by Terri Kraus
Grateful for the food, grateful for the silence it commanded, he picked up his fork, hoping he might still be able to swallow that evening, hoping the food would not lodge in the lump in his throat.
And as he chewed, he thought about Cameron.
I didn’t call her … because I could not dishonor Lynne. Calling her would be a dishonor. And hurt Chase. That’s why. Really. That’s why. It would hurt Chase. It would reopen memories.
Ethan held that lie up and turned it about, hoping that the lie, the lie he was telling himself, would hold tight, become real, and make whatever it was he now felt simply go away.
I will not dishonor Lynne. Or hurt Chase.
In reality, Ethan perceived only snatches of what Emily was saying. But he smiled and nodded in what he hoped were the appropriate places, and that seemed to be enough for her. The conversation continued, seemingly unimpeded.
At some point, she spoke of a challenge awaiting her back home—restoring an old Victorian house, her dream house, on top of Mount Washington in Pittsburgh, with a view of the entire city below. Emily said she planned on completely gutting the interior spaces, and the exterior needed complete restoration.
That snapped Ethan back to the present and back to their conversation.
“You have to respect the past,” he declared. “The past should be your best guide.”
Emily smiled and tilted her head at him. He would think, later that night, that she was flirting with him.
“Of course a builder would say that. But let me play the devil’s advocate here. The past is no good if it gets in the way of today,” she said. “Tell me, would you want to live in a true Victorian house? With no closets? With no family room? With a kitchen the size of a phone booth? I understand tradition. But should the past always dictate the way we live now?”
Ethan did what he hated when his son did it—he shrugged. He could come up with no cogent response. He could offer no new defense of his position. In fact, he was not even sure if he believed it anymore.
“Well, Mr. Willis?”
She paused, smiled when it was obvious that he was not going to answer her, put her fork down, and allowed him to wriggle free from her tenterhooks.
“Ethan, we should simply agree to disagree. And since you won’t come with me to Pittsburgh to do my renovation, I guess you will never be troubled by what I do to the old place.”
She waited. “Unless you might consider taking me up on my offer. A plum assignment in Pittsburgh. How does that sound? I would make it worth your while. As soon as you’re done with CeCe, that is.”
Ethan couldn’t help but wonder if she was offering something more than just a building proposition. He wasn’t sure, but he knew whatever the implications of her comments, they were making him a little uncomfortable. He hoped his face didn’t betray his feelings. He wanted to change the subject and be done with eating.
“I know I wouldn’t like it in Pittsburgh. Too many people. Too much traffic. And too many choices.”
“And that’s a bad thing? Choices?”
He shrugged again, but kept talking. “It can be. If you want fancy food around here, there are two … maybe three places. I know that seems like too few, but it makes the decision so much easier.”
As Emily replied, he saw Cameron and the man she was with walk across the dining room toward the exit. He stared while trying his best not to. She seemed taller and leaner than when he had seen her last. He was not sure if she even looked his way.
He wished he could see the parking lot from where he sat, but couldn’t and knew it would be rude to excuse himself to follow the pair outside.
Emily continued to talk for some time—amusing, interesting conversation, Ethan was sure, but conversation that barely registered in his consciousness.
Ethan drove Emily back to The Franklin House and escorted her inside. It was what a gentleman is supposed to do. Emily seemed a little surprised but very pleased.
She extended her hand to him, saying good night. “I’ll see you in the morning,” she said, holding his hand tighter than a handshake required, and longer.
He was quite certain that if he had said something clever and appropriate, they might have adjourned to have a drink or two in the small bar off the hotel’s restaurant.
But he didn’t say those words. He was pretty sure he didn’t even know what words he would have needed to say and didn’t attempt to find them. However, he was aware enough that some combination of words might have been sufficient.
He handed her the set of keys from her car. “Bright and early. Joel will be there from my crew as well. He’s more skilled at kitchen work than I am.”
“You’re just being modest, Ethan,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “I bet you’re very good at everything you do.”
Later, he would realize that she was flirting with him again.
And he knew that, again, he was being offered a slow pitch right over the plate—a pitch he let sail past his bat without moving it from his shoulder.
He stepped backward half a step. He could feel Emily’s eyes on him as he exited the lobby and walked quickly through the cold to his truck. He thought about turning and waving, but that would mean he expected her to be watching him. He didn’t want to presume that she was.
Cameron wasn’t sure what had made her the most confused: the odd and totally unexpected from-out-of-nowhere job offer—a dream job, if the truth be told—or seeing Ethan across the dining room with a lovely woman.
Paul Drake had actually carried a contract with him. “Our lawyers have made me promise them that if I talk jobs with a candidate, I will have papers in hand,” he’d said and insisted, with great hopefulness, that she take them with her to review. “Something about writing the meal off as a legitimate business expense—or some such legal nonsense,” he had added, smiling.
Now she tossed the folded pages on her desk and her bag in the corner. Shrugging off her coat, she let it lie where it fell. She kicked off her shoes as she lowered herself onto the window seat and faced west. When she pressed her face against the glass, she could see a sliver of Otter and West Park.
Ethan lived on Otter—several blocks due north and a block east.
She wondered if she would see his truck heading home.
He had still been in the restaurant when they left. She wondered who that woman was. She was pretty certain the woman wasn’t local. She dressed too well, wore too edgy a style of glasses, and her hair in too young of a design for her face.
She had to be near forty—a very sophisticated forty.
Cameron stared at the cars as they passed below her window.
And her hair was colored. I would bet on that.
Ethan pumped the accelerator three times, then waited. It was the routine that most often resulted in his truck’s engine starting in the winter. He twisted the key. The engine sluggishly turned once, twice, and then fired. He feathered the gas pedal a few times, waiting for the engine to fully engage. He rubbed his face with his hand. A puff of black smoke chugged out from the back of the truck.
He put the truck into gear and pulled out onto the street, heading down West Park … heading toward home.
He pulled into the driveway behind his house, got out, and carefully shut the door to his truck. He could no longer park in the garage; the space was filled with materials not used on the Carter restoration. He made sure the garage door was securely shut, twisting the handle one last time.
He stopped in the soft gray light of the moon. His breath came in little puffs in the quiet and cold, like tiny clouds of life exiting his body. He took in a very deep breath.
I didn’t call her because it would be an insult to Lynne. That’s the reason.
He stood still, hearing the traffic from town, a few cars rumbling through, a horn off toward the river.
/> I was stupid to get involved with her. She is way too young for me. And … I couldn’t do that to Chase. It would be an insult to the memory of his mother. I have to honor that past—my past with her. The mother of my son.
Ethan resumed walking, wondering if he even came close to believing what he was trying to force himself to believe.
Cameron woke with a start. She had nodded off while sitting on the window seat. She blinked, swept her hair off her face, brought her wrist up close to her eyes, and squinted at the tiny numbers on the watch face.
“4:30.”
She put her feet on the floor and tried to focus. She moaned as she tried to stretch her back. Sleeping sitting up, leaning against a cold window, was not a way to get proper rest. She debated on going back to sleep in her bed. Still jangly over the night before, she knew that rest would elude her. Instead she took a blanket, sprawled out on her couch, and watched cable news on television.
She stirred again at 6:00. After a long, hot shower and four cups of coffee, Cameron felt almost ready to face the day. It was still only 7:15—hours before she was scheduled to appear at The Derrick offices. But she went early, more to get out of her silent apartment than any other reason. And she’d get a lot done with no one around.
When she entered the building, holding coffee number five from the convenience store down the street, she was surprised to see the light on in Paige’s office.
Editorial operations at a morning paper seemed to come alive only in the later afternoon, when stories were due and when pages were laid out. The Derrick was no different. Paige always got there at 8:00 sharp but hardly ever before. Most often Paige and Clara would be the first to arrive at 8:00 and might be the only people in the office until 10:00, other than the advertising people. Cameron was friendly to all of them, but the two operations did not often overlap.
A stack of paper teetered on the edge of Paige’s desk, and all Cameron could see was the older woman’s back, bent over one of the files from her desk.
She tried to make as much noise as possible as she entered, so as not to startle anyone.
“Cleaning up? Moving? Quitting?” Cameron said as she tapped at the doorframe.
Paige rose slowly, twisting and grimacing. “Maybe all three. Last night I was looking for something—I don’t even remember what it was now—and couldn’t find it. I have all these files from decades ago that should have been tossed away years ago. At my age, you have to strike while the mood is right. So I’m purging. Simplifying. Getting the ‘feng shui’ in the correct alignment—isn’t that what those people say on those clean-sweep programs on cable?”
“It is. And speaking of cable television …”
“You had dinner with Paul, didn’t you?”
A little surprised, Cameron nodded. “I did. And he said you know about all this. You never mentioned it to me.”
Paige pulled her already-full wastebasket closer. She grabbed a clutch of papers and wedged them in. “I didn’t say anything because he has done this before. I don’t mean talking to you, of course. But he has called me about one thing or another over the years. Not many of them come to anything. I knew he was in the area. I called his father last night. Apparently, he’s on a family-sanctioned mission.”
Cameron picked up a stack of bulging file folders from the chair and laid them on the floor, where the stack promptly tipped over, fanning out papers for a couple of feet.
“So it was a legitimate offer?”
“Apparently. They have read your stories. And they did call and talk to me. I didn’t say anything earlier because … well, because I didn’t want you to get excited only to be disappointed if they never showed up.”
Cameron nodded as if this was most logical.
It was obvious that Paige was braced for a more emotional response toward the job offer. But Cameron’s thoughts were anywhere but in Pittsburgh.
“I saw him at dinner.”
“Saw who?” Paige looked puzzled. A second later, her expression changed. “He was there? Ethan Willis?”
“With some woman. I don’t think she was from around here. She looked more … sophisticated.”
“An older woman?”
“No. Well, yes. Older than me. Close to middle-aged. Maybe … late thirties. Or even forty.”
Paige appeared to be considering her words carefully. “Was it a … date?”
“I don’t think so. Maybe. I don’t know. It was early.” Cameron took a long, deliberate, slow sip of her coffee.
“And you’re upset over this? Upset over him or excited about the job offer?”
Cameron slumped down into the chair. She moved some of the files on the floor with the toe of her shoe. “I don’t know. Maybe both.”
“It’s been a long time, Cameron. If this were a soap opera, by this time the characters would have married, had children, and been divorced and remarried already.”
“I know. I know it’s been a long time.” Cameron looked down at her coffee cup and twirled the cup in small circles. “I know.”
Paige waited for a long moment, then arched her eyebrows and bent back down. Once again she began to riffle through the sea of yellowing papers in her bottom desk drawer.
As Ethan stepped up on the front porch of the Carter place, he heard laughter, feminine laughter. He glanced at his watch. It was 7:00—still early for most of the crew.
Then he remembered: the kitchen designer.
Emily and Joel looked up when Ethan entered the room.
“He hates where we put the Sub-Zeros,” Emily said with a grin. “He said it impedes the traffic flow.”
Joel appeared sheepish, as if he had been caught taking two cookies instead of one. “She asked my opinion, Ethan. I think it’s too close to the doorway. It should be centered.”
Ethan set his thermos and lunch on the plywood table.
“So, Ethan, time for honesty, even though it’s early. What do you think?”
Emily stood, hands on hips. She wore some sort of tailored navy blue blazer and flippy skirt. Ethan always had trouble describing women’s apparel, but her skirt was shorter than most skirts he had seen in Franklin this year. Her hair was pulled back with some sort of silk band, or scarf. Ethan thought her outfit was attractive—very attractive—but perhaps a bit inappropriate lengthwise for a work site, soon to be filled with a half dozen of his male work crew.
“I take no stand on kitchens. That’s your territory, Joel. And yours, of course, Emily … I mean, Ms. Harrington.”
“It’s Emily. It was Emily at dinner last night. It’s Emily this morning,” she answered with a coy smile.
Ethan suddenly felt most uncomfortable. He knew Joel would not have given their dinner last night a second thought, but the way it was announced made it sound like there was more involved than just eating.
Joel glanced at Ethan, at Emily, then busied himself by staring at the kitchen blueprints.
“Well?”
Ethan grew perplexed and stuttered, “The Sub-Zeros. Well … I think they’re fine where they are.”
Emily beamed in triumph.
And on that morning, Ethan was never so heartened to hear the clump of the crews’ boots on the wooden porch and the squeal of the front door.
The bell rang, and the clamor and confusion began in a rush as twenty-five eighth-graders jumped to their feet, charging out toward lockers and toward the lunchroom. Even though Elliot was more interested in lunch than most, he took his departure cues from Chase, who set a much more leisurely pace and walked, rather than jogged, toward the cafeteria.
They sat in the same place every day—the far left table by the rear doors, just one up from the trash cans. A few of their friends would sit with them sometimes; sometimes they ate by themselves.
Today was a by-themselves day.
“So, you going out for the Oilers this year again?” Elliot asked. “You never said.”
Chase had been on the Oilers hockey team for two years. It was a club sport—not sponsored by the school—but paid for by parents and boosters. The Oilers were one of the better junior hockey teams in Venango County—in fact, one of the better teams in all of northwestern Pennsylvania.
Chase shrugged. “My dad didn’t ask.”
“Think he forgot?”
Chase shook his head. “I dunno.”
“I bet he didn’t,” Elliot said, tearing open a second bag of Fritos. “Dads don’t forget about stuff like that.” He stuffed a handful of Fritos in his mouth. “At least your dad wouldn’t. My dad … maybe.”
And Chase hoped against hope that his dad had forgotten.
But he knew he hadn’t.
A wise man will make haste to forgive,
because he knows the true value of time,
and will not suffer it
to pass away in unnecessary pain.
—Samuel Johnson
Many of us crucify ourselves
between two thieves—
Regret for the past
and fear of the future.
—Fulton Oursler
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
FOR ETHAN, FOR HIS crew, for CeCe, for just about everyone involved in the Carter Mansion project, work had gone on just about long enough, thank you very much, and everyone wanted it to be over. But the work would not be over for some time yet—weeks for sure, Ethan knew … more likely a couple of months. At this same point in every major project, when the majority of the work was done, it was easy to feel overwhelmed and as if there was no light at the end of the tunnel—only another dark tunnel after the dark tunnel they were in now.