Читать книгу The Breaking Point - Mariella Starr - Страница 7

The next couple of days were busy. Taking time away from his company involved a lot of planning. Ales had been run ragged after taking time off to be at the hospital with Faith. There were a lot of details that had to be arranged, but he was determined. Right now, his wife needed him, and he needed to extend as much effort into his marriage as he’d been giving his business for the past several years. He was in daily contact with Jill, but the news of his wife’s continued depression wasn’t reassuring.

The move wasn’t permanent, but he still needed to rent a small U-Haul. His truck didn’t have a hatch to cover the bed, and he didn’t think it would hold all they were taking with them. He needed to take his computers. He wasn’t going to return to Cumberland for a while, but he would be in contact with his business partner, and some of his clients.

Ricco managed to accumulate quite a pile of his things that he wanted to take with him. Boys came with bikes and scooters, and an assortment of sports accessories of balls, bats and safety equipment. They all had bikes, but in the past few years, his and Faith’s bicycles had been hung on racks in the garage and never been taken down since. The family jaunts they’d enjoyed had become non-existent.

Ales stood in the garage looking at those bikes, and he was glad he’d sent his son over to Carrie’s house to play with his cousins. Maybe it was his Italian heritage, what Faith teased him about–his machismo. He didn’t want his son to see him crying.

Faith’s breaking point had been the destruction of her art. Ales’ was realizing that his marriage had been slowly deteriorating, and he’d been too full of himself to notice. As his architecture firm had grown, he’d begun to spend more and more of his time at the office. He had attended his business, but he’d lost focus with his family. As time at the office became more valuable, his time with Faith and Ricco had been sacrificed. He habitually missed their sit-down dinners, a tradition Faith had instituted early in their marriage, as a time to talk, exchange ideas, and make plans.

Ales leaned against the wall of the garage and banged his head against the boards, and then he slowly slid to the garage floor and buried his face into his folded arms. He was remembering all the missed cues, and his decisions weighed heavily on him, and against him. He heard the footsteps of John Vantana, his brother-in-law, but he couldn’t raise his face to greet his friend. John settled on the floor beside him.

“Sorry,” Ales said, swiping at his face with his sleeve.

“No, problem, man,” John said matter-of-factly. “We all have to let loose, sooner or later. One of the bad things about being a firefighter is seeing people fall apart under stress. One of the good things is seeing the look of hope in their eyes when they realize if all their family members survived, they have all that matters.”

“I don’t want to lose Faith,” Ales said in a choked voice.

“Then don’t,” John said bluntly. “Change what needs to be fixed. We’ve all been through some rough patches. You have to pay attention, figure out what’s not working and fix it. Giving up is not an option. Working firefighter shifts is hard on Carrie and the kids, and I reluctantly and stupidly came to realize that while I might be saving the lives of strangers, my wife and kids were suffering.

“I was the all-around jock. I was in a baseball league, a bowling league, and even with all that, I was spending every spare minute with my buddies, and not with my family. I didn’t get smacked in the face until I came home one day, and Carrie had packed my stuff, and set it outside. She told me to go live with my male friends, and play my games because she and my kids were used to living without a husband and father.

“I didn’t realize what I was doing to my family until it was almost too late. That’s how my father raised my brothers and me and I thought that was the way men should act. The problem is that we can’t act like our fathers. When Carrie packed my bags and my toys and told me to get out, I got a lesson in reality slammed over my head.”

John gave his head a scratch. “I didn’t learn all this great wisdom on my own dear brother-in-law. Carrie dragged me kicking and screaming to a marriage counselor. But, what he taught us works.

“Our family has a bigger problem than most, and it’s called Cybil. She’s probably not the sum total of what has gone wrong in your marriage, but she has contributed heavily to it. Carrie and I were talking about this situation last night after you called. After your dad retired, he couldn’t seem to control your mother anymore, and since he died, your mother has gone plum nuts.

“We gave Cybil an ultimatum about nine months ago. We told Cybil that she was not going to run roughshod over us any longer. Mack and Jill did it a couple of years ago, and it worked for them. Knowing Mack, he wasn’t as diplomatic in his approach as we tried to be.

“We set up our parameters. Your mother can’t come into our home unless she is invited, and she’ll remain there, only if she behaves. When she starts her crap, we ask her to leave. It’s not a nice way to treat her, but your mother doesn’t understand boundaries, and trying to be nice to her doesn’t work. She seems to think it’s her way or no way, and we’re not willing to accept that any longer.

“We’re not trying to dump the responsibility of your mother solely on you, but we’ve made the decision that our family and our marriage has to come first. Even as adults, we can only be expected to take so much. You should know something else. Cybil has been acting crazy for years, but Jill and Carrie have reason to believe that she’s a closet alcoholic.”

“Drinking? Mom doesn’t drink, except at social gatherings!” Ales said.

“You may have to rethink that. Mrs. Nordstrom, your mother’s neighbor, says otherwise. Cybil has been hiding liquor bottles in her neighbor’s trash. She denies it, but the neighbors say they’ve caught her doing it. Apparently, it’s been going on for a long time. When Mrs. Nordstrom’s kids accused her of drinking, she decided it was time to complain.”

“Damn, I don’t have time to deal with this, on top of everything else,” Ales swore.

John got to his feet and offered his hand to his brother-in-law to pull him upright. We know that, and that’s why you’re off the hook. Your sisters and their worthless husbands – that’s a direct quote according to your mother – are going to handle it. Take the whole matter off your radar for now, because we have some investigating to do. If what we suspect is true, we need proof. Then we’ll take on Cybil.

“Jill is taking Cybil to a hair appointment this Wednesday, and while she’s gone, Carrie and I are going to go through every nook and cranny in her house, and we’re going to talk to that day nurse we hired too. Mrs. Braycroft was helping, and in Cybil’s home for over a week. She might have witnessed the drinking. That’s our starting point, so don’t sweat it, at least for now.

“Come on, let’s get busy. I have about two hours of free time. Then, I need to kiss my wife and kids, tell them I love them, and report for duty. What do you need help loading?”

Ales and John loaded and hitched the U-Haul trailer to Ales’ truck. He and Ricco would leave in the morning. Hancock was thirty-eight miles east of Cumberland and the U-Haul would protect everything if it started raining, as was forecasted.

Hancock was one of the oldest settlements in Western Maryland, founded and named after an American Revolution hero who fought alongside George Washington. The small Maryland town was located at the narrowest part of the state. The north-south distance from the Pennsylvania state line to the West Virginia state line was less than two miles. The entire town consisted of less than three miles of land, and part of that was underwater.

It was still a small town, and it hadn’t changed much since the area had played an integral role in the Civil War. General Stonewall Jackson had laid siege to Hancock, and tried to ransom the small town back to the Union army. The ransom was never paid, as Hancock had been a primary location that was fought for by both sides, considering the Pennsylvania Mason-Dixon border separated the North from the South. The small canal town had been used as a staging area for supplies by the Confederacy, determined to cross the narrow strip of Maryland to invade Pennsylvania.

Faith had been raised in Hancock, the daughter of the town grocer, whose ancestors had handed down the family business to the next generation for a century and a half. Her father had sold the grocery to a franchise market when she had entered college. He hadn’t wanted his only child to feel pressured to take over a business when she had no interest in it.

His wife didn’t have any family left, except some very distant cousins. She still owned the family home in Hancock. Ales remembered when they had reached a stage when they could afford to buy a home. She had wanted to return to Hancock. Her parents had been alive then, and Faith had been a stay-at-home mom with one-year-old Ricco. She’d wanted to raise Ricco around his loving grandparents.

Ales had vetoed the idea, not wanting to commute the forty miles to his fledgling business. Now, with both her parents gone, he realized she must resent the time she’d lost with them, because of his decision.

He wasn’t keeping a scorecard, but Ales was experiencing an awakening. How many times had he overridden his wife’s concerns about different things? How many times had he ignored her opinions and assumed he knew what was best for their family, especially when the decision made was tilted in his favor? Looking back, he had to admit many of his decisions were based on what he wanted, and as the head of his family, he’d decided it was his decision to make them. That wasn’t how a responsible Head of House was supposed to act.

Faith was a peacemaker. She rarely made a fuss, or dug in her heels and refused to budge. She was standing her ground now, and she wasn’t giving an inch. She had tried to do it several times when they’d had to deal with his mother. Each time, he had overridden her wishes, and their home had been turned into a battle zone by the irritability of Cybil Benedetti. Ales had thought he was helping his mother, but he hadn’t been the one dealing with her. When Faith had complained, he’d shrugged it off.

For the first time in many years, Ales was unsure of himself. He didn’t know if his wife would even allow him in her house. She would love having Ricco, but his welcome was uncertain. She might slam the door in his face. It would piss him off, but he wouldn’t blame her.

Faith wouldn’t have been in the accident if he hadn’t told his mother she could stay with them for a week or two until she was on her feet again. His wife’s art wouldn’t have been destroyed. Faith had reached a breaking point, and he couldn’t blame anyone but himself.

Unable to sleep, Ales went into his office. He was viewing everything now from a different perspective. He’d promised the office to Faith, told her he would turn into a studio when they had been shown the house. The mid-century modern had appealed to his architectural eye. Faith’s choice had been a larger house with more rooms and in need of more renovations. He’d made an offer on the mid-century modern house without discussing it with her, and even after one hell of a fight, he had refused to rescind the offer.

They hadn’t turned the office into a studio. Faith had worked in the garage with inadequate lighting, heat and air conditioning for several years.

He remembered now, that when their finances had stabilized enough to begin renovations, his wife had shown very little interest. She had gone along with most of his suggestions. When she had wanted to turn the family room into a studio, he had vetoed the idea, claiming they needed the space as a family hangout when they watched television. Translated that meant, he needed the area for his large flat-screen TV so he could watch his sports games.

If he remembered correctly, and he did, it had been one of the few times in their married life that his wife had done what she wanted to do. She’d hired a carpenter, and when he’d returned home one day, the work had already been started. He also remembered the fight they’d had over it. He’d been angry for weeks, and he was just beginning to realize how unfair, he’d become in their marriage. As the head of the house, he had the upper hand, but he’d been wielding his position selfishly.

Ales turned on Faith’s computer, a laptop sitting on a small desk space in the kitchen. Another of his inequities came to life and slapped at him. He had a full set-up in his office of the most sophisticated equipment available, and the programs he needed to use if he decided to work at home. She had a laptop sitting on a thirty-six-inch desk built into an alcove off the kitchen.

With his stomach churning, Ales logged onto Amazon. There was a long list in Faith’s Buy Again area, and he ordered multiples of her supplies—what she would have purchased to replenish an entire studio. He didn’t know how long she or they would be living in Hancock, but he knew Faith. She needed to create. She needed a studio there. He had the art supplies sent to the Hancock house address.

“Is Mom going to be surprised?” Ricco asked for about the tenth time, as they turned onto the street where Faith’s family had lived for a century and a half.

“Absolutely,” Ales said. “She’ll be over the moon to see you.”

“Did we bring my skateboard?” Ricco asked.

“No, I removed it from the trailer,” Ales admitted. “These hills are too steep for you to be trying to skateboard on them. After you get used to these mountains, maybe we’ll bring it here. There will be new rules going into place about your bike and scooter use too. We don’t need any more broken arms or legs. Mom’s injuries are enough for us to have to deal with, so no crazy stunts. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” Ricco said, although he looked disappointed.

“We’re six blocks from the canal park, and there are plenty of paved paths for bikers and skaters and joggers there,” Ales assured his son.

The hill was steep, yet the houses had been tiered up the street, the lots leveled if possible. Front yards were narrow, having been pushed back when paved roads replaced dirt roads built wide enough to accommodate horse and buggy transportation. There were narrow sidewalks, and street parking as driveways and garages were at the rear of the properties, accessed from narrow gravel-covered alleys. Most of the garages were converted carriage houses, sheds, or small barns that had housed cows and horses. A lot of the old houses still had chicken coops, and it was still legal to keep chickens in town. Most people didn’t bother and found other uses for the buildings.

Jill had parked her car above the house, and enough people had left for work to clear a space big enough for Ales to pull his truck, with the U-Haul straight in tight against the curb. The Murphy house was three-stories, with a Victorian mansard roof and a towered Welsh spire. The windows were tall, and the arched transom windows above every window were stained glass. The Victorian decoration, the gingerbread ornamentation, and the layered fanciful shingles were from another era. The prior generations of Murphys had taken pride in the house, and it was on the Hancock Historical Walking Tour. He’d never denied the house had charm and character.

Still, there were ten steps from the sidewalk to the yard, a thirty-foot walk to another twelve steps up to the front porch. Once you entered the front door, you were faced with a two-story winding stairway, and each landing was graced with a crystal chandelier. There were eight large rooms in the house and four small ones. There was a powder room on the first floor, tucked under the stairwell, and luxurious bathrooms, on the second and third floors, although they were shared bathrooms for each level.

Ales checked and rechecked the emergency brake, leaving the truck and opening the passenger side for Ricco so the heavy door wouldn’t slam shut on him. All of Hancock was hills and mountains. The deep valleys between them were where the historic canal had accessed the Potomac River. The C&O Canal was now a historical National Park.

Jill answered the door and hugged her brother and nephew. “Go on in, Faith is in the sunroom.”

Ricco ran ahead, as Jill and Ales heard Faith’s excited voice. When they reached the doorway, she was smiling, and Ricco was hugging her.

“Easy,” Ales said. “Remember, she’s still sore.”

Faith looked to the doorway and saw her husband, and she smiled at Ales, too. He looked worried, as she thought he should. She was feeling better, and she’d had a few weeks to work through her thoughts. She didn’t count the weeks she’d spent in the hospital or most of the following one. She hadn’t been able to string two thoughts together cohesively during that part of her recovery.

She and Ales had come to an impasse in their marriage. She wasn’t sure of any solutions yet, but she was hoping their years together, eleven in marriage, wouldn’t be lost.

Jill came to the doorway, smiling at her nephew. “What? I don’t get any attention from one of my favorite boys, and I baked chocolate chip cookies?”

“Cool, my favorite!” Ricco exclaimed. He kissed his mother and then ran to his aunt and hugged her.

Jill winked at Faith and gave her brother a shove further into the room.

Ales stood drinking in the sight of his wife. She looked so much better than when he’d seen her last. “Am I welcome?”

Faith nodded, and he walked over to the divan and sat beside her. He looked her over carefully. “The stitches are gone,” he said, raising his hand to her forehead, but not touching the still raw-looking hash marks at her hairline.

“They were taken out last week,” Faith said. “They said it wouldn’t hurt, but they lied!”

“How are you?” he asked.

“Better,” Faith said.

“I’m scared, Faith. I don’t think there’s any other word that describes what I’ve felt since you left. I don’t want to lose you. I love you.”

“Do you?” Faith asked. “We’ve been on different paths for quite some time. I’m not sure we can fix what needs to be fixed.”

“We can fix it,” Ales insisted. “I know you’re still hurting and upset. Please, stop shaking your head. We have to work through this. I can’t bear the idea of losing you because of my stupidity. The last couple of weeks have been a major wake-up call for me.”

“I’m not so sure,” Faith said. “I can’t remember when things began to shift. I think it started when Ricco was little when I was staying home and not working. I don’t know when I started closing myself off with resentment, but it’s been growing. You’ve been wrong about things, but I’ve been wrong too. I should have stood up to you more, fought for what was important to me instead of letting that resentment fester.”

“My mother,” Ales said, but she shook her head.

“She is a discussion we will have, but not today,” Faith said wearily. “There is a great deal, I have to say about that situation, but I’m not strong enough to face it yet. Thinking about Cybil, and what she did, throws me into an angry funk.”

Ales nodded. “I am sorry for so many things. I don’t know when my ego started getting in the way of our relationship.”

“I do,” Faith said with a quirk of her lips that was almost a smile. “I’ll tell you too, but not just yet. How long are you staying today? Can you leave Ricco here for a few days?”

“Ricco can stay, and I’d like to stay too. I’ve cleared my schedule for a month,” Ales said.

“What?” Faith exclaimed in surprise. “Summer is your busiest time!”

“A full month,” Ales said. “You’re on medical leave, and Frostburg has already hired a replacement teacher to take over your summer class. Tyrell and I hired a young architect we’ve been working with as a subcontractor. You’ve met him, Andrew Chevron. He’s talented, and he’ll be working the day-to-day jobs with Tyrell. I may have to check on the designs occasionally, but I can do that from here. I swear I won’t go near my computer until after you are asleep unless I get a call that one of our buildings is collapsing.”

Faith shook her head. “You can’t do it, Ales. I know you.”

“Yes, I can, and I will,” he said firmly. “We need time, Faith, and if it takes longer, I’ll give you longer. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make our marriage solid again. We made promises to each other.”

“Some problems are beyond fixing,” she said.

“I can’t listen to talk like that,” Ales said. “You’re my wife, and we will work on fixing what is broken! All we need is time and compromise.”

“A lot of compromise,” Faith said. “And, I’m not going to be the one doing all of it. Are you sure you’ve thought this through?”

“Yes, I have,” Ales said. “Ricco and I need to be here with you. You need to talk, and I need to listen. I needed this kick in the ass. There are so many things that I haven’t even bothered to discuss with you. I assumed I knew what was best for our family. I think I was channeling my father, but that’s not going to work for us.” Ales gave Faith a stern look. “This doesn’t mean you get to run over me. I’m still me, and my beliefs are still the same, but we need to start acting like a couple again, a team that is working together.”

“Does Ricco want to return to the camp?” Faith asked.

Ales shook his head. He started to speak, and his voice broke. “Baseball camp is one more item on a long list of my failures. You said to wait until he was ten, and let him make that decision. I sent him to camp because he was the best in his Little League.

“Ricco loves to play baseball, but he’d rather be playing in his Little League. He hates being one of the youngest kids at camp, and he was being picked on. He cried when he told me.” Ales got to his feet and walked over to stare through the window. When he looked over his shoulder at his wife, there were tears in his eyes. “I’m the one who should have been in that accident. Maybe a hard whack on my head would have knocked some sense into me sooner.

“I sent our son to an environment where he was being bullied because of my ego. Because my son being good wasn’t enough for me! I had to try to make him the best! What’s wrong with me?”

Faith got to her feet slowly as she did these days. She went to her husband and circled her arms around him, laying her face against his back. The feel and smell of him were comforting. Ales had his faults, but so did she.

“Ales, you can’t take on all the blame,” Faith said. “You are responsible for a lot, but I haven’t been perfect either, and Ricco should have told us. If his allegations of being bullied are true, we’ll have a sit-down with the camp supervisors and tell them what is what. We both need to listen more and pay attention to his needs, as well as our own.”

“Dad!” Ricco was at the doorway to the sunroom. “Come on! We have a U-Haul to unload!” He disappeared when Jill called for him.

Ales turned and wrapped his arms around her. “Are we staying?”

Faith nodded and smiled. “I guess so if you went to all the trouble of renting a U-Haul. This was another decision you made without talking to me, but I’ll forgive you for this one. I’ve missed both of you so much. I’m still angry about a lot of things, and you being here for a month may not resolve all our issues, but we can try to get to the bottom of a lot of them!”

“I thank you, and Mack will thank you. Jill is going to have a stroke when she sees what they’ve done to her house. I should call and warn him that she’s coming home. Maybe he can get a maid service in there fast.”

Faith smiled. “I think he’s already been warned. I walked in on the tail end of a conversation this morning, and Jill was saying, “My house had better be as clean now, as it was when I left, or you’ll be sleeping on the couch!”

Ales smiled. “Machismo runs in our family, even to my sister. Oh, I forgot…” He reached into his jacket pocket and handed her a cell phone. “Mack and I went to the junkyard where your car was towed. The guy who runs the place has a reputation for being honest, and he personally goes through the cars and stores the personal belongings under lock and key until someone retrieves them. We found your purse. There’s still money in your wallet, and your credit cards are there. We didn’t find your phone, so I went to the phone store, and they transferred all your data and contacts from your old phone to this one.”

Faith turned her new phone on and closed her eyes at the number of unanswered calls. “It will take me a month to work through all these,” she complained.