Читать книгу Breakup In A Small Town - Kristina Knight - Страница 14

CHAPTER FIVE

ADAM SAT IN the hallway between the laundry room and the kitchen for a long time, waiting for Jenny to come back. She always came back. Of course, she’d never spoken to him like that before. He couldn’t remember a single time she’d raised her voice—not that she’d raised her voice just now—or been anything other than a younger version of his mother. Nancy followed Owen’s lead. That was how marriage was supposed to work, wasn’t it?

Was that even what Adam wanted? For Jenny to be some kind of clone of his mother, a woman who loved her husband and kids, but who had never made a decision that wasn’t based on what was best for someone else?

He listened for footsteps in the hallway, but the house was silent except for the chattering of the boys in the kitchen.

Jenny wasn’t coming back.

He wanted her to come back. Which was weird, because just yesterday he’d decided to walk away from their little family, for her benefit. Now that she was the one walking it felt...like he should maybe chase after her. Beg her to stay.

The clock in the living room chimed the quarter hour. It was better this way. She deserved more than he could give her, and at least if she was angry with him, she wouldn’t cry. He didn’t think he could take Jenny’s tears, not on top of everything else in his world falling apart. So he’d go. This time of year there would be rooms available at the B and B near downtown. He could make it a clean break, for her and the boys.

Adam wheeled himself down the hall. Frankie and Garrett were at the kitchen table, their backpacks leaning against the island. Fall hadn’t yet hit Slippery Rock, and they both wore shorts and T-shirts, with Velcro tennis shoes on their small feet. God, he was going to miss his boys.

“Morning, Dad,” Frankie said.

“Where’s Mom?” Garrett asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “I put Washington in my pack for show-and-tell, but now there’s no room for my lunch. I think I need a bigger pack. Like Frankie’s.”

“My pack is full of school stuff, not stuffed animals,” Frankie said, referring to the giant yellow-and-purple stuffed cat Garrett had won at the fair over the summer. Adam’s younger son and the cat had been inseparable ever since. “You can just carry your lunch sack until you get to school and put it in the bin.”

“But what if someone sits on it?”

“Who’s going to sit on it? It’s just you and me and Mom in the car, dummy.”

“Dummy isn’t a nice word.” Garrett clenched his jaw and leaned forward. Adam had no idea what else the boy was about to say, but he didn’t want this whatever-it-was between them to go any further.

“Okay, okay. How about the three of us walk to school, then, and you can both hook your packs on the chair so your hands are free for the lunches?” Adam wanted to pull the words back into his mouth. The last place he wanted to be was in public in the chair. He’d avoided most Slippery Rock events and businesses since the accident. Walking kids to school was one of those everyday events, and he would run into people he had known most of his life. People he’d avoided since the tornado.

Garrett stared at him, wide-eyed. Frankie looked past Adam to the empty hallway and the living room beyond, as if he expected Jenny to come rushing in at Adam’s words. She didn’t appear, to save him from his declaration.

“You’re gonna walk with us to school?” Garrett said incredulously.

“Mom drives,” Frankie added.

“Well, I can’t drive, but we have time to walk it.” He motioned to the backpacks, and the boys dutifully hung them on the handles below Adam’s shoulders. “Let’s go.”

Neither boy said anything until the three of them were down the driveway and a few houses along the street. When his grandfather left him the land and broken-down farmhouse on the edge of Slippery Rock Lake, Adam had imagined one day walking his kids to school. He’d never bothered before today, not even before the tornado. He’d always had a reason for leaving the school runs to Jenny. He couldn’t remember a single one of those reasons now.

“So, it’s show-and-tell day?” he asked Garrett, not wanting to delve too far into why he’d never walked his kids to school. Had to be his schedule. Running a business was time-consuming.

“No.” Garrett stopped to pull a couple yellow dandelions from the grass in Mrs. Hess’s yard. “Friday is show-and-tell.”

Adam blinked. “Then why did you put Washington in your pack today?”

“So I won’t forget him.” Garrett skipped ahead, and this time pulled some purple ground cover from another neighbor’s yard.

Adam looked to Frankie for help, but the older boy only shrugged. “Kindergarteners,” he said, with no small amount of disgust in his voice.

“You don’t have show-and-tell in third grade?”

“We have I-C-M-M days, and we have to earn them. We can’t just bring toys in anytime we want.”

“What’s an I-C-M-M?” Adam had a feeling he should know this.

“I Can Manage Myself. It means we’re doing our work and not messing around. I’m already halfway to mine and when I get it, I’m gonna bring in my Xbox.”

“I don’t think a gaming system is a good option for show-and-tell.”

“It’s not show-and-tell, it’s I-C-M-M, and it’s a whole afternoon. Not just five minutes. If I get ten more marks on my card, I get a whole afternoon to myself. And I’m bringing my Xbox.” He crossed his arms over his chest, but kept pace with Adam’s chair. Garrett was still picking wildflowers from neighbors’ yards, blissfully unaware of the conversation.

“I think your iPod or DS would be a better option. For the Xbox, you’d need a TV and the system and the games. That’s a lot to bring in.”

“I’m bringing the Xbox,” Frankie said through clenched teeth.

A few kids turned onto the street ahead of them, and Frankie took off at a run to catch up with them. Adam returned the waves of the parents. The faces were familiar, but most faces in Slippery Rock were. Ruby Kildare, who had been a couple years ahead of him in school, trailed her son, Bobby. There was Jackson Crane and his twins, Blair and Bree. The other parents watched him, but didn’t say anything, and Adam was grateful. Blair and Bree started picking wildflowers with Garrett, and Jackson slowed to keep pace with Adam.

“You’re looking good,” he said after a moment.

“Doing fine,” Adam said.

“Think the weather’s going to break anytime soon? October will be here in another couple weeks.”

“Won’t be much longer.” He watched as Garrett presented his small bouquet to Bree. Blair stomped her foot. Garrett twisted his mouth to the side, then took back the bunch of flowers, split it in two and gave half to each twin.

“He’s going to be a heartbreaker, Adam,” Ruby said. He hadn’t noticed the woman slowing her pace, but now here he was with two people who probably wanted the intimate details of his injuries. He should have stayed home.

Blair lifted the bouquet to her nose, then sneezed all over it. Jackson hurried forward, wiped her nose with a handkerchief from his back pocket. The group turned the corner, and Slippery Rock Elementary spread out before them. The school took up most of the block, with the big gymnasium on the right side and the junior high classrooms making up the wing on the left. Playgrounds and a small nature area were in the courtyard behind the elementary classrooms, the gym and the junior high.

On the block beyond was the high school, football fields and the natatorium where they taught swimming lessons in the summer, and where the high school and junior high swim teams practiced and competed. Between the high school and the football field was the State Championship Memorial. The town commissioned it, setting Adam’s, Aiden’s, Collin Tyler’s, James Calhoun’s and Levi Walters’s names in gray limestone, along with their jersey numbers the summer after their team won the state high school football championship. The five of them had been co-captains, and the only seniors on the team. Adam didn’t play at all, thanks to a car accident that sidelined him, but his name was still on the monument. The damn thing looked like a tombstone, and although Adam couldn’t see it, the thought sent a shiver up his spine.

He hadn’t been a football player in a long time, and he might be in a wheelchair right now, but he wasn’t dead.

They reached the school, and he realized he couldn’t go any farther because of the steps.

“Want me to push the chair up the stairs for you?” Jackson asked.

Adam shook his head. “I’ve got it.” Jackson shrugged and continued on, as did Ruby.

Adam called to the boys. “You guys have a good day at school, okay? Frankie, work toward that Xbox thing, and Garrett, don’t let anyone sit on your lunch.” The little boy giggled. Frankie rolled his eyes.

“Will you walk us back after school?” Garrett asked, his hazel eyes looking so much like Jenny’s it hurt Adam’s chest. His son threw his arms around him, hugging him tightly.

“Sure, I can walk you home.”

“Mom drives,” Frankie said, and Adam was getting tired of hearing those words.

“It’s a nice day, and I’m sure your mom would like the break. I’ll see you both right here at three.”

“Three-oh-five,” Frankie corrected, his voice quiet. The warning bell rang out.

“Three-oh-five,” Adam repeated solemnly. He remembered what Jenny had said the night before about Frankie wanting to know where she was. “I’ll be here,” he said, and squeezed the little boy’s hand.

Garrett hopped up the steps that led inside. Frankie watched Adam for a long moment.

“I’ll pick you up right here,” he said again. “Everything okay? Did you forget something?” What was going on here?

“I have everything,” the boy said after a long moment. “You sure you can be here?”

Adam swallowed, Jenny’s words of he day before ringing in his ears.

Garrett’s drawing attack tornados in art class and Frankie won’t let himself sleep until I promise him Buchanan’s is a safe place to be.

“I’ll be here, Frankie. Mom will be at work, but I’ll be here.”

His son nodded and started up the steps. At the top he turned and waved. Adam waited until Frankie disappeared inside the big double doors, then he turned the wheelchair and started back toward the house.

Adam blew out a breath. Yes, his wife and his kids deserved more than the shell of a man he was now, but he couldn’t just vanish on any of them. He needed to figure out how to make sure they were taken care of first.

He needed coffee. Caffeine was on the list of things the doctors told him to limit, but one cup couldn’t hurt anything. He texted Jenny to let her know he’d taken the kids to school, and that he’d promised to pick them up.

A few minutes later she texted back, Thank you.

Adam wheeled himself past the house and noticed the Mustang was still in the drive. He considered going inside to talk to Jenny, but he needed a plan. Their last two conversations had ended badly. She was better off without him, but he didn’t want to fight with her. He could wheel himself to the backyard. Sit on the patio to think. But if she saw him, she might want to talk, and he needed a solid plan before talking to her again.

Mr. Rhodes from across the street waved and started toward Adam. He didn’t want to talk to the older man, so he pushed the chair a little faster. Adam didn’t want to deal with the public, but if he had to choose between Jenny and the public at large at this point, he was going public all the way.

A few minutes later, he crossed the street into the downtown area. Parking slots were filled with trucks and SUVs. Patrol cars were parked outside the Slippery Rock Sheriff’s Department. He waved to a few people he knew, but didn’t stop. Bud stood outside the bait shop, sweeping his section of concrete. He crossed the street when he saw Adam, and pointed to the new farmer’s market.

The foundation of the old building remained, but the rest had been gutted by the tornado. Now, new picture windows fronted the structure, and new brick had been laid to reinforce the walls. Slippery Rock Farmer’s Market was painted on the windows, and someone had painted a water scene on the sidewalk in front with the words Clean Water Makes the Earth Happy painted around it. Adam had heard about the storm drain art, but this was the first he’d seen. It wasn’t bad.

“Headed to work?” Bud asked. Adam pushed the chair a little faster, but the man kept pace.

“Still on the disabled list,” he said, and for the first time, the words actually felt a little like a joke. Like walking his kids to school meant something. “Going to the coffee shop.”

“Want some company? Haven’t had my fourth cup yet.” Bud didn’t wait for Adam to approve, just continued walking beside him. “How’s that pretty wife of yours?”

“She’s good.” Wants me to leave the house, but that’s probably for the best, he thought, though Adam didn’t say the words. “Turning into quite the cabinetmaker, or so I hear.” It was actually an assumption. He’d avoided all talk of work since the doctors told him he couldn’t operate the machinery. Bud didn’t know that, though.

Bud held open the door to the coffee shop so Adam could navigate the chair through. The bell over the door tinkled as it closed behind them. A teenager at the counter took his order for a caramel mocha and Bud’s black coffee.

“See ya around, Adam,” the older man said as he headed back to his street sweeping.

Adam waved. He put the cup in the little holder Jenny had installed on the chair when he first came home, and went to a little table in the corner. For a long time, he sat and watched the activity on the street. A few late-season fishermen went into Bud’s, and boats bobbed on the still water of the marina. In another few weeks, the boats would all be in winter storage and the downtown area would be a ghost town.

If Adam turned around, he would see part of Buchanan Cabinetry, and the warehouse where his employees built and stored the cabinets and furniture they made.

Her employees. Jenny’s. As she’d said, he’d abandoned the business. And if he couldn’t make things, he didn’t see the point in going back. His fingers flexed at the thought of making something again. He missed the feel of wood in his hands, missed figuring out how a slab of oak or cherry could have a new life once it had been cut down.

He needed to get back to the plan. He’d screwed up his family’s life enough. He wasn’t going to screw it up even more by just disappearing. Jenny needed to see that he was okay, and the boys deserved a father who was present with them, not just existing in the same space. In the side pocket Jenny had put on the chair when she’d added the cup holder, he found a small notebook and a pen. Adam smiled. Jenny liked her lists. She was always making lists.

For the business. For Christmas. For vacations and groceries. It made sense she would give him a notebook, and it was another failure on his part that he hadn’t noticed it before today. Adam didn’t think he could have been more self-involved over the past few months—hell, few years—if he’d been actively trying to make the people around him feel unimportant.

The first thing he had to do was make sure Jenny and the boys were okay financially. That meant figuring out how to make Buchanan’s work for her. The simplest thing would be to go back to the way things had been before his parents sold the firm to them a few years before. Making and installing cabinets was a solid business. Jenny was a smart woman; she could handle the invoicing and scheduling, and Duane might make a good foreman for the men on the floor. That would work.

The thought of the Adirondack chairs he’d made last winter weighed heavily on Adam’s mind. They’d never sit in a yard overlooking the lake now. Hell, Jenny might not even know they were in that far corner of the warehouse.

Not that it mattered. He couldn’t build anymore, so it didn’t make sense to add the deck chairs or tables to the plan. And it certainly didn’t make sense to add in the other expansion plans.

He stared out the window for a long time. Those plans were part of the past. This list was about moving forward. He had to let those plans go, just like he was letting Jenny go. He glanced at the paper again then tore it from the notebook and stared at it. While he’d been thinking about those chairs and his old plans, he’d drawn a laundry storage unit. Four units. He’d drawn his personal symbol for cherry wood as the links between the different bags. Jenny like cherry the best.

Adam wadded up the paper and wrote the number 1 on a clean sheet. She already knew about the invoicing and bookkeeping, and the business was on solid financial ground. Maybe he should make getting his parents out of Buchanan’s the first thing on the list. He’d figure out how later.

What were some other things he could do? School runs would clear out a little more time from her day. Maybe cook a few meals. She had a shelf full of recipe books—they couldn’t be that hard to follow.

He needed something bigger, though. Something that would really show her he was making good changes in his life. There was always that service dog place. Adam cringed at the thought. A service dog was permanent.

The pen hovered over the page for a long moment, and before he could talk himself out of it, Adam scribbled it down on the list. Service dog.

It was the last thing he wanted.

It was what Jenny wanted, though.

He couldn’t stop staring at the wadded-up sheet. He sat like that for a long time, staring at it and the new list. Thinking about his old life, telling himself it was time to embrace the new. Jenny. Frankie. Garrett. They deserved new.

Slowly, Adam smoothed out the wadded-up paper. He’d certainly screwed up their lives, way more than they deserved.

He read over the first thing on his list: fix things so he could let them go. That was what he had to do.

Then something on the original sheet caught his eye. Beside the hamper he’d drawn were the words Get My Family Back.

Adam closed his eyes. His brain kept telling him his family deserved more, deserved better. But his heart... His heart wanted them back.

* * *

“YOU’RE LEAVING? IT’S barely eleven.” Nancy sat behind a broad, built-in desk that Owen had installed when they first turned the second floor of the old warehouse into offices for the business. She’d tied her bobbed hair, streaked with silver and white, at her nape and wore an orange-and-green-striped polo with her denim capris. She held the phone in her hand and scribbled something on a notepad beside her.

“I have a lunch meeting.” Self-consciously, Jenny swiped a hand at her naturally curly hair. When was the last time she’d had it trimmed? She couldn’t remember. The past few months she’d taken to simply pulling it back into a ponytail. Today it hung just past her shoulders. Maybe she would stop by the house to pick up a hair tie. She didn’t want to look like Little Orphan Annie or something for these meetings. The first was important to keep the business going, and the second important for future growth. For the plans Adam—No, the plans she had for Buchanan’s. She waved the clipboard of papers. “Two, actually.”

“At eleven? You don’t usually eat lunch until noon.”

True enough, but she wasn’t technically eating now. She just needed to get through coffee with the construction company representative so that she could meet with the Springfield distributor at Rock Pizza at twelve-thirty. Her fight with Adam this morning made one thing crystal clear: she had to take her life back.

Adam didn’t care about the business, which left its stability in her hands. This was one ball she was not going to drop. She had the designs that he’d come up with last winter, and the guys in the shop could put some sample pieces together from that. Adam might not want to move forward, but she still wanted to make Buchanan’s more than a cabinet shop.

“I didn’t have breakfast this morning,” she lied. “And I have a meeting right after, so I won’t be back in the office until at least two. I’ll have my cell phone if you need me.” Not that Nancy would call.

“We haven’t spoken since yesterday afternoon. There are things we need to discuss.”

“Like you leaving me to answer phone calls so you could do the laundry for Adam?” Jenny shook her head. “There is nothing to talk about.”

“Adam is sick. You can’t expect him to become a housewife just because you’re working now.”

Jenny gripped the clipboard tighter. She skipped over the Adam-as-a-housewife bit because that would lead to more than the two minutes she had before leaving for the first meeting. “I’ve been working at Buchanan’s since I was eighteen. First, answering phones like you’ve always done. When you and Owen retired, I took on a larger role. This is our company, and I’ll run it the best way I know how.”

“Buchanan’s is fine just the way it is.”

“Buchanan’s could be more than a cabinet shop. Adam wanted it to be more—”

“That was before he got sick.” Nancy’s words were staccato, but Jenny refused to flinch.

“Adam isn’t sick. He doesn’t have a cold or the flu. He has epilepsy, and it may never go away. He has to learn to deal with that.”

“By doing your laundry?”

“No.” Jenny put her hand on Nancy’s and felt a slight tremor from the older women. “By showing him that he can still do whatever he wants to do.”

“He can’t operate the machinery here.”

“He can still design.”

“He can’t drive.”

“He can walk.” Jenny squeezed her mother-in-law’s hand. “He isn’t an invalid, and you running to his rescue when he calls isn’t helping.”

“I just...” She cut her eyes to the big window that looked out over the warehouse floor below. Owen would be down there with the employees, working on cabinet runs and packing up trucks for shipments. “We just want him to be Adam again.”

A half smile slid over Jenny’s mouth. “So do I, but he has to want it, too. Right now, he just wants to quit.”

“And you think when I went over to fix the laundry situation, I let him quit?”

“He knows how to use Google to figure out the best bait for walleye, and to look up woodworking videos. I’m sure he could have figured out how to get those color runs out of a few shirts.”

Jenny swallowed. She should tell Nancy that she’d asked Adam to move out, should tell her about the problems the boys were having. Nancy doted on her grandsons as much as she had doted on Adam and Aiden when they were little; she might understand better where Adam’s mind was if she could see the impact he was having on their children.

Telling her, though, would be a betrayal of her husband. He didn’t want to be seen as weak or injured. He wanted all of this to go away. Putting Nancy on his case might only serve to make him retreat even further into himself. Jenny couldn’t bear to see him fade away any more. She couldn’t live with him, not this way, but that didn’t mean she wanted him to completely disappear from her life. So she held back the words.

“I appreciate that you tried to help him, but maybe the next time he calls, you let him figure it out for himself.” She checked her watch. Fifteen minutes until coffee with the contractor. She needed to hurry. “I’ll be back after two. Phone me if you need anything,” she called over her shoulder as she hurried down the stairs leading to the street.

It took only a couple minutes to walk to the coffee shop, The Good Cuppa, downtown. Jenny ordered an iced coffee with extra ice before choosing a table in the corner. The contractor, a man in his midfifties, hiding a spare tire beneath his navy polo, arrived a few minutes later. He ordered black coffee, and when he got to the table, added four sugars to it.

“I thought Adam might make it,” Leo McCartney said.

“He had another commitment.” Funny how easy it was to lie for her husband. Jenny pushed that thought out of her mind to focus on the contract at hand. “I worked up a few numbers on what we can provide your company. You know we do the design, and build on an individual basis, so our costs will be higher than those companies who offer prefabricated cabinetry.”

McCartney flipped through the pages as he spoke. “My clients want economical, but they’re will to pay for quality products. Cherry and mahogany, oak.”

“We are familiar with all the best woods. Last winter, the design team tested out bamboo. We aren’t quite ready with that option, but we’re getting there.”

McCartney sat back in his chair. “I like a prepared contact. I know about Adam’s, ah, problems.”

“He is still very involved.” Jenny squeezed her hands together in her lap at yet another lie that slipped from her lips so easily. “Before the accident, we had divided the work. He built and designed, I handled contracts. Nothing has changed.” Nothing except everything. Nothing was the same as it had been before the tornado in May, but if it took another year, she would stabilize her life. The business. The boys’ outlooks.

“I’ll take this to my office manager—” Leo grinned “—who also happens to be my wife. I’m sure she’ll be as pleased as I am.” He stuck his hand out and Jenny took it. “I’ll be in touch.”

When the older man had gone, Jenny sat back in her chair and closed her eyes. Step one in her plan to get the business back on track was complete. Leo McCartney was one of the best builders in their part of the state. He handled contracts for subdivisions as well as single builds. Partnering with him would lead to more contracts. A stronger profit margin. More financial stability for the boys would be important if—no, when—Adam moved out.

Now, she just needed her meeting with the Springfield distributor to go as well. She finished her coffee as she went over the proposal one more time.

* * *

ADAM’S ARMS WERE TIRED. He didn’t think he’d expended this much energy since...well, since he’d been in high school. After taking the boys to school and stopping in at the coffee shop, he’d wheeled himself to the police station to see his friend James, who hadn’t been in the office. So he’d continued to the new grandstand area, which had been built after the tornado decimated much of the downtown. It was impressive.

Several of his employees had worked on the project, and from what he could see from the outside, they’d done good work. The live oak that Collin Tyler and Savannah Walters had planted soon after the dedication of the grandstand looked good, too. The two of them had placed a plaque, too, which read, “The strength to rebuild is one of the finest acts of courage.”

Adam cringed as the words circled his mind. Walking away might not be courageous, but he would make sure Jenny and Frankie and Garrett would be okay before he bowed out of their lives.

He blew out a breath when he reached the corner of the street. All this wandering, which would have taken him an hour, max, before the accident, had taken closer to three, and he was starving. For a moment he considered going to Buchanan’s to see if Jenny wanted to have lunch.

Not the best idea, after this morning when she’d suggested he move out. He didn’t think a quick pop-in for lunch would help that situation. On the next block, Rock Pizza’s sign beckoned, as did the smell of baking pizza. The growl from his stomach shocked him. It had taken a while to regain his appetite after leaving the hospital, but most of the time he still ate out of necessity, not for enjoyment.

A truck honked from the street and he raised his hand in a wave. Calvin Harris, an older gentleman who ran a dog school near Walters Ranch, stuck his arm out the truck window as he passed. A few minutes later, Adam made it to Rock Pizza, a fine sheen of sweat covering his face and rivulets running down his back. He was tempted to leave the chair, just to give his back a break from the vinyl covering. If something happened, though, it would be better to be safely sitting. He reached for the door handle and froze.

Jenny sat at a table inside with a man Adam didn’t recognize. A handsome man. He forgot about food and simply stared. What about her having no time to do her job because his parents were messing things up? This didn’t look like work to him. Which left one explanation: this was the real reason she had asked him to move out. Because she was ready to move on. It made much more sense than the idea of his doing laundry sending her over the edge.