“I have an idea, Maggie, and I think you’ll like it. I have the file you know, all your notes for the B&B. Since you won’t get to see the work in progress, I thought I could take pictures, and I could show you the changes, see if you approve.” Sam smiled, knowing if she could hear him, she was smiling, too. He was surprised at how quickly awkwardness left the conversation. The sense of connection was real, but so was the weight settling in his chest, the tears forming in his eyes.
“Maggie, I’m so sorry. I loved you so much while you were here, but, if it’s possible, I love you even more now. If I could go back and change everything, I would be the man you always knew I could be. But now it’s too late.”
Sam pulled one of Maggie’s pillows to his chest and breathed deeply, imagining her in his arms, his face nestled in her hair. As he exhaled, his body relaxed, exhaustion moved in. His mind tried to wrestle it away, but within moments the fight was over. Sam rested, unaware his wife was beside him, her arm across his chest, her hand placed so she could feel the beat of his heart.
CHAPTER 19
Sam started his third lap around the old house, inspecting the peeling paint, the rotting window frames, the crumbling chimney. He had made as many trips around the inside of the house. He’d spent the last hour literally walking in circles. When he reached the back porch, he pushed open the screen door and let himself fall into the hammock. “What were you thinking?” He ran his hand through is hair. “You don’t have the first clue what to do, where to start. Just because you swung a hammer and hung a little drywall as a kid doesn’t mean you have the skills to remodel an entire house, especially this one.”
He was on the rollercoaster again, plummeting from the height of possibility to the depth of impossibility. So he made a decision, to lie in the hammock and stare at the deceptive blue sky that looked like spring but felt like winter. The tree branches were grey and barren. He longed for tips of green to appear on the outstretched fingers of the branches, to soften the harshness and bud into full open leaves.
A car door closed, startling him. He pushed himself out of the hammock, walked to the side of the porch, and peered around the corner to see who had pulled into the drive. An unfamiliar truck was parked behind his pickup. He ducked back, hoping he wouldn’t be discovered. He didn’t feel like talking to anyone. But then there was a knock at the front door, and after a few moments, the door creaked open. Sam’s chin dropped to his chest.
“Hello? Anybody here?”
He sighed. He might as well greet the unwanted guest before the guy walked into the house and found him hiding on the back porch. Sam opened the back door that led into the kitchen. “Yeah, I’m in here.” He stepped into the hall and in view of the intruder. Sam didn’t recognize him, an older man. He looked harmless enough. “Can I help you?”
“Hi, there.” The man stood half inside the door. “Would you mind if I come in?”
“Would you mind if I did?” Sam mumbled as he started down the hall, urging himself to be a reasonable host. “No. Sure. Come on in.”
“My name’s Gary.” The man extended a hand.
“I’m Sam.” He accepted the handshake, firm and calloused, a working man’s grip.
“So, you bought this place? I saw the sold sign in the yard a while back.”
“Yep, I did.” Sam lowered his eyes, pretending to study the hardwood floor that begged to be refinished, certain the guy must have stopped by to meet the fool who bought the unsellable relic.
“I love this old house.” Gary looked up the staircase, across the balconies that circled the perimeter of the foyer.
“Really?” Sam didn’t hide his surprise.
Gary nodded. “The last time I passed, I saw it had been sold. Today while running errands for the missus, I decided to drive by. I was glad to see your truck parked outside. Hope you don’t mind a nosey old man stopping in to visit.”
“No, not at all.” Sam was surprised again. There was something about this guy that thwarted his tendency to distrust strangers, a side effect from too many years of dealing with criminals. “So, what do you do, Gary?”
“Currently I try to find things to stay busy. I’m a contractor. Well, a recently retired contractor. I’m still adjusting.”
Sam blinked. “Are you kidding me?” Had he fallen asleep in the hammock and been caught in a dream? Gary seemed confused. “It’s just that—um. How do I say this?” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Would you be interested in a job?”
Gary chuckled. “What do you have in mind?”
“I sure could use some help with this place. I don’t have the first notion how to start.” Sam shook his head.
“That was a pretty bold move then, buying the old gal. What do you do?”
Sam half grinned. “I’m, what was it you said, adjusting? To retirement.”
“Retirement? You don’t look old enough to retire. You have to be twenty years younger than me. What are you retired from?”
“I’m a—was—a detective. I had enough years in. It was time.”
“So, you decided to invest in real estate?” Gary’s eyes narrowed.
“Oh, it’s a long story, Gary. Maybe save it for another day.” Sam smiled, acknowledging his diversion.
“Okay, another day.” Gary winked and crossed his arms. “So, let’s talk about this house. What are you thinking?”
“Well, the plan is to turn it into a bed and breakfast—my wife’s idea. She was an interior design major in college. I have a fat folder full of detailed plans for the inside cosmetic work. A lot of that I can handle. However, the structural stuff, that’s way out of my skillset. But, I want to do as much of the work as I can.” Sam felt the need to explain, but was it to Gary or to himself? “I could hire it out. I could hire out all the work, for that matter, but I don’t know. It just seems like something I need to do, the work I mean. I want to be a part of the process.” He looked at Gary, expecting to see his puzzled expression again. Instead, Gary nodded his head as if Sam had revealed a great secret of the universe and he was contemplating the implications.
“Most of my career was residential construction.” Gary rubbed his chin. “But I spent a good deal of time renovating, too. It’s hard work, I’ll tell you. It can be a real challenge compared to building a house from the ground up. But there’s something different about a remodel, almost spiritual. See, you take this old structure—everything that’s flawed, broken, useless—and you make it new again.”
Sam turned around and surveyed the staircase, the front parlor, the hall leading to the galley kitchen, imagining the old house coming back to life. Spiritual. Somehow that made sense.
“The old has gone; the new has come.” Gary grinned. “Kind of like a man’s life, except—now, that’s a hard job.”
“What do you mean?” Sam’s arms crossed in front of him.
“These days I tend to get a bit philosophical, so please forgive a rambling old man, but seems to me that when a man is flawed, broken, sometimes the rebuild can be pretty complex. As big as this job is going to be—” Gary motioned toward the house. “Compared to a man remaking himself, this is simple. A gallon of paint can cover a multitude of flaws, but it takes something mightier to cover a man’s sin.”
An image flashed in Sam’s mind. From the deepest crevice where he had forced it, locked it away, it surfaced. Atlanta. Waking up in the hotel room. The absence of the familiar, of Maggie’s leg entwined with his, her arm across his chest. Reaching out to pull her to him. An empty space. Opening his eyes to see her sleeping on the other side of the king bed. Red hair. The realization. She’s not Maggie. Sam remembered how instantly, in that precise moment, the blinders were removed. He saw himself for who he was and what he had done. How had his judgment been so muddled? How could his decision have been so justifiable, so acceptable one moment, and then—so repulsive the next? He remembered getting out of bed quietly, returning to his own room to shower and pack his things, and flying home a day early to salvage his marr
iage. Gary was right. Remaking himself hasn’t been easy. He’d spent the last two years trying, and now . . .
“Are you preaching?” Sam attempted a joke to cover his guilt, certain his voice had betrayed him.
Gary laughed. “Maybe. But not to you. To me. We’ve all sinned, but we’re blessed that’s not how the story ends.”
Sam’s stomach knotted. It was just his luck. A Bible thumper. He didn’t invite an explanation since he was pretty certain he knew where the story was going. Where did this guy come from? Pastor Rob? It was too good to be true, that someone with the experience and skills he needed would simply show up. But, Sam had to admit, there was something about him, something that didn’t hack him off. Not like Rob, the poor fella. The pastor tried so hard. For a moment, he felt kind of sorry for him. But only for a moment. Sam studied Gary. What choice did he have?
“So, back to the house.” Sam nodded toward the area behind him. “Should we take a tour? We can see what this is going to involve and talk about fitting you into the budget.”
Gary pulled off his cap and scratched his head. “I’m not doing this for the money. I’ll be glad to have something to keep busy. I’m always working on a project, and right now I’m out of projects.” He replaced his cap.
“But we need to discuss fair compensation.”
“Really, Sam. I’m not doing this for the money, and if you try to pay me, I won’t do it.” Gary held his gaze. “Understood?”
Sam studied his eyes. Was this guy real? He scanned his carpenter jeans, his work boots, the years of hard work evidenced by his hands. For free, Sam decided, Gary could quote scripture all day long, as long as he could help turn the Hitching house into Maggie’s dream. “Not really, but if you insist—”
“I do.” Gary’s face was stern. “This is just something I feel like I need to do. And I’ve learned when I get this feeling, I shouldn’t ignore it.”
Sam held up his hands in surrender. “I don’t know what to say—but thanks. Really. I’m not sure I would have found the courage to actually pick up a hammer or a paint brush. I was intimidated to say the least.” He chuckled. “I might have stayed in the hammock all day if you hadn’t shown up.”
Sam’s cell phone interrupted. He looked at the number and excused himself. “Detective Wade, what can I do for you? Okay. Did you talk with the prosecutor? Yeah, I can come in later this afternoon. See you in a few.” Sam hung up.
“I don’t mean to eavesdrop, but that doesn’t sound like retirement.” Gary nodded toward the cell phone.
“Actually, right now I’m using up time I’ve got banked. I still go in every once in a while when my detectives need me. Retirement will be official when I’m out of days.”
“And tell me again, why did you retire?”
“I didn’t tell you before.” Sam grinned. Gary was digging.
“Oh, you didn’t, did you?” Gary leaned his head back and squinted, waiting.
“Well—” Sam debated how much to reveal. He decided to keep it simple. “I’ve got two daughters, five and fourteen, and I’m recently a single dad. It’s just easier this way.” He welcomed the approval, maybe respect, in Gary’s eyes.
“I understand.”
Sam was grateful he didn’t push for more.
“Now, before you go back to detecting, how about you show me what you’ve got in mind for this old place.”
CHAPTER 20
Rachel loathed going back to school after Christmas break. It was if the school year had two first days. She detested first days and losing her freedom to the regimented school bells that divided her life into fifty-minute segments, so teachers could hold her captive in their crowded classrooms and uncomfortable desks. But today had been especially difficult. Rachel missed her aunt. She knew Aunt Erin had wanted her to talk more than she did, and Rachel wanted to say more than she’d said. Even so, a place inside her chest wasn’t as heavy, didn’t take up so much room, allowing her lungs to fill a little fuller with oxygen, even though her breaths remained shallow.
But now that Aunt Erin was gone, her absence only heightened Rachel missing her mother. Because this morning, her mom would have oohed and aahed over Rachel’s new outfit, one they would have picked out together on their traditional after-Christmas clearance shopping spree. There’s just something about new clothes that makes a day better, she’d have said. It was her mom’s way of making the end of Christmas break less dreadful. And once they pulled into the school parking lot, her mom would have grabbed her hand and prayed for a good day.
But there’d been no shopping spree this year. There were no new clothes. And Rachel doubted God even heard prayers. Still, she missed her mom’s touch, her comforting words, and her assurance that Rachel could endure the next seven hours.
Once the day began, it wasn’t as if anything happened that made it worse than any other day. Except maybe lunch with Cricket. Cricket dropped her tray on the table and demanded to know why Rachel was sitting so close to the “Emos” and not in their usual place. Instead of telling her she’d picked the spot hoping Cricket wouldn’t come over, since she was so vocal about her aversion to “freaks in black who can’t handle their emotions, wa-wa,” Rachel simply shrugged. But she suspected a fine line separated Cricket from the kids she claimed sickened her.
“I texted you like a gazillion times over break. Why didn’t you text me back?” Cricket had asked. Aunt Erin was an easy excuse, family stuff, her dad wanted them all together. Then Cricket reminded Rachel why they had become friends.
“I was worried, you know. This being your first Christmas without your mom and all. You could have at least let me know you were okay.”
Cricket always knew. She was the only one. But just as quickly as Rachel remembered why she’d been drawn to her, Cricket reinforced Rachel’s decision to pull away.
She leaned in and lowered her voice. “Because if you weren’t, you know, okay, I had some really good stuff for you. New stuff my brother got. It was like—wow.”
The rest of the day crawled. After school her dad picked her up as usual, but his incessant chatter was unusual. He talked about the Hitching house and some guy who miraculously showed up and how much easier it was going to be to turn the house into her mom’s dream with his help. A pause prefaced the caution Rachel heard sneak into his voice. “Maybe you’d like to help sometime.” She’d turned away and stared out the window. The Hitching house was his penance, not hers. She wouldn’t step foot in that place, and he couldn’t make her. She’d rather gouge her eyes out with a plastic spork from the school cafeteria. As his chatter continued, the drive home seemed like a million miles long.
But, just as every day since her mother died, Rachel had survived this one, too. Now she lay in bed, reluctant to sleep, even though it was nearly midnight, because sleep meant morning would arrive too soon. But her eyelids had grown heavy, so she rolled on to her side to turn off the lamp on her nightstand. Instead of reaching for the switch, she picked up a tiny plastic figurine she had propped against the base of the lamp—two ice skaters wrapped in winter coats and scarves, hand-in-hand, each with one leg extended behind. Rachel imagined the skaters sliding around a blue acrylic pond as a tinny “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” played from her mother’s snow globe. After the crash that destroyed their idyllic world, Rachel salvaged the couple, uncertain why she could not bear to put them in the trash with the rest of the broken mess.
Then she pulled open the nightstand drawer and fished for something she had tucked in the corner. Her fingers found the cool, smooth object. She lay back on the bed and rubbed her thumb against the curvature of a thick piece of glass from the globe. Her thumb rested perfectly in the roundness, which she had discovered while picking up the broken pieces the other night. Rubbing it soothed her, like the worry stone Aunt Erin had shown her that she sometimes rubbed during court trials.
As Rachel’s thumb slid over the glass, she pushed harder, feeling the thickness of the piece in her hand. She winced. She had pu
shed her thumb too far, and the edge of the glass sliced it. At first she saw only the opened skin, but a second later a line of red appeared. She watched the blood form into a heavy drop and roll down her thumb, pooling in her palm. Fascinated with the runnel, she was only vaguely aware of the sting. When the blood threatened to drip from her hand, she reached for a tissue, wiped her palm, and wrapped her thumb.
She held the glass in front of her and studied the defined edge. She pressed her finger bluntly against it, careful not to slip, until the edge sunk in, firmly but not deep enough to break the skin. She released the glass and examined the indention it left. Then she pressed her finger against it again. It was enticing, empowering, to manipulate the glass, to control the pain—how much, how deep.
Rachel sat up. She unwrapped the tissue to see her thumb had stopped bleeding. Her eyes moved to the soft skin of her forearm. She rubbed her finger across delicately, just below the bend of her elbow. The firmness of her fingernail replaced her fingertip, and she dragged it up and down, etching a path in her skin. Then she picked up the glass and placed it on her arm, wondering how it would look, how it would feel, to sink the edge into her flesh. She wouldn’t do that of course, she told herself. Yet, she studied her arm, locating veins close to the surface, so she could be careful not to cut too deep. If she were going to cut, which she wasn’t.
And she didn’t mean to, at first. She had only pushed the edge of the glass deep enough to turn her skin pink. Then she traced the path again. And again. Until tiny red dots surfaced. Then she cut another line parallel to the first. And another. She had positioned the glass to begin once more, but a knock surprised her. She quickly laid back and pulled the covers up to her shoulders just as her dad opened the door, hair tousled from sleep.
“I woke up and saw your light. It’s late, Rach. You should be asleep.”
“I know. I’m trying.” She hoped her dad was too sleepy to hear the guilt in her voice.
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