A Time for Us

by Amy Knupp

  Cale followed her and his dad in. “Nope. Just refinished the old ones.”

  “The finish is gorgeous,” Mariah said. “You know you can stay with me as long as you want, but I would think you’d be champing at the bit to get back here.”

  “Yeah,” Cale said halfheartedly. He wondered at his own lack of enthusiasm but wrote it off to exhaustion. Anytime he’d been off-duty this past week, he’d been here slaving away, trying to make up for lost time.

  “All this kitchen’s missing is a woman,” Ted said.

  “Nice, Dad,” Mariah said as she snooped in the fridge, no doubt finding it empty. “Do you try to come across as a caveman or is that just natural?”

  “If he wants good food, he’s either gonna have to marry or hire a cook.”

  “Hey!” Cale said good-naturedly. “I can hold my own in the kitchen. I make a mean scrambled egg.”

  “Let’s go see the rest,” his mom said. “I’m getting hungry, for something other than eggs.”

  Mariah carefully lowered herself to their dad’s lap in his wheelchair.

  “What in the name of Joseph are you doing?” he asked.

  “I thought maybe you’d give me a ride.” She gave him her infamous puppy-dog eyes and he switched the automatic chair on.

  Cale and their mom followed them through the dining area to the living room. Ronnie walked directly to the sliding glass door and pulled back the vertical blinds. Again, she gasped in appreciation.

  “Marvelous view.”

  “It’s the same as yours, Mom.”

  “No. Mine is six stories up. This is better. The waves are...right there.”

  One of the reasons Noelle had been so excited about living here, of course. Cale liked the gulf, too, but he did have concerns about being so close and on the bottom floor. The seawall outside their building, which you could barely see from this angle, wasn’t very high. The one hurricane that had come through last year had veered off so the island didn’t take a direct hit, but if it ever did, he could have problems.

  “Bedrooms are this way. Master on the left with the view. Spare on the right.”

  His parents made their way through both of them, saving the master for last. He and Mariah, who’d disembarked from the wheelchair, waited in the living area for their mom and dad to rejoin them.

  “The walk-in closets are bigger than our bathroom, and it’s not small,” his mom called from the master bedroom.

  “It’s very nice, son,” his dad said as he steered back out from the hallway. Ronnie came out behind him. “You really do need to find a woman who would appreciate this so you can settle down.”

  “Ted.” Ronnie sounded shocked. She gave her husband a look. The scolding look. “He’s still trying to adjust to losing Noelle....” She cut herself off, choking up.

  Cale noticed Mariah was studying him closely.

  “Are you?” she asked, her voice heavy with meaning—some meaning he wasn’t clear on. His gut was screeching with foreboding, though.

  “Am I what?” he made the mistake of asking.

  “Still adjusting or are you moving on?”

  Moving on. The words made that foreboding harden into a knot. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Now his mom was watching him expectantly, as well.

  “I don’t know. I could have sworn there was...something...between you and Rachel.”

  “Rachel?” his mom uttered.

  “Culver,” Mariah said so damn helpfully.

  “Rachel Culver? That’s Noelle’s—”

  “Sister,” Cale elaborated for his mom. “I’m not moving on. I still love Noelle.” He said it quietly, not entirely comfortable talking about such personal things, even with his family.

  “We understand, Cale,” his mom said.

  “Sorry,” Mariah said. “I just thought...”

  “Rachel and I are close but...” He shook his head, not knowing what else to say.

  “Forgive me for being blunt here,” his dad said, “but why would you choose to hold on to the girl who’s no longer here with us, bless her heart, when you have this other girl?”

  “I don’t have this other girl,” Cale snapped. He should’ve known if his dad actually apologized for his bluntness, the remark was going to be bad. Shit.

  “Ted, you crossed a line,” Ronnie said.

  “I’m just being logical here.”

  “Dad.” Mariah gestured for him to shut up and Cale headed toward the dining area.

  He heard his mom quietly giving his dad hell as Cale flipped off the kitchen light.

  “Hell, I’m sorry, Cale. I wasn’t trying to be particularly insensitive.”

  “You just were,” Mariah said with a sympathetic half grin.

  “Forget about it.” Cale knew his dad hadn’t meant anything by it, even if he had about as much tact as a charging rhinoceros. But the words wouldn’t let go of him. He pretended to check the workmanship on one of the cabinets in the kitchen, his back to the others.

  “This is a really nice place,” his mom said as the other three neared the door. “You’ll be happy here for a long time.”

  “Yeah,” Cale said, the knot in his gut tightening even more. He straightened from where he’d been bent over the cabinets, then he shook his head. “No.”

  “No?”

  “I think when I’ve got the work completely done I’m going to put this place on the market.” The idea surprised him, as he hadn’t given it any thought before the words came tumbling out.

  “You’re going to sell?” Mariah said in disbelief.

  It also surprised him that he didn’t hate the idea. In fact, on one level, it actually felt a little like...relief.

  “Maybe. Just an idea.” Doubt invaded as the three people closest to him looked at him in shock.

  It was a little crazy. He’d just spent a bunch of hours and money fixing it up. Upgrading it from a decent place to, really, a showplace. It was on the beach. You didn’t find an affordable place on the flipping beach every day.

  “If that’s what you want to do, then you should do it,” his ever-supportive mother said as he opened the door.

  Cale shrugged. “Let’s go eat.”

  The two women went first, and then his dad motored toward the door but stopped when he got even with Cale. His old man stared him down.

  “Elders first,” Cale said, attempting a lightness he no longer felt.

  His dad waved off the comment. “Was that brought on by my asshole comment, son?”

  “What? Selling?”

  His dad nodded, still examining Cale critically.

  “No. I don’t know what it was. Like I said, just a possibility. I’m not going to make any decisions tonight.”

  He already regretted saying he might sell. It’d been a spontaneous thought. One that didn’t take into account a major consideration: the condo was the last tangible piece he had left of Noelle.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE HOUSE WAS a total loss from the blaze, no question about it.

  Cale and the crew had been doing salvage and overhaul for what seemed like days, though in reality, it was only 9:30 p.m. The sun had set not too long ago, and the darkness had made the already tough job a little more difficult. The adrenaline from fighting the fire had long ago run out and now he and the others were just plain worn-out. The homeowners, though... He shook his head sadly.

  His heart went out to the elderly couple whose single-story home had burned beyond recognition. They’d been at the site for hours, sitting on the curb across the street, watching. Crying. Comforting each other. Cale was struck by the way they supported each other—his eyes were drawn to them every time he came out of the former structure carrying equipment or debris. As he loaded up some tools on the truck, he glanced over at them yet again.

  They had to be in their eighties. The man was tall and slim and a little hunched over. His wife was petite with the whitest head of straight, short hair. Someone had brought them lawn chairs for their
vigil, and they’d parked them only a couple of inches apart on the grass near the sidewalk. Each leaned toward the other, and both of their hands were clasped together, resting on the woman’s thighs. They’d lost damn near everything, and just looking at them from a distance, he’d bet there’d been a lot of years of memories in that house.

  Once the tools were stowed, he headed back through what had been the front door to see what else needed to be done before they could return to the station. He’d give his left arm to be able to sleep before they got another alarm.

  “Check this out,” Derek said from the rubble to Cale’s left.

  Unsure whether Derek was addressing him, Cale walked toward him.

  “Look at this thing.” He shined a flashlight on what appeared to be an intricate, hand-carved cuckoo clock. “Still ticking.”

  Cale bent down to look at it. “Unbelievable. Where’d you find it?”

  Derek pointed his light on the ground. “Right there. I think this was the dining room. It’s the only place I’ve found anything intact. There are a couple pieces of pottery over there, maybe part of a collection, but if so, the only pieces left. A few pieces of broken china, as well, but none salvageable.”

  “I bet they’d like to see that,” Cale said, gesturing to the clock. “They’re still out there.”

  “Those poor people,” Derek said, frowning sympathetically. “Take it out to them. Wish there was more we could give them but...” Derek shook his head, surveying the charred, wet remains of a lifetime.

  Cale took the clock from Derek and shined his own flashlight on the pottery shards, discovering the two pieces that hadn’t broken—one looked like a glass candy dish, and the other appeared to be a Native American piece. Both were charred in places, but Cale grabbed them anyway. The pottery had some kind of freaky ceramic figure extending from the top of it. Ugly. But possibly precious to these people at least for the fact that it hadn’t been destroyed. Rummaging through the immediate area for any other pieces that had survived turned up nothing, so he took the three pieces and walked across the yard and the street to the man and the woman.

  They looked expectantly at him when it became obvious he was heading toward them and not one of the rigs.

  “I’m sorry to say we haven’t found much so far that made it,” he said gently. “Hopefully, a search in the daylight will turn up more, but we thought this might be important to you.” He held out the clock for them to see by the light of the streetlamp.

  “The clock Bernie gave us,” the man said, his voice wavering with fatigue.

  “Bernie’s our son—” The woman broke off in a gasp. “Oh, my word, Harold. Look.” She pointed at the ugly pottery Cale had in his left hand. “May I?”

  “Of course,” Cale said, holding both pieces out to her.

  “Oh, Harold, there’s not a crack in it. Not a new crack, at least.” She took the creature-topped pot and held it reverently between her and her husband.

  “Unbelievable,” the old man said in a hushed voice. “Would you look at that, Bess.” He nodded slowly, and Cale did a double take as the man’s lips turned up in a tired smile.

  The man, Harold, shifted his gaze from the pot—which Cale decided had a three-dimensional lizard on top—to his wife. Their eyes held each other’s, and even from where Cale was standing, he was touched by the pure love between the two. He hated to break their moment, especially after they’d had such a harrowing day, so he stood there in respectful silence. The man bent toward his wife and pressed a loving kiss to her lips. Once again, Cale was affected when the woman smiled up at Harold. After their day, for them to be able to smile said a boatload about them.

  “This pot,” Bess said to Cale, her neck craned upward so she looked him in the eye, “has a history. Many years ago, when our marriage was young, we had an argument, as married folks sometimes do. In my upset, I knocked this pot off its shelf and it cracked into two pieces.” She held it up and pointed out the crack. Cale aimed his light at it.

  “We’d bought it on our honeymoon in Santa Fe,” Harold said, picking up the story where his wife had left off, as if they were of a single mind.

  “It’s from the Acoma Pueblo,” Bess explained.

  “The night it broke, we went to bed without speaking. Both of us were pretty ticked off,” Harold continued. “When we got up the next morning, the first thing we did was apologize and glue this pot back together.”

  “Neither one of us had slept worth a darn.” Bess was absently rubbing the side of the pot as they told the story. “That very day, we made a vow. We would never go to bed mad again.”

  Harold nodded emphatically. “And we never have since.”

  “Wow. That’s impressive,” Cale said, meaning it.

  “God must’ve been watching over this pot the way he’s watched over our marriage for sixty-three years now.” Bess burrowed into her husband as he put his frail-looking arm around her. “We’re very blessed in spite of this....” Her eyes watered as she nodded toward the ruins of their house.

  “It’s good that you have each other to get through the rough times,” Cale said sympathetically.

  “You bet your buttons, sir,” Harold said. “Love isn’t always easy but it’s always worth it.” He kissed his wife’s temple. “Let’s take these items to our car. Thank goodness it was parked in the street.”

  Cale handed the candy dish to Harold. “Do you two have a place lined up to stay tonight?”

  “Our son, Bernie, is on his way from Austin. He insisted on coming and helping us take care of everything. We’ll get a hotel tonight and then stay with him until...”

  “Until we have a place to go,” Harold said. “He’s a good kid.”

  “Our sixty-two-year-old kid,” Bess added.

  “Will he be here soon?” Cale asked. “We’ll be heading out in a few minutes and I hate to leave you two on the street by yourselves.”

  “Should be here any minute, but thank you, son. You’re a good man.”

  Bess handed the pot to her husband and stepped forward. “Thank you for all you do,” she said as she wrapped her arms around a flustered Cale.

  As he always was when fire victims showed gratitude, Cale was humbled. Doubly so today, as they’d been unable to save these people’s home. “I’m sorry we couldn’t do more.”

  “It was the candle in the kitchen,” Bess said matter-of-factly. “We lit it after Harold burned some popcorn. We were trying to alleviate the smell and forgot about it. We think the curtains must have caught and spread.”

  “Did you tell the chief that?” Cale asked.

  “He took notes on the whole story,” Bess said. “There’s Bernie.” She forgot Cale was there as she tottered off the curb toward a white sedan parking just up the block.

  “Thank you for these,” Harold said, lifting the three recovered pieces. “I better go. She’s got a bad hip and I like to keep an eye on her.”

  “I wish you the best.” Cale watched the two greet their son. He met all kinds of people in his line of work, but he couldn’t remember ever being as struck as he was by this couple. They made him long for what they had between them.

  * * *

  HOURS LATER, the truck and equipment were cleaned and restocked. It was a strangely quiet night for the department. After showering, Cale had closed himself in his cramped bunk room and tried for an eternity and a half to catch some z’s.

  Finally giving up, he pulled his clothes back on and headed to the common room. It was deserted and dark—not surprising since it was almost 2:00 a.m. Standing there in the center of the room, he felt closed-in and antsy. The air felt stale, confining.

  Cale headed out to the patio on the beach and stared out at the dark water, his mind occupied by thoughts of Bess and Harold. He wondered where they’d wound up for the night.

  Hell, who was he kidding? More than the couple’s lodging for the night, he was stuck on their relationship. For him to even give it a second thought said a bunch. There was such a vibe of l
ove between the two of them, it’d been almost tangible. He’d had the thought then and it wouldn’t leave him alone now: he wanted that kind of bond for himself. And he wanted it with Rachel.

  He wanted to be there when she woke up, as he had been the one day she’d slept in his arms. Wanted her to be with him for the tough times, as she had been that first time he’d gone back in the condo. He longed to bury all the painful stuff with happy things, good memories, laughter—and be the one by her side when the grief and sadness needed to surface.

  His dad’s blunt question about letting Rachel go because of a woman who was no longer alive, once the ticked-off feeling had dissipated, had taken root in his head. At first he’d fought the idea tooth and nail and refused to even acknowledge the thoughts that were raging in his head. The past few days, though, he’d found himself thinking about it more freely. Thinking about Rachel. Admitting to himself he didn’t like not being able to see her or talk to her when he wanted to, which was several times a day.

  And then Harold’s words...

  Love isn’t always easy but it’s always worth it.

  To have love with Rachel, he’d have to finally “let go” of Noelle.

  Shakily, he sucked in the sea-fresh, almost chilly night air at the thought. It wouldn’t be easy. He had to do it whether Rachel was in the picture or not, for his own sake—because while he would always love Noelle on some level, if he held on to her as his fiancée, his future wife with whom he had no future, he was doomed to live his life in limbo. Without the love of another living, breathing woman, as his dad had pointed out.

  Without Rachel.

  She wasn’t ready yet, he knew, but he had to do what he could to make her see she was not responsible for Noelle’s death. That her feelings for him were not responsible. And if she still felt the same about him, he would spend the rest of his life showing her those feelings were reciprocated.

  * * *

  RACHEL HAD NO IDEA why she’d said yes when Cale’s sister had asked her to meet for coffee. She had no clue what Mariah wanted from her.

  Rachel wasn’t an avid coffee drinker. She wasn’t a social person. She and Mariah were friendly but not friends. Her nerves jittered as she swished her grape-juice bottle around in circles in front of her.