by Grace Greene
Trent followed her out to the patio. “Don’t sulk. We can’t afford the trip even if they wanted you there.”
Ignoring him, Sandra ran her fingers around the edge of the phone case. Was she hoping it would ring again? Would her mom call back? Should Sandra call her mom back and tell her . . . what?
Trent, so much taller and with such broad shoulders, picked up Sandra like she weighed nothing. “No sulking, Sandy.” He laughed. “Not allowed.” He carried her. She didn’t object or kick because she was shocked. She was still lost in that world back east, where her mom didn’t want her. Yet she was also suspended in Trent’s arms as he headed toward the pool.
Finally realizing his intent, she squirmed to get away. “No, Trent. Put me down.”
He laughed again. “Yes, ma’am.” And he dropped her into the water.
She came up sputtering.
From his vantage point, high and dry beside the pool, he said, “You can’t let stuff like that get you down, Sandra, or you’ll never succeed. You have to do or not do and then move on. It’s all about making choices—choices that lead to success or failure. Make sure you’re on the right end of the decision.”
“I can’t believe you did this.” She was drenched. The water was chest high. Her dress. Everything. Sopping wet.
He leaned forward, extending his hand. “Need a helping hand out of there?”
Sandra backed away, clutching her dripping phone. The water streamed from her hair and across her face. The long strands stuck in her lashes, her eyes, her nose, her mouth.
“Suit yourself, then. As I said, it’s your choice.” He walked away, went into the house, and shut the door.
Her silk blouse was ruined. Her phone . . . did she remember something about dropping it in rice to pull out the moisture? Probably a waste of rice, but she could at least give it a try. It was something to do when she had no idea what could possibly come next.
She waded to the end of the pool and climbed the steps. She hadn’t been wearing shoes, so she was grateful for that. Her red skirt might recover with a trip to the cleaners.
Trent, in his “guy” way, had been trying to cheer her up. Totally inappropriately, of course. Sometimes guys went too far. That’s what her mom would say.
And yet, this was Trent. With Trent, every action was deliberate. This felt like an escalation. He’d trained her well. What was that term? Stockholm syndrome?
No, she rejected that. She stood taller. She had a right to be listened to, to be respected, and not to be dumped in the pool because he thought she needed to be taught a lesson.
What would she say to him? Deep breath. She pulled on the door handle. The door didn’t move.
She tugged again. Nothing.
Her breath caught. Had Trent locked the door?
No. It was either stuck or he’d locked it out of habit. He was very conscientious about keeping the doors locked. He wouldn’t allow her to keep a key under a brick or flowerpot. He said it was too cliché, that anywhere they could think to hide something, thieves would know to look. She had to admit the truth of that.
She’d have to knock. Heaven knew she didn’t want to, didn’t want to see him at all, but he’d hear her knocking, come to the door, and apologize for locking her out. That might open up a conversation about how he should give her emotional space when she was down, that not every action, like a dunk in the pool, was helpful.
She knocked and waited. Then she knocked more loudly. No answer.
The house wasn’t that large. He had to have heard her, unless he’d gone upstairs. OK. She’d go around front to the doorbell.
Wet and barefooted, she went through the privacy fence gate and made her way, despite her tender feet, over the gravel path. By the time she reached the front door, the last of her righteous anger had faded, and she just wanted to get in the house and get dry and decent again. She had no hope of salvaging the phone. It was clearly dead.
She pressed the doorbell and listened to the peals reverberate throughout the house before she released it. Again, she waited. When he didn’t come to the door, she squeezed her finger against the button and held it there, hoping the peals would drive Trent crazy, hoping she was disturbing him, wanting to get even, at least a little. When he got angry and came storming down, she would make it clear who was at fault here. She hit the doorbell again. She leaned against the door, her face on the metal, gradually realizing that Trent wasn’t going to answer the door. He wasn’t coming to unlock anything.
The sidewalk wasn’t far from the front door. A man, a stranger, walked by, and she felt exposed. She tried to remember what her mother had said—her mother had said a lot of things—that you can pull off pretty much anything if you act like you mean it. Sandra tried to tell herself that no one would give much thought to the ruined blouse and the tangled hair and her red skirt that apparently didn’t fare well when mixed with chlorine.
She didn’t know any of the neighbors well enough to knock on their doors looking like this. What would it accomplish if she did? None of them had a house key.
She was going to be late, too, for that interview, and she couldn’t even call them.
At this hour, the street was empty now that the man had moved on down the road.
Sandra returned via the gravel path to the backyard. She went through the gate and sat at the table. Now what?
She pulled her legs up into the chair and hugged her knees, tugging her wet skirt around them. She hid her face. No friends. No family. No key. She didn’t cry. There was no point.
It seemed like she crouched in that chair forever. Finally she decided to bang on the door again. If Trent still wouldn’t let her inside, then she’d find a rock or a brick and force her way in. The broken glass would be his fault.
She went to the door, and habit caused her to pull on the handle. The door opened.
How long had it been unlocked?
Sandra slid it open. How easily the door moved. She went inside yelling, “Trent!”
No answer. Both locks on the front door were engaged. She ran upstairs and looked in the two bedrooms. No one. She went back down and looked in the garage. The car was gone.
How long? At what point had he unlocked the sliding door and driven away?
She heard his voice in her head, so calm and cool, saying, “Too bad you were so busy sulking, so busy feeling sorry for yourself, that you didn’t notice there was no need for it. That’s a failure on your part, Sandy.”
My fault. My fault. My fault. Never mind that he’d mocked her for being sad about her uncle, hurt over her mother’s attitude, and had dumped her into the pool and locked her out. No blame on him. It was her fault that she’d been miserable and hadn’t noticed the door had been unlocked almost immediately. Self-pity, Trent would call it. A point of failure. One of her many failures.
She called to reschedule the interview, and they told her there was no need.
When she’d confronted Trent and blamed him for the ruined clothing and the lost opportunity, he’d laughed.
It was then that she began assembling her stash of money and personal items, because she could see their second hoped-for happily-ever-after was already rewriting itself, and she wasn’t going to be on-set for the ending.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The first time Sandra left her marriage, she hadn’t prepared ahead. She’d been unbelievably naive and gullible and driven by her emotions. She didn’t want that to happen again. In Arizona, when she saw the second end looming, she set about seriously and surreptitiously packing and stashing. She managed to eke a little money out of what Trent gave her for expenses and hid it around the house. He always seemed able to read her so easily. If he found her hidden cash in one place, he wouldn’t keep looking. Who would hide it here and there and all around? He’d never think of that. She thought it was a good plan, until the day she saw him pulling into the driveway in a rental truck with a couple of strangers.
“Hey, Sandy,” he said. “Guys, start with the sofa a
nd chair, why don’t you?”
The men started hauling out the furniture.
“Trent, wait.” She moved aside as the two men carried out the leather chair. “What’s going on?”
“We’re going back to Virginia. I know you’ve been homesick, so we’re moving back. Happy?”
“What? No, I mean yes. I mean . . . we aren’t moving because I’m homesick. Tell me what’s going on.”
Trent stopped and reached down. “Hey, what’s this?” he asked, holding the cash that had fallen from under the sofa cushion. He winked at her and put it in his pocket. “I have a new job opportunity. A much better one. None of the crap I’ve had to put up with at this firm.” He stepped aside to make room for the men to carry out the kitchen table. “Careful with that, guys.”
She ignored the wink. It could mean anything or nothing. She raised her hands. “Wait, Trent. Please. I have to pack things up.”
“No time to waste, Sandy. Take what’s most important and toss it in the back of the truck.”
“No. My dishes, my glassware, toiletries and groceries . . . it all has to be boxed.”
“Do you have boxes? I sure don’t. Figure it out, Sandra, but don’t take too long. Don’t worry over it. When we pull out of this place, we won’t look back.”
He meant it. For now she’d gotten as much of the story as he was going to share. Some people worry themselves to distraction. Some people bluster and threaten. Some people do it, whatever it is. Trent was perfectly capable of driving away and leaving everything they owned if it suited him.
He moved toward her and put his hands on her shoulders, then slid them down her arms and around her back, pulling her toward him. He embraced her. She felt him willing her to cease questioning and join in his mania. Sandra relaxed consciously. She had no choice, as she saw it. She’d get more cooperation from him if he thought she was on board.
She tried to smile. “OK, then. We’re moving back to Richmond.”
“Not Richmond. But Virginia, yes. Martinsville. An engineering firm I’ve been talking to offered me a great job. They were so impressed they practically begged me to join them.”
She didn’t bother to ask, if they were so serious about him coming to work for them, why weren’t they paying for a proper move? Why the sudden, hasty rush to leave this place? She didn’t ask because her time was better spent trying to recover her cash before it was found or lost, and in trying to quickly pack the breakables into whatever containers she could find, but she had to ask, “What about this place? This house?”
“It’s a rental. Not our problem.”
“And in Martinsville?”
“We’ll find a house. A big one. Things are a lot cheaper there. We’ll get a mansion.”
There was no point in discussing it further. The furniture was disappearing fast, and she was running out of time. She had to get to the items where the cash was hidden. She was going to need it sooner rather than later.
A little cash wasn’t enough, but it was better than nothing. The less she had to depend on her parents, the better. And yes, Mom had mentioned the possibility of her and Dad moving to Florida. Sandra hadn’t taken it seriously. So, she prepared to leave Trent, including rehearsing a cool speech that she’d give to Trent as she stood on the threshold with the loaded getaway car ready and waiting in the driveway, in case he didn’t take the news well. But preparation and actuality were different things. Sneaking off in the dark of night and letting a few handwritten words on a piece of notebook paper speak for her was the actuality.
She fell back onto Barbara’s bed, drained. The contents of the folder spilled across the covers. All she could see was Barbara’s mural by starlight. By whatever light was making it through the window. The bed bounced, and Honey curled up beside her. Great.
“Honey. I’m not staying. I’m not. I’m getting up in a sec. I’m going to bed and getting some real sleep, so don’t get comfortable.”
Honey was snoring within moments.
Sandra lay there without the will to move. She shoved the clipping and other papers onto the floor, then rolled over onto her side, a hand on Honey’s foreleg, and fell asleep.
She awoke with the sunrise and with a stiff neck, feeling like she’d been breathing in dog hair all night. She brushed at her face. Honey yawned. Her jaws opened wide, and she stretched out a leg and paw.
Sandra sat up, and as she put her feet to the floor, the clipping caught her attention. She picked it up. Her Uncle Cliff’s obit. In the daylight, the small print wasn’t a problem.
The obituary was surprisingly simple. It said he passed unexpectedly, and a small, private service was planned. And that was it.
He drank, she remembered that, of course. Mom had said they thought it might be his heart, but that was it. It was odd about the lack of a public service. At least, that was odd for the south, and for someone who must’ve known a ton of people. He was in his sixties and had lived in the area his whole life.
Honey was already waiting at the top of the stairs. As soon as she saw Sandra walk into the hallway, she made her way down the stairs, gingerly but reasonably well, and went straight to the back door. Made sense. That was where Barbara had let her out to do her business. Sandra fidgeted with the clasp on the end of the leash and, satisfied, opened the door and guided Honey through the construction area toward the oak.
She remembered how Honey had barked the night before, and prickles raced up her spine. Then she remembered the raccoon and relaxed.
Sandra wanted to get on with the garden, and she didn’t want worries about Trent to spoil that. It would be ironic, and yet so typical of her, to spend time worrying over the wrong things and miss the important ones.
Be mindful, she told herself. Be aware.
The memories were a surprise. They were coming back stronger and stronger. Who knew she had so many memories from her childhood? And they all seemed eager to be acknowledged.
Was it due to coming back here to where she’d spent so much of her life—her very young life? She, and her mom and dad, at the Shoemaker homeplace. At Cub Creek. It touched something in her—something that wanted to be heard. It seemed to her that things changed abruptly after her grandmother passed. She’d stopped coming here. The connection was lost. And then, more and more, she’d lost other close connections. She’d never had an easy relationship with her mother. The relationship with her father was the last to erode. Maybe fate knew what it was doing when it pulled her back here. But also worrying about Trent? Fate was trespassing too much on what didn’t concern it.
Suddenly, she remembered her mother’s voice over the telephone that day in Arizona. “Uncle Cliff died. They found him this morning,” Mom had said. Sandra had assumed they’d found him in his bed.
Not that it mattered, but she was curious. She might ask her. Surely now, two years later, her mother wouldn’t be squeamish about giving the details. Maybe her mother needed to be more open with her, and Sandra needed to be more specific and insistent with her questions, since neither of them seemed to have the talent for gentle persuasion.
When Colton and Aaron arrived, they brought sandpaper for her.
“Why, what a thoughtful gift,” she joked.
Colton smiled and pointed to Barbara’s table and chairs. “You’ll want to sand off the rough areas before repainting those.”
“What a great idea.” She was thrilled to contribute beyond fetching iced tea and lemonade.
The dogs were nearby enjoying the grass and fresh air. Colton and his helper, Aaron, set the fence stakes. The fenced area wasn’t huge, but the grass enclosure alone was more than triple the original area. The bushes still in place around the patio area provided a satisfying definition.
The table and chairs were in pretty good shape. She was done with most of the sanding before midafternoon.
“The stakes are in deep, but not in concrete,” Colton said. “We can still move them if we want to make any adjustments before the wire goes up.” He pointed at the e
xcavated area. “I’ll set the block tomorrow or the next day. I might have to be on the work site tomorrow. All this rain has wrecked our schedule. Work will probably be picking up and might impact our project here.”
She liked how he said the word our. She confirmed it, saying, “Our project can take all the time we need.” It didn’t sound quite like what she’d meant to say, but maybe it said enough, because Colton smiled.
Sandra kept Honey quiet the rest of the day. The next morning after breakfast, when they went out for Honey’s business, the dog pulled at the leash. Sandra decided that if Honey felt up to it, they’d take a walk. They started down the path. It was wide and clear and made for easy walking. Honey moved slowly but steadily and was panting soon, though it wasn’t hot. They stopped, and Sandra sat on a downed tree trunk while Honey rested. In the distance, over the sound of the breeze rustling the leaves far overhead and the occasional squirrel scooting past, she heard the sound of running water.
When she stood, so did Honey, and they continued walking.
Cub Creek ran under the wooden bridge on Shoemaker Road, near the state road. This was the same creek, but now they were upstream. Way upstream. The woods were pretty here, as was the creek. Brown water, but it wasn’t thick and heavy-looking as it was down by the bridge, and trees arched over it all. At the bridge, the creek hardly seemed to move because it was so deep. Here, the water streamed over and around rocks, making little waterfalls. It gurgled under the bank, and here and there along the creek, rocks stuck out. Below where Sandra stood, a long rock jutted out into the creek, and in its cleft, ferns grew.