by A. E. Radley
She pulled her kettle out of the bag, tried to fill it at the sink, then swore softly as the pipes gave her nothing. She left the kitchen, found the basement, and twisted a knob she could have used Cara’s help with. Back in the kitchen, she let the water run until it was clear, filled the kettle, then put it on the stove. She turned it on, noticed how at home the little lilac pot looked on the white stove against the floral patterned back splash. She sighed aloud. This would do, she thought with a smile.
“Why are you smiling, Mama?”
“I think I’m going to like it here. How do you like our new house?”
Wyatt looked around the kitchen then back at her mother. “This will do.”
Jesse grinned at her from the stove where the kettle was close to letting out its high-pitched whistle. “You are my daughter.” She took it off the burner, turned it off, and went back to the bag she had found it in. She pulled out three mugs and a packet of instant hot cocoa powder. She poured a little of the powder in each cup, topped it off with water, then shook her head at her foolishness. She packed everything but a spoon.
“What’s wrong, Mama?”
“I need a spoon.”
Wyatt held up her arms to be lifted from the counter. Jesse went to her, let her down, and watched as her daughter walked over to her brother’s bag, dug around in a side pocket, and came out with a large wooden spoon. “I don’t think Misha will mind if we borrow his.”
“You’re a genius, Wy!”
Wyatt grinned as Jesse and handed over the spoon. Jesse mixed their cocoas, rinsed the spoon in the sink, dried it on her sleeve, and handed it back to Wyatt. The girl stuck the spoon back into its pocket and zipped it closed.
“Would you go get your brother for me? I’ll try to find the crackers.”
With a happy gasp, the little girl rushed out of the room and down the hallway, her footsteps sounding small and echoing in the empty house. With Wyatt gone, Jesse fished out the sleeve of crackers she had set aside, pulled three paper towels out, and stacked four crackers on each on the counter top. She arranged each cracker and cocoa combo as the children walked back into the kitchen.
“Where truck?” Misha asked as he tiptoed up to the counter and grabbed one of the crackers on his stack. He stuffed it halfway into his mouth, gagged, then pulled it back out and gave it a dirty look.
Wyatt plucked the cracker out of his hand, broke it in half, and handed it back. Then she broke the rest of his crackers in half and put them back on the napkin. “She had to go home because it’s dark.”
Jesse wondered if Cara had made it home okay, then chided herself. Obviously a woman in her own tow truck could make it next door, no matter how far away that happened to be, and worrying about her didn’t make sense. After all, Jesse had no reason to care about the fate of a stranger. She had never been the type to make fast friends with women; each of her few female friendships along the years had been grudgingly built and easily cast aside when something more interesting – and usually male – came along.
And as far as the strange yearning Cara made her feel? It was obviously a by-product of her rescue, which Jesse reasoned would have made her want to jump into bed with just about anyone who stepped out of that tow truck. The fact that she was beautiful, curvaceous, and kind nearly to a fault meant nothing. Jesse had dallied with girl-on-girl action in college and found it to be a lot like learning how to walk again, but backwards. Not her thing.
“What’s wrong, Mama?” Wyatt asked. She wiped her mouth with the back of one hand and gave Jesse a quizzical look, her head tilted to the side like a confused puppy.
“Nothing, baby. Let’s finish up, okay? We need to get our sleeping bags together and settle down for bed. We have a big day tomorrow.”
She whistled while she cleaned up the crumbs and rinsed the cups. Her mood improved as she watched the kids who everyone said would be a burden to her get themselves dressed in their new, warm pajamas and stumble over to where she had set up their sleeping bags by a wall with two electrical outlets.
Wyatt helped her brother into his yellow sleeping bag and adjusted the pillow under his neck until he gave her a thumbs up with a hand so small, it was almost comical. Then Wyatt settled into her own and waited for her mother.
Jesse pulled two nearly identical machines out of a small suitcase and arranged them near the outlets. Then she crooked a finger to Misha while she held out his sleep mask.
“No,” he said, and put his hands over his nose.
“Misha, please.” She sighed and put it down. Then she turned to Wyatt, who sat up, took off her glasses, and waited patiently while her mask was adjusted.
“See, Misha? I like my CPAP. It helps me have sweet dreams.” Wyatt’s voice was garbled and her eyes unfocused, but her gentle cajoling helped Misha sit up. He still covered his face, though, and Wyatt gave him a long-suffering look. “Do you want bad dreams?”
“No,” he answered, and slowly lowered his hands.
Jesse took the opportunity to slip on his mask, get it adjusted over his head – careful not to tug any of his thick, red hair – and pull back with a smile of triumph. It was a nightly struggle and she was glad the boy was tired enough to not put up much of a fight.
Both kids settled down onto their pillows. Misha tugged at the mask once, then got comfortable and let out a loud yawn. Jesse kissed him on the forehead, leaned over to do the same to Wyatt, then flipped both machines on simultaneously.
“Sleep well, children,” Jesse said, then stood up, walked over to the panel on the wall, and flipped off the light. She had left the light over the kitchen sink on, and it shone dimly into the room in which they had spread out their sleeping bags. Before she had settled back into her own sleeping bag between them, Misha already had his arm flung over his face, the one tell-tale sign that he was nearly asleep. Wyatt reached over and rubbed one silky little hand over the exposed skin of Jesse’s arm. “Do you need something?” Jesse whispered.
“No, Mama. Sleep well,” Wyatt said, gave her arm a squeeze, and then closed her eyes.
Jesse settled into her sleeping bag, not wild about sleeping on the hardwood floor, and adjusted the position of her body a few times before she got comfortable. Wyatt’s grip on her arm relaxed, and she tucked the little hand back into her sleeping bag. Then she closed her eyes and hoped for sleep.
CHAPTER 3
An hour later, Jesse’s eyes popped open and landed on the clock, and she held her breath, listening to the stillness of the house around her. The CPAP machines above her head still let out their quiet white noise, but something had definitely changed. She let out her breath slowly and listened. After a moment, she realized what had woke her. The sound of the storm had died off completely. Wind no longer whistled through the large, dark trees around the house. It sounded as though everything outside had gone to sleep.
She got up, went to the window, and slipped a finger between the slats of the mini-blinds the previous owners had been gracious enough to leave behind. Bending at the waist, she lowered her face and peered out. The moon shone brightly outside, highlighting the blanket the weather had thrown over everything in her yard.
Her yard. The thought flipped around in her head, somersaulting over her senses. This house and the property around it belonged to her. More or less, at least, until she paid off the last note to the bank. Her heart thrummed as the weight of what she had taken on settled in. She was a single homeowner. A single parent. A single woman in an unfamiliar state with a new job and a new house she knew nothing about. Her chest constricted.
She slipped out of her sleeping bag with her phone and walked out of the room. She made her way in the relative darkness into the kitchen and flipped on a light. She settled into the one folding chair that had been left behind by the previous occupants, hit a number on her speed dial, and dropped her head into her empty hand.
“Waswrong?”
The sleepy voice immediately eased the clenching in her chest and she let out a soft laugh that so
unded too much like a purr. She silently chastised herself. She always got this way with Chaz, had always been this way with men in general, and she needed to stop. But she couldn’t help herself. She let her lip drop down into a pout and her voice carried her dilemma six hundred miles across the country.
“Chaz?”
She listened to the quiet sounds and pictured him in her head. She knew he would sit up, put on his glasses, and check the time on the clock radio he insisted on keeping on his bedside table. Then he would tuck the sheet and blanket back in place in the otherwise unmussed bed and step into his slippers. At the door, he would grab his robe, slip it on, and shuffle out into the hallway. Two turns and a set of steps she never liked later, he would be in the kitchen. She heard the water running and knew he was making tea.
“Did you get to the house okay?” he asked. His voice was slightly muffled, she knew, because he had the phone propped between his jaw and shoulder while he grabbed the same mug from the cabinet he had used for the last ten years. Then the little tin box opened for him to select a tea bag.
“Sleep Tight?” she guessed.
He paused, then chuckled. “You got me.”
“You always have trouble going back to sleep when I wake you. I’m sorry,” she said as she started to feel guilty for calling. She had promised herself she wouldn’t call him for every little thing, and here she was calling on the first night.
“It’s not a problem,” he answered. “I guess you made it. How did the kids settle?”
His voice was too bright, but she ignored it. She didn’t want to talk again about how the move or their divorce would affect the children. “Better than normal. I think the drive wore them out, and they already like the house.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
He wasn’t, she could tell. As much as he wanted the best for the kids and for her, she knew a part of him wanted the whole thing to fail, and for Jesse to come home crying to him. He would welcome her back with open arms and refuse her apologies. It would be almost too easy to get back together with him, jump again into her old job, and resettle into the house Chaz bought for their family before Jesse even agreed to marry him.
When she didn’t say anything else, Chaz asked, “So, what can I do for you, sweetheart?”
The image of them all together in that house again vanished in a puff of unwanted nicknames and simpering understanding. She sighed. “The storm woke me up, and I got a little freaked out, that’s all. I’m sorry I woke you up.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Chaz said in a hurry. “You know I’m always here for you if you want to talk about your feelings.”
He was. It was one of the things that had started to grate on her nerves after a while. Even after a long day, even after the worst of days, Chaz was always willing to smile, hold out his arms, and let her fall into him crying about her problems. His lap had been her landing pad since high school when they were just friends, he had been madly in love with her, and she had pretended not to notice.
“It was just nerves.” She yawned loudly. “I think I’m ready to go back to bed. I’ll tell the kids I talked to you in the morning. Call us on your break and I’ll let you talk to them.”
“Face-to-face?” he asked.
“Absolutely.” She got out of her chair and started looking around the kitchen, now wide awake and in no mood to get back to the hard floor and her meager sleeping bag. “I need to get back to sleep. Have a nice night, Chaz.”
She hung up the phone before he could tell her to have the sweetest of dreams or to wrap herself up tight since he couldn’t, two of his favorite pet phrases that still hadn’t died, even months after their divorce was final. The wind whistled outside and she walked over to the window overlooking a large back yard. She smiled. This view was one of the things that had drawn her to this house, and even with everything covered in a thick layer of white, she could see the potential. She knew when the snow melted there would be a cobblestone footpath from the back porch through the yard to the small building in the back. The previous owners suggested her husband could use it as a man cave, but she had other plans. With the installation of a swing set and playhouse just next to it, the building could become her home office. The kids could wander around the fenced yard while she typed and made calls. They could take lunch together every day and garden in the afternoons once spring hit and everything came alive again.
A chill made her shiver, so she turned back to the kitchen and started making plans in her mind. Then she went to work looking into every nook and cranny. As soon as all her worldly possessions arrived, she would have to start rebuilding her life.
CHAPTER 4
The next night Jesse woke up again at eleven o’clock on the dot. The same sensation jerked her awake and she lie in the darkness until her eyes adjusted enough for her to get her bearings. Wyatt sighed and turned over beside her in the little bed. Jesse eased out from under the cheerful, yellow quilt and into the slippers she had left on the floor, unplugged her phone, and slipped out of the room without waking either of the kids. She was glad she had set them both up in the same room for now, because if either of them woke up and she wasn’t in the room, the presence of the other would soothe them that everything was as it should be. She would transition the crib into the next room eventually.
She walked down the hallway toward the half-finished kitchen. The furnace grumbled as she passed the closet in which it was stored. “New life, new strife,” she said aloud softly to no one.
When she got to the kitchen, she stopped in the doorway and took in the progress she had made. Both windows were covered with curtains her grandmother had made before she died. Chaz had never liked them because they weren’t hypoallergenic, and Jesse was glad to finally have these personal touches to remember the woman by. Where her mother and Jesse had been forever beholden to a man, her grandmother had been infinitely capable of taking care of herself, and had done so since her husband died when Jesse’s mother was a child. Jesse had never missed having a maternal grandfather because her father’s father had been such a boisterous family man, but Jesse’s mother always seemed to dwell on the void in her life.
Jesse let her eyes linger on the curtain over the big window along the back wall for a moment more, then dropped her gaze to the table. It was a little thing tucked into what Jesse could only call a breakfast nook. Misha’s highchair sat on the side, well-loved and clean from the heavy scrubbing she had given it after dinner. The whole room smelled like essential oils from her nightly ritual, but it eased her mind to know everything was clean and safe for her kids.
A desk sat in a corner with Wyatt’s busy work for the next day. Jesse knew she wouldn’t have time to teach either of the kids a proper lesson at least until the whole house was put together, but Wyatt loved worksheets, so Jesse had them at the ready for transitions to keep the little girl happy. Misha’s bag of Lincoln logs, letter blocks, shapes, and stimulus toys sat neatly against the desk’s leg.
The rest of the kitchen was taken up with a fridge, pantry, island, stove, sink, and cabinets that would have been at home in the 1960s. Jesse knew that was where she would start with the renovations. Clear, open cabinet doors through which she could see her orderly stacks and rows of dishes would help keep her happy through the transition from her old life in the city to her new one so far removed from the nearest Starbucks that the app on her phone didn’t know which store to suggest.
She went to a box on the island and peeled open the top. A stack of white plates wrapped in two layers of tea towel waited to be unloaded into one of the dark cabinets, and she set to work. She had already wiped down every surface in the kitchen, so now it was just a matter of putting everything in its place. It didn’t take her long to unload one box, then the next, and she was on her sixth when her phone chirped in her pocket. She finished unloading the box, broke it down and put it on the stack with the others, then settled down in her chair at the breakfast nook to take a break.
Despite her dislike of
most social media platforms, she had three apps on her phone, and all three had notifications for her to check. She didn’t check two of them, because she knew they would just give her more ideas she couldn’t afford to put into action in the house yet. She would go through those for inspiration later. The third had a bunch of notifications, and she guessed before she opened it how many would be from only two people – her mother and Chaz.
She was right. Her mother posted asking how they were getting settled, when she was going to get to have a video call with the kids, and how soon she could come visit. Jesse grimaced. She loved her mother, but part of the move was to get away from her overbearing family. She replied that they were settling in okay and that the kids would call her the next day, but ignored the question about the visit.
Chaz had posted a new album of pictures. Jesse groaned. The first in the line was of them at their junior-senior prom. They had thick glasses to match, both had used too much hair product, and Jesse’s dress had been bright orange with puffy sleeves. She didn’t know how her friends had let her leave the house like that, but she made a point to tag a few of them in the picture and ask. The second picture was Chaz standing behind Jesse with his chin on her shoulder and his hands on her rounded belly. They both looked so happy. Jesse wrapped her hand around her waist without realizing it and flipped to the next picture. Chaz had Wyatt on his shoulders and the toddler was clinging to his head with her little hands and had a wide, wet smile on her face. The next was Wyatt holding Misha for the first time, her face serious with wonder and strapped with her first pair of glasses.
Jesse clicked out of the album and went to the next notification. Chaz had posted that he hoped they were settled in and to call if they needed anything. She knew he was trying to sound nonchalant, but the message was coming across loud and clear. He wished they were still together, and he was willing to let her come back anytime. She sighed, then typed an impersonal reply and got out of the app without checking the rest of her notifications. She put down her phone and stood up. All her break had done was sap her energy and make her wonder how she had spent so long in a one-sided relationship with a man like Chaz.