A Roof Over Their Heads

by M. K. Stelmack

  Mel frowned. “I’d say it is. You want her, and the kids need you.”

  Seth felt a rush of—yeah, all right—love for his half brother who’d spent his inheritance to make things right, despite the absolute wrongheadedness of it all. “I’m not going out there, Mel.”

  “Okay. I’ll help her out, then.”

  Seth knew from the way Mel said it in an overly casual way, his gaze out the side window, that he was deliberately goading him. He knew exactly how much Seth hated the idea of Mel being there and him not being there, and Mel was banking on his interest in Alexi to drive him out to the farm, despite his hatred of the place.

  Except this was one plan of Mel’s that wasn’t going to work.

  Seth pulled away from the curb. “You do that.”

  * * *

  THE WEEKS THAT followed were manic for Alexi. After the two-week slapdash flurry of packing, moving and unpacking, there was adjusting the kids to their second home in roughly a month and then starting school with a bus to catch, teachers to meet and paperwork to shuffle. Not to mention she had a new job of repairing and renovating the house and yard. And wonders of wonders, a pre-Christmas promotion to her existing customers brought in orders that had her bent over her sewing machine until midnight every night. By the time she stretched out in her bed, Alexi was a limp mess.

  Mel was her saving grace. She was in daily contact with him, either through visits or texts on his newly purchased cell. His visits had to do with the renovations, either checking her progress or bringing out supplies. Often as not, he timed it with a pizza or a barbecued chicken from the grocery store, which led to an impromptu meal, regardless of whether or not she was already cooking and often the kids dived in before thanks was given or hands washed.

  Not that she was complaining. Money was still tight, and a free meal was a gift.

  He also brought news of Seth.

  She never solicited it but she still gathered up every mention of him like a fan girl with a star: how long his day was, which roof he was on, where and what he’d eaten, the pickup ball game he’d gone to, the minigolf he’d organized for the seniors.

  It helped that the kids were as hungry for information as she was. Not a visit went by that they didn’t ask Mel where Seth was and if Mel could ask Seth to come out because they’d like to show him the kittens and the barn loft and their rooms and he could have supper with them, too, or breakfast. Or any time, really.

  Only Matt didn’t ask. Alexi had explained to him that she and Seth had agreed not to communicate until his adoption came through to avoid jeopardizing the case. Matt had agreed, his eyes wet with tears. Whenever Seth’s name came up, Matt pretended not to hear or, if he could, got out of earshot.

  Alexi’s heart broke every time. But it paid off. Mid-September, Marlene paid her first home visit, having allowed Alexi and the kids plenty of time to get adjusted to their new home. She was an hour early, which didn’t surprise Alexi.

  “The place has floors. Very modern of you,” was her assessment after inspecting every room in the house, including under Matt’s mattress for whatever kind of contraband she thought an eleven-year-old boy might have.

  Inspecting the property occupied most of her time. Good thing the kids were in school. Marlene marched to the barnyard, tested railings, flicked the switch to see if the grain roller was disconnected (it was) and poked her head into every stall in the barn. Alexi, holding Callie’s hand, was pressed to keep up.

  “No livestock?”

  “No. Unless you count the mother cat and her kittens over in the manger.” Alexi pointed to a wooden partition against the far wall of one stall. Marlene crossed over and peeked inside. Her frown lines melted away and a soft smile appeared.

  “Cute little guys,” she said. She reached through a wood slat and plucked out a black-and-white one and held it out for Alexi to take. She did and knelt so Callie could pet it, too.

  Marlene picked up a second one with different black-and-white markings and tucked it into the crook of her arm, its tiny claws clinging to Marlene’s hockey jersey. Alexi had never before met a bureaucrat who didn’t care about looking like one.

  “Tell me how Matt’s doing.”

  Alexi began her rehearsed speech, one that was the absolute truth. “Good. He started school week before last, and seems to be doing well. I spoke to his teacher on Friday, and she said he’s a hard worker and gets along well with the other kids.” Alexi hadn’t really expected anything different. Matt was a good kid.

  “How about that Seth Greene? Does he still come around?”

  Alexi had worked out a plan for this. She steeled herself and her voice. “No. I discovered that Seth has a criminal record. Drug-related. I cut off any contact between him and my family, including myself.”

  Marlene studied Alexi as she gave the kitten slow and easy one-finger pats. “And is he staying away?”

  “Yes. Neither Matt nor I have had any contact with him in about two months.” And still missing him like crazy.

  “You’re sure about Matt?”

  “Yes. The bus takes him to school, and after school, the bus brings him back.”

  Marlene nodded and returned to her petting. Alexi showed Callie how to pet gently, head to tail, Callie staring, lovestruck, into the kitten’s dark eyes.

  “Shame about that record, really. Absolutely clean and then hit with that big-time charge.”

  Just as Seth and she had feared, Marlene had found out. At least, Matt’s caseworker was doing her job. Such a good job that Alexi decided to say nothing.

  “His sister is another story,” Marlene continued. “Your landlady is a real piece of work.”

  Wasn’t that the truth? Alexi responded as noncommittedly as possible, “I’ve had no contact with her, either.”

  “But your current landlord is still a member of the Greene family.”

  “No criminal record, though,” Alexi pointed out.

  “Nope. Good as gold, that one.”

  Again, Alexi said nothing, a state Marlene soon discouraged.

  “What would you say your relationship with this Mel Greene is?”

  Finally, a question that she was happy and fully prepared to answer. “He’s my landlord. He’s an employer that I do small jobs for. He’s friendly enough with the kids. They nor I feel threatened by him.”

  “Even though he has a key to the place.”

  “Yes.”

  “Seth have one?”

  “No.”

  “But the two of them live together.”

  How did she find this stuff out? The kitten was about to plunge off her bent leg, so Alexi placed it against her chest, the tiny feet kneading her hoodie, the claws flexing. “I can’t control who Mel keeps in contact with.” Or who Mel talks about.

  Marlene unhooked the kitten from her jersey and returned it to the manger. Alexi took that to mean their barn talk was nearing a conclusion and did the same. The two women watched the kittens totter to their mom, who touched her nose to their heads and administered licks that teetered them about.

  “You’d tell me if Seth Greene tried to contact you, right?”

  “Yes,” Alexi said confidently because she knew Seth would never do that.

  Marlene straightened. “Well, then. File closed on Seth Greene. Time to move on.”

  Marlene stepped out of the barn into the bright afternoon, and behind her back, Alexi gave a short fist pump in victory.

  That night, tucking Matt into bed, she told him the good news about the caseworker accepting that Seth was not part of their lives.

  Matt didn’t smile. His mouth twisted. “Bryn and Amy miss him.”

  “They have school. And Mel. They’ll be okay.”

  “You miss him still?”

  About a hundred times a day. “I’ve got too much to do.”

  “Callie has
his baseball cap,” Matt said. “He left it here when he was working inside. She keeps her necklaces and stuff in it.”

  Alexi didn’t know that. She swallowed. “She’s okay.”

  “It’s all because of me that he can’t come over. And they have to suffer.”

  Alexi scooped his hair away from his face. “They’d suffer much worse if you weren’t part of their lives,” she said quietly.

  “But it’s because of me that they have to choose. That you have to choose.”

  “It was my choice, and I made it, so don’t you go feeling guilty. Understand?”

  It took a long while, his face fighting to hold back tears and arguments, but at last, he gave her the nod she needed.

  She bent and kissed his cheek. “I love you.”

  He looked out the window to the dark, star-bright sky. “I love you, too,” he said tiredly.

  * * *

  WHEN SETH’S PHONE jingled an incoming text, he ignored it. He needed both hands to install these roof anchors, and two screws had already slipped out of his grip and bounced down the roof and over the edge. One more and he’d have to retreat to the ground for more, and then climb back up, harness-free. Safety equipment wasn’t required to actually install safety equipment. Better than not having any equipment any of the time, but it made setup a real pain.

  He’d barely put the drill to the screw when a second text came in. It had to be Mel. Not a week after Alexi and the kids moved to the farm, he finally got a phone and it had become his latest toy.

  Seth drilled in the screw and was pulling out another when the sudden chiming of an incoming call jarred him enough for the screw to slip out of his fingers and roll off the roof. Seth let loose an exasperated growl and snatched up his phone. “Mel, I swear—”

  “Hey, Matt there?” Panic sharpened Mel’s voice.

  “No. What’s up?”

  “The school called Alexi. Matt’s not there.”

  No, Matt. Don’t do this.

  “What makes you think he’s here?”

  “Last night at supper, I said we’re done at the apartment and moved to a site down the street from the house. He might’ve come there.” Mel paused. “The kids miss you. Matt, especially.”

  As if he could do anything about it. Seth stood and straddled the ridgeline to look down the street. Nothing either way. “If he’s coming, he’s still on his way.”

  “You up on the roof by yourself?”

  “Yeah. How else are the anchors getting in?”

  “It’s against regulations.”

  “I think you’ve got bigger problems right now.”

  Mel grunted. “Okay, I’ll drive between the school and you, and try to see him.”

  Seth plotted the possible routes in his mind. “Come by Mac’s. That’s the one he might know best.”

  “Alexi’s already doing that. I’ll come up along Forty-Seventh.”

  Alexi. He dragged his hand across his face. Not a day had gone by these past two months that he hadn’t wanted to see her, but never under these circumstances.

  He scanned the street again. “Okay, I’ll stay here. In case he comes a different way.”

  He descended the ladder against the back of the house and checked the alley. Nothing. What was the boy thinking? He hadn’t run off, had he?

  Better get back on the roof. If Matt was looking for him, he’d be looking up. But up there, he felt helpless, and so he did the only thing he could do, which was to get back to work. He had to have the safety gear in place before Ben showed up, and who knows, the boy might be with Mel and Alexi already.

  He was securing the brass plate of the last anchor when from right behind him he heard, “Hello, Seth Greene. It’s me.”

  Matt was on the roof without a harness. He looked steady enough, his rump on the shingles, his feet pointed downward.

  “Matt. What are you doing here?”

  Seth hadn’t meant to speak so sharply, and Matt’s small smile vanished. Seth calmed his voice. “You’ve got Mel and your mom looking for you, you know that?”

  “Yeah, I know. I was going to have you text Mom as soon as I got here.”

  “I’ll text Mel. He’ll get ahold of her.”

  Matt’s shoulders slumped. “I’m the reason you haven’t come out to the farm, right?”

  Seth finished his text, which bought him a few seconds before he had to reply. “Your mom explain about me?”

  “She said you being there would make the caseworker think you were going to be part of the family. Which isn’t the case.”

  Seth felt a rush of thankfulness that Alexi hadn’t told Matt about his criminal past. It mattered more than he cared to think that the kid thought well of him.

  Except now he’d have to tell the boy that, indeed, Seth had no intention of being part of the family.

  He sat down, like Matt, and within arm’s reach. He pulled down on his cap to beat the angling sun. Good thing he wore shades so Matt couldn’t find the truth in his eyes. “Yep. We didn’t want any...confusion.”

  Was that the best he could come up with? And from Matt’s frown, he seemed to be thinking the same thing.

  Seth kicked at a curling shingle, lifting it off a few more inches. “Timing’s bad,” Seth offered. “Maybe we’ll get together a few months from now, when the adoption’s a done deal. Until then, things are pretty good, aren’t they?”

  “Mel’s okay but he’s not you.”

  “That’s what I tell him, too.”

  Seth was rewarded with an upturn of Matt’s mouth, but that soon faded. “It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just me, but everyone’s missing you. Even Callie. She keeps her treasures in your ball cap.”

  “Oh.” Seth had to clamp his lips tight together to stop himself from confessing that he missed them all, too. Missed their noise. Missed their smallness. Missed Alexi with her blue eyes and the feel of her against him...

  “I wondered where that hat had got to.”

  “The thing is, what if...” Matt turned sideways so he was tilted with the slant of the roof.

  “Sit properly,” Seth barked and didn’t care how it sounded. Matt returned to his former position. “The thing is, if I...if it was decided that instead of me getting adopted, I just stayed a foster kid, then it wouldn’t matter so much if you came around, right?”

  “No, Matt,” he said quietly. “You get yourself adopted by your mom. You want to be hers and not theirs. You hear?”

  There was the crunch of tires on gravel in the back alley, and then Alexi’s van rolled into sight. She stopped and hopped out.

  “Matt!” she called as she rounded the hood. “Are you okay?”

  One look at Alexi and his heart revved up. It was as if he’d been in standby mode the past two months and the sight of her flipped a switch. She wasn’t even that close, but he knew that tumble of dark hair, knew how her length fit against him, knew the face she now lifted to where he sat beside Matt.

  It hit Seth that he must love her, and how depressing was that? Between Matt’s adoption and her living where his father haddied, she might as well still be married to Richard, his chances with her were so hopeless. Seth put his hand on Matt’s shoulder. “You go back down, eh?”

  Matt nodded but didn’t move.

  “Go down, the way you came up. Feet first, your front down. On all fours.”

  Matt started to go, then stopped. “Seth—”

  Seth couldn’t stand to hear it, couldn’t stand to disappoint the boy anymore. “Go on. I’ll watch.”

  Matt went then, keeping himself safe. Alexi walked toward the ladder, disappearing from Seth’s line of sight. At the ladder, Seth coached Matt on how to get on it, and then he disappeared and Seth relied on the vibrations of the boy’s feet on the metal to know that Matt had made it down safely.

  He stood and watched A
lexi walk across the yard, her arm around Matt’s shoulder, her head bent as she talked to him. At the gate, Matt stopped and turned. He waved.

  Seth waved back. A simple gesture that on any other day and certainly if both feet had been on the ground, wouldn’t have mattered. But there, half-turned, his left foot slipped and he adjusted with a step backward that caught his heel on an upturned shingle.

  All at once, he was falling backward, off the highest part of the two-story roof.

  No, he thought, his arms and legs instinctively reaching even now to fix his mistake. Not in front of them.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  AFTERWARD, ALEXI WAS struck by how quietly Seth’s body hit the ground. It should’ve sounded like thunder, sent shock waves through the ground and up into her body.

  Beside her, Matt screamed. “Seth Greene!” He broke away from Alexi and ran for Seth, as she followed.

  He was flat on the lawn, face up, his legs twisted. Matt dropped to his knees by Seth’s head. “Seth Greene, please, are you okay? Please, please?”

  It didn’t make any sense to beg but Alexi knew the desperate place it came from. Seth stared straight up at the blue sky, didn’t move, didn’t answer.

  No. No.

  She knelt beside Matt and leaned over until her face was above Seth’s. “Hi. It’s me, Alexi.”

  He gave a cranky frown. “No kidding,” he said in a winded, hoarse answer.

  Tears of relief rushed to her eyes, and his frown deepened. “I’m going to call the ambulance, okay?” She fumbled for her phone.

  This time, she was able to provide more information than with Richard. Yes, she was with him. Yes, he was conscious. No, she didn’t know the address but would ask him. Then after she relayed that message, the questions continued. No, she hadn’t moved him. No, he hadn’t moved. Yes, she would stay on scene, remembering then that Callie was strapped in her car seat in the van.

  All the while Matt’s pale face was fastened onto Seth. As soon as she ended the call, she touched Matt’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay. The ambulance is on its way.”

  His dark eyes lifted to hers, and then beyond to something behind her. She heard a choked sound. It was Mel. Coffee and donuts fell as his eyes locked on Seth. In an instant, he was crouched at Seth’s other side.