A Basic Renovation

by Sandra Antonelli

  Kyle laughed. ‘You are so full of crap. The truck has a V8 and I’ve been driving that. I know my having a car scares the hell out of you.’

  ‘Yes, it does.’ Dominic nodded.

  ‘Fabian told me you had an accident when you were my age. That’s why, huh? You think I’m going to flip the car and take out a couple of friends like you almost did.’

  ‘Is that what Fabian said this afternoon?’

  ‘We talked about a lot of things.’ Kyle lifted Clementine onto his shoulder. ‘Where’s Lesley?’

  ‘I don’t know. I told her to go home.’

  ‘You’re an idiot, you know that?’

  ‘Kyle, listen to me. I love you. She’s not important right now. You’re the most important thing in the world to me and yo—’

  ‘You’re an asshole and I don’t want to talk about that now. The dog needs to go out.’ Kyle got up and stamped his way to the deck doors and flipped on the outdoor lights.

  ‘We have to talk about this now. We can’t let it fester.’

  ‘What for? Are you going to tell me I can’t live here anymore? Are you going to say I have to go live with…him?’ Kyle waited for Clementine run down the stairs before he slammed the door. He glared as he turned back to the table.

  A knife twisted in Dominic’s gut. ‘What are you talking about? This is your home,’ he said. ‘It will always be your home.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me? Were you ever going to let me know?’

  Let you know what? Your mother was sleeping with my brother the same time she was sleeping with me? How was I supposed to tell you that? ‘No.’

  ‘Is your name is on my birth certificate?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘So is any of it true? Is what Lesley said true? Don’t lie to me. I heard you. I heard her. I heard him. He baits you with it. He calls me “my son”, “my boy” just to piss you off. I watched you tell him to keep his hands off what doesn’t belong to him. I watched you knock out two of his teeth.’ His voice rose, ‘I know he’s a liar, but is this a lie? Is he lying about this?’

  ‘Kyle, listen.’ Dominic got to his feet, reaching out to rest his hand on the kid’s shoulder. ‘I love you. That’s no lie. That’s never been a lie. What you heard makes no difference.’

  Eyes wet, Kyle pulled away and backed up towards the sink. ‘It makes no difference?’ He choked back a sob and smashed his fists against the edge of the countertop. ‘Are you or is he?’ he shouted. Chunks of black, white and tan flew into the air as the cast on his left arm began to disintegrate and bits of fiberglass plaster spilled to the floor. ‘Are you or is he?’

  Heart, stomach, spleen and lungs all crowed for space in Dominic’s mouth. He looked at the mess around the boy’s bare feet and back up into the blue eyes that ran in the Brennan family. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How can you not know? Didn’t you test? Didn’t you want to know?’

  Dominic moved to the boy and pulled him away from the counter. The broken cast was going to have to be replaced. ‘It’s not that simple, Kyle. I donated bone marrow to my brother. My DNA shows up in his blood, and your mother—’

  ‘My mother was a whore.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’ Dear God, all these years he’d simply pretended to be laid-back giving the boy details about his mother. The hard truth was he’d said nothing because he’d always believed he’d been the one who’d been wronged. Lesley had been correct. He’d held on to the idea he’d been cuckolded. He’d starved Stefanie of love, of affection, of attention until she’d been vulnerable enough to turn to his brother, who had taken advantage of the situation. When she walked out she’d walked out on him and in reality, he’d deserved it. Although he’d confessed to Lesley he hadn’t loved Stefanie, he’d never been able to tell the boy. Now, Kyle knew nothing and speculated everything.

  Dominic couldn’t pretend anymore.

  Shaking his head, he laid a gentle hand on the nape of Kyle’s neck. ‘No. Don’t think she was a whore. Stefanie was…unhappy. I had no idea how unhappy because I was too wrapped up in my work to pay attention. She needed something and I wouldn’t give it to her. I didn’t love her. So she looked for it elsewhere and I can’t blame her for that. I can’t even blame Terry. When she told me about him, you were just a tiny baby. You were my child, my son. Nothing was going to change that. I loved you. You were mine.’

  Fat tears bubbled out of Kyle’s eyes, ‘You…you had a paternity test?’

  ‘One. We had one blood test, but a bone marrow transplant changes the DNA of the recipient to that of the donor. We couldn’t prove anything with a blood test and I didn’t care. DNA tests now are different. Nowadays paternity is established by a mouth swab instead of blood, but I still don’t care.’

  Dominic felt his eyes burn. His throat constricted as his forehead came to rest against Kyle’s. ‘I don’t need a test to tell me anything. You have to make up your mind and decide what you want to believe, but I don’t. You are the most important thing to me. I raised you. You are my son in every way that matters. You are my son. I changed your diapers, sent you to school. I was there when you had chicken pox and taught you how to tie your shoes. I told you about girls and sex. I watched you grow up. I see the boy you were and the man you will be. I’ve loved you since the day you were born. You are my son.’

  Dominic felt like he’d gone nine rounds with a cement mixer and a steamroller. By the time they got into the doctor and Kyle’s cast had been replaced, they were both running on vapours.

  It wasn’t over completely, but the thorniest part, the most vital element seemed to be something they’d finally agreed upon – he hoped. He was beginning to realise that one could never quite tell what would happen with a teenager who stood between boy and manhood. Eggshells. Dominic knew was going to be walking on them for a while and, Lord, he wished his feet weren’t so big.

  He had a shower and dragged his sorry, worn-out ass to Trujillo’s. When the smell of popcorn hit him, he realised the last meal he had was yesterday’s breakfast. He filled a bag with his favourite snack and headed to his little office. Fabian was there, sitting on the desk. He’d brought lunch from Sonic. He had sand-coloured paint all over his tanned skin, a dripping burger in his hand and tomato sauce on his top lip. The office smelled like ketchup and onion rings.

  Collapsing into his chair, Dominic put his popcorn beside the computer keyboard, and rested his elbows on the desk’s top, right next to a cup of root beer and pile of onion rings. He ate one. Then he rubbed both palms over his stubbly face and wished he were a better man. He wished he were his father.

  Fabian wiped his mouth. ‘Poor Sunday. You look like hell.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Daintily, Fabian brushed crumbs from his paint-spattered shirt. ‘Kyle all right?’

  ‘For now. We got some stuff hammered out, but this is going to be tender for a while. We’ll make it through.’ Dominic ate another onion ring.

  ‘I know you will,’ Fabian nodded and changed the subject. ‘The windows came. I started painting the back of the house. When are you going to get on with the backyard?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Dominic dropped his hands and leaned back in his chair. ‘Not this week.’

  ‘You won’t believe what Lesley’s done in a day. It’s like smoke never touched the walls, and I don’t know how she did the ceiling. She was about to pry up floorboards when I left for lunch. I don’t think she’s slept much.’

  ‘That makes two of us.’

  Fabian chuckled. ‘Parenting and wedding planning is a bitch, isn’t it? On top of Kyle, you’ve got all those details running around Lesley’s brain infecting you. I ever tell you before our wedding Kristi nearly gave me an ulcer because I couldn’t tell the difference between maroon and wine?’

  ‘An ulcer is caused by bacteria, not stress.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  Sighing, Dominic lifted his friend’s root beer and dank half of it in one swift gulp. ‘Yeah. Sorry.’
he muttered and rattled the ice in the cup. ‘I think I’m turning into my mother. How many men do you think say that?’

  There was a tap at the door. The two of them glanced over. Lesley shuffled into the office. Her reddish blonde hair hung in sweaty strands around her pale, grime-streaked face.

  Fabian hopped off the desk. ‘Hi, Lesley.’

  She glanced at him and nodded.

  Right then, Dominic felt a noxious cloud of tension settle into the little room. He ran greasy, onion-ring scented fingers though his messy hair. ‘Look, Lesley, I know. I said I’d be there. I know I said I’d fix it all, but I can’t do it today. I can’t do it tomorrow. I may not even be able to do it next week. Right now, I can’t think. I can’t give you what you need.’

  A shudder passed though Lesley’s slight frame and her breath tumbled out the same way. Her jaw tensed, the cords in her neck stood out. ‘Fine,’ she said in a purring contralto that displayed her teeth, ‘I don’t want your help. I don’t want anything from you.’ Her hand dug into her pocket. When she jerked it out, she tossed a fistful of coins, screws, washers and lint onto the desk. The hard stuff bounced and skidded across the top, a nail landed on the onion rings, a shiny washer and two quarters slid under the computer keyboard. Pennies rolled across the floor. ‘And you can keep the goddamn change too.’

  The door slammed as she left, the old calendar on the back swung like a pendulum. Flyers on the bulletin board flapped. The wrapping from Fabian’s hamburger rose from the desktop and floated beneath the desk.

  ‘Well, I’d say she’s pissed with you,’ Fabian said.

  ‘Ya think? If I go after her now I know I’ll just piss her off more. Experience tells me she needs time to cool off.’

  ‘So what did you do this time?’

  ‘Bit her head off. Hard. You know me and my over-the-top ways. Yesterday, after Kyle overheard us, I cracked and she—’

  ‘Bore the brunt.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Dominic ground the heels of his hands in to his eyes and groaned when he finished. ‘How do you think you would’ve reacted in my shoes? What the hell would you have done if Callie heard someone saying she might not be your daughter? How would you have reacted to hearing the news?’

  Fabian exhaled. ‘Might. You base all of this on might. You’ve hung so much on what may or may not be.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You never told Lesley about Stefanie and Terry, did you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why would you keep something like that from the woman you asked to be your wife? She deserves to know. She was part of it too, but not the way you ever believed. Turned out she was nothing like any of you’d believed she was, and so what if she knows what happened. You always said it didn’t matter. And it never mattered that Willa and I knew either, did it? So how come you didn’t tell Lesley?’

  ‘Because I was afraid she might tell Kyle and now Kyle knows.’ Dominic shoved a handful of popcorn in his mouth. It tasted like sawdust.

  ‘I thought you were smarter.’ Fabian sat on the edge of the desk. ‘This is what I mean. You got hung up on might. You bought right into Stefanie’s little act of revenge and Terry’s manipulation. You decided a long time ago not to rely on any sort of test to tell you Kyle’s your son, Dominic. Anyone can see that now. There’s no doubt. All you have to do is stand side-by-side. He’s you in tenth grade, only blond and more coordinated. Dios Mio, look in a mirror sometimes.’

  Dominic spat out the popcorn, dumped the rest into the trash bin beside his desk and shook his head. He picked up three pennies and shoved them into his pocket. ‘That’s not the point. It’s the fact someone’s put doubt in his mind. How do I fix that? How do I erase what he heard Lesley say?’

  ‘Maybe I don’t know squat about Quantum Physics, new trons or old trons, like you do, but I know this. Sorry, mijo, but you’re acting like an asshole. Let go of that fine Brennan tradition of scrapegoating and quit blaming Lesley.’

  ‘I’m not blaming her. I’m blaming myself.’ Dominic turned, pulled open the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet and began to rummage around for some aspirin. ‘I blame myself. And she knows that.’

  ‘Right. It totally looked that way from here.’ Scratching his beard, Fabian bent over to pull the paper hamburger wrapper from under the desk. Something unusual sitting next to a dime and two quarters caught his eye. He reached for it and frowned. ‘Wow. This has got some real fire to it, but I can’t imagine it’ll keep you very warm this winter,’ he flipped it into the air like a coin and caught it before it landed on the desktop.

  ‘What the hell are you—’ Dominic looked up from the drawer gripping a bottle of Tylenol, ‘Oh, dear God.’ Never in his life had he ever felt faint.

  He did now.

  Spots before his eyes, roaring in his ears, he stared at the glittering ruby ring in the palm of his friend’s hand.

  Chapter 26

  The first thing she’d replaced after the fire was the portable stereo. Second had been the screen door. The last had been the locks, all jimmy-proof cast bronze deadbolts with five-pin cylinders, which were supposed to provide maximum strength and protection.

  Lesley was really pleased with her choices. While she chiselled out the damaged wood floor, the new CD player blasted out music that drowned out Dominic’s swearing and banging on the reinforced stainless steel security storm door. He could kick it as much as he wanted to.

  That door wasn’t going to budge.

  The glue she’d used on the wood laminate plank wouldn’t budge either. She found a slimmer chisel, inserted it into the seam between two boards, and hit the end of it with a dead blow hammer while Dominic pounded on the door and shouted, ‘Lesley!’

  The sound of his voice stirred embers of emotion for a moment, but she stomped them out and moved on to the next section of floor. She made a game of it. In a second or two, her hammering and his blows matched the tempo of the music.

  What was he doing here, anyhow? Maybe he was one of those men who thought once he gave a woman an engagement ring it was hers, no give backs. Or it could have been he was there to practise his intimidation skills again, to make doubly sure she remembered the dismayed, painful look on Kyle’s face when he’d heard the truth.

  The truth? Like Dominic cared about the truth?

  Rather than accept responsibility for his own actions, he had chosen to blame her. Well, she was done being the fall guy. Her apologising to Dominic days, her listening to Dominic days were finished.

  Just like they were.

  Another feeling flared in her heart. She let cold anger extinguish it and decided he’d come by to drop off the things she’d left at his house, the clothes he’d washed, the toiletries she’d put into his bathroom, the glasses she’d left on his bedside table.

  All right. That pissed her off. Those damn glasses had cost nearly five hundred bucks. It took forever to have her prescription filled because of the special lenses that didn’t look like the coke-bottles she had to wear when she was fifteen. She hoped he remembered the glasses.

  ‘Lesley!’ Dominic hollered again.

  ‘Just leave everything by the door!’ she yelled back.

  It was only eleven in the morning and the temperature inside the Cherokee was near roasting. The box of chocolates had melted into a swirled soup of milk and dark garnished with whole almonds and coffee beans. The white tea roses were now limp and browned. The jeep’s interior smelled like flowers, sweat and fear. Dominic sat with his hands on the steering wheel and stared at the cloudless blue sky above the distant Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

  The good thing was that, in three days, life with his son had settled back into semi-routine. There were moments of tension. The kid had developed a habit of being mouthy, but it was evident they were going to be all right.

  He’d blown everything out of proportion. He’d over-reacted. And Lesley had shut him out. She’d raised the volume on her stereo, turned her back and hammered in a way that made him
think she’d wished his head had been a nail.

  And he deserved it.

  Jesus, he could wait it out if it was simply that she didn’t want to see him for a while, if she needed time to cool off. Kyle had needed space to sort things out, to step away from the potent emotional battering and find his footing, but Dominic understood a time-out wouldn’t make a difference to Lesley.

  None of it made sense. The woman he’d come to know was all about forgiveness and turning the other cheek. He couldn’t remember what he’d said to change her into something so inherently un-Lesley. Yes, he vividly recalled screaming at her but he had no real idea of what he’d said, had no memory of what had come before that because his primary focus had been Kyle. He’d had to save his son. In a moment of overwhelming panic he’d obliterated everything else and he had no idea how to put it all back together.

  Lesley was the renovation expert.

  And apparently she saw no value in this restoration.

  Since he was already in hell, Dominic figured that until he worked out a solution, or a way to apologise, a slow broil in the jeep wouldn’t hurt.

  Early Wednesday evening, Fabian flopped into a chair on his friend’s deck and sighed. ‘I knew she was pissed, but I’m a little surprised Lesley has already put the house on the market.’

  ‘What?’ Dominic turned off the nozzle and draped the loose hose over the edge of the deck. ‘Why would she do that now? The house isn’t finished. The yard’s not done. She’ll kiss twenty grand profit goodbye if the yard’s not done.’

  Fabian shrugged. ‘Yard done or not, the rest of the place is finished and she’s listed with Mary Deal Realty. There’s a sign up in front. Her trailer’s out of the garage and I think she’s started packing it. I know she’s out of the house and staying with her parents. She left me a cheque and a note that said she was going back to Chicago this weekend, after the patio’s been poured.’

  Sensation dribbled out of Dominic’s hands the same way water dribbled from the hose he’d just used. ‘But it’s not September. She said she’d be here ‘til September. How am I supposed to fix this if she leaves? She can’t leave. It’s not September yet. Did you talk to her?’