Such Happiness as This

by Laina Villeneuve

  She ran a hand through her short hair, leaving it tousled. “Because in hurting him, you hurt yourself. “I don’t know the hurt of losing a parent—mine weren’t around enough for me to feel abandoned when they chose to live with my brother in Japan. But I know what it feels like to lose something you treasured. My ex made me feel like that, and I spent a lot of time holding on to my anger toward her, but that only made me unhappy. My friend wanted me to punish her, sell off all the stuff she left here. I didn’t because I knew that it wouldn’t make me feel better. If I feed the bitterness, I’m the one who suffers.”

  “I don’t understand how you can let go so easily I’d be spitting fire over her getting married.” Grace clapped her hand over her mouth when she realized she’d spoken the words out loud. They didn’t have any effect on Robyn’s expression. She revealed neither surprise nor hurt.

  “You don’t know how long it was over before she left, how much time I spent being angry and hurt and confused. But I got to the place where I could let it go or let it sink me.”

  Grace wondered how long it had been and why Robyn had never chosen to leave. Given how uncomfortable Robyn seemed sharing personal information, Grace wasn’t surprised when after a long silence, Robyn changed the subject.

  “Why does your brother have to live with you? He’s an adult, isn’t he?”

  Grace nodded, eyeing Robyn’s drink and seriously thinking about taking it. “Yes, he’s twenty-three. But he doesn’t have the money to get a place on his own. He doesn’t have a trade and never finished high school. Nobody in Bend wants to employ him. I don’t know what he’s going to do here, how he’s ever going to become independent. He says I owe him since I’m the executor of our parents’ will. My sister agrees with him. She thinks it’s in our best interest to get him on the right track before he comes into his money when he turns twenty-five.” She massaged her forehead, wishing she could expunge the constant churning of painful memories and pressure.

  “Do you have the room?”

  “I have a two-bedroom place,” Grace answered. She had the physical space but did not know if she could share it with him. She flashed hot when she heard footsteps on the stairs. She’d intended to leave before the rehearsal was over and hadn’t realized how long she and Robyn had been talking. She stood up apologetically and hesitated, knowing she couldn’t simply slip out unseen. The trio of players reached the hallway at the same time Grace did. They looked startled to see her.

  “I’m so sorry I missed tonight. Family emergency.”

  Patty and Kim assured her that it had still been good and quickly took their leave. Jen stayed, looking curiously from Grace to Robyn who had approached with the two cups in her hands.

  Steeling herself, Grace spoke again. “I know it’s terrible timing, but I’m going to have to go out of town for a while. I’ll have to miss a few more sessions.”

  “Don’t stress,” Jen said, giving her a quick hug. “It isn’t like I’ve booked us anything yet.”

  “But I don’t want to hold the group back.”

  “Family first, right Mom?”

  Robyn smiled at Jen’s comment, but her eyes stayed on Grace.

  “Thank you for talking,” Grace said, wishing she could slip her arms around Robyn as easily as she could Jen, but knowing that the level of emotion she had shared with Robyn would make it a very different gesture.

  “Glad to help. Are you okay to drive?” She held up the empty mug with the same look of concern that had prompted Grace to follow her inside in the first place.

  “I’m sure. Thank you…again.” She’d almost said for saving me. She stepped out into the rain, and instead of running to the car as she always did, she let the rain fall on her as Robyn had, feeling the cool water on her face.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Grace woke in her childhood home. Down the hall, she heard Leah bustling from room to room helping Zach and Alison pick out their clothes for the day. She covered her head with her pillow, wondering if they were purposely making so much noise to rouse her from bed. Leah had been shuttling them away from her doorway all morning trying to keep them quiet.

  When they descended the stairs, Grace thought she’d go back to sleep, but she couldn’t quiet her brain. She pushed the pillow off her head and studied her sister’s sewing projects. She was ten again, perched on a stool, willing her mother to put the finishing touches on her Holly Hobby quilt. She tossed off her covers and dressed in flannel-lined jeans and a heavy wool sweater to ward off the winter chill.

  She stood at one of the dormer windows with her arms wrapped around herself, staring out at the land, remembering the plans her father had for building a riding arena next to his barn. The only one in the family to ride, the barn was his domain. Leah’s husband, Craig, wanted to sell the place. It really was too big for them, but Leah had argued that they could not sell the house with their brother in prison. She had insisted that he deserved the right to say goodbye to their childhood home. Robyn wondered if Craig was pressuring her to sell and whether that discussion was also on this trip’s agenda.

  Closing her eyes, she imagined her parents alive and everyone gathered at the house for the Christmas holiday. What would it be like if they were visiting the house instead of living in it? Would Leah’s kids be out in the barn watching Granddad feed the horses, chatting excitedly about wanting a ride? She and Leah would be in the kitchen perched at the bar, warm cups of tea in hand, watching their mother flip her perfect pancakes, letting her take care of them. She leaned into that warm fantasy wanting it to be real instead of this ordinary weekday. Her sister did live here and was downstairs throwing breakfast together for the kids before she took Zach to preschool.

  When she opened her eyes she saw her father sweeping the barn door closed. She gasped at the sight, her heart squeezed tight with the desire for what she saw to be true, the tall figure in the forest-green barn coat and brown Carhartt work pants to be her father. Too much hair, her rational brain said, the jacket too short at the waist and cuffs. Tyler turned toward the house and his footsteps pounded in her ears. Her brother alive in their dead father’s clothes and in his space.

  She couldn’t go downstairs, but her stomach growled in protest. In an attempt to distract both, she pulled out her laptop to check her email, justifying her actions with the promise she had made to Aaron to check in frequently. She easily fielded questions she should have forwarded to Aaron, quickly losing track of time.

  Leah rapped at the door before pushing it open. Dressed in old jeans, the T-shirt she’d worn yesterday that now had oatmeal handprints on the hem and one of Craig’s fleece pullovers, Leah looked every bit the frazzled mom. Grace knew she wouldn’t be raiding her sister’s closet again anytime soon. Grace glanced at the clock and saw that forty minutes had passed. The house was eerily quiet, she realized. “Where are the kids?”

  “Tyler took Zach to school, and he and Alison are hitting the hardware store on the way home.”

  “What was he doing in the barn this morning?”

  “If you’d come down to breakfast, you could have asked him yourself.” She folded her arms across her body. Pregnancy had widened her hips and shrunk her chest, but she’d worked hard beyond chasing her two active children to keep her figure. She had no hint of the belly bulge Grace remembered their mother having.

  Grace went back to her emails. Leah sighed dramatically, threw her arms up in the air and left the room, tossing “There’s cold lumpy oatmeal on the stove,” over her shoulder.

  Guiltily, Grace set the computer aside and followed Leah downstairs. “I’m sorry,” she said. She served herself oatmeal and topped it with raisins and sliced almonds.

  “I know it’s not easy for you to be here or see Tyler, but sometimes I need your help. And I need your help now.”

  “I’m here,” Grace said.

  “You could at least pretend to be enthusiastic.”

  “I don’t know how you stay here, how it doesn’t get to you. I see him
, and I feel like he’s ripping tape off my heart.”

  Leah sat down with a steaming cup of tea and stirred in a heaping teaspoon of sugar. “We’re not staying here. Craig and I are ready to sell.”

  Grace nodded. “And the place you get isn’t going to be big enough for Tyler.”

  “We have our own family to raise, Grace. It makes more sense for him to live with you. We did two years, and he’ll get his inheritance soon. If you’ve had it, you can wash your hands of him. But I think you should give him a chance. He’s really trying. It’s not like before.”

  “What’s he been doing?”

  “He’s been building furniture, mostly tables he fashions out of stuff he finds. He’s been trying to sell it on the Internet since nobody in town would ever hire him. We’ve been trying to put together a website, but I know he’d do better with your expertise,” she said, looking pointedly at Grace.

  Grace felt nauseous, anger turning the oatmeal to stone, but she kept eating. She recalled Robyn’s saying that withholding forgiveness was hurting her as much as it hurt her family. Sitting across from Leah, she could see what she meant. Her attitude spilled over and affected everyone.

  She set down the suitcase of pain and hurt she’d been lugging around and stepped away from it. Until she visualized it, she hadn’t realized how much effort she expended keeping it close to her at all times and how very exhausted she was. If she could be free of it, she could move through her world more easily. “So let’s go take a look,” she said, testing what it would be like to start fresh.

  They shrugged into coats and walked to the barn. Grace forced her hands open in her pockets so she would carry nothing into the barn, no anger or expectations. Stepping into the barn, she kept her mind on artistry, divorcing the glimpse of her brother’s future from the past.

  What she saw stopped her in her tracks. Stalls that once held horses now held a dinner table made from a discarded door, a sheet of glass giving it an even surface above the weathered, detailed surface. Another door he’d turned into a matched head and footboard for a twin bed. These pieces she understood, but the dozen old ladders that hung from the ceiling didn’t make any sense. Grace turned to her sister, confused.

  “I didn’t get what he was doing, either, so he hung them to show me how these big hooks can hold pans in a kitchen or baskets in a storage room. Or you can pile towels on top. This one can hang in a corner and be used as a bookshelf. He has a bunch of other ideas for ladders once he gets his hands on them.”

  Grace’s eyes stopped on a bench. “Is that…?”

  Leah nodded. “You never answered the text I sent about whether you cared if I sent on our old cribs. That’s actually what got him started. We were just moving Alison into her big girl bed, and our old cribs don’t convert. When I explained how the newer cribs turn into toddler beds, he started thinking about what else an old crib could be.”

  Tyler had used the longer sides of the crib as the backrest for two Shaker-style benches. Grace ran her hand along the smooth polished surface.

  “Are you mad?”

  Tyler’s voice startled her, and she turned to see him holding their wide-eyed niece.

  “Say hi to Aunt Grace,” Leah said, holding out her arms. From her mother’s arms, Alison waved shyly. She looked as much like Craig with her dark straight hair and brooding expression as Zach looked like his mother and aunt with his wavy, ruddy hair and pale complexion. “Let’s go get a snack and let Uncle Tyler and Aunt Grace talk by themselves,” Leah said.

  When mother and daughter left, Grace sat and ran her hand along the solid bench. “It’s stunning.”

  Tyler tentatively sat down next to her and Grace studied his profile. She hadn’t seen him since their parents’ funeral, and his expression held none of the youthful defiance she remembered. His cheeks had lost their smoothness and seemed gaunt under the stubble of a few days’ growth. The regret she had never heard him express was clearly evident in his gray eyes now that she finally allowed herself to look into them.

  When their mother had spoken about reaching her own limit with Tyler, her gray eyes had looked the same—lost. Grace realized her own part in the chain of events. Her parents hadn’t been equipped to help Tyler even though she had always believed they had all the resources they needed. She had thought they could handle anything. But now she understood that they hadn’t a clue what to do and how that had cost everyone.

  Now she and Tyler had a second chance, one that frightened Grace. They no longer had their parents to fall back on, and it wasn’t like she’d learned anything about how to help Tyler begin a new life. All she had was control of his portion of the inheritance. Somehow her parents had believed she would know what to do in their place.

  She hesitantly slipped her hand into his, feeling how calloused and rough it was. “There’s a place on the plaza in Arcata that would sell stuff like this in a heartbeat.”

  “Maybe you could tell them about what I have?” He did not look at her when he spoke.

  “I can get you an appointment with them, but I thought the plan was that you’d be there to sell it yourself.”

  “Really?” he asked, his voice cracking with emotion.

  “It’s not going to be easy. Don’t think that a few pieces is a career. You’re either in school or working a job with a payroll at least twenty hours a week.”

  “Done. This is…” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he struggled not to cry.

  “I have a lot of rules,” she added. She really hoped that structure would give them a new start.

  “I won’t…I’ll try really hard not to let you down, sis.”

  Grace cupped the back of his head, his shorn brown hair bristly underneath her palm. She tipped her own head, pressing her temple to his. She prayed she’d be able to do the same.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Worrier

  “Why you ignoring me, chica? You call me and say you need to talk but then do not pick up your phone when I try to call back. You are not nice. I worry about you all day.”

  Robyn rested her head against her palm and stared at the reason she was tardy in returning Isabel’s calls. “I’ve had Caemon today because he’s too much of a handful for his grandparents. They could only handle Eliza while Kristine and Gloria went to Penelope’s service.”

  “Lo siento. That’s terrible news.”

  “So that’s why I called you.” Robyn reached across the table and married the peanut butter side of the bread to the jam side. Caemon blinked at her before dismantling it again, so he could run his thumb through the peanut butter and lick it. Too exhausted to fight him, she gave up and studied his method instead.

  “Because you can’t handle one three-year-old on your own?”

  “Have a little faith…”

  “Yakkum?” Caemon said.

  “Yakkum?” Robyn repeated.

  “Napkin,” Isabel easily translated. “You sure…”

  “I’ve got this,” Robyn said, handing Caemon a cloth napkin.

  He furrowed his brow. “Wet.”

  Robyn sighed heavily and got up to wet the napkin. “Okay, maybe this is harder than I thought it would be.”

  Her friend laughed. “Do they want to know if you will buy the horse?”

  “No. I haven’t heard from them. I’m betting the horse isn’t something they want to think about right now.”

  “Then I am confused.”

  Robyn didn’t know where to start. Kristine had also tried Grace who was unexpectedly out of town. Robyn was surprised that Kristine didn’t know about Grace’s brother. If Grace was out of town, that meant she had decided to give her brother a chance. Robyn wondered if she had come to that conclusion because of their conversation about forgiveness, and she was surprised that Grace had confided in her and not Kristine. That, Robyn realized, was why she’d called Isabel. Isabel would know how to translate Grace’s actions.

  “Someone kissed me,” Robyn stammered.

  “A female someone? Not this li
ttle boy, no?” Isabel replied.

  “A very attractive, successful female someone.”

  “When?”

  “Three weeks ago.”

  “How am I just now hearing about this?”

  “I’d just told her that I didn’t want to date another white knuckler, and she planted a kiss on me.” Isabel had coined the term to capture Barbara’s desire to control every single thing in her life.

  “For this she kisses you?”

  Robyn helped Caemon wipe peanut butter from his hands before offering him a banana. “She wanted me to know what I was missing.”

  “And is it something?”

  Remembering the kiss sent a surge of electricity through her body again. “I’d forgotten what it was like to feel like that.”

  “What does the horse girl have to do with this?”

  “Hang on,” Robyn said, wanting to tell her about how Grace had trusted her. She steered Caemon to the living room and offered him the coloring book and crayons Kristine had packed.

  “Plea you draw wi’ me?”

  “In a minute, kiddo.” She returned to the kitchen to clean up lunch and attempt to explain why she’d called Isabel. She ran through the truce-like birthday dinner at Kristine’s a week after the kiss and how Grace’s backing off since then had made her feel unbalanced.

  “You cannot need me to explain this to you,” Isabel laughed.

  Caemon returned to the kitchen hands pinching his parts with a panicked look on his face. “Hang on,” she said to Isabel. “You need to go potty?” she asked Caemon.

  Caemon nodded, so Robyn showed him where the bathroom was, stepping outside to give him privacy. “Obviously, I do need you to explain,” Robyn sulked.

  “You took her bait. Now all she has to do is reel you in. One kiss. That is impressive!”

  “I’m done!” Caemon sang from the room. Robyn waited, but he didn’t emerge.

  She listened to Isabel go on about the kiss but had to interrupt her. “Caemon just keeps saying he’s done going potty. Am I supposed to do something?”