Daddy Next Door

by Carol Voss

  The men looked at her as if she wasn’t making sense.

  “Have you ever spent a winter in northern Wisconsin?” Tony asked.

  “I’ve lived in Madison for five years. Winters are cold there, too.”

  “Your grandmother never spent winters in her cottage. It doesn’t even have storm windows,” Ben pointed out. “Probably not much insulation either.”

  “Won’t the furnace and fireplace keep the cottage warm enough?”

  Ben shook his head. “The furnace is probably ancient and inefficient. You could never burn enough wood to keep the place warm.”

  “You could winterize it,” Tony said. “It’s not that big, so it wouldn’t cost a ton more to do it while the rest of the work is going on.”

  “You said last night that you have insurance on it, right?” Ben asked.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “So hire Tony to fix up the place come spring, and bring your kids next summer to enjoy the lake. It only makes sense for you to go back to Madison for the winter.”

  “I don’t have a place to live in Madison.”

  “But you know your way around there. And you have friends to help you out there.”

  She shook her head. “Friends have been helping me out ever since Cam died. I don’t want to impose on them any longer. Besides, moving to Rainbow Lake was a huge decision.” Sure, Gram’s cottage offered free rent, but more importantly, it gave her the emotional support and inspiration she needed to grow into the strong, independent woman she wanted to become. She wasn’t going to throw that away and run back to Madison with her hand out.

  Hearing barking and kids’ squeals outside, she got up and walked to the window to make sure Joey was okay.

  Digger chased a ball across the brown, dormant grass, barking with abandon. Arms waving wildly, Joey ran after the dog, squealing and laughing for all he was worth.

  Ben chuckled over her shoulder. “Joey and Digger look like somebody forgot to lock the gate.”

  Tears clouding her vision, Alyssa pressed her fingers to her lips to stifle a sob. This was what her son needed. What she needed, too. No question in her mind, she’d made the right decision. “Tony, I want to hire you now, not in the spring. How long do you think it would take you to fix and winterize the cottage?”

  Silence for a couple beats. The men were probably exchanging looks.

  “Two to three weeks,” Tony answered.

  He’d have it done before Christmas? She turned to them. “That’s terrific. I’ll find someplace to rent until then. What kind of down payment do you need?”

  “I’ll work up an estimate and let you know.” He glanced at his watch. “Coop, we’d better get moving. I’ll get the tarp out of the truck.” He strode out of the room, the back door soon closing.

  “You sure you want to go ahead with this?” Ben asked.

  “Absolutely. Coming here is a major step in taking charge of my life. I can’t crumble at the first obstacle.”

  “You sure you can’t take charge of your life in Madison?”

  “With friends scrambling to make sure things are easy for me? And my parents calling them to check on me? I know they’re worried about us, but I’m doing okay now. I just need space to figure things out for myself. It’s even possible I could be established by Christmas, so I can show my parents I can take care of my little family on my own.”

  “Why is a Christmas deadline so important?”

  “It’s just that...through the darkest times this past year, I dreamed of preparing a dinner with Gram. Turkey and all the trimmings, you know? Everybody sharing it around her table. But she died this past spring.” She stopped a moment to get her emotions under control before she went on.

  “When she left me the cottage, I began to dream of starting over there. And because Christmas is the next time I’ll see my parents...”

  “You plan to show them you’re okay and put their minds at ease.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, I hope you can make it work out the way you want it to.” He strode for the laundry room. “Better help Tony with that tarp if we’re going to make it to church.”

  Chapter Four

  Alyssa’s windshield wipers whirred, losing their battle to keep up with falling snow. She’d been out looking for a temporary place to live for the two to three weeks Tony estimated it would take to fix the cottage. All she needed were a couple of furnished rooms for her and the boys. Of course, she’d thought she’d be successful and be back at Ben’s to pick up her U-Haul by now.

  But the three rentals she’d found listed in the Courier had been awful. Worse than awful. Running the addresses by Ben might have saved her some time, but she’d made him and Hope late for church as it was. She certainly wasn’t going to hold them up any longer. Apparently, housing was as scarce in the area as Ben said it was.

  She peered through the snowy haze, looking for the turnoff onto Rainbow Lake Road. With no streetlights, the snow-covered road ahead blended with the countryside around her. She hadn’t seen another car for ages. Everybody else had enough sense to get off the roads in weather like this. And she would, too, as soon as she wound her way to the right one.

  She hated going back to Ben’s without a place to live, but she didn’t have anywhere else to go. So once again, she would have to rely on his help. She shook her head, defeat pressing her down.

  She needed to figure out a way to pay him back. Cleaning, cooking. Anything. Gripping the steering wheel until her fingers ached, she took a curve.

  Suddenly, her car spun around and slid for the ditch. She held the wheel steady, even remembered to touch the brake lightly instead of stomping it. But the car ended up in the snow-filled ditch just the same.

  “What happened, Mommy?” Joey sounded surprised.

  She blew out a breath. “We slid on the ice, honey.” Thankfully, she’d been driving slowly. Slamming the car in Park, she quickly unsnapped her seat belt and scrambled to her knees to peer at her children in their car seats in the back. “You okay?”

  Joey nodded.

  “Good.” She watched Robbie stretch and try to open his eyes, then settle back to sleep. “The most important thing is that everybody’s okay, right?”

  Joey nodded again.

  Settling behind the wheel, she threw her frustration into every trick she knew to get the car out of the ditch. But it wouldn’t budge. The incline and the awkward angle told her there was no way she would escape without a tow. She groaned.

  “Daddy would know what to do.”

  “Yes, honey, he would.” One of the things she missed most about Cam was his take-charge attitude. Tears threatened. She brushed them away. What good would tears do? If she’d relied on herself instead of depending on Cam for so many things, she’d know what to do, too.

  “Let’s call Ben.”

  She almost groaned again, but she didn’t want to upset Joey. Needing to stay with Ben for another night wasn’t bad enough. Now she needed him to pull her car out of the ditch? But wait—her cell had gotten wrecked in the fire. She let the ramifications of that bit of information seep through her mind.

  What was she going to do?

  “Ben will come and help us, Mommy. I know he will.”

  She winced. “My phone got broken in the fire. And Ben doesn’t know where we are.”

  “He will look for us,” Joey offered matter-of-factly.

  Ben had done enough. She certainly didn’t expect him to be out on these roads searching for them. With a heavy sigh, she turned to scan the shifting landscape through the windshield and spotted a light in the sky. A yard light? The end of a big barn took shape in the haze, and she slowly made out a two-story house close by. Was it a working farm with people who could lend her a phone? Why else would they have a light?

 
But she couldn’t leave the boys in the car. She’d have to take them through the blizzard with her. This just got better and better. She turned off the motor, shoved open her door and stepped into a snowbank to her knees.

  Wind pelting her with wet snow, she crawled in the back alongside Robbie’s car seat and pulled the door shut behind her. She dug in her giant tote on the floor and handed Joey his mittens and scarf, then unsnapped his seat belt. “Put your boots back on, okay?”

  “What are we gonna do?”

  “We’re going to walk to that farmhouse and get help.”

  “Like a ’venture?”

  “That’s right. Like an adventure.” Kneeling on the seat, she grabbed an extra blanket from the Escalade’s rear section.

  “Is this the right one?” Joey looked up from jamming his right foot into his left boot.

  She glanced over from struggling to get sleeping Robbie into his snowsuit and shook her head.

  Joey gave a sigh of discouragement. “We need Ben to come and help us.”

  Apparently, Ben was Joey’s new superhero. At the rate she was going, she’d never fill that role in her child’s life, would she? “Just pull off your boot and put it on the other foot, okay?”

  “I need help, Mommy.”

  “We need to learn to help ourselves, honey. I’m sure you can do it.”

  He sighed. “Like the little engine?”

  “Just like the little engine.”

  He set to work. “I think I can, I think I can....”

  By the time she got the boys and herself bundled up enough to face the blizzard, it felt like a major achievement to finally push open the door and climb out with Robbie in his carrier. “Come on, Joey.”

  Gripping Braveman in his mitten, Joey scrambled out, blinking against the biting snow.

  She slammed the door. Grasping Joey’s hand, she headed for the house. It was hard going through the drifts, especially for Joey. “You’re doing great,” she encouraged.

  “Braveman knows the way.”

  “Well, that’s good.” The closer they got to the house, the more run-down it looked. Visions of scary houses in too many thriller movies nudged her mind. But this was Rainbow Lake country. Hadn’t Ben said people didn’t even lock doors around here?

  She couldn’t see any lights. What would she do if nobody was home? What if nobody even lived there?

  But as she rounded the side of the structure, a dim glow spilled out on the snow. Gratefully climbing the steps of the wraparound porch, she let go of Joey’s hand to knock on the door with knuckles numb from the cold.

  No sound came from inside.

  She banged on the door with her fist. “Is anybody home?” she yelled.

  Robbie began to protest.

  She kept right on pounding. Come on, answer the door. We’re freezing out here.

  Finally, she stopped, pushed her wet, windblown hair from her eyes and tried to face the possibility that for whatever reason, nobody was going to answer her knock.

  “Maybe they’re sleeping,” Joey said.

  She looked down at her son, the trust in his wide eyes spurring her into action. She set up pounding the door again. “Please open your door. I have two young children. Are you going to let us freeze on your doorstep?”

  The door creaked open a crack.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, but my car slid into the ditch.”

  “You shouldn’t be out in this storm,” a crotchety man’s voice grumbled through the crack in the door.

  All Alyssa could make out in the shadowy light inside was one aged eye behind a glass lens.

  “Who’s with you?” the man demanded.

  “My baby and my little boy. Do you think I could bring them inside? It’s very cold out here.”

  “How do I know you’re not going to rob me?”

  From the looks of the place, what could the man possibly have to steal?

  Robbie’s fussing erupted into crying.

  She hunted for his pacifier in the blankets and gave it to him. “Do you have a phone? That’s all we want. I promise.”

  “Who you want to call?” the crackly voice asked.

  “Ben Cooper...he lives on Rainbow Lake.”

  “The guy that bought the Courier?”

  “The town newspaper?”

  “I read his paper. Don’t know Ben Cooper, though.”

  Robbie’s cries erupted, definitely cries of hunger by now.

  “My brother is cold, and I need to go potty,” Joey contributed.

  Desperate to get her children out of the wind, if only for a few minutes, Alyssa groped for anything she could think of to gain entrance into the man’s inner sanctum. He appeared to have lived here forever, yet he didn’t know Ben.... “Emma and Charles Bradley were my grandparents.”

  The door opened a foot or so, and the ancient man in overalls, plaid flannel shirt and a white beard glowered at crying Robbie, then down at Joey. “Emma and Charlie and me and my late wife go way back.”

  Thank you, Gram and Gramps. Alyssa located the pacifier again and tried to get Robbie to take it.

  The old man looked Alyssa in the eye. “Where’s your husband?”

  “My husband died.” Finally, she got Robbie to accept the pacifier.

  Joey danced in place. “Can I use your bathroom...please?”

  The man grunted. “Well, come in, then.”

  Alyssa let out a relieved breath. Guiding Joey inside, she followed him into a very old, outdated kitchen. Faded wallpaper in a teakettle theme, wall-hanging sink, big, black-and-silver wood-burning stove. The room was as different from Ben’s modern, cozy kitchen as it could possibly be. But it was warm and everything they needed right now. “I’m Alyssa Douglas.”

  “Zebadiah Krentz.” Closing the door, the man peered down at Joey. “What’s your name?”

  Joey looked up at her through steamed glasses, his nose wrinkling. “Clean slution?”

  She sniffed the pine scent. “That’s right. Can you tell Mr. Krentz your name?” she encouraged.

  “Joseph Bradley Douglas, like my grampa,” he said without looking at the old man.

  “Joseph Bradley is your grampa?”

  Nodding, Joey handed his glasses to Alyssa and hopped on one foot. “Can I use your potty? Please?”

  The old man slowly turned and pointed an arthritic finger. “It’s in there. Don’t forget to flush.”

  “I won’t.” Squinting to see across the room, Joey took off for the bathroom.

  Alyssa followed him and pulled the bathroom door partially closed to give him privacy. She stood just outside to make sure he didn’t get into trouble.

  “Joseph Bradley, Emma and Charlie’s boy?” Mr. Krentz asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Joseph here, too?”

  “My father?”

  “Joseph Bradley’s your dad?”

  “Yes. But he’s in Washington right now. He’s a U.S. senator.”

  Robbie spit out his pacifier and began crying in earnest.

  She tried to get him to accept it one more time.

  “I’d like to see Joseph again. That lad worked hard for me.”

  “In the Senate?” Giving up with the pacifier, she clasped Robbie to her shoulder and rubbed his back to try to calm him.

  “The Senate? No. Probably works hard there, too. But he used to work his tail off helping me bring in the hay. Emma and Charlie raised that boy right.”

  Alyssa smiled, amazed at how pleased she was to find someone connected to her father and grandparents.

  “I taught Charlie a thing or two about fishing way back when. Too bad he had to leave us so soon.” Mr. Krentz slowly shook his head. “Then my Viola.”

  Alyssa remembered a Viola bein
g a friend of Gram. She’d thought it was so cool to be named for a flower. And she’d met this man, too, hadn’t she? “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, well...thanks.” He cleared his throat. “Your gramma Emma did her best to keep me goin’ when she was here during the summers. Never gave up on me or that little cottage of hers, no matter how bad it got. Tough lady, your grandmother.”

  “Yes, she was.”

  The toilet flushed.

  Robbie was getting more upset by the second. She was going to have to nurse him, but she couldn’t imagine Zebadiah Krentz taking that well. She excused herself and hurried into the bathroom. Ten minutes later, she emerged with Joey wearing his glasses again and a quiet, satisfied Robbie dozing in his carrier.

  The old man shuffled around, mopping the worn linoleum floor.

  “I’m sorry we tracked snow into your home,” she apologized.

  “That’s what this mop is for.”

  Well, he had a point there. “If I can use your phone to call Ben, we’ll soon be out of your way.”

  He leaned the mop against the wall, took a green-and-black plaid mackinaw from a metal hook and struggled into it. “Did you wreck your car when you slid into the ditch?”

  “It seems fine. But it’s pretty stuck. I’m sure it will have to be towed out.”

  He pulled a heavy, hand-knit cap down over his ears and wrapped a scarf around his neck, beard and half his face. “While I get my tractor out of the machine shed, you and your little ’uns walk down and meet me at your car. Can you do that?”

  “You’ll freeze on a tractor in this blizzard.” Now, she was depending on a very old man to rescue her? She glanced around for a phone, spotting an old rotary version on the kitchen counter. “Maybe Ben can bring his truck.”

  “No need for him to come out on a night like this. If we need him, we can always call him later.”

  What if he got pneumonia or something? “I don’t think you should go out there, Mr. Krentz.”

  “Name’s Zebadiah to Charlie and Emma’s kin. And just how am I gonna get that car of yours out of the ditch without going out there? Ain’t no need to thank me neither. At least not until I get you pulled out and on your way home.”