by Terri Kraus
Chase shrugged. He wished Elliot would stop talking about this woman and his father so he could forget all the mind-numbing complexities those thoughts brought with them. He wished all of this other-woman stuff would simply disappear. Right now, Chase felt that his father was both happy and sad at the same time.
It was weird, he thought, for a grown-up not to have life all figured out.
That uncertainty troubled Chase more than any other new reality—a reality that included women and dates and his father, although Chase would have had trouble placing those nervous feelings into words.
Elliot kicked an acorn with the toe of his worn sneaker. The acorn bounced off the windshield of a Toyota minivan across the street.
“I mean, is it weird or what to have your dad go out on a date? You gonna set a curfew for him or something?”
Chase’s grin had an edge to it. He then went blank. “I dunno. I … you know, I don’t think I want to talk about this anymore.”
Elliot stopped. “Why? It’s not like your mom is still alive or anything. It’s been a long time since she died.”
“Hey, Elliot—just leave my mom out of this, okay?” Chase snapped back and continued to walk toward the river, faster, not seeing if Elliot was following or not.
“Wait up, Chase! I didn’t mean anything by it. Honest!”
Elliot caught up to Chase as he stood by the riverbank, pitching pebbles into the placid water. He picked up a tree limb, pitched it upriver, and began to toss rocks at it. It was a familiar pastime for them. Three more sticks followed.
“My arm hurts,” Elliot said.
“That’s why you stink at baseball,” Chase said with some cheer. “You don’t practice.”
“I just don’t like baseball all that much,” Elliot answered. “The games take too long. A lot of standing around in the hot sun.”
He sat on a rock and began to skip small stones in the water.
Chase stood staring out across the river. The far side was a blanket of trees—dark, green, and mysterious. A strip of land lay beneath a jagged bluff, protected from development by a sheer wall of rock. Occasionally at night there would be the ghost of fires dancing among the dense foliage. Most people assumed them to be teenagers with an illegal six-pack or two. Chase imagined the fires set by runaways drifting down the river, escaping from their tormentors.
Chase turned to Elliot. “What would you say if your dad was going out with some other lady?”
Elliot laughed. “Before or after my mother killed him?”
Chase threw his last rock at Elliot’s feet. It splashed water on his calf. “I’m serious. You know what I mean. If your mom wasn’t around anymore.”
Elliot flicked another pebble into the water, making a splunking sound. “I don’t know. It would be weird. Real weird. But not having a mom is weird. If the person was nice, it might be different. I don’t know.”
Chase sat back in the grass. “He seems sad sometimes. Or worried. Then he gets mad. He gets mad a lot.”
“Your dad? I’ve never seen him mad,” Elliot replied.
“You don’t live with him. He does. And I think he’s lonely … and it’s all my fault.”
“It ain’t your fault. Isn’t your fault. You were just a kid. It just happened. Just like you told me. It wasn’t your fault.”
Chase’s lower lip trembled, and he turned away from his friend. Then he drew his forearm under his nose, sniffed loudly, stood up, and put his hands on his hips. He took a deep breath. “You want to go to Cumming’s for ice cream? I can treat.”
Elliot almost fell into the water scrambling up the bank.
On Friday afternoons, the newsroom of The Derrick, even during the languid days of summer, seemed to hum a little louder. Not that a dozen employees could truly be bustling, but it was payday, the county fair started on Sunday, and Cameron always noticed a certain higher pitch at the end of the week.
She had finished up her two stories of the day—one on the 125th anniversary of the town’s cornet band scheduled for the following day and the other on the rising and falling fortunes of the county’s farm-implement dealers. Neither of them were prize winners, but Cameron took some pride in the solid writing both required.
Some reporters go weeks without a byline, she told herself.
She straightened up her desk, then looked up at the corner office. Paige was alone. Cameron tapped at the doorframe and took a half-step inside the editor’s office.
“Hey, come on in,” Paige called out. “You must have been busy. I haven’t seen much of you all week.”
Cameron gave her a thumbnail of the farm-implement story, then she and Paige had fun handicapping the Miss Venango County Fair contestants. The odds-on favorite to win was Brittany Gardner, a blonde cheerleader from Franklin High School whose talent was belting out show tunes from Broadway musicals. At sixteen years of age, she looked to be around twenty-four—in all judging categories.
“Big plans for the weekend?” Paige asked as she leaned back in her chair. It groaned as if unaccustomed to the angle.
Cameron stepped farther inside the office, hesitated a minute, then sat down. “He called.”
“Who? Who called?”
“Ethan. Ethan Willis. On Wednesday night.”
“He did?”
“He asked me to dinner tonight.”
Paige arched her eyebrows. “Oh. This is a new development, isn’t it?”
“I guess. I … I sort of thought he would call. No, I knew he would. You can just tell that, right? After our dinner I took it for granted that he would call me. I knew he would take a week or two to decide, but I knew he would call. I can’t explain why exactly.”
Paige waited. “You don’t seem too excited.”
“I don’t know. I was. I am. I still am. He’s a nice guy.”
Paige coughed. “Just a nice guy?”
“No. He’s a really nice guy. I mean … I don’t know what I mean.”
Cameron knotted her hands together as Paige shuffled a stack of papers from one corner of the desk to another.
“Is it the age thing?” Paige asked quietly. “Or the damaged thing? Or something else all together?”
Cameron glared, but only a little. “No. It’s not the age thing. He’s a very interesting person and we seem to get along well. He’s easy to talk to. He laughs easily. I like that. He treats me like I’m a lady. You know how rare that is? If I’d asked any other man in town out, they would have thought I was asking for something—and most likely been all too eager to give it to me.”
Paige appeared surprised.
“Pardon my bluntness, Paige. But you know what I mean.”
Paige held a laugh. “It has been a long time, but I know what you mean.”
Cameron sighed. Her shoulders hunched down.
“So why aren’t you excited?”
“I don’t know. I guess I keep thinking about what you said.”
“Moi?” Paige held her hand to her chest.
“The damaged part. I keep thinking about it. I’m waiting to find something bad, I guess. Something nobody can fix.”
And my damage. The thought came to Cameron’s mind, and she quickly shushed it away.
Paige stood up, came around to the front of her desk, and rested against it. “Cameron, you only went out once officially. Don’t put the cart before the horse—or whatever old cliché fits here. It may come to nothing.”
Both women sighed, almost simultaneously.
“But what do I know about waiting?” Paige continued. “I married my first husband two weeks after we met. We both knew what we wanted.”
“He’s not going to ask me to marry him,” Cameron said in a tone that indicated she hoped he might just do that, eventually. “But I like him. I really do.”
&n
bsp; Paige sat down next to Cameron on the other battered leather chair in the office. “I remember what I said about the differences between the two of you. But … this is only your second date.”
“Paige, he was married when he was in college. She was his girlfriend since grade school, I bet,” Cameron said, her hands in the air, trying to explain.
“But that was a long time ago, Cam.”
“His wife was the only woman he ever seriously dated. He told me that. He said he was never one to sow wild oats.”
Paige waited. “So …?”
“Paige, I have dated lots of guys. Life in the big city. This is, like, the twenty-first century and all. Dating is a little bit different now.”
Paige wrinkled her forehead. “Oh,” she said, finally realizing what Cameron meant.
“His wife dies tragically. He stops seeing women. All women, I guess. Like he’s still married. Like he’s still being faithful to her … to the past. I mean … does he have any space for someone else in his life? Especially for someone who is not that sort of faithful, if you know what I mean? I know … I know. I’m getting all worked up before I have to be worked up. You said that nothing might happen between the two of us. I know. But what if it does? What if I want something to happen? Can it? Is he too damaged, like you said? Or what’s harder—am I too damaged or … tarnished … for him?”
Paige took Cameron’s hand in her own.
“Listen,” she said almost at a whisper, “I’m not sure if you believe in this or not—but you need to have faith. With God … well, with God, anything damaged can be fixed. Second chances, clean slates … it’s all possible. You just have to have faith.”
“I have faith,” Cameron said, as much to convince herself as Paige. “I’ve been to church and Sunday school. I know that God has powers.”
Paige obviously wanted to say more, but she remained silent. Finally, she said, “Then just trust Him and have faith. Faith that if Ethan is ready, you’ll know. And faith that God will guide you. And when you’re ready, you’ll know that, too.”
But maybe there are some things that even God can’t fix, Cameron thought.
Ethan was sitting in his truck outside the Carter place when his cell phone warbled. “Willis here.”
“It’s CeCe, Ethan.” He held the phone away from his ear. CeCe’s conversations could be on the loud side—and this perspective from a man who made his living hammering nails and sawing wood.
“I meant to ask you about the bay window on the second floor, on the north side of the house—the one that will be in the largest guest bedroom. The window I don’t like.”
Ethan had planned on bringing the subject up with Michelle King, the architect, but he must have been preoccupied that day.
“Yes, that bay window … we opened it up yesterday. Took off all the trim and dismantled some of the support. It’s not good news.”
“Not good?”
“Well, no. We might not be able to save it.”
“What?” CeCe said with a laugh. “You mean there’s something you don’t want to save? That sounds like good news to me.”
Ethan took the good-natured ribbing in stride. He and Mrs. Moretti battled over the same sort of issues every day—restoration versus renovation.
“The supporting wood is just about gone,” he said. “Bay windows are really notorious for hiding wood rot. Their little roofs are nearly impossible to keep waterproof. Over the years the wall and the window separate, and water gets into the wood. This has been going on for years. Joel was surprised that the windows hadn’t simply fallen out of the frames years ago.”
“So we can get rid of that ugly thing?” CeCe asked.
“But we could rebuild the walls around the window so it’s exactly as it was,” Ethan replied.
“Can we put a flat window there instead? That bay looked out of place up there on the second floor.”
Ethan wanted to sigh in resignation. She had fought for a change in that spot since the beginning of the project. It pained him to agree.
“I’m sure we could restore it. You want to think about it?”
“No. A flat window. That’s what I really want,” she answered.
“Do you want Michelle to draw up new plans?”
He could almost see her, shaking her head so hard that her hair covered her face.
“No. I trust you. Match it exactly to the other second-floor windows. Does that sound reasonable?”
Ethan really wanted to bring the window back—exactly as it had been designed over a century ago, but he realized that it might involve more expense and aggravation than anyone wanted.
“It sounds reasonable,” Ethan said. “I guess sometimes things need to be replaced.”
“Not restored, right?”
“Right,” he replied, not entirely sure if he meant it or not.
Forgiving is one way
of becoming the person
you were created to be—
and fulfilling God’s dream of you
is the only way to true wholeness and happiness.
—Carol Luebering
CHAPTER EIGHT
CAMERON SPENT MOST OF her time at home in her turret room, as she called it. She remembered how as a little girl she dreamed she was in the tower of some ancient castle—a room like this—with a handsome knight in the courtyard and a dragon in the distance.
This particular afternoon she sat in that space, with a pillow clutched to her chest, staring at the street below. Because of the maze of one-way avenues in town, the only practical route to her door was to head south along West Park Street and turn into the alley just south of the Franklin Club.
Cameron had arrived home around five, showered and dressed, and by five thirty, had begun her vigil. Ethan said he would be there at six thirty. She could not recall any time that she had been ready for a date a full hour before the appointed time.
She looked at her watch for the twentieth time in the last few minutes. With every sweep of the minute hand, she felt a new ripple of nervousness. It was not altogether unpleasant nervousness, she thought, but it was altogether unexpected. She was a strong, modern woman—too much a grown-up to be nervous over a silly little date, wasn’t she?
Cameron had been out on scores of dates. She had been in several relationships, and had felt all the things lovers feel, she imagined. But there was something about how she felt now that was different from how she remembered feeling with the others …
She tried watching television, but it was filled with aimless electronic chatter that did not come close to holding her attention. She popped a CD into the player on low volume instead.
Looking back on those other relationships, she realized now that from them she’d come to believe love could never be more than an unstable, shifting, fluid thing. She didn’t want to believe that now, and this was an unexpected hope she didn’t think she was able to trust.
Could things be different with Ethan?
Pushing that thought away, she sighed loudly, drew her knees up to her chest, and resumed staring at the southbound cars on West Park Street.
He had told her it would be a casual dinner, that he would take her to a comfortable place. The night before she had torn through every garment she owned, attempting to find something casual and comfortable.
Immediately she dismissed the notion of wearing sweats—even her fancy, go-to-the-club-but-don’t-sweat-in sweats—as being much too casual. She saw her favorite silk blouse and tailored slacks as too precise and sophisticated. She decided against wearing jeans, thinking that might be too casual as well, then reconsidered when she found out she disliked everything else in her closet.
She chose a pair of new jeans that fit just right and coupled them with a tailored white linen blouse with shell buttons,
freshly starched, with dressier black shoes and a classic leather belt. She tried a silk print scarf around her neck, then tossed it back into her closet, thinking that it made her appear either affected or presumptuous, or possibly both, and chose a simple gold chain instead.
She hoped her current outfit appeared more comfortable than she felt inside.
She checked her watch for the hundredth time. Then she looked at the street once more and saw a familiar pickup. It slowed, and she saw the flash of the blinker. She waited until it made the turn into the alley, then jumped off the window seat and ran to the long mirror behind her bedroom door for one last look, front and back.
“If I’m not together now, I never will be,” she said, tossing her hair a few times. She turned to the side and cocked her head—first to the right, then the left.
She heard the buzzer. Her heart tightened one last time.
“I wonder if he’s as nervous as I am,” she said to herself as she grabbed her purse and opened the door at the top of the stairs. “I bet he isn’t.”
Ethan took a huge gulp of air, shut his eyes tight, and tried to remember what it was like not to have what felt like a sock wedged below his throat, just above his heart.
Work happened today, but Ethan was only marginally aware of what had gone on. He recognized after his first cup of coffee that he should stay away from anything complex, anything requiring deep and thoughtful analysis. He thought he should stay away from power tools as well.
Instead, he spent the day hauling up lumber to each floor, carrying boxes of nails, erecting some scaffolding around the fireplace—anything that could be done in a mindless sort of daze.
He had been surprised that Joel had reacted with such calm to his revelation about asking Cameron out on a date. Ethan carried an image of Lynne with him almost all the time, and he imagined other people did the same.