Breakup in a Small Town

by Kristina Knight

  Jenny hurried around the car before she could chicken out on her demands. She was not going to let the man she loved fade away. Laundry would be her first battleground.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ADAM GAVE WHAT had been a white T-shirt but was now an odd shade of pink a side-eye as he read the directions on the bottle of detergent one more time. Nothing about the possibility of a color change. He tossed the shirt into the empty hamper and pulled another handful of clothes from the dryer. The jeans looked okay, but there was another T-shirt with odd pink streaks, and a bra that had one pink cup and one white. He was fairly certain none of Jenny’s bras were designed that way. Then, at the bottom of the dryer, he found a single red sock. The culprit.

  Damn it. Jenny had asked him for one thing. Do a freaking load of laundry, and he couldn’t even do that without messing it up. Putting even more work on her plate. What the hell was wrong with him?

  The grandfather clock in the living room chimed twice. Two o’clock. The work meeting would be over, and she would probably be back in her office. He had an hour until the boys were through at school to fix this. There was only one thing to do.

  Fifteen minutes later, his mother bustled through the back door, chattering into her phone as she let the screen slam shut behind her.

  “No, Owen, don’t tell her where I went. It’s just an errand that I couldn’t put off.” Nancy Buchanan’s voice went quiet, and Adam wheeled himself from the laundry room into the hallway leading to the kitchen.

  He waved, but Nancy motioned for him to keep quiet while she spoke to his father on the phone. He felt like he was back in elementary school, with his mom shooing at him like this.

  Maybe he wasn’t far off. How many twenty-eight-year-old men didn’t know how to do a load of laundry without ruining all the whites?

  His mother began speaking again. “I’ll be back before Jenny has to leave to get the kids. Until then, you keep her busy. And don’t let her come home early.” Nancy snapped her phone closed—she refused to get a new smartphone, instead choosing to use the older flip model he and Jenny had bought her several Christmases ago. “Hey, honey.” She ran a smooth hand over his face, the way she’d done countless times in his life. “How are you today?”

  Adam didn’t answer, just rolled the chair into the laundry room. Nancy followed, chattering on about the meeting at work. She didn’t ask about the doctor appointment, so he assumed Jenny had told her there was no real change to his condition. Before he could explain what he’d done, Nancy picked the pink-streaked clothing from the hamper and clucked her tongue. She muttered something about separating whites and colors.

  “This would have been a lot simpler if you hadn’t already dried the clothes. Didn’t you notice the bleeds when you transferred everything to the dryer?”

  Adam started to answer, but Nancy just kept talking. “It’s not impossible like this, though,” she said, holding the items up to the light. “I’ll need some distilled vinegar and more detergent.”

  Adam had no idea if Jenny kept vinegar in the laundry, but dutifully began looking in the cabinets.

  “It’ll be in the kitchen, probably,” his mother said, but before Adam could wheel past her, she was out in the hall and headed there. She returned a few minutes later with a bottle of something that smelled awful and a measuring cup.

  Nancy fiddled with the machine, put the vinegar into the bin along with more detergent, and then tossed the pink-streaked clothing in, too. She waved a box at him, and then tossed what looked like a dryer sheet in with the wash. “Next time, whether you think the colors are going to bleed or not, stick one of these sheets in. It will capture the running colors before they stain the clothes.” She looked at him expectantly.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “It’s nothing, honey. I can’t believe Jenny left you with the housework. Did you already fold?”

  Adam nodded, and she continued talking. “Then we’ll have a little snack while we wait for this load to finish up. Is that the only hamper you have? Your laundry would be much more organized if you had separate bins for colors and whites, towels, and jeans. You’d have fewer snafus like this one.” She started down the hallway, and Adam followed.

  “It isn’t like Jen asked me to paint the house. Laundry is low impact, as far as housework goes.”

  In the kitchen, Nancy pulled glasses from the cabinet and poured them each a glass of tea. “Yes, but you need your rest. After all that’s happened, surely she understands that. How about a sandwich?” The same lunch she’d made him all through school.

  Adam wasn’t hungry, but when Nancy was in mothering mode, there was no stopping her, so he just sat at the table and sipped the tea while she made a bologna sandwich. She brought it to the table, along with a bag of chips.

  “About the laundry room situation. I can have the boys at Buchanan’s fix up a temporary system, and I’ll order something more permanent when I get home this evening.” She eyed Adam until he took a bite of the sandwich. It had tomatoes. He hated tomatoes, but he ate, anyway. “Or I could have our cleaning lady come in once a week and do it for you.”

  “Jenny doesn’t like the idea of hiring help, but thanks. And we really don’t need someone to do the laundry.”

  “Because she’s going to keep putting that off on you, no doubt.”

  “It isn’t like that, Mom.” Adam pushed away the food.

  Nancy rolled her eyes. “You know, we should get a contractor in here to take care of that step into the family room.”

  “Mom—”

  “And I know you use the back door most of the time, but there really should be a ramp for the front, too.”

  Adam clenched his jaw. He didn’t need a damned handicapped ramp in his front yard. “Mom—”

  Nancy kept chattering on. “And you and Jenny should really think about turning the guest room into a main floor master suite. You could take some space from that hall closet you don’t use—”

  “Mother.” Adam raised his voice and Nancy turned to him, eyes rounded in shock.

  “You don’t have to yell. I’m right here beside you.”

  “I don’t want the guys at work to rig some kind of hamper system.” Calling his mother had been a mistake. Just like staying here when he wasn’t a whole man was a mistake. Just one more mistake added to the long list of mistakes he’d made since the tornado. “And I don’t want a maid in my house every day or once a week or once a year. And I don’t need a goddamned wheelchair ramp at the front door or to turn the guest room into a suite.” He gentled his voice. “Thank you for the help with the laundry, but I don’t need—”

  “Adam, of course you need. Anyone in your circumstances would need, and your wife should be providing for those needs.” His mom squeezed his hand, and he knew it was supposed to be comforting, but only made him feel worse.

  “No, that isn’t her job. Jenny is doing enough.” It was he who wasn’t doing what needed doing. While he was sitting here in this chair, she was out there. Doing her job and his, caring for the kids. Caring for him. She was the one who needed, and the first time she expressed that, what had he done? Run to his mother. Just like he’d been running from any kind of responsibility since the tornado. God, he was a jerk. Jenny deserved better than him. So did the kids.

  “Go back to work, Mom, and thanks for coming by.” He wheeled himself into the hall, and for the first time that he could remember, Nancy followed him. She watched him closely for a long moment.

  “It isn’t a crime to need other people, Adam.”

  He knew that. A little piece of him did, anyway. The crime was in pushing against the people who wanted to help him. He’d been pushing Jenny and the kids and his parents away for the past three months. “I know. The crime is in punishing them when they try to help.”

  Nancy stood at the back door for a long mo
ment, just watching him. “Adam,” she began, but he shook his head. He didn’t need mothering, not right now. What he needed was to either walk away, the way he’d been telling himself to do ever since the hospital released him, or show Jenny and the kids that he appreciated them.

  Unfortunately, he had no idea how to start on either option.

  * * *

  JENNY QUIETLY CLOSED the door to the boys’ room as the last rays of sunlight were sinking into the horizon. It wasn’t quite eight o’clock, but the kids were still getting used to the school schedule, and both had nearly fallen asleep over their spaghetti at dinner.

  “Momma?”

  She barely heard Frankie’s whispered word through the closed door. Jenny pushed it open and poked her head around the corner. “Yeah, baby?”

  “I’m glad you picked us up today. I don’t like the bus.”

  “I know, Frankie.”

  “And Garrett really doesn’t like the bus.”

  “You were both very clear on that the other day.” She slipped inside, ran a hand over Garrett’s baby-fine hair. Her younger son was out cold. She sat on the edge of Frankie’s bed. “I won’t always be able to pick you up, though. You know that.”

  His mouth twisted to the side in an expression so like his father’s it nearly took her breath away. “But you will tomorrow.”

  “I’m not sure. Uncle Aiden is supposed to get to town tomorrow, but I don’t have his flight information yet.”

  “But you will if you can. And if you can’t, it’s because you’re at work.”

  “Yes. If I can pick you up, I will, and if I can’t, it’s because I’m at work.”

  “It’s safe at work. The tornado didn’t hurt it at all.”

  “No, it didn’t. Work is very safe.”

  “And you’ll pick us up.” He waited a beat, then added, “If you can.”

  “If I can.” She wanted to pull him into her arms and tell him everything was fine. But everything wasn’t fine. The man in the wheelchair downstairs meant things were still not fine for her family. Also, Frankie thought he was too big for hugs, so she ruffled his hair, pressed her fingertips to her mouth, then his forehead.

  “Promise?” he asked.

  She nodded and smoothed the frown that seemed etched into the little boy’s forehead lately. “I’ll do my very best.”

  “But you have to promise. If you promise, I know you’ll try.”

  Jenny sighed. “I promise that I will try. And I’ll call the school to let you know tomorrow afternoon. Now go to sleep.”

  He pulled his full lower lip between his teeth. “Okay,” he said, after a long moment of consideration.

  Jenny tucked the light blanket around his shoulders and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I love you, Franklin Adam Buchanan.”

  “I love you, too, Momma,” he said, and his voice sounded drowsy.

  Jenny watched her boys from the doorway for a few moments, until Frankie seemed to drift into sleep, then she closed the door softly once more. She waited, but there were no more whispered calls from inside.

  Between Garrett’s tornado drawings and Frankie’s need to be near his parents—or at least know where they were—at all times, it was clear neither boy had forgotten those tense moments when the tornado had torn through Slippery Rock. Maybe they’d have gotten over that trauma if they weren’t reminded of it every day when they saw Adam in the wheelchair.

  At least they had hope on that front now. That was how she took the doctor’s words from earlier that morning. Staying on the same medication regimen, reminding Adam about the service dog. Those were indications that their lives would return to normal. Weren’t they?

  In the laundry room, Jenny pulled a load of clothes from the dryer. Jeans were mixed in with T-shirts and underwear, colors with whites. She sighed. Adam had done the laundry, but he hadn’t separated the items. She tried to be grateful that he had tried, but when she spotted pink streaks on a few of the whites, the last tiny grain of gratefulness vanished.

  She started down the hall, pink-streaked T-shirt in her hand, but stopped near the kitchen. What good would it do? She’d forced Adam’s hand. This was her fault as much as it was his.

  For their entire marriage, she’d done the cooking, the cleaning, the laundry. Heck, until she’d walked in the door that afternoon to hear the dryer tumbling, she hadn’t been positive he knew how to operate either machine.

  Sighing, Jenny turned down the hall. She ran cold water into the laundry sink, added a measuring cup of oxygenated detergent, the regular detergent and a bit of distilled vinegar—why was there distilled vinegar in the laundry room?—then set the clothing in the mixture to soak. She’d rewash the clothes in the morning, after they’d had plenty of time in the soaking sink.

  After folding the jeans, which were thankfully not pink-streaked, and a couple of the boys’ T-shirts, which didn’t appear to have streaks, she left the laundry room.

  Adam sat in the wheelchair before the big picture window, looking out at the street. The sky was still pink-streaked, much like the laundry now soaking in the sink, and nothing stirred outside.

  “You left the vinegar in the laundry room.”

  He wheeled the chair around to face her. “A red sock got into the washer.”

  “And you guessed that vinegar would take out the streaks?”

  A guilty look flashed across his face. Not his idea, then. Jenny shook her head. Of course the vinegar hadn’t been his idea. The question was just how long had it taken him to call his mother after Jenny asked him to help her out.

  “I called Mom at the store.”

  That also explained why, when she’d been trying to finish the new proposal for the furniture distributor in Springfield, all the calls to Buchanan’s had been routed to her office phone. Adam’s office, technically, but since he wasn’t working, she’d taken it as her own. It made more sense than trying to get anything done in the outer office, where she’d worked before the tornado. Between Nancy’s constant chatter and Owen’s pacing as he watched the work floor below the office, she’d barely been able to concentrate on filling out invoices.

  Still, at least Adam had tried to do the laundry. A couple weeks ago—shoot, last week, even—he wouldn’t have.

  “I set the shirts and things in the laundry sink to soak overnight. That should get the last of the pink streaks out.”

  “The vinegar didn’t work?”

  She gestured to the clean clothes in her arms. “Only on some of it.”

  “Mom suggested a better hamper system, so the clothes don’t get mixed up again.”

  “We’ve never needed a hamper system before. It’s not that difficult to separate on the fly.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t think you’d want a hamper system.”

  “It isn’t that I don’t want one, it’s that it’s unnecessary.” Really, how hard was it to throw whites in the wash and leave the colors, jeans and towels for other cycles?

  “You seem annoyed.”

  She wasn’t annoyed, she was tired. Tired of... God, she didn’t even know what she was tired of. She was just tired. Damned tired.

  “I’m going to put the boys’ things away and go to bed.”

  “I did what you asked.”

  Jenny sighed. “No, you called your mom.”

  “At least I didn’t leave the mess for you to clean up.” He folded his arms over his chest. “Isn’t that what you were mad about in the car? Me leaving things for you to pick up?”

  “No, it isn’t. And I wasn’t mad.” She took a steadying breath. “I can’t keep doing this, Adam.” Her heart seemed to crack with those six words. She didn’t want this. Didn’t want to break up with him. But she couldn’t help the boys if she had to keep picking up after Adam, too.

  “What, the laundry? I’ll wat
ch for red socks next time.”

  “This isn’t about the laundry.” Jenny smacked her hand against the table and winced. “It’s about you not taking responsibility for anything anymore. I’m doing everything I can, but I need help. Can’t you see that?”

  He just looked at her. Jenny crossed the room, pulled out the drawing Garrett had done of the black clouds over their house, and thrust it into Adam’s lap. “Garrett’s drawing attack tornados in art class, and Frankie won’t let himself sleep until he knows where I’ll be the next day. You won’t be honest with the doctor or go to your PT appointments. Your parents are doing everything they can to turn the Buchanan’s you were trying to build back into what they wanted it to be—”

  “At least they’re here. Your mother has plenty of time for her bridge tournaments, though, doesn’t she?”

  “And no time for me or you or the boys or even my father. I’ve never expected more from her. But I did from you.”

  Jenny shook her head. She took the picture Adam hadn’t bothered to look at and put it back into the drawer, then picked the boys’ clean clothes off the side table. “Good night, Adam.”

  “Jen—”

  “Thanks for doing the laundry,” she said, and went upstairs before he could tell her he was sorry for something that he probably wasn’t really sorry about. Streaking a few shirts was insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Comparing his helicopter mother to her disinterested parent wasn’t the point.

  The real problem wasn’t that he’d messed up the laundry or even that he had called his mother to clean up his mess.

  Jenny slid the little shirts and jeans into their proper drawers, then went into her bedroom, sank down on the mattress and pulled her pillow to her chest while she looked out at the darkened sky.

  The real problem was that she was alone in this house, despite the little boys down the hall or the man she couldn’t reach downstairs. She was as alone now as she had been when she was a little girl. Being talked at by her parents, never allowed to have an opinion or a want that didn’t first come from one of her parents.