“Yeah, about that hair…one day it’s black, the next it’s red, brown, or polka-dot. Who knows what’s coming at you? I keep waiting for plaid.”
“My point is that Patsy enjoys looking nice and making the world around her a pretty place. She’s the first one to give out compliments. You should have heard her going on about my daughter Jessica when she was home. Has Patsy ever said anything nice about you, Pete?”
He scrunched up his nose and searched the upper corner of the room as if that might help him remember. “Come to think of it…not exactly. But looks aren’t all there is to a man. I’ve got everything else a fellow could need—loyalty, good deeds, a kind heart, and enough money to treat a woman to a nice restaurant dinner every once in a while. I don’t drink, smoke, or cuss…well, I hardly ever cuss. And I’ve been going to church, too.”
“Good for you. Maybe you’re just the kind of man Patsy needs.”
“’Course I am. I just have to prove it to her. Give me a little time, and you’ll see. She’ll come around.”
“All right. I’ll be watching.” Brenda straightened her purse strap and turned to go.
“Say, Steve was in here bright and early this morning,” Pete called after her. “Told me he has a long day ahead.”
“As always.” Brenda rolled her eyes and pushed open the door to Rods-n-Ends as she waved good-bye to Pete. The morning after her last fight with Steve, she’d woken to an empty house. They had barely spoken since. Brenda had left him a voice mail to tell him about the invitation to have dinner with Ashley and Brad Hanes on Sunday evening, but Steve called back to say he couldn’t go. He needed to prepare for an early meeting on Monday morning and would be working in the office until late Sunday night.
As she drove toward Deepwater Cove, Brenda sensed the pain in her heart growing more intense and heavy as the days passed. She had told Steve point-blank what the problem was between them: she wanted them to spend more time together. But he had flatly turned her down. He believed the fact that he had married her, fathered their children, and provided for her to be sufficient. Why should he give her anything else, especially his valuable time?
The more Brenda thought about it, the more she wondered what more she could do to make Steve want to be with her. The answer was always nothing.
She could never compete with the wealthy, attractive women whose company her husband enjoyed every day. They wore the latest fashions and hairstyles, they mingled with the kinds of upper-class people Steve would love to sign on as new clients, and no doubt they had hundreds of interesting things to say. After all, what did they talk about but real estate? Steve’s favorite subject.
Brenda knew almost nothing about the property market and how it worked—and in truth, she didn’t care to learn. She rarely enjoyed dressing up in fancy clothes. She preferred the jeans, sneakers, and T-shirts she wore almost every day. She got a haircut when she noticed the ends getting scraggly. And the topics she most enjoyed discussing were the differences between annuals and perennials, the techniques of painting plaid on a chair, or the skill it took to bake her well-loved chocolate cake.
The truth was obvious. To Steve, she was boring. Plain. Dull. No wonder he preferred to spend time working in his office or driving clients from house to house around the lake.
As she pulled into the garage of her house in Deepwater Cove, Brenda allowed a horrible thought to creep into her mind for the third time that day. More and more now, she caught herself pondering it. Turning it over one way and then another. Wondering what it would be like.
Divorce.
She imagined herself telling Steve their marriage was hopelessly dead, asking him to move out of the house, dividing up their belongings and their money, sitting the children down and breaking the news. Oh, it was too awful to even contemplate. But she did.
She imagined the peace of a life without a husband whose apathy toward her ate at her heart and twisted her stomach into knots. She imagined inviting friends over to the house, weeding in her garden, perhaps sewing a wedding dress for Jessica or Jennifer. At night, she could sleep without hearing Steve snore or having him wrestle the covers away from her. She could open the windows and blow away the dusty bleakness of their marriage. She would start afresh. Be her own person, not some barnacle attached to someone else’s speedboat.
And then she thought of all the negatives. The kids would be crushed if their parents separated after so many years together. God would be disappointed in Brenda—surely He already was disgusted with her for entertaining such thoughts. Actually going through with it would be even worse.
How could she hold her head up in town if she had tossed out a marriage just because her husband wasn’t paying enough attention to her? It sounded so selfish. So petty. No one would understand the pain and emptiness she felt every time she reflected on her current life and the many long, lonely years to come.
Brenda gathered her purse and the sack of hot dogs and climbed out of her car. There was no way to turn. No path out of the impossible nightmare in which she found herself.
If she stayed with Steve, she would spend the rest of her life playing second fiddle to his career, his goals, and all the interesting people in his life. She would be the little wife at home, sewing pillows and planting petunias. Even if she did one day manage to start an interior-decorating business, they would have nothing in common. She would do her work while he immersed himself more and more deeply in his separate world.
But if she left him, she could never forgive herself for hurting her children and making a public issue of something many people would consider trivial. She would toss out all the years she and Steve had spent together as if they had been irrelevant. They hadn’t, though. She and Steve once shared a good life—mostly happy and definitely united in the effort to raise their children and build a strong home.
Brenda knew she still loved Steve, but her emotion was based more on what had happened between them in the past than on how she felt about him now. These days her husband brought little but hurt, doubt, even fear into her heart. What desire could he possibly have toward her? She was nothing but a body in his bed at night. In truth, he could replace her with someone else and hardly know the difference.
What hope was there? How could she ever get out of this black coffin with its nailed-down lid and suffocating lack of air? Brenda wanted to cry, but she couldn’t summon up enough emotion toward her husband to shed even a single tear.
On entering the house, she heard Nick LeClair working downstairs. As usual, he had his radio tuned to a country-music station, and he was whistling along with a favorite song. Brenda listened to him for a moment as she laid her purse on the table in the foyer. Then she stepped into the kitchen, took a plate from the cupboard, and poured him a glass of soda, no ice. She slid the two hot dogs onto the plate and squirted mustard along the length of each.
It felt so routine now, doing these small things for Nick. As though they had fallen into a comfortable pattern that might go on and on forever.
But today it would end. Nick was already laying the vinyl on the floor, Brenda reminded herself as she carried his plate down the steps. He would install the potting bench next and finally hook up the sink. And then he would be gone.
Perhaps by the end of the day, he would have completed all his work, and they would never see each other again. She couldn’t even ask Nick to build a bridge over her ditch. He had another remodeling project waiting for him, and besides, she had promised Ashley Hanes to ask for Brad’s help.
As Brenda stepped onto the cool concrete floor, Nick looked up, spotted her, and smiled. “There you are!” he said, his blue eyes warm. “I thought I might have lost you, girl. You were gone a long time.”
“It took me a while to find the right parts in the plumbing section of the hardware store,” she told him as she set the plate and soda on the sewing table in the corner where he usually ate. “I had to get help with the elbows.”
“Something wrong with your elbows?” He
chuckled as he dropped a hammer into its loop on his leather tool belt. Moving toward her, he took her arm and pretended to examine it. “Looks like a mighty fine elbow to me. Best I’ve seen in a long while, in fact.”
Brenda tried to calm her heartbeat as his hand moved up and down her bare arm. She knew it was wrong to be so near him. To let him touch her. To welcome his compliments. Yet she ached with a yearning for more as his words swirled through her and his warm fingers stroked her skin.
“Not my elbows.” She managed a smile. “Those PVC ones you wanted for the sink. I’ve got them in a paper sack upstairs. Here’s your lunch.”
He released her arm and studied the plate. “Hot dogs and mustard,” he said. “It’ll be hard to get used to making my own peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches again.”
“I guess your wife…” She pressed her lips together and looked away. “Well, there’s nothing wrong with a good PBJ.”
“My wife left me,” he said, his focus still on the plate. “You probably know that by now. Folks around here talk. Nelda’s got the grandkids with her, but I see them a lot. It’s not too bad.”
“I’m sorry. You were married a long time.”
“A good while, yeah.”
“What happened, Nick?”
“Nelda had some problems, and so did I. We got to where we couldn’t work things out. It was just…you know…arguing and fussing all the time.”
“I know,” Brenda said softly.
He turned one of the hot dogs perpendicular to the other on the plate. “I figure we’ll probably get divorced. Nothing to keep us together any longer. I’ve got a mobile home on my brother’s land. It’s not much, but it does me fine. My son, Leland, stays there most of the time too. He works construction like me; only he’s with a contractor. My daughter went off someplace and left her kids behind. We think she might be in California, but really it’s anybody’s guess. Drugs, you know? I don’t hold with drugs. They never did anybody a bit of good. I won’t take so much as an aspirin.”
“What about all those bones you broke in your rodeo days?”
“Nope. Not even an aspirin. Just wrapped up those broken bones and let ’em set. They healed pretty good. I don’t have much to complain about.”
Brenda watched him align the second hot dog with the first. “You’re a good man, Nick,” she said. “I’m glad you worked on my basement.”
Blazing blue, his eyes focused on hers. “You’re a lot better than me, girl. Smarter. Richer. Educated. Classy. Listen, before I get done here, I’ve got to tell you…I want to say…”
She swallowed as he hung his head and pushed his hands into his back pockets.
“Well, I’m glad too,” he said. “Glad I worked here with you. Glad I got to know you. Most jobs, I just show up and do the work. But I looked forward to—”
“Me too,” she cut in. “I was always happy when I heard your truck.”
“Brenda…” He reached up and ran his callused finger along a row of tiny embroidered roses on the sleeve of her T-shirt. “I would never hurt you.”
“I know that.” She was trembling as his hand slipped around her back and pressed her toward him. She shook her head. “Nick, you shouldn’t.”
“Just let me hold you, girl,” he murmured, pulling her close and wrapping his arms around her. “I can’t leave this place unless I hold you just once…but I’m scared if I do, I’ll never be able to let you go.”
“This is wrong, Nick. I know it is, but it feels so wonderful.” She slid her hands around him and rested her cheek against his firm shoulder. “I don’t see what we can ever do.”
“Let me kiss you, Brenda. Just that much.”
“Nick, I—”
The basement’s sliding door scraped open. “Hi, I’m Cody!” a cheerful voice announced. “Wow, hot dogs! I love hot dogs!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
I see you!” Cody stumbled into the basement as Brenda pushed out of Nick’s arms and hugged herself in dismay. The young man grinned and lifted a grimy hand to wave at her. Cody looked ten times worse than a few weeks before. His beard had grown longer and was now tangled in with his long brown hair. Littered with leaves and burrs, his hair had begun coiling into naturally matted dreadlocks. Sunburned, filthy, smelling like the inside of a trash barrel, he wore rags that barely hung together on his skinny frame. His teeth were brown.
“I see you, Brenda,” he said, smiling happily, “and I’ve been looking hard to find you. Here you are! Your house is right where it used to be, but I couldn’t see it for a long time.”
“Now, listen here, fella.” Nick LeClair squared his shoulders and took a protective step in front of Brenda. “You can’t just go barging into a person’s house like that. Who do you think you are?”
“Hi, I’m Cody. Who do you think you are?”
Realizing she was suddenly trembling, Brenda laid a hand on Nick’s arm. “Nick, this is Cody,” she murmured. “It’s all right. I know him.”
“Who do you think you are, fella?” His eyes on the other man, Cody repeated the words in his usual cheerful voice.
Brenda spoke up quickly. “This is the man who painted the basement, Cody. He’s my helper.”
“How old is he?”
“Older than you,” she said. “Cody, let me take you upstairs to the kitchen and make you a sandwich. I bet you’re hungry.”
“Those hot dogs look good. I love hot dogs.”
“They belong to Nick.”
“Nick.” Cody’s brows drew together as he studied the handyman. “Brenda is my friend, Nick. She makes me soup and sandwiches and chocolate cake. She’s a Christian, because my daddy said anyone would give you food, but only a Christian would give you chocolate cake.”
“Come on, Cody. Please.” Brenda knotted her fingers together as she spoke, stunned that she had been caught in Nick’s arms and fearful that Cody might mention it to someone. If she could get him upstairs, maybe a big plate of food would make him forget what he had seen. She unlocked her fingers, took his thin wrist, and began to pull him toward the staircase.
“Nick, are you a Christian?” Cody asked as he shuffled backward.
“I reckon so…. Brenda, listen—”
“No,” she blurted out, glancing over her shoulder at him. “Just finish up, Nick. Finish the basement and go. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Brenda…”
“Hurry, Cody. Let’s go see what we can find for you to eat. I know I have some roast beef in the freezer, and we’ll make you a big sandwich.”
“I love chocolate cake. Triangles are okay, but I like squares better.”
“I don’t have any chocolate cake,” she muttered, tugging him up the last couple of steps.
Brenda felt tears welling up in her eyes as if a flood had suddenly broken through a dam. What on earth had she just done? Why had she ever gone into that basement alone with Nick in the first place? Had she purposely lured him into her arms this afternoon? Or had he seduced her? What kind of a man was he really—sincere, honest, and truly attracted to her…or a Romeo who would pick up any woman he could?
Oh, why had she let herself do something so wrong and stupid? What if Steve found out? What if Cody told on her…or what if Nick said something?
On the other hand, why did she even care what her husband thought? She had just been considering how it would feel to divorce Steve. But did she really want that? What if Steve informed the kids that their mother had been unfaithful?
Adultery. That awful word.
She hadn’t given in to infidelity—at least not physically. But wasn’t there a Bible verse about adultery in your mind…looking at someone with lust…sinning with the heart? She couldn’t even think straight! What was Nick doing now in the basement? Would he come upstairs? What would she say if he did? How could she possibly make everything feel all right again?
“I see you, Brenda,” Cody said. He was moving along behind her slowly. “I see you, and you’re my friend. You look just the same as
you did that night when it was raining. Remember? I thought Jesus was in the basement, but it was just me in the glass door, huh?”
“Yes, that was it.” Brushing a tear from her cheek, Brenda opened the freezer door and took out a chunk of roast beef she had cooked in preparation for her kids’ aborted spring-break visit.
“Maybe Nick was in the basement that night,” Cody suggested. “Do you think Nick looks like Jesus?”
“No, absolutely not. Listen, Cody, please forget about him, okay? Nick is just the man who fixed up the basement. You never saw him before, and you won’t ever see him again.”
“I don’t think Nick is like Jesus, because he didn’t share his hot dogs with me. Jesus shared five loaves and two fishes with a multitude, and a multitude means lots and lots of people. ‘And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled.’ Matthew 14:19-20. My daddy learned me that one when it was snowing outside and we didn’t have any groceries. And my daddy said Jesus always shared His food.”
Brenda couldn’t bring herself to respond. Hands shaking, she cut several slices from a loaf of French bread while the plastic container of roast beef defrosted in the microwave oven. Why had she let Nick touch her? Oh, it had felt so good to be held again…sweet words whispered against her cheek…words of desire.
She would have kissed him. There was no way she could deny it. But how had she let it come to that? She barely knew the man.
“I went with you to get a haircut,” Cody was saying. “Then a really loud noise started near us, and I thought it was coming after me. I ran down in the woods and climbed a tree. I went real high up…so high I got myself scared to deaf. I could hear you calling me, but I was too scared to come down. I thought I might fall out of the tree or that noise might start again.”
It Happens Every Spring Page 17