Читать книгу His Best Friend's Baby - Molly O'Keefe - Страница 9

CHAPTER FOUR

JULIA INSISTED on doing the dinner dishes that night and spent a long time with her hands in the warm soapy water, washing Agnes’s great-grandmother’s china.

Her fingers traced the faded vine around the edge of a dinner plate and she tried to imagine owning something so old. So precious. There was such a feeling of solidity and permanence in this house that she craved to be a part of.

She put Ben to sleep after finishing the dishes and Agnes retired a few hours later, declaring herself pooped. But Julia was too awake to go to bed. In Germany she’d put Ben in daycare three days a week for two hours because she’d been worried that seeing only her day in, day out would stunt him in some way—make him a social outcast in kindergarten. So while he’d learned to share toys with other kids, Julia had taken long runs to drive out her worry, to banish her fears. It seemed a good tactic to use now.

“I am going to go for a walk,” she told Ron, who read in his easy chair. He and Agnes had accepted Julia so quickly, had taken care of her and Ben so readily, that she felt a little blank. What am I supposed to do? she wondered. She wanted so badly to believe that this comfort and family was real. Was hers. She could settle in, put her feet up and stop treading water. But part of her was still braced—ready for the rejection she still wasn’t entirely convinced wasn’t going to come.

“Ben is out like a light,” she said assuring Ron that she wasn’t going to run out and leave him to entertain her toddler.

“Of course, Julia, it’s a lovely night,” he said with a smile. “Grab my sweater there at the door.”

She took the beige cardigan, then stepped outside. The cool twilight embraced her as she admired the low stucco homes that made up the neighborhood. The sweet scent of night-blooming jasmine filled the air and somewhere nearby a dog barked and another answered. Julia gave herself a moment to imagine a life here. A family. Ben and a dog and a man who was honorable. Everything that she’d thought was possible when she married Mitch.

Mitch had loved New Springs—or at least his boyhood. That had been part of the attraction for Julia at first, what drew her to him like metal shavings to a magnet. He’d seemed so grounded, so focused. He’d told her all about this beautiful, fairytale-childhood with adoring parents and a best friend with whom he’d gotten into nothing but trouble.

Jesse.

More importantly, Mitch had claimed to want to recreate that experience with his own family—right down to the best friend and the trouble. She almost laughed at the spectacular failure he had made of that.

She remembered everything Jesse and Mitch had talked about that night in Germany. Every word was imprinted on her, including the directions for the shortcut between Mitch’s home and Jesse’s.

In this foreign territory, she longed for a trace of something familiar, even if it were only a tidbit from a story she’d heard months ago.

It had not been her intention to seek out Jesse’s house when she set out for her walk. But standing on the sidewalk with nowhere to go, her heart became a compass.

She looked around to get her bearings. Mitch’s street ended in a forested dead end and she walked toward it, then cut left across one dark lawn and another before finally jumping over a ditch to arrive at the next street. She turned right and saw a small house on the corner with a broken front window.

Jesse’s childhood home. Interior lamps cast a shallow pool of light on the porch through the damaged glass and a ladder leaned against the side of the house.

Her heart faltered, her breath clogged in her throat. Her skin pricked as blood rushed through her veins and the world seemed to swim.

Someone was home.

The house surely belongs to someone else now, she told herself, but her feet suddenly had wings. She crossed the street, hoping that somehow Jesse was there. The sidewalk ended abruptly and she stood on the grass in front of the house.

On the porch, a man sat in a rocking chair with his head in his hands. She couldn’t see his face, but chills ran down her arms, across her chest.

He leaned back in his chair, resting his head so he could look up at the sky. The light from the house that fell through the broken window illuminated part of his face—a long straight nose, and a strong chin, hair that gleamed black.

Jesse.

He was here.

She could have dissolved with relief while joy and hope nearly lifted her off her feet.

A dog lying beside him lifted his nose and barked once.

“Rachel?” Jesse said, but his voice was a harsh whisper, practically a growl, and Julia realized he stared at where she stood in the shadows.

He laughed, a weary broken chuckle and again something stirred in her memory. “Just come out, Rach. I’m too tired for this.”

“I’m not Rachel,” she said as she crossed the dark lawn. She took a step into the pool of light and smiled. “Hello, Jesse.”

He stood quickly and the chair tipped sideways. He took a lurching step to the left and looked as though he were going to fall, so Julia leaped forward to help him, but he caught himself against the railing.

“Is this a joke?” he barked.

JESSE BLINKED and shook his head, horrified that the pain meds had managed to crack the lock on this particular fantasy.

Julia Adams.

Close enough to touch. Her short blond hair gleamed in the low light and her skin looked like velvet, cream velvet.

No wonder people get addicted to these drugs. He wondered what he could do with this vision, if he could spend the rest of his life high enough to keep seeing this woman.

“Jesse?” She put her hand on his arm and the touch of her cool skin against his overheated flesh slammed him back to reality.

He pulled away, limping backward, his fantasy now a nightmare. “What are you doing here?”

Her brow furrowed. “I’m, ah,” she stuttered and wrapped an oversized brown sweater around her lithe body, as though it would provide protection against him. “Ben and I are visiting Mitch’s parents.”

Ben. Right. The kid. Mitch’s kid. Another life he’d ruined.

“What are you doing here?” His voice grated through his throat—every effort to talk hurt. The doctor had told him he shouldn’t overwork his damaged larynx. He wondered what the good doctor would think if he started screaming. “On my porch.”

Rachel. The house. And now this.

“I was just out for a walk—I—Jesse?” She smiled, clearly trying to get this little reunion back on track. “I can’t believe that you’re here. This is amazing.”

She took a step toward him, her hand out. But if she touched him, he would shatter. He took another staggering step backward.

“Are you okay?” she asked, her head tilted in concern.

“Fine,” he lied quickly, not wanting to see her concern turn to pity. “I’m drunk,” he lied.

“Jesse,” she whispered, her smile hesitant and somehow beseeching. He knew what she wanted. She wanted him to remember what he was trying so hard to forget.

He made the mistake of looking into her endless blue eyes and he saw exactly what he had seen when he met her for the first time.

A million missed opportunities. A thousand unanswered prayers and unspoken wishes.

He’d been kicked in the gut when Mitch opened that door and introduced the woman of Jesse’s dreams as his own wife.

And now fate had brought her here to finish Jesse off.

Just in time, the drugs kicked in with a vengeance, the world wavered and he felt himself sliding along with it, carried on the sudden wave of painlessness.

“Sit down,” she urged, picking up the rocker he’d knocked over.

Defeated by the pain meds and the appearance of every damn ghost he was trying to outrun, he dropped into the old wooden chair like a stone.

“Last I heard you were still in the hospital,” she said, once he was seated.

“I left two weeks ago,” he whispered.

“Are you okay—I mean, all right? Your knee and—”

“I’m fine.”

She smiled and then laughed nervously. The sound lifted him up, made him weightless.

I’m doing better than Mitch, he thought just to remind himself who was the bad guy in this scene.

“Do you mind if I sit? Just for a minute.”

He couldn’t say no. She was the way she’d been in Germany—so hungry for company that she’d sit down with the devil just for some conversation.

He simply nodded, worried that if he opened his mouth, words he barely allowed himself to think would fly out.

When she sat on the step and wrapped the sweater around her legs, resting her chin on her knees, Jesse let himself go. He let go of all the mistakes he had made and the ghosts that were catching up with him. He left the broken and battered shell of his body and allowed himself to be a man on a porch enjoying the evening with the woman of his dreams. He let possibility and hope hover close. The what-ifs he refused to think about settled on his shoulders like snow.

What if she were here to give him a second chance? What if life weren’t as cruel as he had always thought? What if it were possible for him to be forgiven?

“I didn’t know you’d left Germany,” he said, engaging in conversation even though he knew it was a bad idea. He remembered everything she’d said in Germany. All the small hints and gifts of herself she’d made during those brief twenty-four hours. He knew she hated mushrooms, couldn’t sing, loved to run.

He knew she was so lonely she cried most nights.

“There was nothing keeping me there,” she sighed. “I didn’t have many friends and my mom was back and forth between Iraq and D.C., so I decided to come here.”

“Looking for a family?” he asked, the drugs making him loose and careless.

She smiled at him. “Constantly. You want to adopt us?” She joked but it fell flat in the thick air.

No, sweetheart, he thought, reminded of all the things he really wanted to do to her.

Wain stood up from his spot at Jesse’s side with a groan and shuffled over to Julia. He sniffed her, must have decided she was okay and collapsed on the step above her.

She smiled and scratched the old guy’s ears.

“Nice dog,” she said.

“He’s yours if you want him,” Jesse said, though his hand itched with a sudden desire to scratch those old ears.

Wain curled up into a ball and soon started to snore.

“Have you heard anything about Caleb?” Julia asked quietly. “I called the hospital a few times to check on him, but then I got so busy with—”

“Still in the coma.” He was reluctantly touched that she would keep tabs on the survivors of the accident that had killed her husband. Touched, but not surprised. Julia was a good person. Good in a way most people never were. In a way he never dreamed of being.

He’d stopped checking in on Caleb, mostly because he, Jesse Filmore, was a coward. He’d already killed three men in that accident, he didn’t want to know about the death of another one added to his conscience.

“I got your note,” Julia said. She referred to the stupid, morphine-induced lapse of judgment that had resulted in him asking a nurse to write a note to send to Julia. A sympathy card. He couldn’t even remember what he’d said. “It really helped.” She sighed heavily and smiled at him.

He looked away and said nothing. What could he say? I’ve thought of you every day for months. I wish I’d never met you.

“That night in Germany seems like a million years ago, doesn’t it?” She rested her cheek against her knee and watched him, her blue eyes glowing with things he refused to recognize.

Seems like yesterday, he thought but didn’t say.

“I couldn’t believe it when Mitch showed up out of the blue, and with you, no less.” She chuckled and rubbed her nose on her knee as if she were scratching an itch.

The desire to touch her was so strong he could taste it, bitter and hot in the back of his throat. Thanks to meds, everything had a rosy sort of glow, a sparkle, and she was so damn gorgeous—although she would have been so even without the effect of medication.

“We didn’t get a lot of warning about the assignment,” he told her, his tongue seeming to function its own. “It was real quick.”

“I’ll say. It was all real quick.” She sighed.

Their briefing had taken all of two days and then they were gone. And Mitch was dead. Real quick.

“We had fun though, didn’t we?” she asked.

“It was the wine,” he said, though Mitch had been the only one who’d drank it.

“It was the company. And the stories.” She pulled at a thread in the hem of the sweater. “Those stories Mitch told about you guys growing up and all the trouble you got into.”

“Mitch got us in trouble, I was just the cleanup.” The official blame-taker. No one had believed the troubled kid with the drunk for a father and everyone had believed the star football player who could always outrun the cops.

“Come on,” she teased. “Mitch said painting the water tower was your idea.”

He smiled, remembering. “Yeah, you’re right.”

There had been good times with Mitch. His wild streak had called out to Jesse’s own and in high school there was nowhere he’d rather have been than causing trouble with Mitch.

Mitch, however, had adopted that wildness as his life mission. Jesse found that, by default, he’d still been expected to clean up after his old buddy, long after the thrill had worn off for him.

She wrapped her arms around her knees and lifted her feet a little off the step so she balanced on her butt.

“Mitch told me you were a dancer,” Jesse blurted.

Julia shook her head, her eyes suddenly darker. “My husband said a lot of things…most of them not true.”

“He wasn’t known for his honesty.”

Julia’s eyes got sadder and Jesse could feel sympathy churn through his gut. The silence stretched and he watched her profile, the sweet line of her cheek, her nose. The perfect rose of her mouth. He was the only other person in the world who knew what Mitch was really like—and high on painkillers he couldn’t deny her the small bit of comfort she clearly needed.

“He was hard on the people who loved him,” he finally said.

She turned wide eyes on him. “You sound like a man with experience.” She tried to smile, but failed, and that told him so much about what being married to Mitch had cost her.

His hands itched to stroke her narrow shoulders, but not for comfort. Not as further cleanup after Mitch.

Jesse wanted to touch her for himself.

“Everybody in this town loved him, but no one knew him. There was only one guy stupid enough to be his best friend.”

She bit her lip and he wondered if he’d gone too far. If he’d read her wrong and her emotions for her husband were stronger than he thought. Maybe she didn’t know what a bastard Mitch was.

“He was pretty good at keeping the worst of himself hidden. Until it was too late.”

“Remember that when you get tired of all the Mitch stories this town can tell. These people never knew him like we knew him.”

He met her crystal gaze and they were suddenly knit together, not just by that morning in Germany, and not by the terrible, forbidden things he felt for her, but in their knowledge of Mitch Adams.

The Mitch the whole town refused to believe existed.

“I thought I married someone else,” she said. “The way he talked, I thought… Well, I thought he was a different person.”

“I understand,” he said. An expression of gratitude spread over her features.

“It’s been a long time since someone has said that to me.”

The moment stretched taut and then snapped. He looked away with a cough—hot and uncomfortable with how much he still wanted his best friend’s widow.

She laughed nervously and wiped at her eyes. “Look at me,” she said. “I arrive out of the blue to start crying on your porch.”

“Go ahead. Cry away.”

She turned aside and studied the stars while he studied her. Birds called and dogs barked and Jesse lifted himself from the chair and stupidly, foolishly, was about to lower himself onto the steps so he could touch her, smell her. Press his lips to the quick pulse that beat in her neck.

“Do you know Mitch’s parents real well?”

The air went cold, dousing the flames in him.

“Yeah.” He sat down heavily.

“What are they like?”

“They hate me,” he said, getting right to the point. “They’d hate you sitting on this porch with me.”

“Because of the accident?”

The word shattered the serene picture they made like a pane of glass. His intentions, his desire for her, turned to ash. They weren’t two strangers engaged in warm conversation, carefully scoping out the edges of their feelings for each other.

Mitch was between them. Mitch and his death and the accident.

He almost laughed. Accident? People could be so stupid. Didn’t anyone realize there were no such things as accidents?

“Among other things,” he said and shrugged.

She must blame him, at least a little, for Mitch’s death. How could she not? Her husband was dead while Jesse was alive. In his head the math was simple.

“Jesse?” She looked at him warily. The pressure in his chest grew unbearable. “That morning in Germany when you—”

“Don’t.” He groaned and shook his head. The honesty in her eyes and the ache in his chest defeated him so, like a coward, he looked away. “Don’t say anything. I’m sorry. I’m… sorry.”

“Sorry?”

He refused to look at her, willing her to get off his porch. He had been stupid to let her stay. Drugs or no drugs.

The silence built like a wall between them. Brick by brick, until he wasn’t even sure he could see her.

Finally she stood, swiped her hands over her butt and took a step toward the shadows of the lawn.

“Good night, Jesse.” She took another step, all but disappearing in the dark. “I’m so glad you’re here. I never expected a friend—”

“We’re not friends, Julia,” he said, from his side of the wall of silence and lies. “Don’t come back.”

JULIA DIDN’T SLEEP WELL. She was plagued by Jesse’s ravaged face and the sharp-fanged nightmares Mitch’s old room seemed to spark.

She had to put Mitch’s prom picture facedown in the hopes that she’d stop seeing it when she shut her eyes. But it was useless, Mitch’s ghost lived in this room, lived in these quiet moments of doubt that came at night. He mocked her and reminded her of how much she’d fallen out of love with him. Of how badly she’d wished he’d been more like Jesse.

In fact, that night in Germany with Jesse and Mitch, she’d wished he was Jesse.

And to make it all worse, there was nothing she could do to shake loose Jesse’s words. They ran on a loop whether her eyes were closed or not.

I’m sorry.

She’d carried the memory of that morning in Germany with Jesse in her heart for months. She’d lived on it when food tasted like dirt. She’d breathed it through Mitch’s funeral and through all the long nights.

And he was sorry. Sorry it ever happened.

We’re not friends. Don’t come back.

She flopped over on her back and stared up at the ceiling where the shadows of the maple branches danced and that morning rushed back to her in painful detail….

“All done,” Julia whispered to Ben. She held out her hands as if to prove she wasn’t holding anymore puréed peaches. “All gone.”

Ben mimicked her, shouting her words back to her in his gibberish.

“Sh,” she whispered. “We have to be quiet. Daddy and Jesse are sleeping.”

Jesse Filmore—the much-boasted-about friend of Mitch’s youth—slept in the living room, draped over the too-small couch. And Mitch slept on in the bedroom, smelling slightly of the wine he’d drank last night and the uncomfortable, lousy sex he’d attempted before dawn. He’d come to bed late, full of drunken apologies and tears. There’d been another girl. A reporter or a contractor or something. She’d meant nothing, he swore.

None of them meant anything.

Julia wiped Ben’s face, holding his head still so she could get the cereal from under his chin, and pulled him out of the makeshift high chair she’d rigged on the kitchen counter.

She filled his sippy cup with juice and water and walked behind him as he toddled over to the table she’d set up next to the only window in the apartment that let in the morning light.

She sat in her chair and Ben tried to pull himself up into her lap.

“Up you go,” she whispered, giving him a boost.

He repeated the tone of her voice, if not her exact words.

She had a few toys on the table and he played while she rested her chin on his head and looked out the window to the street of duplicate houses, covered in Christmas lights and snow that made up the family housing on the barracks.

Houses filled with women just like her. Alone. Lonely. Worried half the time. Scared the other half. They filled their time with book groups and sewing circles, coffee klatches and grief-counseling sessions.

She went, dragging Ben and bad pasta salad, wearing the mask of a woman still in love with her husband. She wore that mask until she thought she’d scream.

She rested her head against the window.

“Jesse,” Ben whispered and her heart squeezed tight at the mention of the handsome stranger her husband had brought home last night. It had been a surprise, not just Jesse, but Mitch’s appearance as well. She’d had no notice of their leave. No chance to prepare herself.

Not that she could have.

Not for Jesse Filmore.

He’d walked into her home, he’d shaken her hand, he’d smiled at her, played with her son. He’d even gone so far as to compliment her spaghetti and she knew she’d found the very limit to her foolish heart.

She’d watched him all night from the corner of her eye, from beneath her lashes like some lovesick teenager.

Maybe that’s what I am.

Maybe that’s what this feeling is.

He was a good man—it was the clearest thing she’d ever seen. As real as the sun behind the window. He’d walked into the room and she’d known him. Known him as though she’d been beside him his whole life. Jesse was the kind of man she’d imagined Mitch to be. The kind of man she wanted Mitch to be and it burned her like acid to have him in her house.

“Jesse,” Ben said louder and Julia turned finally to shush him, only to find Jesse standing in the doorway to the kitchen. A bright and dark angel brought into her life to remind her of the mistakes she’d made, of the things she’d never have.

His black eyes were a hot touch on her face.

She opened her mouth, but there was nothing to say. No empty chatter in her head to fill up this moment. She wanted to stay this way with this man’s eyes on her—intense and dark and so knowing she felt naked.

Ben scrambled off her lap and ran past Jesse into the TV room.

“There’s…” Her mouth was sticky, dry. But before she could try to finish her sentence Jesse crossed the kitchen in three steps, stopping only when he was right in front of her. Less than a foot away. She could have reached out to touch the hem of his gray T-shirt.

You’re married, she told herself—a stupid reminder of the vows she’d taken, binding herself to a man who had never meant them.

Jesse crouched in front of her, until his face was level with hers.

She grasped her hands in her lap until her knuckles went white.

“You deserve better,” Jesse whispered, and her lips parted on a broken breath. He reached out and his fingers, the very tips of them, brushed her face in a nearly imperceptible touch. Her cheek and the curve of her jaw. As though she were diamonds and gold to him. Precious.

She shut her eyes and hated herself for wanting him so much.

Jesse stood, jammed his fingers through his short military hair as if he wished he could pull it out.

“I can’t stay here,” he said.

Julia didn’t stop him and when she heard her front door click shut the tattered, threadbare life she’d managed to hold together split at the seams, falling in terrible ruin around her.

Julia closed her eyes wishing the memory away. Wishing it on another person. She’d arrived in New Springs looking for a family, to set down roots…and finding Jesse was like a dream come true. She was so close to all she ever wanted, only to have it ripped away.

Don’t come back here.

It’s because you expect other people to make you happy. Mitch’s voice revealed her worst fears about herself, the bitter truth she’d always suspected but never wanted to admit. You expect other people to do everything for you. You’re useless. You’re worse than useless.

The pain burrowed into her chest and made a home in the soft tissue surrounding her heart. She’d thought she was tougher than this, that Mitch’s lies and infidelity had turned her cold and hard. But she was wrong. That pain was nothing compared to what she felt right now.

Jesse’s rejection ruined her.

Such a fool. Such a sucker.

She rolled to her side and punched her pillow, trying to get comfortable. The wonderful mattress that had cradled her last night now seemed too soft. Lumpy in places. Hard in others.

You’re impossible to please. You want too much.

Ben sighed, murmured something in his sleep and rolled toward her, curving himself into her body, into that little space against her chest that had been made for him.

She had to get her act together. She had to make a life for her son. She couldn’t expect other people to help her with this anymore.

“No more,” she whispered.

What are you gonna do? Mitch’s voice asked and she could practically see his sneer, the snide superiority in his eyes that had made her feel two inches tall for most of her married life. Live off my folks? Sleep with my best friend? You heard him, he’s sorry for that morning. It was a mistake—

“No more!” she said, louder this time to shut up the voices in her head. To convince herself that she meant it.

Things were going to change.

She was going to get a job. Tomorrow. And she’d only stay with the Adamses as long as was absolutely necessary, until she’d paid off the last of Mitch’s debts and could save some money for a place of her own.

And she’d stay away from Jesse—just as he’d asked. She’d remove her heart, set it someplace else where she couldn’t feel its pain.

JESSE DIDN’T SLEEP. He was no fool, he knew the nightmares waited on the other side of consciousness. And frankly, tonight he had no taste for fire and the crash and Mitch’s knowing eyes.

He sat on the porch for a good long time, his eyes open and the image of Julia—sitting so close…right there…within arm’s reach—burned into his retinas.

He leaned his head against the old rocker he’d made in high-school shop class and imagined standing up on two good legs, walking down the street, jumping the ditch, crossing the yards. He imagined circling the Adams’ house and climbing the rainspout up to the roof of the kitchen. From there he could walk up to Mitch’s second-floor bedroom window. It was easy. He’d done it a thousand times.

It would be so simple to open that window, to ease into that dark hushed room, warm and alive with the scent of Julia, sleeping on that old bed. There’d be moonlight and silence and—

Jesse stood and the rocking chair slid backward, crashing into the house.

This has got to stop.

The world swam from the drugs and he gave himself a moment to get his knee under him before he stalked into the dark house.

He had been right to tell her to stay away. She had to or he wouldn’t survive. He was moving on with his life, putting the accident and Mitch and this town behind him.

So he grabbed another bottle of water and headed out the rusty aluminum back door that had not been changed in all of Rachel’s meddling renovations.

He’d been here two days and one night and so far all he’d been able to get done was write a list of all the things that needed to get done. The roof, the back porch, the kitchen floor—the list was a long one. And he was more tired than he’d thought. His long stay at the hospital had worn him down. The weakness was aggravating, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Slowly, each day he felt a little better, a little more as though he could get the work done.

The only reason he’d needed the painkillers tonight was because he’d spent most of the day on the roof, climbing up and down the ladder.

His knee was getting stronger and the work helped. He thought of it like conditioning for San Diego and the construction he and Chris were going to do. Preparation for his real life.

The night was cool, the sky clear and deep, and the air seemed damp. Everything seemed damp after the Middle East, where the desert turned everything into grit. Human beef jerky is what Dave Mancino used to say.

That’s all I am, walking beef jerky.

Jesse smiled—Dave had been a funny kid. Cocky as all get-out, but funny. Five months after the accident and Jesse was just now getting to the point that he could remember anything about those boys other than their deaths.

A million times a day he wished he’d backed Mitch instead of listening to his gut.

The one time in my life I decide not to do things Mitch’s way and the guy dies.

Jesse didn’t know whether to laugh or put a bullet in his head.

He stepped onto the long grass and left footprints in the dewy lawn as he crossed the backyard to the garage nestled back amongst some pines and more weeds. The door had once been red but now was the faded gray of weathered wood. The whole structure leaned slightly to the left and Jesse figured gravity would soon take care of the rest.

The garage had never housed a car. Inexplicably, his dad had once come home from the bar driving a golf cart and it had stayed in the garage for a week until the cops had come looking for it.

They’d all laughed over that.

What had always been housed in the garage—and Jesse was half hoping had been sold or lost or stolen over the years—were Granddad’s old woodworking tools. The planers and awls and chisels fit Jesse’s hand as though they had been born there. He had spent a lot of years in this garage with the tools, pretending that the world outside the sweet smell of fresh oak didn’t exist.

He could do with a little of that pretending right now.

The heavy door slid back on the nearly rusted rollers and the odor of sour, rotting wood poured out. He reached for the light switch, and was surprised when it flickered on, illuminating the cracked cement floor.

Along the back wall was the workbench he’d made himself a million years ago and on the wall above it, still as neatly arranged as he’d left them, were the tools.

When he was younger they’d offered him, if not a way out of his family and his home, a way to survive.

Jesse took a deep breath and stepped into the musty familiarity of the garage looking for something, anything, that could be saved.