A Roof Over Their Heads

by M. K. Stelmack

  Except Mom had found his maps, his Greyhound bus ticket, his half-written letter to her. She’d hugged him, tears filling her eyes like bright pools, and asked him why. Because there was a sneaky little part of him happy she’d caught him and because it wasn’t the caseworker taking notes, he told her that even after all this time, more than ten whole months, it was so hard without Daddy-R. That there were bits of Daddy-R all over the place.

  She’d looked over her shoulder toward her bedroom and he quickly said no, it wasn’t the urn. That would’ve been okay if all of Daddy-R had been poured in there. But he kept showing up everywhere—his snow boots in the storage tub, his Canadian Geographic magazines in the mailbox, his allergy medication in the cabinet.

  Mom had said that it was the same for her, but he thought she was saying that to make him feel better. She told him, as she had told him a million times, that nothing had changed. She was going to make him theirs, hers and Daddy-R’s, just as it was planned. She would do whatever it took. If that was what he still wanted.

  And he did still want that, he really did, only it was getting so hard.

  She’d asked him where he was planning on going. And he’d told her about Spirit Lake, how it didn’t make any sense given that he was pretty sure he didn’t know anyone there. But that his gut wanted him to go there the same way it had pushed him to go to Walmart where he’d found them all.

  Something sparked in her eyes and for once it wasn’t tears. Right then and there she made him a deal. If she and Bryn and Amy and Callie all ran away with him to Spirit Lake, would he stay? As soon as she said it, his gut felt warm and skippy. This was it. This was right for him...and his family.

  Two months later, and exactly one year after Daddy-R was killed in a head-on crash, they were here in Spirit Lake. And his gut was flip-flopping like crazy.

  He’d really thought the tent idea would work and he’d tried to help Alexi. But she’d had to find the tent and bend the poles into place and pound in the pegs. She’d done everything. He wasn’t Richard, wasn’t even a close substitute.

  She needed somebody to help her, to be all the things he couldn’t be.

  His gut stopped churning, calmed and spoke to him. Seth Greene.

  He’d brought Bryn back and kept their family together for another day. The man had stood there with the bat that looked like a fence post and watched them all, but mostly he’d watched Mom. Let her be, but stepped in when he could help. He’d got rid of the cop, he’d persuaded Bryn to give back the shirt and he’d let Mom unload on him.

  She’d talked to him, not all square-shouldered like when she was with the bank manager or caseworker, but with her hip jutted out and her hand mussing up her hair even worse, like she did when working out a problem with Daddy-R. Once, she’d touched his arm. And when Seth Greene had found out she was alone, he’d wanted to help. Mom had turned him down but...

  His insides were settling now. No one could replace Daddy-R but someone like Seth Greene would work. That must’ve been why his gut wanted him to come to Spirit Lake. Because Seth Greene lived here.

  Thunder vibrated through the wood and joined the beat in his gut. This was it. Things were supposed to go wrong so Seth Greene could make them right.

  * * *

  SPIRIT LAKE AT dawn was a kind of ground zero. As Seth drove the truck with Mel through the streets, the scene was of full-blown vandalism. A maple tree, a cloud of bright green leaves, had fallen across the street, and they detoured onto a different street where the truck tires crunched over twigs and broken glass and hail. They swerved around a kid’s lawn chair and an overturned flowerpot, pink blooms strangely intact, bumped over a flagpole and vinyl fencing. Holes in siding and punctured windows made houses appear like the target of gang warfare. Every single parked vehicle was dented, every single windshield busted. One big plus for the underground parking at the two-bedroom apartment he rented with Mel.

  “Think of the roofs,” Mel crowed. “I bet there isn’t one in town that doesn’t need to be fixed, if not replaced.”

  His brother was right. They’d hit the jackpot. Worst hailstorm in sixty years, according to the news. Worse than anything in his lifetime or even at fourteen years Seth’s senior, Mel’s. Their dad would’ve been a kid during the previous one. About the age of Matt.

  There he was again, thinking of the boy for no reason. He’d woken last night, hail pelting against his bedroom window, and immediately wondered how the family was doing. Matt, he figured, would be listening to the thunder splintering the air, scared but not wanting to show it in front of the others, curled tight with his knees to his chin, blanket drawn so only a breathing hole remained, an animal playing dead. The other three had probably burrowed under the covers with the mother on her big mattress. Only the mattress, Seth had imagined as he lay alone on his king-size bed, because she probably hadn’t had the time to assemble the frame. She must’ve been bone tired. Hard enough to take care of four kids on a good day but on a moving day...at least on a night like this, he’d concluded, sinking back into sleep, they had a decent roof over their heads.

  “After Tim Hortons, we’ll swing by the lumber store and place an order, okay?” Mel said. “There’ll be a run on materials, let me tell you.”

  For Mel, a coffee was incidental to a trip to the coffee shop. It was all about the captive audience. Sure enough, as soon as Seth had them in the drive-through lane, Mel hopped out. “Get me my usual.”

  Seth watched through his rearview mirror as his brother cut in behind the truck over to the driver’s side and went two vehicles down to a gray crew cab. It was Pete, owner of Pete’s Your Man. The handyman lived seven miles west of town and could give a detailed damage report. Seth eased the truck forward and the vehicles bumped along behind him; Mel walking beside Pete, their voices mingling with the idling motors.

  Weather permitting, Mel scouted for information this way most days, and most days, Seth didn’t mind. It gave him a few minutes of solitude and satisfied Mel’s addiction to facts and figures, and every tradesman eventually got used to Mel’s tap on their window.

  But today it felt...wrong. It was one thing to fix a roof at the end of its days, but another to profit off struggling folks, insurance notwithstanding. It wasn’t like Mel to feel so excited about making money off the misfortunes of others, yet he’d been raring to go from the second his feet hit the floor. Hadn’t it occurred to Mel that they’d have to work harder at a job Seth had long ago lost interest in?

  Maybe that was it. Maybe the problem was him, not Mel.

  Him lying awake, thinking about a nameless widow and her scared kids, instead of how to make himself some real money.

  At the outdoor menu board, he placed the order. “One large coffee, dark roast, one cream.” Then he drew breath and let it rip. “Extra-large iced cappuccino. Half the ice. Double the sugar. Whipped cream. Caramel and chocolate swirl. Spoon, no stirring stick. And twenty Timbits. At least four need to be cream filled. None with icing sugar.”

  To the clerk’s credit, she didn’t ask him to repeat it. Memorizing Mel’s morning order was probably part of national training to work at the chain.

  Seth checked his mirror again. Mel was trotting over to another truck in the queue. Ron’s Siding read the lettering on the truck door. He and Ron had exchanged plenty of customers over the years. Seth rolled up the line and opened his Facebook to see pictures of golf ball–size hail in town and north, a grainery toppled south, a horse struck dead by lightning east eight miles.

  And one person dead. Frederick Stephensson. Struck in the head by a hailstone the size of the baseballs Seth had tossed around last night. His niece had posted the news, and it had been shared and shared again until it was now in Seth’s feed. Seth didn’t know him.

  But he knew the brother, Stephen Stephensson. He was the one who’d hired his dad to roof his house. The roof his dad had fallen from and broken his spine
.

  Now, twenty years later, there had been another death out there.

  Seth was overcome by a sudden urge to get out. Get out of the truck, get out of the line, get out of the work piling up like the vehicles behind him. He pressed his fist to his temple. He started, stopped. Three more vehicles. Start, stop. Two more. Keep it together, Seth. This line will end, you won’t be trapped forever.

  At the take-out window, Mel hopped back into the truck. “Isn’t just the town,” he said as he flipped open the box and examined the donuts.

  “Hail’s flattened everything between here and Pete’s. Broke three windows and took out his wife’s garden. Ronnie said there isn’t a stalk of grain standing between here and his place. Some storm. Get this, they’ve both had calls this morning, people needing repairs done. Ronnie said we should keep in touch, work together. This could go big. You get any calls?”

  Seth shook his head and swung out of Tim Hortons onto the street to Tim-Br-Mart. “Frederick Stephensson’s dead. You hear that?”

  Mel stopped with his spoon of whipped cream halfway to his mouth. “Really?”

  “Hailstone to the head. I saw it on Facebook.”

  Mel stared out the windshield. “Isn’t that something?” He brought the spoon to his mouth. There must’ve been something revelatory in it because he smacked his lips and said, “You know, Stephensson’s roof will need redoing. Especially now that he’s selling.”

  Seth braked the truck so hard Mel had to scramble to keep his donuts and drink. “What’s got into you? The guy has just lost his brother by an act of God. Two deaths out there and all you can think about is how to profit off him?”

  Mel stared back as if Seth were the crazy one. “I don’t know where old Frederick died but it wasn’t on the farm. The two of them moved into town last winter. The farm’s been on the market ever since.”

  Well. Mel would know. “At any rate, I will never get up on that roof again. Got it?”

  In answer, Mel took out a cream-filled donut but didn’t start to eat it. “I was already thinking with all the extra work this summer we could buy a place. And if Stephensson sells—you know, him and Dad—”

  So this was why Mel was so excited to make money. Their dad had once planned to buy the Stephensson place and was actually doing the roof at cost as part of the negotiating price. Twenty years on, Stephensson, for whatever reason, was only now selling...

  Seth hit the gas with enough force for Mel to once again grab his food.

  “Yes, I know about him and Dad. I’m not buying a place. Especially that one.”

  Mel righted his food and spoke more softly than he had in a long time, “Didn’t mean you. I could. But it would be ours, you know that.”

  That hurt. Hurt worse because Seth knew Mel was trying to be nice about it. After their mother died six months ago, Connie got the house, Mel got the money, and Seth got enough money to bury her. “Fact is,” Seth said, “the last thing I want to do is tie myself down to one more responsibility.”

  Up ahead, he could see a truck turn into the lumber store. “How early do you have to be to get a jump on the day?” Seth said, hoping the question was enough to change the topic for Mel. Usually his half brother would’ve taken the bait but today he said, “What do you want?”

  Not this. Not fixing old, broken, warping, leaking, crumbling roofs. Where you were exposed to whatever drops from the sky—bird poop, snow, rain, waves of blistering heat. Roofs that, once laid all new and solid, would be taken for granted until replaced two decades later—the time it takes for a baby to grow to an adult. Where one wrong step on the job can pitch you over the edge to injury—or worse. Where the only alternative is to wear a harness that ties you down, lets you swing like a monkey in a cage.

  Seth parked the truck alongside two others and switched off the engine. “I want whatever I want, whenever I want.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t we all? You need to be more specific.” Mel shook the donut box. “Which one do you think is cream filled?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ALEXI SAT WITH the kids in a semicircle in front of her, still in their pajamas, on or in their sleeping bags. She was divvying up the three remaining juice boxes, a small bag of plain potato chips and two slices of pizza from last night’s delivery among them. Breakfast. That and their bottles of water she’d filled from the outside tap.

  She’d have to find a way to cook food today. Maybe she could get the fire pit working. If, she stretched a kink in her neck, she could get her body working first.

  “Amy. Bryn. You share the apple juice. Amy, you go first.”

  Amy took the box and gave a suck and swallow. Good enough for Bryn, who stripped the box from her hand and sucked it flat in four gasping gulps.

  Amy kicked him with her prosthetic foot. She purposely used that foot when she wanted to avoid feeling the pain she was delivering. “Bryn! You were supposed to share.”

  Alexi closed her eyes, stinging from lack of sleep. She’d kill for a coffee. “Amy. I know you feel wronged but kicking won’t make it better.”

  “Yes,” she said, her eyes fixed on Bryn. “It does.”

  “Well, I was thirsty,” Bryn said and raised his finger. Matt and Amy groaned. Once Bryn started ticking off arguments on his finger, he had to use all five before he’d stop. “Second, I couldn’t see the bottom so I didn’t know to stop. Third, it’s hard to stop when you get started. Fourth, fourth...”

  Alexi handed Matt the second box. “Here. Share this with Callie.” He took it and smiled at her. A wide, relaxed smile she hadn’t seen for a year. Her breath caught. What had brought this on? Last night, he seemed so sad and tired...and small.

  “You look happy,” she commented.

  He jabbed the plastic straw into the box and held it out for Callie to sip first. “Yep. I am happy.”

  They heard the front door suddenly open, followed by heavy footsteps.

  Finally, the landlord. Except wouldn’t she have knocked? Alexi hadn’t thought to lock up last night after moving back inside. And from the kitchen it was impossible to see down the stairs to the entrance. It could be anyone. The kids stared at her like owlets.

  “Hello?” A man’s voice.

  “Seth Greene!” Matt jumped to his feet with the juice box and ran for the top of the stairs. Amy and Bryn followed, while Callie vaulted into Alexi’s arms. Alexi pulled herself to her feet and limped after them.

  Seth stood there, looking up at them. In jeans and a T-shirt and wearing heavy boots, he looked ready for work. He also looked annoyed, his jaw tense, his gaze fixed up and away as if counting backward.

  “You should’ve knocked first,” Bryn pointed out.

  Seth still looked as if he were counting as he explained, “Habit.”

  Perhaps it was falling unconscious on a wood floor or lack of liquids or the weight of another day starting bad, but he made no sense. His presence made no sense. She hefted Callie up higher on her hip. “It’s habit for you to walk into other people’s places without knocking?”

  Seth tilted his head to where she stood a little off to the side at the half wall. His eyes narrowed, neither looking nor not looking at her.

  “I lived here once,” he said.

  “You did?” Matt said. “Cool!”

  Seth turned to Matt, and his expression softened. Matt, in turn, smiled back. Alexi felt a flutter of panic. No way did she want Matt getting any false hopes about a man who’d no intention of sticking around. A man she didn’t want sticking around. She stepped behind Matt, put her hands on his shoulders.

  “Strange you didn’t mention that yesterday,” she said.

  His gaze rose past Matt to hers. “Wasn’t important yesterday. Thing is, I got some time this morning. Thought I’d come over and help. To be more specific,” he continued with an odd spitting emphasis on the last word, “I thought I’d see
if I could get the water inside working for you. I know which hoses go where.”

  Matt twisted to look up at her with his old happy grin. “That’d be awesome, wouldn’t it, Mom?”

  No. It wouldn’t. “Thank you, but this is a problem the landlady needs to deal with. I’m not sure how it will affect our agreement if you come in and fix it.”

  But come in is exactly what he did. He walked up the stairs, stepped into the kitchen, no doubt taking in the sleeping bags. He moved to the living room and strolled down the hallway, checking out the bathroom and bedrooms as he did. All the baseboards were gone and the floors were stripped to the wood, baseboards included.

  He returned to where they stood in a tight group. “Your landlady already affected your agreement.”

  “Yes, and so she should be the one to deal with it. I don’t want you involved. Though again, thank you.” Could she be any clearer?

  “What are you going to do in the meantime? You can’t live in the tent.”

  How did he know about that? The phone on his belt rang. He glanced at the screen. “Need to take this. Hello, Greene-on-Top.”

  From Seth’s side of the exchange she gathered someone was inquiring about getting a roof repaired. Bryn and Amy dashed back in the kitchen and reappeared with pizza and juice boxes, resuming their place as if her conversation with Seth was a TV show they didn’t want to miss. Matt took three short sips from his box and handed the rest to Callie, his eyes on Seth the whole time.

  After the call, Seth started to type a message. A good opportunity to get him turned around and out the door.

  “Looks as if you’re busy from the storm,” she said. “I don’t want to keep you. I’m sure something will work out.”

  He reattached his phone to his belt. “How do you figure that?” He looked at her, grimaced and glanced away, doing that looking while not-looking thing. Was there something on her face?