The View from Here

by Hannah McKinnon

  There was a pause and Perry knew it was his cue to leave. He’d brought the groceries. All appeared to be good here.

  But as he watched Olivia return the kettle to the stove, he regretted not accepting her offer. “Well, thank you again, Perry. It was so kind of you to check in. Really.” She followed him to the door and let him out.

  “Good night,” he said, as the screen door closed between them.

  She smiled. “Good night.”

  But Perry was not done. He hesitated. “Olivia. I wondered if I might share something.”

  She’d already stepped away from the door, but she turned back. “Oh?”

  “It’s about Jake.” He looked at her carefully. This was not easy for him. “I know you two are engaged, and I want the best for you both.”

  Olivia pursed her lips uncertainly. Was he overstepping? It didn’t matter. Jake had already done so. Upstairs was a little girl in a cast, and one town over was his daughter, still not quite herself.

  “Jake is not the man you need him to be.”

  “Perry.”

  “Please. Let me finish. I love my brother. And I have no doubt that he loves you. But you have a daughter, and you are her only parent.” Perry paused, trying to gather his words. How to explain all the years of Jake being Jake? “He has a history. Of being the life of the party, the fun one. The one everybody wants to be around.”

  Even through the screen door, he could see Olivia’s jaw set. “I know that, and it’s one of the things I’ve come to love about him.”

  “Well.” This did not surprise him. All the women Jake encountered seemed to feel this way. “He may not mean to hurt people, but he does. Jake doesn’t understand what it takes to be a parent. To put another life before your own. To grow up. You need someone who does.”

  Olivia said nothing, but neither had she closed the door in his face. Perry took this as permission to go on.

  “There have been other women.”

  “We all have pasts, Perry.”

  He considered this. Perry’s past was not at all like his brother’s. And he doubted Olivia’s was, either. “Well, you are nothing like any of them. You’re a lovely woman, Olivia. With a lovely child. You both deserve someone who will take care of you. Jake may want to, but he doesn’t know how. He lives for the present. For the thrill and excitement. For himself. And that gets him into trouble.” Perry looked at his feet. “As we’ve seen.”

  Olivia let out a small whiff of air and pivoted away. For a moment, Perry feared she would tell him to get the hell out of there. To mind his own business. As she had every right to. But she turned back to him.

  “I’m not stupid,” she told him.

  “I never thought you were.”

  “And I’m not naïve. Luci is—has always been—my first concern. I am not looking to Jake to rescue us or to take care of us. I can do that on my own. I always have.”

  Perry nodded. “I have no doubt.”

  “Then why are you telling me all this?”

  Perry stared through the screen at her. Why was he? If Amelia had asked him, what could he possibly say? That some deep well inside him bubbled with the urge to protect Olivia and Luci? And what right did he have to assign himself that role, anyway? It was all so inappropriate, so unlike him. Perry shook his head, bashfully. “I really don’t know.”

  “Well you should know this. I love your brother. I appreciate your concern, but Luci and I have got this.” She paused. “You’re right about some things. There have been times I thought Jake needed to grow up, to be more serious. Or—I don’t know—more something.”

  She was getting flustered, and even in the growing darkness he could see her cheeks pinken. Perry felt badly. But he couldn’t stop staring.

  “And I know he’s not a parent, and has no idea how to parent. But his instincts are good and his heart is, too. He is all heart.” Her voice was sharp. But there was also a break in it that brought him sadness. Olivia knew.

  “He is all heart,” he agreed softly. “But his heart is aimed at pleasure. I have no doubt why he finds pleasure in you and Luci. But life is about the hard stuff, and I worry that someday, not far from now, he will tire. He will tire when he realizes that being a husband and a father figure are hard work. That living and working full-time in one place will bore him. And he will do something.”

  “What? What will he do, Perry?”

  “He will disappoint you.”

  Olivia stared back at him, saying nothing. Perry felt a wave of something run through him. Something akin to guilt. Standing under the stars on the stoop of his brother’s fiancée on a heady summer night, there was no shortage of reasons why it should.

  Olivia stepped away from the screen, her back to him. “I heard what you had to say,” she said, finally.

  “I’m sorry” was all Perry could think of. He turned to go, but he could feel her standing in the doorway behind him.

  As he stood on the step, an overwhelming fragrance met his nose. He paused, inhaling deeply. “What is that? Lilac?”

  Olivia’s voice was soft. “Heliotrope. Some people think it smells like baby powder or vanilla. Luci thinks it’s more like grapes.”

  He inhaled once more. “I agree with Luci.”

  * * *

  As he navigated the dark hills back home, Perry flicked through the radio stations, turning the volume up to drown his thoughts. It didn’t help. He wondered how Emma was doing out with her friends, and if her head hurt. Idly, he thought of Amelia and whether she had noticed how long he’d been gone. And what it meant if she had not.

  He wondered if perhaps he should discuss the matter of replacing the boat, or if it were too soon. For a brief moment, he allowed himself to think of Jake; of the terrible pain his mother had described him suffering, and the limp. And then he pictured Olivia’s sad eyes as she stood on the other side of the screen door, his words fluttering between them like satin ribbons come undone.

  For the drive home, these worries batted about his conscience like fireflies, until a dull ache spread across his forehead. Enough. He would not entertain any more of these thoughts, he decided. Mind over matter. But despite the growing miles between Olivia’s cottage and his car, Perry could not escape the faintest scent of grapes.

  Phoebe

  The raspberries looked divine. Plump, red, robust. But they cost $6.99 a punnet. And her bank account had about that much in it. She set them down and eyed the bananas. The boys were sick of them, but the price worked. “I’m on a fucking banana budget,” she muttered. Since moving in to her parents’ house, she was cutting back on everything. They’d reviewed the savings account, and it was all but dried up. There was only two thousand dollars left in it. And she’d had to write a personal check for the electrician just the day before, since they’d exhausted the last bank installment. Phoebe was trying to remember if she’d thought to transfer the money from savings to checking so the check would clear, when she heard her name.

  “Phoebe! Is that you?”

  A river of dread ran down her spine. “Vic-toree-uh.” Drat. She was on her way to visit Jake at the rehabilitation center, and she’d wanted to pop in to the grocery store to pick up a few quick things before she did. Now she was stuck.

  “How are you? How is the new house going? We just miss you so much in the ’hood.”

  Phoebe very much doubted that. “Oh, well. Things are good.” She nodded for emphasis. “Really good.”

  Victoria cocked her head. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” Phoebe chucked the bananas in the cart a little too forcefully.

  “And how is the renovation going?” Victoria swept her long chestnut hair over her shoulder. “I am just so glad ours is done. It gets to be too much. The stress. The time. The money!” She barked out a laugh. “As I’m sure you’re finding…”

  “It’s going fine, thanks. You know how it is.”

  Victoria leaned in conspiratorially. “Boy, do I. It’s one thing to plan the reno, but as they say, nothing g
oes according to plan.” She laughed as if that were hilarious. “Any hiccups yet?”

  Phoebe would not give Victoria the satisfaction. “Nope. None so far,” she lied.

  “Because Don ran into Rob, and he was saying that you’d hit an electrical snag.”

  Phoebe grit her teeth and smiled. Damn Rob and his outgoing personality and honesty. “It’s all getting taken care of.”

  But Victoria didn’t seem to hear. “We had to redo our entire electrical system. Did I tell you that?”

  “No, no, you did not.” Phoebe was pretty sure she was about to.

  “We went so far over budget that I finally said, ‘Don.’ I said, ‘Don, what difference does it make now? We’re already over, so let’s just splurge and get that Viking range we wanted.’ ”

  Rose, the loan officer, cleared her throat loudly in Phoebe’s head: “Just because you’re over budget doesn’t mean you keep going.”

  “Is that so? Wow. And look, it all turned out.”

  Victoria grinned wildly, in that feral cat way of hers that Phoebe could not stand. “Oh, yes it did. We are so happy. Just couldn’t be happier.”

  “Thrilled to hear that.” Phoebe gripped the shopping cart handles and pushed off. “Good to see you!” she said, before Victoria could say another word.

  By the time she got to the checkout line, she realized she’d forgotten bread. Crap. She had planned to make sandwiches for the boys before she brought them to T-ball. Phoebe glanced across the store at the bread aisle, then back at her checkout line. The woman in front of her still had a ton of things on the conveyor belt, but the man behind her had her blocked in. Phoebe turned to him. “Excuse me, can I sneak by? I just need to grab something.” She slipped past him, ignoring the imploring look, and made a dash for the bread aisle. Her usual favorite, the organic whole-grain oat, was six dollars a loaf. Phoebe groaned, and grabbed the regular kind, vowing not to look at the ingredients. With the loaf tucked under her arm she dashed back, squeezed past the grumpy guy once more with an apology, and unloaded her cart just as the woman in front finished paying. The victory was small, and yet Phoebe relished it. “Hello!” she said brightly to the checkout girl. She did not even mind it when the bagger left and went on break.

  “Allow me,” Phoebe said, taking her place at the end of the counter. She really needed to start bringing her own reusable bags. The environment and all that.

  Phoebe tucked everything neatly into two bags, far less than her usual ten or twelve, but she prided herself on the neatness of it all. She glanced at her watch. And she was still running on time to meet Jake!

  “That’ll be fifty-seven thirty-five,” the checkout girl said.

  “Sure thing.” Phoebe handed her her store savings card, then popped her bank card into the machine. “How’s your day going?” she asked the checkout girl.

  “Sorry,” the girl said.

  “For what?”

  “Your card was declined.”

  “Declined?” Phoebe blanched. She squinted at the tiny screen, but it was all a blur. Her account balance had said three hundred dollars when she checked it that very morning! But she was so mortified she was not about to prolong this moment a second longer looking for her reading glasses. “I must’ve used the wrong card. Hang on.” The man behind her in line cleared his throat.

  She fumbled through her wallet. Her credit card was already at its maximum. That left Rob’s American Express card, which he saved expressly for work expenses. He would not be happy, but she had no other choice. With shaking hands, she jammed it into the machine.

  The checkout girl waited. “PIN code?”

  Phoebe felt her chest tighten. She never used this card—crap! What was the PIN?

  “Or you can choose credit,” the girl said.

  Her wave of relief was so strong, Phoebe’s knees gave. “Credit,” she practically shouted.

  “Good to see you, Phoebe!” To her horror, Victoria pushed her cart up at the end of Phoebe’s line. Involuntarily, Phoebe covered the credit card machine with her hand. The screen flashed, and a beeping sound went off.

  “It cleared,” the girl announced.

  Phoebe tried to mask her relief. “Of course it did.” Then, “Good to see you, too,” she crooned at Victoria.

  * * *

  Hands still shaking, she turned out of the grocery store parking lot and toward the rehabilitation center. This couldn’t be happening to her finances. She’d known they’d burned through savings. As it was, she’d transferred funds into her checking account three times in the last week to cover all the recent upstairs costs. But, clearly, she’d not stayed on top of balancing it all.

  Something had to change. Perry was the obvious person to go to for help, but Phoebe did not want to hear “I told you so.” She also wasn’t sure what she needed. Sure, Perry was in a financial position to offer assistance. But Rob wouldn’t want that, and to be honest, Phoebe really didn’t either. This was their venture, and they’d have to figure a way out. At the very least, she needed to talk this through. Up until now, their financial strain had been a closely guarded secret she’d been keeping, and it was taking a toll on her. As she pulled into the rehab center, she resolved to talk to Jake. He may have been the least likely to offer monetary assistance, but he was a good listener. And he always had her back.

  But as soon as she saw Jake, Phoebe had second thoughts.

  He was seated on a table in the large OT room, gritting his teeth as his therapist manipulated his ankle. Even though he was gray with pain, he managed a small smile. “Hey, sis. How’s it going?”

  “Better than you, I’d say.”

  Jake put his hand up to the OT, signaling he needed a break, and lay back on the table. His forehead, Phoebe noted, was shiny with perspiration.

  She had never seen Jake like this before. Their little brother had always been all boy, as Nana Elsie liked to say. He never stopped moving. First thing in the morning he snagged his bike from the garage and away he went, calling out to neighboring kids as he sailed down the street. It never failed: in his wake, children appeared, along with hockey sticks and baseball bats. Pickup baseball games, flag football, dodgeball—all of it ensued. Jake stirred people up, gathered them, brought them out of their houses and out to the curb. Anyone was ripe for the picking.

  Once she had looked out the window and spied the mailman dodging a pack of kids as he raced for base, his mailbag slung over one shoulder and envelopes flying out behind him. In college it was the same; when Jake came home for break, all their old friends from high school started trickling through their front door. Beers were cracked. Card games started in the dining room and went long into the night. Touch football in the backyard. Their mother loved nothing more than a full house; Jane was known to plop herself down right in the middle of a raucous poker game. Edward, who liked a quieter house, would shake his head and take his book upstairs. But even he lingered in the doorway when the noise of political conversation filled his living room. When Phoebe’s own friends popped over, they were always sucked in. More than once she and Perry stood on the outskirts of their own family room watching everyone encircle their brother as he launched into a story.

  “Would any of them even notice if we left?” she’d wonder aloud.

  Perry didn’t dignify the question with an answer. But Phoebe already knew the answer. She and Perry were the opening act, and Jake the headliner. His pull was magnetic. They could hardly blame their friends.

  Now, seeing him flat on his back on the table, there was no sign of the life force her little brother was. It made Phoebe feel unsettled.

  “You all right?” She put a hand on his arm.

  “He’s doing okay,” the OT said, as she sat back and studied him. “If he would do his exercises like he’s supposed to, this wouldn’t be so painful.” She extended a firm handshake. “I’m Laverne.”

  “She’s the grim reaper,” Jake mumbled, as Phoebe introduced herself.

  Laverne laughed loudly. “Wh
at you need, my man, is to get on board.”

  “What I need is to get out of here,” Jake said. It had only been two days since he’d been transferred from the hospital to the rehabilitation facility, but already Phoebe could see the jitteriness in his eyes.

  “What you need is to shut up and follow directions,” Phoebe said. “Listen to these people. If they say stretch, stretch.”

  Laverne laughed again. “Your sister’s a smart girl. She’s right about that.”

  “Hear that?” Phoebe poked him in the ribs. “I’m smart. And right.”

  Jake sat up, and there was a small glimmer in his eye. “Yeah, yeah. Laverne lies. Don’t believe a thing she says.”

  “Hey now. For that, we’re getting you up on your crutches. Up you go.”

  Phoebe watched as Jake lifted himself gingerly from the table and swung his injured leg over the side. He winced, moving mere inches at a time to lower the leg to the floor. It hurt to watch.

  “That’s the way. Nice and slow,” Laverne encouraged. “Use the crutches to support the motion, just as I showed you.”

  As awful as the recovery was, Phoebe knew that Jake could handle it better than any of the rest of the family. He was not prone to self-pity, as she and Perry could certainly be. Things happened, and Jake usually found a way to roll with them. But what he wasn’t good at was relying on others, and now he would have to.

  When he’d finished his session with Laverne, he settled back into his wheelchair and Phoebe pushed him out of the training room and down the hall. Sunlight spilled through the windows, reflecting off the sheen of the floor. “What I’d give to be out there today,” Jake mumbled.

  “Don’t they let you outside?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “They air us out, for short bits of time. But that’s as you get closer to discharge.”

  She knew he felt like a caged animal in here. “Give it time. You’re doing great.”

  When they got back to his room, a young woman in pink scrubs was setting a lunch tray on Jake’s nightstand. Her face lit up when she saw them. Or rather, Jake, Phoebe realized.