Breakup in a Small Town

by Kristina Knight

  “You were a good boss.”

  “You’re a better one. You delegate. I always had to be in the middle of things, especially things I didn’t have any business in.”

  “Well, Jenny has us both beat in that respect. She takes a rough idea and makes a plan.”

  “She’s a detail girl, that’s for sure.” Owen picked the broken pencil off the drafting table and held it out to Adam. “You’re pretty good with details yourself. I fiddled with those chair pieces all day yesterday, knowing they might be something. Took you five minutes to have the design worked out. It’s going to be a pretty chair. Might look nice with a low table, just big enough for a couple cups of coffee. On a beach somewhere.”

  Yeah, he could see two chairs, mismatched wood, low table, just as Jenny had said. Sun setting over water, making the wood warm in the twilight.

  “I miss doing the actual work. Cutting down the rails, sanding out the rough edges.”

  “Design might not make you sweat like woodworking does, but it’s still work, Adam. It’s hard work. It’s challenging.”

  Sitting at a drafting table wasn’t how Adam had envisioned his working life, though.

  “You’re figuring out it’s more of a challenge than you imagined, but that doesn’t mean you should give up.”

  Something in his dad’s voice caught Adam’s attention. He focused on his father, but the older Buchanan was staring at the empty window upstairs.

  “Some things are too important to give up on so easily,” Owen said.

  “What things are too important to give up on easily?” Nancy, wearing jeans and a lightweight sweater, joined them. She held a steaming coffee mug in her hands. She sipped.

  “Vacation plans. They borrowed our RV, remember?”

  “Adam, sweetheart, I love that camper, but the last thing you need is an RV vacation. Pick a hotel, go to a beach. RVs are hard work. You should relax.”

  “But they’ll have more time with the boys if they drive.”

  Nancy rolled her eyes. “The boys have school. If Adam needs some time away, he should go to a hotel.”

  “Jenny wants an RV trip,” Owen argued, as if he had inside knowledge of what she preferred in a vacation.

  “Jenny wants, huh?” Nancy rolled her eyes again. “Jenny should know that Adam needs his rest.” She put down her mug, then placed her hands on either side of her son’s head. “What are you doing on the warehouse floor? You should be home. Resting.”

  “I’m not tired, Mom, but thanks.”

  “I’m just saying—”

  “I know what you’re saying.” She was saying he was too hurt to work, too damaged to offer anything to the business. “I have some work to do, if the two of you don’t mind.”

  Owen hooked Nancy’s arm through his, then grabbed her coffee mug. “Too much sugar,” he said, after tasting it.

  “Just enough sugar, thanks. Some of us like to enjoy our coffee, not squeal in pain when it passes our lips.”

  “I only squealed once, and that was thirty years ago, and it was because I didn’t know it was so hot.”

  “Well, of course it was hot. It’s coffee, dear,” Nancy said, and their conversation faded into the warehouse noises as they walked away.

  Adam glanced at the office window. Jenny was back, and he couldn’t stop the smile that spread over his face. Some things were too important to give up on easily. Which was why he wasn’t giving up. Not today.

  Not ever.

  He went upstairs to talk to her, but Jenny wasn’t there. The contracts with the new distributor were on the desk, and he didn’t think she would mind, so he sat down to wait for her and read them. Adam skimmed through the papers for both the home builder and the distributor.

  She’d done good work. But then, when did Jenny ever do anything that wasn’t good? She’d raised their sons, and the boys were amazing. Held the business together and it was thriving. She’d gotten these two contracts past his parents, whom he loved, but with whom he was going to have to lay down some ground rules. They’d sold Buchanan’s to Jenny and him; that was where their vision had ended and where his and Jenny’s vision had begun.

  When Owen, then Adam, used this office, it had been dusty. An old desk Adam’s grandfather built had dominated the room. The desk was still here, but Jenny had refinished it—Adam wasn’t sure when—so that it glimmered in the sunlight coming through the windows. Instead of the utility blinds that had shaded the space, she’d hung gauzy drapes. Added plants on a table. Not flowers like he’d sent, but a small fern and a couple pots with daisies.

  A drawing Frankie brought home from school last spring hung on the bulletin board, along with a sketch of the bed Adam had designed for them. He’d given it to her when they still lived in the apartment over the coffee shop, telling her that someday they would have room for not only a bigger bed, but a family. He’d made sure that promise came true.

  His grandfather had given him the house and land, but Jenny had turned the place into a home. Adam had built the bed, but Jenny had softened the hard lines of cherry with a cozy comforter, pillows.

  His ideas. Her execution.

  God, he loved her. And he’d almost thrown her away. Thrown their family away. Adam tapped the walking stick in his hand against the floor. It had taken a tornado and epilepsy to make him see what he had in his life, and now that he’d seen it, he wouldn’t give it away like so much trash.

  She returned a few minutes later, a file folder in her hand.

  “Do you want to have lunch?” he asked.

  She blinked at him. “It’s barely eleven.”

  “I know. I thought we might go someplace special.” When she only stared at him, Adam balked. “You know, we’re signing the contracts. We should celebrate.”

  A look he couldn’t quite describe crossed her face. “Oh. Okay. Sure,” she said, but her voice was flat, not excited. He hadn’t expected cartwheels or anything, but a little enthusiasm wouldn’t hurt. Still, it was lunch. With Jenny. It was an opening.

  After they got in the car, he directed her out of town. This would be better if he could drive, but he still wasn’t cleared for driving. Might never be. He didn’t want to think about that. When he instructed her to turn on the road that would take them to the west side of the lake, she shot him a curious glance. But when she switched on the signal to turn into the fancy restaurant that overlooked Slippery Rock Lake, Adam shook his head. “Just keep driving.”

  “There’s nothing else out here.”

  “It’s a nice day for a drive.”

  “Adam, I have work.”

  “And we have contracts to celebrate. It’s just lunch, Jen.” She inhaled once, a long, slow breath. She didn’t turn the car around, and Adam took that as a good sign. Jenny always liked surprises.

  “So, where are we going?”

  “You’ll see,” he said, and was rewarded with a smile. They drove for a while along the south side of the lake. At the crossroad that would take them back around the lake toward town and then to Tyler Orchard, a local favorite and his friend, Collin’s, business, Adam told her to take a left. She complied, but shot him another look.

  Adam turned on the radio, to find Tim McGraw singing about being humble. Adam hadn’t had much humility in his life. He had expected certain things, and for the most part, he had gotten what he wanted, from football to Jenny. He was learning more about humility now. Letting other people take the lead, listening to what they said.

  It started with the doctors. Now he needed to add listening to Jenny to the list. In the car, where she couldn’t find something else to do, where he couldn’t chicken out, seemed like a good place to start.

  “I haven’t said thank you yet.” Adam started with the apology he had yet to offer. He’d made her breakfast, had begun spending more time with the boys. He’
d sent her flowers, but had just signed his name. “I didn’t realize how much I was leaving to you, and I’m sorry.”

  “It isn’t as if you didn’t have your reasons.” Her knuckles went white as she gripped the steering wheel of the old Mustang more tightly. “It scared me,” she said after a long moment. “I felt like I was watching you fade away, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. When you weren’t fading out, you were so angry. I didn’t know what to do with the anger any more than I knew how to... Well, you know.”

  He did know. He’d felt as if he were fading away. As if the life he’d been living had betrayed him. As if the tornado had come for him, specifically, as if to punish him for something. He hadn’t realized how much what he was going through was affecting Jenny, though, and for that he couldn’t forgive himself. Not yet.

  “You held things together, and for that I am thankful. I know it isn’t enough, I know signing the contracts can’t erase all the things I haven’t done since May, but I want you to know I don’t want to fade away. I want my life back. Turn here,” he directed.

  Jenny squinted her eyes, but turned onto the road that would lead them to a small town near the Arkansas state line. She had to know where they were going by now, but she didn’t say anything, just kept driving.

  And now for the harder part. “It occurs to me that while I want my old life back, you don’t.” Her knuckles paled even more. “I never asked if you wanted to work at Buchanan’s. If you wanted to expand the business. Not now, but before.”

  She nibbled her lower lip.

  “I never asked you what you wanted.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  The small roadside diner appeared around a curve, and Jenny slowed. Turned in and parked beneath an old maple.

  “Why are we here, Adam?” She looked straight ahead, at the faded roof, at the window sign that read Pete’s Diner—Food You Eat.

  “What is it that you want, Jenny? Not from me. Not from the boys or my parents or yours. What is it that you want?”

  “Why are we here, Adam?” she asked again, and the note of panic in her voice made him feel like a jerk. She’d asked him to leave. Maybe she’d really meant it, and not just as a wake-up call.

  “This is where we started.” He forced the words to pass his lips. He wanted his life back. He wanted her, too. A little groveling wouldn’t kill him. Being honest with her wouldn’t, either. “I thought maybe this could be where we start over.”

  Jenny turned off the car, put the keys in her bag. Slowly, she turned to face him. “I want more,” she said.

  Adam didn’t know how to interpret those three words.

  “Let’s see what Pete has for lunch.” She didn’t wait. Jenny slung her bag over her shoulder and got out of the car. Strode with purpose to the swinging glass door.

  Adam followed.

  There were a few locals in the roadside diner. An older couple eating club sandwiches in silence, a couple farmers. Adam and Jenny took a table near the front window, under the Food You Eat sign. The waitress, a woman with gray-streaked brown hair, brought glasses of water and took their order. When she was gone, Adam waited, but Jenny didn’t say a word. She stared out the window as if there was more to see in the parking lot than a few farm trucks.

  Adam studied the area, trying to figure out what Jenny found so fascinating. One of the trucks had a weird rust patch over the wheel well that look a little like the shape of Arkansas, but other than that, it was just a parking lot. Farm vehicles, a few scrubby patches of grass. That big maple tree shading the Mustang.

  “All I ever wanted was you,” she said finally. “Your parents were so involved in your life, when mine were so involved in their own. I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to have children of my own who would experience that. I never realized how lonely it could be to be part of a big, involved family.”

  Adam wasn’t sure what to say to that. They’d never been alone long enough to be lonely, had they? They’d got married as soon as Jenny graduated, had Frankie a year later, then Garrett. Sunday dinners with his parents or hers. They lived and worked together.

  “How were you lonely?”

  Jenny sipped her water before answering. “It maybe wasn’t lonely so much as feeling alone. We both work and make money, but I pay the bills. I do the grocery shopping, I figure out our meals, I clean the house. I love doing all those things—I don’t expect or want you do to them. But sometimes it’s like you don’t even know what I do. You go to the Slope with the guys—and I think that’s great—while I clean up the house and make sure the kids’ homework is done and get them bathed and ready for bed. I get up the next day to make breakfast and get them to school. Then I work, and pick them up from school, and start the homework cycle or take them to karate, and you go play in the softball league. It’s like you have this life with friends and your family, and you get all the good stuff with the kids. You’re the T-ball coach, and you take them bowling or swimming. I clean up after them and make them dinner. I clean up after you and make you dinner. Who cleans up after me? Who takes care of me?”

  Adam had never thought of it that way, which had to prove he was an inconsiderate bastard. But he could be different, better, for her this time around. “I will. Anytime you want, anything you need.”

  A half smile crossed her mouth, but didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Until all the rest of it fell on my shoulders, I didn’t realize how separated we’d become. When I was keeping the business going, when I was trying to get you well. I love the boys, and I miss taking them to and from school. I like homework, and I like it when we all go watch you play softball. When you were hurt, all I did was work—at Buchanan’s, with the kids, on the house. And I worried for you, and I tried to keep a positive attitude, not only for you, but for your parents. For myself. I don’t want to be alone in this anymore.”

  Adam wasn’t sure how to respond. He’d thought he was the only one who had to adjust to his condition. That he was the only one directly affected. But he’d drawn them all down into the darkness with him. He clenched his fists. Damn, he wished he hadn’t dragged them into this, but at least now he could get them out of it. He could take Jenny to the Slope. He couldn’t wrestle with the boys, but he could referee when they wrestled around. He couldn’t play softball, at least not now, but he could still instruct the boys in the backyard. He was living in the RV, but there were ways he could show Jenny that she meant the world to him. Like adding to her table of potted plants.

  “I don’t want you to be alone, either. And I don’t want to be alone.” He reached for her hand, but Jenny drew it away before he could touch her, making his heart stutter. Unless...unless this was where she said she didn’t want to be alone, but she didn’t want him, either.

  He finished his sandwich, pondering what the right move was for this moment. Drive directly through her defenses, like he did on the football field? Or juke to the side, throw her off balance so she couldn’t be sure what was happening next?

  Adam was never the biggest guy on the football field, so juking had always gained him more yardage. He hoped it would work now.

  “What is it that you want from me?”

  An annoyed expression flickered over her face, bringing out the brown flecks in her eyes. Adam backtracked, fast.

  “That wasn’t an accusation. I’m sure you showed me a thousand times what you wanted from me, and I missed every time. I’m asking now—what can I do to show you that I’m in this, too?”

  Jenny forked up a bite of salad and chewed. She sipped her iced tea. “I want you to know what I want, and I know that doesn’t sound fair. I’m asking you to have ESP or something. That isn’t it. But if I tell you to do something, it isn’t the same as if you just do it.”

  “Like the flowers?” It had been eye-opening to learn she didn’t like cut flowers. He was reminded how he needed to pay mor
e attention to what she said, to what she did. And he had to stop to question if something he was about to do would really please her, or if it was something that would please his mom. They were two very different women. And Jenny deserved to have a husband who recognized that.

  “Like I said before, I do like flowers, but I would prefer them in plant form, so I can keep them forever.” She had finished her salad and pushed the bowl away.

  “So, daisies and roses, right?” She shot him a surprised glance. “I saw the daisies in your office this morning. I made a mental note.”

  Adam paid the bill and walked with Jenny to the Mustang. Since he’d been going to the physical therapist, his knee didn’t throb as much when he walked. Most of the pain in his hip happened when he sat or stood for a long period of time. He got into the sports car, wincing a little as he folded his legs inside. Jenny headed the car toward Slippery Rock.

  While they hadn’t made any huge strides, he thought the lunch was progress. He was getting a better sense of what she wanted; of course, it helped that she’d been giving him the same message. She wanted to be included in his decisions, or at least given the option to participate in the things he did. She wanted choices. She wanted to be remembered and thought of...and she didn’t want to have to guide his actions. He had to think of her on his own, treat her like she mattered to him.

  They drove in silence until hitting the Slippery Rock city limits. Jenny slowed the car. “I haven’t asked lately. How’s physical therapy going?”

  “Good, I think. It’s hard to tell. The knee seems better, but the hip is still painful.”

  She nodded as she negotiated the turn to the house.

  “You’re picking up the kids at school?” she asked.

  Adam nodded, then remembered what she had said at Pete’s. “Unless you want to today.”

  “Who are they expecting?”

  “Me. Frankie asked a couple times.”

  “Then they get you.”

  “How about we trade off tomorrow? I’ll take them, you can pick them up?”

  “Sure. I, ah, need to get some groceries.”