gary had never shared anything remotely resembling her evenings with Adam.
Even before Joy was born, when she and Gary had worked so hard to renovate the old Victorian house where Sage now lived, there hadn't been much communication between them. Gary had worked at a local insurance office, and he would tell Sage to buy this or that type of varnish, or order her to pick up this or that kind of sandpaper while he was at work, and she had done what he had told her to do and then worked all day on whatever project was current.
As work on the house progressed, Gary grew supercritical, and Sage seldom measured up to his standards because he was always raising the bar to an impossible height. If he told her to paint baseboards and he came home to find she'd finished the job, he'd find something wrong with her work. He'd tell her she should have used a different brush or point out places she'd missed. The harder she worked, the more he found to criticize, often cursing her or telling her she was stupid.
It was a vicious circle. The more Gary criticized and the more abusive he became, the harder Sage worked to gain his approval. It had taken a couple of years of therapy after they separated for her to understand that he was an abuser and that nothing she could have done would have changed him.
With Adam, things were different. He respected her as an autonomous woman, a craftsman, and he was confident in her ability to do anything she set out to do. He greeted each new accomplishment of hers with praise and pleasure, so that more and more, ever-conscious of his good taste and equally good judgment, she presented Adam with problems concerning the house and let him help her with the solutions. As an industrial engineer, he was good at thinking up unique ways of handling problems. And, as Sage grew to know Adam even more, she grew to love him more, too.
Loving him was a mixed blessing. Sometimes, after they made love, when his head rested on the pillow next to hers and his steady breathing ruffled her short curls, it was all she could do not to reveal how she felt about him. But he had never done anything to invite such a revelation, and he never told her that he loved her. She knew he was fond of her. Their lovemaking satisfied both of them. But Adam seemed determined that their relationship remain nothing more than it was: a close friendship, including sex, containing much mutual satisfaction, and meant to be concluded at the end of a year.
Occasionally she wondered about his son and his ex-wife. One night, almost casually, he brought up the subject. They'd been discussing what they were going to buy everyone for Christmas. Sage thought that Joy was ready for her first tricycle—a little later than most children were, but ready nevertheless. Gregory wanted a football helmet. Hayley said she didn't want anything, but Sage was going to buy her an iPad of her own.
"What do you think a sixteen-year-old boy might like?" Adam asked out of the blue.
"A sixteen-year-old girl," Sage replied promptly, which made Adam laugh, but then he became serious again.
"No, really," he said. "I don't know what to get Jamie."
"What does he like to do?"
Adam shook his head. "I'm not sure. I haven't seen him since last Christmas. I missed seeing him last summer because Marcia offered to pay for him to go on a tour of Europe with his school class, so he didn't visit me. Anyway, I was working in a drab mining town in Montana at the time, and he didn't seem interested in going there."
"That's too bad."
"I don't get to see him this Christmas, either." Adam looked glum.
"Since you didn't see him in the summer, maybe your wife—"
"My ex-wife," corrected Adam.
"Your ex-wife would let him visit you this Christmas. It would be nice, Adam. The two of you could join my family for Christmas, the tree trimming, caroling around the neighborhood, the Christmas dinner, everything."
"Fat chance," scoffed Adam. "Marcia simply wouldn't allow it."
"Could you ask her?"
Adam shook his head. "To tell you the truth, Sage, I'm not sure what's going on with her and Jamie. When I call him, Jamie acts sullen, and Marcia doesn't tell me much. I asked Jamie what was wrong and he put on the same old apathetic front. You know, answering me with 'yeah' and 'huh?' and 'nope.' I have an idea he's not getting along with Marcia and I don't know why."
"How's his schoolwork?"
"Goi
ng steadily downhill. His marks last time were awful. And he's a smart boy."
"Oh, Adam, I wish he could come here for the holidays. It would be so much fun!"
Adam liked the way Sage's eyes shone at the thought of them all together at Christmas, and he liked the idea, too. He hadn't had a family Christmas ever in his whole life. Christmases had been spent in the dour company of Tony Hracek in the years after he'd been adopted, and the Christmases before that were so grim that he'd blotted them from his memory. During the brief years that they were married, he and Marcia had spent the winter holidays in Palm Beach. And his Christmases with Jamie had always meant just the two of them in whatever town where Adam happened to be working, which was okay as far as it went, but lonely.
"I'll ask," he said suddenly. He didn't think Marcia would go for it, and he was completely uncertain whether Jamie would want to come to Willoree or not. But all at once it seemed as though this was the greatest gift he could give Jamie, a real honest-to-goodness old-fashioned Christmas, complete with family and even a dog, Sage's Snowball. The idea of it made him feel effusive, and he kissed Sage unexpectedly on the mouth and pulled her close in a big bear hug.
"Jamie would love you," he said exuberantly, much to Sage's surprise.
But would you, she thought. And then she lowered her face to his neck, afraid that he would see the pain hiding in her eyes.
Chapter 11
Christmas preparations began in earnest in Sage's household. Secret conferences took place in rooms and alcoves away from all the other members of the family. Everyone began sneaking in from the frosty outside air loaded down with mysterious boxes and bundles, which immediately disappeared into one of the many nooks and crannies that are so prevalent in old Victorian houses.
Sage and Hayley commandeered the kitchen one afternoon and created candles out of paraffin, coloring them with pieces of Joy's old crayons. Ralph sallied forth into the woods on a Saturday morning and hauled back a pickup truckload of pine and holly, which Irma and Gregory fashioned into garlands to loop over the banisters and to festoon the doorways. Gregory taught Joy to sing "Deck the Halls With Boughs of Holly," and even Irma, forsaking her familiar gospel songs, joined in.
Luigi and Vito, who were welcome by now in Sage's house as friends of the family, watched the preparations with interest. They were going to finish their work at Wilpacko soon and would be going home in time for Christmas. Luigi, who, like Vito, had learned a surprising amount of English embellished with a Southern accent, told Sage, "I am glad to go home. My home is in my heart," and he pressed his hands over his capacious chest with a soul-felt sigh.
Her home was in her heart, too, thought Sage, gazing around her one evening when all the decorations were in place except the tree. Hayley, the lamp glowing on her long hair, sat at the piano, softly practicing Christmas carols. Joy perched on the piano bench beside her, turning the pages of the music at Hayley's nod. Poppy leaned back contentedly in his rocking chair, his eyes closed as he listened to the music and his hand resting on Snowball's head. Ralph, Irma, Gregory—everyone was home tonight, and the feeling was one of peace and belonging.
It was then that the phone rang. When Sage heard who it was on the other end, her peace shattered.
"Sage, this is Gary." Her ex-husband sounded all bluster and bravado as usual.
"Oh," she said, the word bursting from her as though someone had hit her in the midsection with a brick. In the weeks since she'd seen him, her fear that he would take Joy had receded. And now, here he was, just before Christmas. She ran her fingers through her curls, waiting with trepidation for him to state his business.
"I want to see Joy," he said.
"No," she replied, her voice cracking.
"She's my child, too. It's Christmas. I'd like to take her to my house for a day or two, give her a few toys. It's ridiculous, me not seeing her when I live only forty miles away."
"No!" Sage cried so forcefully that Hayley heard and stopped playing the piano. Poppy's eyes flew open. Joy simply stared at her in surprise.
"We'll see about that," Gary said angrily, and then he called her one of the vile names that had been his way of keeping her in her place during their marriage.
She hung up on him. Then she pressed her hands to her eyes for one dizzying moment and flew upstairs and locked herself in her room.
It didn't stop there. The next time it was Karen, his wife, who called.
"We'd really like to have Joy visit us for a few days at Christmas," she said. Her voice was tiny and Sage could find nothing to dislike about Karen, except, of course, her choice of husband. But since she herself had once made the same choice, she could hardly hold that against her.
"Karen," Sage said patiently, out of politeness unable to hang up on her as she had with Gary, "Joy has special needs. I can't let her leave everything that is familiar to her, especially at Christmas. Surely you understand."
"I... we... could give her a lot of love," said Karen, sounding as though she were going to cry.
Sage couldn't really understand Karen's wanting Joy so much. Karen had only seen Joy briefly, and there had been no chance in that short meeting for any sort of a bond to develop between Joy and either Gary or Karen.
She tried again. "Karen, Gary left Joy and me to struggle along on our own, and we're making it. We don't need any complications in our lives, and that includes a father who suddenly pops up out of nowhere and wants to act like a father."
"Gary wants to be a dad more than anything." Karen's voice sounded tremulous.
"Karen, when we divorced, Gary granted me sole custody of our daughter because he was running out on his responsibility. He said he didn't want visitation, ever. He burned his bridges back then, and there's no rebuilding them."
To her immense surprise, Karen burst into heartbreaking sobs on the other end of the phone and broke the connection, leaving Sage feeling dreadful and wondering why she cared that she'd made Karen so unhappy.
Or did she care? Really? Sage wasn't responsible for Karen's happiness. It was Sage's right—possibly even her duty—to withhold Joy from Gary and Karen. Joy wasn't emotionally prepared for the sudden appearance of her father, especially one with known anger and control issues.
No, Sage would not relent. She would keep Gary, and Karen as well, away from her daughter.
* * *
It turned into a week for disturbing phone calls. When Adam phoned and suggested to Marcia that Jamie visit him for Christmas, he received a cool refusal.
He and Sage strolled along the lakefront the following Saturday morning, trying to clear the fog of a busy week from their heads. He told Sage what had happened.
"Marcia says she has other plans for the holidays," Adam said, looking as dejected as Sage had ever seen him. "The two of them are going on a ski trip."
"What did Jamie say?"
"He was on the extension phone when I talked to Marcia. I could hear him breathing." Adam smiled for a moment and then became more serious. "Marcia must have known he was on there, but nobody said anything about his listening. Marcia turned me down flat without even asking Jamie what he wanted to do. I wish I knew what's wrong. Something is, I'm sure of it." He looked concerned, even worried.
Sage remained silent. They walked for a while, the sky above them hard blue and cloudless as it was on the brightest of December days. A sailboat tacked across the lake, its brightly striped sail gaudy against the browns and buffs of the far shore.
"I wish he were little Jamie again," said Adam unhappily. "His tiny fingers used to barely wrap around my thumb. I never even knew him, Sage."
"It's too bad, Adam," Sage said with a sigh. "I would have liked to meet Jamie." She slid her hand into Adam's coat pocket and squeezed his hand.
"You know, I would have liked him to meet you, too," said Adam, and Sage slanted a look up at him from beneath her eyelashes. Adam's expression reflected only the normal unhappiness anyone might feel at knowing that he wouldn't be with his son for Christmas.
He would have liked Jamie to meet her; it was a polite statement, nothing more.
That week Vito and Luigi completed their work in Willoree, and Adam threw a going-away party for them at Wilpacko at the conclusion of Friday's first shift. Sage was invited to come early for a tour of the plant.
Wilpacko Industries occupied a modern one-story building on a highway slightly outside the town of Willoree. Behind the building was a big employee parking lot, and in front of it was a fountain lighted with a spotlight at night. For a small manufacturing concern, the Wilpacko plant was exceptionally attractive and well-designed, and it employed approximately two hundred people from in and around the town.
Adam met Sage at the door when she arrived, and he seemed delighted at this chance to show off the plant where he had worked so hard since his arrival in Willoree.
"I'll take you on a tour of the shop," he told Sage enthusiastically as he pushed open the heavy metal fire door and led her from the reception room into the manufacturing area.
Sage, with her bent for machinery, was fascinated with the big machines, which were busy three shifts a day. As they walked along the assembly lines, she studied the operations carefully. Some machines noisily spit out cardboard cartons for the fast-food industry. Other machines folded them. Still other machines stacked them. It was incredibly impressive. A few of the machine operators recognized Sage and spoke or waved.
Adam seemed in his element. "You really love your work, don't you?" Sage said, raising her voice to be heard over the racket.
"Yes, I do. I'll miss this plant when I go. With Ed out sick, it's been almost like my own business. The managers here have been amazingly supportive and helpful. Let's go into my office to talk, it's too noisy here."
They passed through another heavy door into an interior area. Office employees greeted Adam and watched curiously as the two of them entered his large glassed-in office where he closed the door.
Handyman Special Page 15