Christmas in Silver Springs

by Brenda Novak

  Resting his elbows on his knees, Tobias dropped his head into his hands. What Atticus said made sense. And it made sense when Maddox said similar things. But internalizing it, being able to let it go, that was the hard part. “I’m trying,” he said softly.

  “I mean it, Tobias. I like you. I like you a lot. If you really want to help me, quit beating yourself up.”

  The lump that rose in Tobias’s throat made it difficult to speak. He didn’t dare try for fear his voice would break. So he sat there until he could overcome his emotions. Then he said, “I’m going to hike Half Dome this summer.”

  Atticus’s eyes had drifted shut. “Oh, yeah? I’ve driven through Yosemite. It might be the most gorgeous place on earth.”

  “I agree. It’s even prettier when you get up on some of the trails.”

  Atticus lifted his eyelids, but they looked heavy. Tobias guessed the doctor had given him a sedative so he wouldn’t move around too much. “I bet,” he said.

  “That’s why...” Once again wrestling with his emotions, Tobias took a deep breath. “That’s why I’d like to take you with me.”

  “Take me with you...where?” He sounded a bit more alert.

  “Hiking.”

  His eyebrows knit in a frown. “How do you propose to do that?”

  “You’ve already seen how—in a video online.”

  “I can’t even imagine what you’re talking about,” he said, but he was mumbling, winding down like a clock running out of battery power.

  “We can talk about it later,” Tobias said. “I was just wondering if you’d be open to it.”

  “To what?” He seemed to be drifting away despite his efforts to maintain the conversation.

  “Hiking in Yosemite.”

  “I’d love to go hiking,” he managed to say.

  “Then that’s what we’ll do. We’ll figure out a way for me to carry you.”

  Atticus said nothing. The meds had pulled him under.

  Unable to resist, Tobias squeezed his hand as he stood to leave. “Get well.”

  * * *

  When Tobias returned home, he found a plate of brownies on his doorstep. Thinking they might be from Harper, he got excited—until he read the attached note.

  I was sad that you didn’t make it back to the Eatery this weekend. :( I thought you might come in to see me again. My dad’s out in LA, visiting his new girlfriend. Now would be a great time to call me. Doesn’t matter how late.

  Willow had signed her name, with a lot of X’s and O’s, as well as her number.

  “Damn. And now I have to deal with this,” he groaned, carrying in the plate.

  He was sitting at the kitchen table with a tall glass of milk, eating one brownie after another while trying to decide how to let her down easy, when he heard a knock.

  Who would be out this late? It was after one. My dad’s out of town...

  “Oh, God,” he whispered when his mind snapped back to that part of Willow’s note. Surely it wasn’t her. Surely she hadn’t been waiting around for him to get home.

  He thought about pretending he was already asleep, but all the lights were on.

  The knock sounded again. “Tobias?”

  It wasn’t Willow; it was Uriah. Tobias would’ve breathed a sigh of relief, except that hearing from his landlord so late wasn’t normal, either. Had something else happened with Carl?

  Pushing the plate of brownies aside, he got up to see what was going on.

  Uriah was dressed in his overalls, and he looked okay... “What are you doing up this time of night?” he asked as he stood back to let the old man in.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said as he crossed the threshold. “I was hoping we could talk without Carl around.”

  Tobias scratched his head. “Would you like to sit down?”

  “No, I’ll only be a minute.”

  “Is this where you give me thirty days’ notice?” If so, why couldn’t Carl hear that? It was exactly what he’d been hoping for.

  “What?” Uriah said. “I’m not going to give you notice. Where’d you get that idea?”

  “Carl told me to pack my bags. Said he’d be moving in.”

  “That kid.” He shook his head with a mixture of disgust and exhaustion. “If he wants to stay, he can live up at the other house with me.”

  “If that’s the only alternative, I think I should let him have this house. Maybe that much separation would make it easier for the two of you to get along. At least you wouldn’t have to worry about him coming into your bedroom at night and rifling through your wallet.”

  Uriah waved an age-spotted hand. “I’m not going to ask you to leave. I don’t want you to go. That’s what I came to tell you. Having Carl here doesn’t change anything as far as your housing situation goes.”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure Carl disagrees.” Tobias thought of finding Uriah’s son outside his door earlier and the uneasy feeling it had given him.

  “Doesn’t matter to me,” Uriah said. “Even if I don’t kick him out, I can’t imagine he’ll stick around for long. As much as I wish he could pull his life together, I’m too realistic to believe it’ll happen. What are the chances he’ll be able to change after all these years?”

  What were the chances he even wanted to? Tobias didn’t get the impression Carl felt any remorse. Didn’t last night prove it?

  He suspected that Uriah was harboring more hope than he was willing to acknowledge. He just didn’t want to be disappointed in the end. Otherwise, he would’ve sent his son packing when Carl tried to steal from him last night—and then went out, got drunk and nearly killed Atticus. “So what do you think will happen?” Tobias asked.

  “He’ll realize that living here isn’t like being on easy street—that I expect him to work and help grow and harvest the tangerines. And after he gets tired of butting heads with me, he’ll take off again.”

  Tobias couldn’t help being skeptical. The way Carl had been talking about the property suggested he’d come to take control of his father’s assets. That meant staying long-term. “Even though he has no money, no job and no place to live.”

  Uriah rolled his eyes. “I know. Doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. But he’s never done the smart thing. Never had any self-discipline.”

  Tobias was tempted to explain why he thought this visit from Carl would be different. It wasn’t simply a matter of Uriah biding his time until Carl took off again—the same cycle he’d grown accustomed to in the past. With his mother gone and his father getting on in years, Carl’s expectations had changed. He didn’t feel he had to build a life of his own or contribute to anything. He was expecting to inherit from his father, and he believed, at that point, all his problems would be over.

  As far as Tobias was concerned, that was a recipe for disaster. “What about the DUI? He’ll have to be around to go to court for that. And they’ve suspended his license, haven’t they?”

  “Yes, but that shouldn’t take more than a few months to sort out. I’m just glad Atticus wasn’t injured any worse than he was. Poor kid.”

  Again, Tobias was tempted to tell Uriah what he believed would be a more likely scenario when it came to Carl, but he doubted that would make any difference. Now that Carl couldn’t drive, he couldn’t work even if he got a job, and there was no way his father would kick him out on the street. For better or for worse, Carl would be living on the property—at least until he handled the fallout of his DUI.

  “From what I’ve heard, DUIs aren’t cheap,” Tobias pointed out.

  The disgust Uriah felt about the way his son lived revealed itself again in his expression. “I’ll have to pay for everything, of course. No surprise there. He doesn’t have two nickels to rub together. But I’m going to make him work it off.”

  That sounded good in theory, but Tobias guessed it would only turn into another s
ource of conflict when Carl tried to weasel out of it.

  “Even if Carl does leave fairly soon, he probably won’t just drive off into the sunset,” Tobias said. “You realize that. Something will set him off, make him angry enough to go. And what he does in that moment? That’s what I’m worried about.”

  Uriah shoved his hands in his overalls and frowned at the wall, seemingly deep in thought.

  “You don’t have anything to say to that?”

  His eyes focused on Tobias again. “I guess I’m just hoping that, for once, things will go a different way.”

  Tobias knew that Uriah’s love for Carl warred with his better judgment. His response confirmed it. And decisions that were made for emotional reasons didn’t respond to logic.

  Telling himself he’d done all he could, Tobias nodded. “Okay. I understand. And I’ll be here if you need me.”

  Uriah’s well-lined face lit up. “You’ll put up with him, too? You won’t let him chase you away?”

  “I won’t let him chase me away.” He couldn’t. If he left, there’d be no one to make sure Carl wasn’t mistreating Uriah.

  Uriah’s beard growth rasped as he rubbed a hand over his chin. “Thank you.”

  Tobias picked up the plate of brownies. “Would you like one?”

  Uriah took a brownie off the top. “These look good. Where’d you get them? From Harper?”

  Tobias refused to say who they were from. He didn’t want Uriah to think he’d done anything to entice a teenager to his house. “You didn’t see who it was when she came by?”

  “No. Must’ve come while I was gone. I had to run some errands earlier.”

  “What about the security cameras? You haven’t checked your computer?”

  “Not lately. I’ve had too many other things to worry about.”

  “They’re from a waitress I met,” Tobias explained, keeping his answer vague.

  “You dating her, too?”

  “No. And before you came over, I was sitting here trying to think of the right way to let her know it.” Although he was now of a mind to wait. There was no need to wake Willow in the middle of the night just to reject her, not when he could easily do it during the day.

  Finished with his brownie, Uriah dusted the crumbs from his hands. “Those aren’t too bad. I say you give her a chance. Maybe she’ll bring more.”

  Tobias chuckled. “Sorry. Not interested. Even if I was, can you imagine what her friends and family would think if she brought home a guy like me?” He was no longer talking about Willow, but Uriah didn’t need to know that.

  “I’d be happy to have you marry my daughter if I had one,” he said. “Matter of fact, I’d consider her lucky to have found such a good man.”

  The tension Tobias had been feeling suddenly eased. What with Harper going home the way she had, Atticus landing in the hospital and Carl causing so many problems, he hadn’t realized how uptight he’d become. But, other than Maddox, it was Uriah who’d helped stabilize him after he was released from Soledad, Uriah who’d made him feel as though someone was willing to give him another chance. And his landlord was still playing that role, which was why Tobias felt so much loyalty to him.

  “You’re getting sentimental in your old age,” he teased. Neither one of them was comfortable showing emotion, but nothing meant more to Tobias than hearing those words, especially from someone who was familiar with his history—and could forgive him for it.

  11

  Harper woke with a headache. She hadn’t slept well. Despite being exhausted, she’d tossed and turned, replaying the time she’d spent in Tobias’s bed as well as the terrible moment right after, when she’d realized she’d somehow placed a call to Axel. She cringed every time she thought of it, doubted she’d ever get completely over the embarrassment and prayed he wouldn’t tell anyone besides Rory, who already knew.

  For the past eight months, she’d also been watching as the day of her divorce marched inexorably closer—and now, here it was. That hit her hard but, fortunately, she was beginning to transition from hurt to anger. She’d read that was a normal part of the grieving process and was grateful for it. Without anger, she would never have the strength to pull herself together.

  At least she hadn’t cried since her last contact with Axel. That was an accomplishment. She hadn’t called him since then or texted him, either. Living without him wasn’t anything she would’ve chosen, but she had to stop trying to go back, had to deal with reality and start moving forward again.

  After she called to check on the girls, she spent the next three hours going through thousands of photos and videos on her phone and getting rid of any that featured Axel. She couldn’t bring herself to delete them completely. That would feel like erasing more than a decade of her life. But she put them all in one file labeled Failed Ten Years and sent it to the cloud so it would no longer be on her phone. She figured that was a step in the right direction.

  If she’d been home, she would’ve gotten up and gone through the house, too—put everything of his in the garage so he could pick it up when he returned to the States. He’d left so many of his belongings behind, even his prized set of golf clubs. She had his childhood memorabilia and yearbooks in the attic. But he was busy, didn’t have time to deal with it, and she’d allowed him to leave these things behind because she simply couldn’t believe he wasn’t coming back to her.

  After she finished cleaning out her albums—paring down her collection of photos and videos—she grabbed her laptop and went online to search for what a divorced person should do next.

  Most websites suggested closing any joint bank accounts and opening new ones, so she got ready and went to a local branch of the bank they used, where she opened her own account for the first time since college.

  The whole experience felt weird, alien, terrible, but she told herself it’d get easier.

  When she left, she texted Axel to let him know what she’d done.

  I have a new bank account. When you get a minute, could you call me for the routing numbers and account information so you can make your child

  support payments?

  It was late in Europe. She wasn’t expecting an immediate response, but she got one.

  What are you doing, Harper?

  She climbed into the Range Rover but sat in the parking lot to text him back. What do you mean? I just told you.

  You’re not even in Colorado, where we live.

  She gazed at the people coming and going in the lot. Although it probably seemed like just another day to them, it was the first day of a very different life for her.

  So? There’s a branch of the bank we use here in Silver Springs. No need to wait until I get back.

  There was no need not to, either. What’s the rush?

  She shook her head. She’d thought he’d be relieved that he wouldn’t have to prod her to get off his coattails. Why wait, Axel? We’re divorced. As of today, you’re a free man.

  She was angry enough to add something snarky—that she hoped he was happy after destroying their family. But she didn’t want to be the kind of person who’d act that way, angry or not. Besides, he had to be happier without her, since he hadn’t come back to her.

  What instigated this? he asked. That guy you’re seeing?

  She chuckled without mirth. No. Tobias has nothing to do with it. I’m starting my life over today.

  PS, she added, don’t forget to change your will.

  You don’t want my money when I’m gone?

  She considered the question. No, she didn’t want his money. The only thing she’d ever been interested in was his heart. Give it to the girls. I’ll make my own, she wrote back. Good luck with your next concert. Again she was tempted to add a snarky comment—I hope you enjoy whatever groupie you take home with you this time. But, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she locked her phone so she couldn’
t accidentally dial him again and slipped it into her purse before backing out of the parking space.

  * * *

  Tobias felt like the walking dead. It had been a long day at work, especially going on so little sleep. Just after lunch, the parents of one of the students on the boys’ side of New Horizons had gotten out of her car without putting the transmission in Park, and it had rolled down the steep embankment of the overfill lot into the administration building.

  Fortunately, no one had been hurt. The car had, however, run over the blow-up Santa that Aiyana had put out front, which Tobias found sort of funny. The part he didn’t find funny was that it also crashed into the building hard enough to punch a hole through the wall. He’d been working all day to clear away the rubble and get as much of the building repaired as possible—so everyone wouldn’t freeze to death before he could schedule a contractor to come out and take care of it later in the week.

  Tobias couldn’t wait to go home, shower and fall into bed. But he walked over to the smaller administration building on the girls’ side of the campus so he could visit his brother, if he hadn’t gone home yet.

  Apparently hearing his footsteps, Maddox looked up from the papers spread out before him as Tobias reached the open doorway. “Hey, what are you still doing here?” he asked.

  “I could ask you the same.” Tobias walked in and sank into one of the two vinyl chairs across from Maddox’s desk, stretching his legs in front of him. “It’s after five. Everyone else is gone. But knowing how hard you work, I thought I’d take a chance.”

  “Now that I live on campus,” Maddox said, “I sometimes stay a little later. Without the drive, I can get home pretty quickly.”

  “I’ve been dealing with that crash. You heard what happened?”

  “Yeah. Haven’t had a chance to go look, though. Was it bad?”

  “Car came right into the lobby.”

  “Good thing no one was sitting there at the time. Was Betty behind her reception desk?”