The House on Sugar Plum Lane

by Judy Duarte

  “I’m doing some landscaping work at the Davila place,” he added, “and the limb of the pepper tree in your backyard is weighing down on the fence. If we don’t cut it back, it could mean a bigger, more expensive problem for you down the road.”

  As she nibbled on her lower lip, a V formed on her brow. “How much will that cost?”

  A lot of guys might have tried to charge both neighbors, but Gonzales Landscaping didn’t stoop to doing business like that, which was one of several reasons they were so busy. “It won’t cost you anything. I’ll just cut the branch back, but I need your permission. I’d also like to come into your yard to do it, if that’s all right.”

  She seemed to ponder the situation.

  “Do you want me to show you the tree?” he asked.

  “Maybe you’d better.”

  As he stepped off the porch and circled the house, Maria and her son followed him. Another little boy about the age of three also tagged along, his pudgy little legs hustling to keep up.

  Before they reached the backyard, a girl in pigtails joined them. Eddie tried not to look at her, but he couldn’t help sneaking a glance or two. Nor could he help noting that she had expressive brown eyes like her mommy’s.

  If his and Cecilia’s baby had lived, she would have been about that age. But he shut out the thought, along with the grief and guilt.

  “Mommy?” the girl asked. “When are we going to finish making the cookies?”

  “In a few minutes,” Maria said.

  Once in the backyard, Eddie led the pretty mother and her pint-sized entourage to the tree and pointed out the limb that had created the problem.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t notice this,” Maria said.

  “I’m sure you’ve got plenty to keep you busy.”

  The petite brunette glanced at him, and when their eyes met again, she smiled wryly, as if saying, “You have no idea just how busy I am.”

  It was weird, he thought, how they’d managed to communicate without saying any words. His parents had been able to do that, and it had always amazed him.

  “I’m sure cutting back the branches will help,” Maria said. “But won’t we have to repair the fence? I mean, look at it. It’s already leaning to the right. I don’t want it to collapse.”

  “Once the weight is removed, it should be okay. But to be on the safe side, you can ask a handyman to check it out. He might want to shore up the post. If so, it shouldn’t be too expensive to fix.”

  Again, she shot him a look, this one saying, “There isn’t much money to spare.” Then she returned her focus to the fence.

  As they continued to stand in the yard, he caught a whiff of her scent. Something floral, he guessed, but it was so faint, it was hard to say. Still, he liked it.

  The two little ones spotted a butterfly and chased after it, but the older boy remained.

  Eddie couldn’t help wondering if Maria was a day-care provider or whether she just had a bunch of kids. Not that it mattered.

  Either way, she clearly had her hands full—and, apparently, no husband around to help her out. He wondered why, then shook off the curiosity. He didn’t like people asking him questions about certain details of his life. Maria probably wasn’t any different.

  “So,” he said, getting back on track, “do I have your permission to come into your yard and cut these limbs back?”

  “Yes, of course.” She stepped closer to the fence, checking out the way it bowed toward the Davilas’ yard.

  “Then if you don’t mind, I’ll go ahead and do it now.” He figured it would be best to get the tree trimming out of the way before he tackled the job he came to do. He glanced at her roof and spotted a chimney. “I can haul it all away, if you want me to. Or I can cut it up into firewood and leave it for you to use. It’s your call.”

  “I’d hate to make you go to any extra trouble….”

  He tossed her a crooked grin and shrugged. “It’ll take me all of five minutes to cut the branch and to stack the wood. Don’t give it another thought.”

  She let loose with a full-on smile, showing him an even prettier side of her. “I really appreciate this.”

  “No problem,” he said, feeling a bit awkward and not quite sure why or what he ought to do about it.

  “I’m going in to get the kids some lemonade,” she said. “It’s fresh squeezed. Can I bring you a glass, too?”

  He really wasn’t thirsty, but for some crazy reason, didn’t want to decline. “Sure. That’d be nice. Thanks.”

  Again, the awkwardness seemed to wrap around them.

  “Well…” She took a step back. “I guess I’ll leave you to your work. If there’s anything you need, let me know.” But instead of going back to the house, she crossed the yard to where an old man sat in a rocking chair in the shade of an umbrella tree.

  Eddie hadn’t noticed him before, which was unusual, since he always tried to be alert and aware of his surroundings. But Maria’s presence had thrown him off stride.

  She said something to the man, whose craggy face lit up. Then she patted him on the forearm before heading toward the back porch.

  As the old man’s gaze connected with Eddie’s, they nodded in a silent greeting.

  “Is that your grandfather?” he asked the boy.

  “Nope. He lives with us, though. And he’s kind of like family. I don’t know what his real name is, but we call him Captain.”

  Eddie waited for the kid to explain, but he didn’t offer up anything else.

  “Captain?” Eddie asked. “Is he retired from the military?”

  “Yeah, he used to be in the Army, but not the regular one.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Eddie stepped away from the tree and started back for the truck, his mind on his work and not so much on the chatter.

  But the boy continued to move with him, as if the two had become friends. “He was in the Salvation Army. You ever hear of that?”

  “Yeah,” Eddie said while walking. “But it’s not the same kind of army you’re probably thinking about.”

  “I know. But I think he was still a hero.”

  Their feet crunched on dried leaves and twigs, and while something told Eddie to let the subject drop, he couldn’t help adding, “The Salvation Army doesn’t fight wars.”

  “Captain said something about spiritual battles, but I don’t know what he meant by that. Sometimes he gets a little mixed up.”

  This time, Eddie let the subject drop completely. And, thankfully, so did the kid.

  As they walked along the side of the house the boy asked, “Where are you going? Are you leaving?”

  “I need to get the chain saw from the truck.”

  “Need some help?”

  Not from a kid. Ramon always stressed about workmen’s comp issues and safety procedures, and he’d probably be quick to point out the child labor law, even though the two Gonzales brothers had grown up on the Rensfield estate and had worked alongside their old man for years. It’s where they’d both learned the ins and outs of landscaping. And where they’d also learned how to become responsible members of the family.

  But for some reason, he felt sorry for the kid and softened. “Sure, you can do something for me. But once I start up the chain saw, you’ll need to stand back.”

  “Okay. I’ll hang out with Captain and watch, if that’s okay. I don’t have anything else to do.”

  “What about your friends?” Eddie asked, thinking they’d both be better off if the kid went off to play. “Do any of them live near you?”

  “Yeah, a couple of them do. But one guy, Jason, has strep throat and my mom won’t let me play with him. And Bobby, the other one, is on vacation with his dad.”

  They walked in silence for a beat, until Eddie’s curiosity won out.

  “Do you ever go on vacation with your father?” Eddie asked, kicking himself the moment he did.

  “Nope. Never.”

  So Maria’s ex was completely out of the picture.

  Eddie returned to the
pickup, reached in back for the canvas drop cloth he used to carry the green waste from the yard to the truck and trailer, and handed it to the boy.

  As they made their way back to the tree, Eddie spotted a beat-up hardball under a scraggly bush that grew near the fence. He stopped to pick it up, noticing that its once-red stitching was coming apart, and handed it to the kid. “Do you play baseball?”

  “Nope. I thought about it a couple of times, but my mom can’t take me to practices.”

  Ramon worked with kids on a special league, one that catered to kids at risk. Eddie helped him once in a while, when he had time, and he’d seen how sports could help a kid stay on the straight and narrow. And how a good man could provide a boy with a positive role model.

  “My brother’s a coach,” Eddie said, “and sometimes he has to go pick kids up and take them home. In fact, he’s happy to help out whenever he can.”

  “Yeah, well, my mom doesn’t like to ask people to do her favors. You know what I mean?”

  Eddie nodded. His parents had been like that, too—not wanting to put anyone out.

  “Some of the moms find it easier to carpool,” Eddie said.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t think baseball would work out for me all that much anyway.”

  “Why not?”

  “My mom needs me to help out around here.”

  “Why?” Eddie wasn’t sure why he bothered to ask. He and Ramon had both done more than their share of family chores when they’d been kids.

  “You know, with the little kids and the old people and all.”

  “Old people?” Eddie shot a glance at Captain, who was seated all alone.

  “Yeah. The Captain and Ellie.”

  “Who’s Ellie? His wife?”

  “Nope. She used to live next door before she got funny.”

  “Funny?”

  “Well, not in a way that makes you laugh. But in a weird way that’s kind of sad. It’s also kind of a pain because we have to tell her everything, like when to get up and go to bed, when to go to the bathroom. You know.”

  No, he didn’t know. And the boy seemed to read it in his expression.

  “It’s like when my mom took in other people’s kids to watch. Now she’s babysitting old people. But Captain’s kind of cool. You should meet him.”

  Not today. Eddie had done enough talking. It was time to get busy. Yet he couldn’t help tossing another glance at the old man, and then at the back door of Maria’s house, where she’d slipped inside.

  It seemed that she did indeed have her hands full.

  And he had the strangest compulsion to offer to help her in any way he could.

  At a quarter after two, Brandon looked up from his work and slowly shook his head. He’d nearly skipped lunch again, a habit he was trying to kick.

  Six months ago, working overtime wouldn’t have bothered him a bit. In fact, he used to keep snacks in his desk drawer to keep him going until the end of the day. But ever since Amy moved out, he’d been trying to turn over a new leaf.

  So he logged off the computer, snatched his jacket from the hanger in the closet, and headed out of the high-rise office building to get a bite to eat.

  He told Kara Grayson, his secretary, that he’d be back in a half hour or so. Then he walked out the glass doorway and made his way to the elevator. There, while he waited for one of the cars to stop on the twenty-third floor and for the doors to open, he glanced out the window that provided a view of downtown San Diego, as well as a glimpse of the harbor.

  A cruise ship was docked at the Embarcadero, where it waited for passengers to board for a trip to who-knew-where.

  Amy had wanted to plan a cruise for their seventh anniversary, but Brandon had put her off, saying he was too busy for a vacation.

  “Maybe next year,” he’d told her.

  But now it looked as though they wouldn’t be doing anything special to celebrate this time around, either. Amy had been adamant that their marriage was over.

  How was that for luck?

  All Brandon had ever wanted was to be successful, to be a good provider and someone his wife and child could be proud of. But apparently, according to Amy, he’d overdone it. Yet in spite of what she might think, he loved her and Callie. He just hadn’t realized how much until she moved out of the La Jolla house and took their daughter with her.

  And what made it all worse was that he didn’t have a clue how to make things right, which was as unsettling as it was surprising. At work, he tackled cases all the time that had fallen apart for other attorneys. He was good at picking up the pieces, at structuring a new game plan, and moving ahead full throttle. It was a skill he’d learned early in life.

  As a teenager, he’d figured out a way to move out of the squalid apartment in which he’d grown up, a way to break free from the lousy childhood he’d had. Education had been his ticket out, his only path to a better life than the one he’d known so far. So he’d taken the ball and run with it, snagging scholarships that took him all the way to law school and helped him land a position with a top firm. He’d even made partner in short order.

  Everyone at Price, Feller, Goldstein, and Masterson considered him a success and one of the top attorneys in the state. But little did they know that, these days, their boy wonder went home each night to an empty house in an up-scale neighborhood, where he wandered the expansive rooms all by himself.

  Of course, Jake Goldstein probably knew, since their wives were friends, but Jake hadn’t said a word about it. And neither had Brandon.

  What was he supposed to admit, that his beautiful wife had left him?

  He could almost hear them all whispering behind his back, “What a loser, Masterson.”

  Brandon cringed at the thought. He hadn’t failed at anything in his life, other than at marriage and family, which he blamed on his old man. If he’d had a better role model, if he’d grown up in a loving, two-parent home….

  He blew out a sigh and continued the ten-block walk to the harbor, where a guy ran a stand near the water and sold the best hot dogs Brandon had ever tasted. He sure had a hankering for a couple of them today.

  As the red-striped umbrella that shaded the stand came into view, he heard whistling to his right and glanced toward the musical sound.

  A man seated on a bench met his gaze in one of those weird, déjà vu moments, and the whistling stopped.

  A homeless man, Brandon suspected.

  He didn’t look particularly dirty, though, but his beard and hair needed a trim, and his worn and frayed clothing suggested he’d hit upon hard times.

  Brandon sympathized with guys like that, but he never gave them cash. Not when he wasn’t sure how they’d spend the money. But he didn’t mind buying them something to eat, so he continued on to the stand with that in mind.

  He could smell the meat cooking, and his stomach growled in anticipation.

  “Hey there.” Hank, the middle-aged hot-dog hawker, broke into a bright-eyed grin when he spotted Brandon’s approach. “How’s it goin’, Mr. Masterson?”

  “Not bad.” Brandon pointed to the plump wieners on the grill. “Give me four, and put them in two sacks.”

  “You got it.”

  Five minutes later, Brandon returned to the bus stop.

  “You hungry?” he asked the shaggy-haired guy on the bench.

  The man, his eyes a remarkable shade of blue, looked up and smiled as he took the bag Brandon offered. “Thanks.”

  Apparently assuming that Brandon meant to join him for lunch, he scooted over, freeing up a place to sit.

  Usually, Brandon would have declined and headed back to the office, but for some crazy reason—hunger, most likely—he took a seat.

  “That was nice of you,” the guy said.

  Brandon didn’t respond. He’d gone through a few hungry days himself, and it was a do-unto-others sort of thing. So he looked out at the water, at a couple of noisy seagulls swooping near the surface and back up again. Then he dug into the bag for his hot dog.
/>
  “You know,” the homeless man said, “it’s never too late to change.”

  Brandon figured the stranger was sharing an epiphany he’d recently had. “You’re right about that.”

  “Sometimes fixing a key relationship can help you make sense of everything else in life,” he added.

  Brandon didn’t feel the need to comment.

  “It can also help a man rebuild a marriage.”

  Now that hit a little too close to home and caught Brandon’s attention. “What are you talking about?”

  “You got a raw deal as a kid, and it’s created havoc in your interpersonal relationships ever since.”

  “Me?” Brandon merely stared at him. Other than his dad, no one had screwed him over. But that was in the past. And it certainly hadn’t caused his breakup with Amy. So he shook off the pseudo-psychic vibe, but he couldn’t quite ignore the words. “What in the world makes you think that?”

  “There’s a sadness about you. It’s obvious to anyone who gets within a few feet of you. You look like someone who’s down on his luck.”

  Oh, for Pete’s sake. How could his rough-edged bench mate, of all people, make a leap like that?

  Brandon was wearing an Armani suit today. Okay, so he’d left the tie back in the office, but he clearly wasn’t unkempt or wearing ragged clothes.

  On the other hand, he risked a glance across the bench at the man who not only appeared to be struggling to get by in life, but who was probably a taco short of a combination plate.

  Deciding to put some distance between them, Brandon folded the remainder of his lunch in the waxed paper in which it had been wrapped. As he got to his feet, he bit back the urge to respond, “You’re one crazy dude.”

  What had compelled him to sit next to a guy like that in the first place?

  “Believe it or not,” the man added, “it’s a fairly easy fix.”

  What was? Backpedaling? Going back in time?

  Hunting down his old man only to find he’d probably drank himself to death by now?

  Winning back Amy?

  Brandon slowly shook his head but held his tongue. Who was giving the advice here? Who was offering whom a handout?

  He turned away, intending to return to the office where sanity reigned, only to hear the man say, “Just because you messed up once doesn’t mean you have to keep doing the wrong thing.”