Building a Family

by M. K. Stelmack

  “She kept secrets but I don’t want her in trouble with the police,” he said.

  She smacked the package into his open hand. Ben shot down the porch stairs.

  “Ben!”

  He didn’t break stride until he was at his truck. She caught up to him as he swung his door shut. Ben stashed the bag in the glove compartment, beside the packet of Kleenex, a tape measure, a box cutter and her hand lotion. Was it not a week ago that she had used the lotion while driving home? A relic from a safer, saner lifetime.

  “We need to talk, too,” she blurted. “You and me. About Ariel. About—about Miranda.”

  He gave her a long, level look. “I’ll take the paternity test, if that’s what you mean.”

  No, she wanted to know why he’d been with her in the first place. How he could’ve slept with someone he claimed he’d never liked. How that someone was her best friend.

  Except her right to ask assumed that she and Ben were in a relationship.

  She stepped back from his truck. “Yeah, that’s what I mean.”

  He gave a short nod and drove off.

  Connie had never taken so long to climb the four porch steps.

  She found Ariel right in there with the other kids as they decorated the Welcome Home banner.

  Connie let her go for it. Scented markers and glitter were their own kind of therapy.

  * * *

  MCCREADY’S GARAGE WAS locked down solid when Ben arrived, as was the door that led to the biker’s upstairs apartment. Ben pounded on it and the garage bay door in case the big man of mystery was hunkered down inside. No answer, no surprise. The truck and Harley were gone, too.

  He’d have to come back later or tomorrow; neither option suited Ben. He wasn’t interested in bringing home a bag of drugs, especially if Trevor was plotting his next dirty deed.

  All he wanted was to unload the drugs and get the ring.

  He would show the ring to Connie and she would strike him from her list. Then all would be fair and square between them. Except for the white elephant of what had happened between him and Miranda.

  The girl had thought that by telling Connie, she’d get a father. A family. All she’d done was drive the nail into the coffin of that dream. Positive or negative, the test would do nothing to bring them together because Connie no longer trusted him.

  Frustrated, he kicked the door to McCready’s apartment. There was a security camera mounted over it. Did McCready monitor movement? Maybe, maybe not.

  Another more direct and effective method to message the biker occurred to Ben. If his day had gone even slightly better than it had, he might’ve reconsidered. As it was, he strode to his truck, retrieved his ten-pound hammer from his truck toolbox and smashed the camera. The alarm went off instantly. He put back his hammer and waited by the door amid the shrieks.

  Less than seven minutes later, McCready swung his truck full speed up to Ben, pulling to a stop inches from him.

  He strode past Ben, twisted a few wires and the alarm fell quiet. Underneath McCready’s one-percenter jacket Ben caught a glimpse of a dress shirt collar. McCready, in a quiet, almost offhand way, said, “You did this?”

  Ben was still riding high enough on a mix of frustration and vicious disappointment to say, “Yes. I’ll replace it tomorrow. We need to talk.”

  McCready grunted. He unlocked the door that led into his garage and walked in, leaving it open. Ben took that as an invitation to enter so he did, only to be met by McCready on his way out, wielding a tire iron.

  He strode over to Ben’s truck and smashed the windshield. He said to Ben, “Now we’ll talk.”

  Fair exchange for his own willful destruction of property.

  He followed McCready inside where he was tapping on his phone cradled in his big hand. Why make a call now when he’d already said they’d talk?

  McCready put the phone to his ear and turned his back on Ben. He took the hint and walked to the far side of the garage. Still, in the quiet of the room, the big man’s soft voice drifted over to Ben.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m okay. Some knuckle dragger was dropping off parts and thought he could deactivate the alarm.”

  He was talking to a woman, Ben realized. McCready had a girlfriend? Well, sure, it was possible.

  “Listen, I gotta stay and deal with him. Just talkin’. I don’t know how long I’m going to be.”

  His voice was tender, intimate. Ben didn’t think biker chicks were usually treated so well.

  “Me, too. Call you when I can, hon.”

  When McCready was done, he raised his voice. “That call was not where I saw this night heading so this had better be good.”

  Ben tossed the bag of drugs onto McCready’s workbench. “As good as it gets.”

  McCready joined him at the bench. “Where was this?”

  “Connie’s bedroom. Bedside drawer. We both know she didn’t put it there.”

  McCready raised his hand. “No, I don’t know that. You found it on her property, in her stuff, so if it looks like it and smells like it, then it is, to my way of thinking.”

  “Except why was I searching for those drugs in the first place? Because you said Trevor wanted them. So the worst she’s guilty of is possessing what he’s dealing in.”

  McCready flipped the bag back and forth between his hands, held it up to the light coming through the windows. “Trevor doesn’t deal fentanyl. It isn’t his.”

  “As far as you’re aware. But we both know your brother has a bad habit of biting off way more than he can chew.”

  McCready set the bag on the bench, flexed his hand open and shut. Ben wouldn’t last if McCready turned on him right now.

  The biker opened the top drawer of his tool chest, the narrow one where nuts and bolts were kept. He dropped the bag in there, picked out something and flicked it onto the bench. The ring pinged against the metal bench surface.

  Ben swept it into his pocket. “Thanks for taking such good care of it.”

  “Any idea why,” McCready said, “Trevor’s got this stuff?”

  Either McCready really was clueless or he wanted to check the facts against Trevor’s version, which made sense, given Trevor’s track record for manufacturing the truth.

  “Trevor got his hooks into the girl that Connie’s in charge of.”

  “Ariel.”

  “You know her name?”

  “Connie told me.”

  “Yeah, so the girl has reason to believe that the drugs came from a gang she was involved with in Calgary. She fell out with them and moved up here, thinking she was clear of them. Only now—” he pointed to the drawer where McCready had deposited the bag “—they’ve tracked her here. Trevor doesn’t care about the drugs. He wants us to understand he can sic this Calgary gang on Ariel any time he wants. He controls the girl, which means he controls Connie.”

  “Not here to rescue them.”

  Wasn’t that what Connie said herself? Except—“You got the ring back for Connie. You must think you owe her somehow.”

  “I got the ring back. So no, I don’t owe her anymore.”

  Ben decided to put Ariel’s theory into play. “The guy who runs the Calgary group probably wants to get in with your people. He’s using Trevor to do it.”

  McCready didn’t blink. “Trevor’s an adult. He can think for himself. This has got nothing to do with me. And when you leave tonight, we won’t be seeing each other again.”

  McCready was right. He was in no way tied to these events, a bag of flushable drugs notwithstanding. But he had made one mistake, and Ben knew what love could make a man do.

  “Your little brother isn’t your problem. Would you say the same about the woman you were just talking to?”

  McCready drew himself up. “You won’t be dragging her into this.”

  “I won’t,” Ben said. “But can
you say Trevor won’t?”

  McCready said nothing, and then finally, “Get out.”

  Ben took his truck down the back alley and turned it to face the rear of McCready’s garage. Through the splintered windshield, he watched to see what the big biker would do.

  Not a quarter of an hour passed before McCready appeared on his bike, motor gunning, at the entrance. He gave Ben one long look and then roared off. Ben didn’t follow. It was now up to McCready.

  As for him, he had a ring for Connie to see.

  * * *

  ALL WAS DARKNESS when Ben pulled up to the farmhouse except for the glow from the porch light. Connie sat underneath it, bundled in a deck chair. She was cocooned in a full quilt wrap and wore a toque, with only her hands exposed to hold her phone. The kids would be asleep, so finally he could have her to himself.

  He parked and as soon as his foot hit the gravel her interrogation began. “Why are you driving that thing?”

  He’d brought his other truck, the first truck he’d ever owned, given to him by his father. It was a beater, more rust than metal, and every year he debated renewing the registration and insurance. He did it for sentimentality, which tonight had a very practical side.

  “The other’s in for repairs.” It would be tomorrow.

  “Repairs? You were just driving it.”

  “Still.”

  “You just had it in for servicing before the wedding.”

  The good thing about Connie was that she remembered every detail of his life. The bad thing about Connie was that she remembered every detail of his life.

  “Rock to the windshield.” He climbed the steps and parked his butt on the freezer-cold seat.

  “When? Tonight? After you left?”

  “Yes.” He stuck his hands in his pocket for warmth and touched the reason he’d come. He withdrew the ring and dropped it onto the flat screen of her phone.

  She went rigid, then her slim fingers lifted the ring, the overhead porch light catching on the many facets of the diamond.

  A beat passed. Another. Was she reconsidering his proposal? Should he make it again?

  “This,” she whispered, “is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  He decided to test her waters. “It was built for the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.”

  She swung her arm like a boom toward him, the ring on the end. “Ben. A ring this nice needs more than a beautiful person to wear it.”

  He didn’t take it, even though it was six inches from his nose. “Like a beautiful person who also loves me?”

  Her hand with its offering stayed put and her voice stayed firm. “Like a beautiful person who loves you and trusts—”

  He knew what she was about to say. You. Trusts you.

  He took the ring, his fingers brushing her cold ones, and slipped it into his pocket again. Later, he’d drop it back into the wood box in his workshop. He might as well leave. Except he couldn’t. After a day like this one, he couldn’t bear going to a dark, empty house without the hope of Connie. He sat in silence, the chill air seeping into his body.

  She shifted and her hands disappeared into the wrap. “I’m glad you got the ring back.”

  “Yeah,” he managed, and then when he was sure he could say more, he added, “My name comes off your list, right?”

  Silence.

  “Right?” he repeated.

  “Right.” The single word was a soft exhalation.

  Nothing more to be said. He needed to lever himself out of the chair, fire up the old beater and clear out. He pressed his hands on the chair arms to start the process when she said, low and fast and breathlessly, “Could you tell me what happened between you and Miranda? So I understand. Please. I wasn’t an angel but you—well, you were.”

  His time of reckoning.

  He didn’t owe her an explanation, and from the way she framed the question, she knew it. If the paternity test produced the expected results, his mistake could stay buried and Connie would never hear the ugly details.

  Never hear and yet believe the worst. He would forever see the suspicion in her eyes. They weren’t meant to join in holy matrimony, but she needed to know that it had always been her for him, and never her best friend.

  He sunk back into his cold chair.

  “You were in grade eleven.”

  He let her do the math. She’d been seventeen, Miranda a new eighteen and Ben twenty-one. A three-year gap that meant nothing now but was a generation at that age. Twenty-one meant he’d been out of school and working and living on his own. Twenty-one meant that you didn’t chase high school girls.

  “You dated guys, and I guess Miranda did, too. And I stayed away from both of you. Because you told me you weren’t interested in me, and I wasn’t interested in Miranda. Only—only that didn’t stop her. Or me.”

  Connie didn’t say a word. She didn’t need to. He could see her censure through her careful neutrality.

  He continued, “You know better than me that her family life wasn’t great. My big tragedy was that I didn’t have a real family. Hers was that she had one, right?”

  If possible, Connie huddled deeper into her cozy wrap and gave a quick nod. “She never wanted me to come over to her house. So, once, I followed her back to her place. She lived in the old town houses, the ones they demolished two, three years ago? I took her music player, so I could have a reason to come over. Ben. There was nothing in the house. Nothing. There were kitchen chairs in the living room. There was a mattress in the first bedroom. No bed frame. Nothing. I didn’t go any farther. And her dad. He was lying on the floor, sleeping, snoring loud as a train. I saw her face. It was beet red. I said I would see her tomorrow and I promised myself I would always be her friend. Only I wasn’t, Ben. Maybe that’s why it’s important I know what happened between you two. Because I need to be her friend and stand up for her now, when I should have years ago.”

  He suddenly realized what she must be thinking. “Listen, what happened between Miranda and me wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done but it was consensual. Nothing happened that she didn’t agree to. She wasn’t ever drunk or high with me. All right?”

  “I— Okay,” she breathed out. “It’s just that with Miranda—well, she often went out high or drunk.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “I always knew when she might come over. Usually Wednesdays or Thursdays. When she’d turned up for classes, dried up, tried to be some kind of normal.”

  “What? She came over to your place. She never told me.”

  “I don’t think either of us told anybody. Least of all you.”

  She shifted around inside her wrap. “Yeah, okay, I can see I might have made things difficult for you two. So, she came over...and you two had a relationship?”

  “Relationship is a bit of a stretch,” he said. “Things weren’t good for her at home, so I gave her a place to go for a while. We’d stay inside, watch a movie. She liked action ones, which suited me fine. It got to be that I’d rent one early in the week, knowing she’d probably be over.”

  “But Seth was always at your place, too. Didn’t he notice her there?”

  “A couple of times. Miranda would hide in the bedroom.”

  “You made her hide in the bedroom? Like she was something to be ashamed of?”

  “Connie. Miranda would run there herself. She didn’t want that trouble with your family.”

  “Fine. Carry on.”

  “What can I say? After a movie, and pizza—I’d always get pizza because otherwise she’d eat raw onions if I let her—she’d go home. Once, she seemed a bit sadder than usual. I reached out to her...and it became something more.”

  He wasn’t proud of himself. He should’ve just given her a hug and driven her home, even if she said it was only a ten-minute walk. And now, from what Connie had just said about where Miranda lived—


  “She loved you, you know.” Connie said it softly, rolled it out there like a grenade.

  No, not Miranda. “I was just someplace to go. Food and shelter. And a bit of comfort one night.”

  Connie lifted her knees to her chin, bunching herself into the wrap, pulling the ends tighter around her face. “No. She always wanted you, Ben. Since the day she met you.”

  Ben had had no idea. He couldn’t recall the day he met Miranda. Probably Connie was there, and therein lay the problem. When Connie was there, he couldn’t see anyone else. “Wanted me?”

  Her wrap ballooned again. “Are you really that dense? She wanted you like you wanted me. For love, for a future, for someone who’d remember her birthday and take her places, someone she could dress up for, someone who called her just to say ‘hi.’”

  She’d come to him, straight and sober. For food and a warm home—and him? “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Miranda didn’t want me to. I think it was pride. She didn’t want you to be nice to her because I asked you to. As it turns out, you weren’t a very nice guy.”

  “I was,” Ben said, desperate to defend himself, “a twenty-one-year-old guy who had an eighteen-year-old girl come over. And yes, that one night I wore a condom. Having sex with someone you don’t love is not a crime. If it was—” He stopped. Nothing good could come from finishing that.

  Connie did, anyway. “I’d still be in jail.”

  “You, Miranda and half the town,” he said.

  “You never went out with her? Maybe took her to the movies? Or out for pizza?”

  “No,” Ben said. “She didn’t seem to want to. She never asked to go anywhere.”

  “Would you have taken her, if she had?”

  “Probably,” he said, and then to keep it honest, he added, “Maybe not. It wasn’t her that I wanted.”

  Connie twisted her mouth. “You got me in the end.”

  “Yes.”

  “She never came to you? Confronted you about her pregnancy?”

  Ben shook his head. “I told you. We used a condom. Besides, the timing doesn’t quite match up. She knew I wasn’t the father.”

  “Then why did she tell Ariel you were?”