Hope on the Inside

by Marie Bostwick

  “Twelve inmates means twelve sewing machines, right?” David asked. “Twelve sets of scissors, plus irons and ironing boards, rulers, rotary cutters, and cutting mats?”

  Hope nodded and gave him a curious look. How did David Hernandez know about rotary cutters and cutting mats?

  “My mom made quilts,” he said, as if reading her mind. “Well, for a while. Before she got hooked and started stealing to support her habit.”

  He cleared his throat and lifted his coffee cup to his lips, even though Hope was pretty sure it was empty.

  “Anyway, you’re going to need a lot of expensive equipment. The sewing machines especially. You sure you’re going to be able to get all that?”

  “Absolutely,” Hope said, her voice radiating confidence she felt not at all. “Won’t be a problem.”

  * * *

  Out on the street, after saying good night to David and watching his car drive off, Hope threw her arms around her sister’s neck.

  “You did it! You actually won him over. You made him smile. And laugh! I can’t believe it. Hazel, I always knew you were an amazing saleswoman. But I didn’t know you were a curmudgeon whisperer.”

  “Oh, stop,” Hazel said, waving off her sister’s praise. “He’s not so bad. Is he married?”

  “Was. His wife left him and—Wait a second! You’re not actually attracted to him, are you?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be? He’s kind of cute. Seems smart too.”

  “He is. But he’s also . . .” Hope paused, searching for the right word, trying to figure out exactly what it was about David Hernandez that rubbed her the wrong way. “He’s just so inflexible. And humorless. I told you, until today I’ve never seen him laugh. Not even once.”

  “Well, maybe he hasn’t had much reason to laugh. Maybe he’s hurting. You know, Hope, not all wounded birds are women. Not all of them are trapped inside the walls of a prison either. . . .” Hazel paused, fixing her sister with her eyes. “How’s Rick?”

  “Oh, crap. Rick! I told him I’d be home in time to make dinner. Hope he didn’t wait for me. He’ll be starving.”

  Hope pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed the house. When Rick didn’t answer, she dialed his cell phone. There was no answer there either.

  “He must still be on the golf course,” Hope said as she shoved her phone back into her purse.

  “Playing with glow-in-the-dark balls, no doubt.” Hazel cocked an eyebrow. “What’s going on with you guys?”

  “Nothing. I mean, nothing more than you already know about.”

  “Hope . . . This is me you’re talking to. If you can’t be straight with your sister, who can you be straight with? You know I won’t judge. So, tell me the truth: Are you thinking of leaving him?”

  “Leaving Rick? How can you even ask such a thing?”

  Hazel said nothing in response to her sister’s aghast expression. Instead, she arched her brows and crossed her arms over her chest, her posture an echo of the question Hope had yet to answer.

  Chapter 23

  In the weeks since he’d first rescued her from the side of the road, Rick had tackled seven years’ worth of deferred maintenance on Kate’s cozy Craftsman bungalow. By now, he knew every inch of the house. He knew nearly as much about Kate herself and her late husband, Lyle, a civil engineer, and how, for more than forty years, they had lived, loved, and cared for each other.

  And Kate, after weeks of coffee, cookies, and conversation with her volunteer handyman, had gotten to know Rick pretty well, too. Well enough that Rick felt comfortable opening up to her in a way he hadn’t to anyone else for a long time. Well enough that, on this day, Kate felt she could ask him some personal questions, including one that came so completely out of the blue that Rick choked on his coffee before he was able to answer.

  “Thinking of leaving Hope? No. Never. Why would you even ask?”

  “Because,” Kate said, “from where I’m sitting, it looks like you already have.”

  “What?” Rick spread his hands and laughed, a deflection and knee-jerk response to a comment that made him feel uncomfortable and somehow guilty, in spite of his innocence. It was the same way he felt the time he’d been pulled over by a police cruiser for a broken taillight. He knew he hadn’t done anything wrong, but even so, the sight of those flashing lights in his rearview mirror made his stomach clutch and his mouth feel dry, wondering if he might have unknowingly incurred an infraction or crossed some line.

  Kate took a cookie from the platter and placed it on her plate but didn’t eat it. Obviously, she wasn’t going to speak until Rick answered her question.

  “I’m not fooling around, if that’s what you’re asking. Even if I had the inclination, when would I have time?” he asked in a teasing tone, hoping his smile would convince her to abandon the inquiry. “I come here in the morning, hammer nails all day, and go home every night.”

  “Engineers,” Kate sighed. “Why do you all have to be so literal? Do you think it’s cute or something? Because it’s not.”

  “What?” Rick said again, feeling genuinely perplexed. “You asked me if I’m thinking of leaving my wife. I’m not. What’s cute about that?”

  Kate got up from the table and crossed the room to pick up the coffeepot.

  “You want me to spell it out for you? Fine. I will. There are plenty of ways to leave your wife without actually walking out the door. You can, for example, leave her emotionally,” she said, her tone a study in exaggerated clarity as she filled Rick’s coffee cup and then her own.

  “You can cut off conversation and congress. You can move your lips but say nothing, limiting your discussions to the weather and the passing of the salt. Or you can say everything without uttering a word. Reproach and simmering resentment are, in fact, best communicated through ponderous silence. That’s what passive aggression is all about, right? Inflicting maximum damage without leaving a trail? Giving yourself cover and plausible deniability while shifting the blame?”

  Kate slid the coffeepot back onto the warmer, then sat back down and shook her head at him.

  “Don’t pretend you don’t understand what I’m talking about, Rick. Just as you can obey the letter of the law but violate the spirit, so you can violate the spirit of a marriage. Two people can occupy the same home and bed for months, or years, or even an entire marriage, yet live lives that are entirely separate. And terribly, terribly lonely. You know this because that’s what you and your wife have been doing for a long time, at least since you moved to Olympia. Maybe longer.

  “Why else would you spend every single day fixing broken steps, replacing leaky toilets, and installing smoke alarms in the home of a poor old lady you picked up on the side of the road?” she asked. “Because you don’t know what to do with yourself, that’s why. You come here day after day because, though your new home is half the size of the old, it echoes with the punishing silence you’re too stubborn to break, even though that silence is about to break you.

  “And you come here,” she said more gently, “because I remind you of someone you miss terribly. Because, for weeks now, you’ve been waiting for me to tell you what she would have told you: Quit being a stubborn ass. Get on with it.”

  Rick laughed again, more hoarsely this time, then rubbed the corner of his eye with the back of his hand and blinked.

  “How did you know?” he asked.

  How did she know? Because, until she spelled it out, he didn’t realize that this was exactly what he’d been hoping for, advice and a good kick in the butt from a wise and trustworthy woman.

  He remembered his father’s wake, how he and his mother had stood a few feet away from the casket, shaking the calloused hands of his father’s friends from the port, who’d come to pay their respects.

  One after another, they clapped him on the shoulder, looked him in the eye, and said, “You take care of your mother now, son. It’s what your dad would have wanted.” And his mother said, “Oh yes. Rick’s the man of the house now. I don’t kn
ow what I’d do without him.”

  Young and foolish as he was—and, yes, arrogant—he’d actually believed that the entire safety and security of the family rested on his shoulders. It was a heavy load for a boy to bear but one he picked up gladly, out of love for his mother and respect for his father, the desire to be the kind of man his dad was—steady, dependable, and strong.

  He was strong, first for his mother and then for his wife and children.

  But until his mother was gone and his depression and demoralization became an unscalable wall between himself and Hope, he hadn’t understood that strength is a circle. The reason he could be strong for his mother and wife was because he drew his strength from them, and vice versa.

  When he first spotted Kate standing on the side of the road his heart had skipped a beat. From a distance, she looked exactly like his mom. For an illogical instant, he’d thought, hoped, that it was her. But when he got close, he realized the resemblance wasn’t particularly strong, a product of white hair, a particular spring in the step, and wishful thinking on his part.

  He’d taken her home because it seemed like the right thing to do. He’d come back to help fix her porch steps because it seemed like she needed help and because he liked the idea of being needed, of having something to offer. He kept coming back because, in the ways that counted, Kate was like his mother. And Hope.

  Kate was strong and positive and wise. Feisty too. She wasn’t the sort of woman to throw her pearls before a swine, offering the benefit of her insight, until she was sure the message would be received. But somehow he’d known that if he hung around long enough, she’d tell him what he needed to hear, that she’d kick in enough dirt to help him climb out of the hole he’d dug for himself.

  Rick sniffed and took another gulp of coffee, trying to wash down the lump in his throat.

  “At first, I didn’t know,” Kate said. “I just thought you were a nice man with too much time on his hands. But I figured it out after a while. My cookies are good, but they’re not that good. And you’re not that nice a guy.”

  Kate smiled and squeezed her fingers around the dome of Rick’s clenched fist. The skin of her hands was thin, veined with blue and freckled with age, and her knuckles knotted with arthritis, yet her grip was surprisingly strong and strangely familiar. So were her words and the no-nonsense way she delivered them.

  Quit being a stubborn ass. Get on with it.

  That’s what his mom would have said, all right, just like that. How he missed her. And Hope. He had only himself to blame for that. For so many things—

  “There’s no point in beating yourself up about it,” Kate said, as if reading his mind. “It wasn’t entirely your fault. And as to the part that was? Well, what’s done is done. Nothing’s so broken it can’t be repaired.”

  Rick lifted his eyes. “You sure about that?”

  “I’m sure,” Kate said, squeezing his hand once more before releasing it, “not for a man who loves his wife as much as you do. Angry as you are with Hope, with life, with everything, there’s a spark in your eye whenever you speak of her.

  “Talk to her, Rick. Go home and make things right with your wife.”

  “How? What do I say?”

  “Start with ‘I was wrong and I’m sorry’ and take it from there. It won’t be as hard as you think. Most women are pushovers and entirely too nice. A bouquet of flowers and a bit of groveling and we forgive everything.”

  Rick smiled. Kate pushed back her chair and got to her feet.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I hope you don’t mind letting yourself out. My poor old kidneys can’t handle as much coffee as they used to. You don’t have to do that,” she said when Rick started clearing the dishes. “Get on home to your family.”

  “I will,” Rick said, gathering up the cups and plates, “right after I rinse up and pop these into the dishwasher. Won’t take me a minute.”

  “Oh, all right. If you insist. But you’d better be gone by the time I get out of the—” Kate’s chiding was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell. “Oh, bother. Who could that be?”

  “I’ll get it,” Rick said, turning off the kitchen faucet.

  “If it’s the Girl Scouts,” Kate called over her shoulder as she trotted down the hallway toward the bathroom, “tell them I already ordered four boxes.”

  “Will do.”

  The doorbell rang again, twice, in quick succession. Whoever was on the other side of the door was very insistent. Rick wiped his hands on his jeans as he walked through the living room, walls lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves and Kate’s paintings, toward the foyer.

  “Hang on a second,” Rick called out irritably when the bell rang yet again.

  He fumbled with the dead-bolt lock he’d installed only the week before, momentarily forgetting whether it had to be turned left or right. Finally, the bolt clicked over and Rick opened the door. When he saw who was standing on the other side of it, Rick’s jaw went slack.

  “Kenz? What are you doing here?”

  McKenzie crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.

  “You first,” she said.

  Chapter 24

  McKenzie stepped over the threshold without invitation, pushing past Rick and walking into the middle of Kate’s living room.

  She turned in a circle, taking in the decidedly feminine surroundings, the sofa of rose-hued velvet, bookshelves filled with volumes by Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, and the Brontë sisters, a collection of bird figurines, and framed pictures of landscapes and bouquets of pink, blue, and green that Kate had painted with her own hands.

  “Well?” McKenzie snapped. “Who is she? How did you meet her?”

  “Kenz. It’s not what you think—”

  “Isn’t it? I’ve been sitting outside this house for five solid hours, watching the door, waiting for you to come out. What could you possibly be doing in another woman’s house for five hours? So who is she, Dad? Your golf pro?” She laughed bitterly. “You might be able to fool Mom with that line, but not me.”

  When Rick opened the door and saw his daughter standing on the stoop, his initial shock was followed by mild amusement. That was McKenzie all right, emotionally over the top, jumping immediately to the most dramatic and completely wrong conclusion.

  But after she confessed to having waited half a day for him to come out and Rick considered this incident in the light of their last confrontation, when she’d accosted him in the parking lot, amusement gave way to irritation.

  “Hang on. How did you know I was here? What have you been doing? Tailing me?”

  “No! Of course not! I drove up to the condo just as you were driving away and—” McKenzie screwed her eyes shut and raised her hands, as if she couldn’t bear to see him or hear him. “You know something? Never mind. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care who she is. And I already know what she is.” Opening her eyes, she let her hands flop against her sides. “Dad. How could you? How?”

  “Okay, Kenz. Stop right there. You’re not only out of line; you’re really confused.”

  “I’m confused? What about you? Seriously, how confused do you have to be to get involved with a woman who has such terrible taste in decorating?” she asked, sweeping her arms out. “This whole place looks like something straight out of 1974!”

  “Actually, the last time I redecorated was 1982,” Kate said as she entered the living room. “But your point is well taken. It’s due for an update.”

  McKenzie’s jaw dropped. Kate’s eyes crinkled and her mouth bowed as she stuck out her hand.

  “You must be McKenzie. Your father has told me so much about you.”

  If the flames on McKenzie’s cheeks hadn’t made her mortification abundantly clear, the multiple apologies she offered after Kate enlightened her to the depth of her mistake would have.

  The fifth time McKenzie said she was sincerely and truly sorry, Kate nodded and said, “It’s all right, McKenzie. I understand. You were just trying to protect your family. As I sai
d before, apology accepted.

  “But if you’ll forgive me for sticking my nose into things that are probably none of my concern,” she said, her eyes shifting from McKenzie’s face, to Rick’s, and then back to McKenzie, “I think your father is the one you should be apologizing to, not me.”

  “You’re right,” she said softly. “Daddy, I . . .”

  Seeing tears in her eyes and fearing they would spill over, Rick lifted his hand to cut her off. For all that she was given to dramatic impulses, McKenzie only rarely gave in to tears. Having almost broken down himself earlier that day, he wasn’t sure he could take much more.

  “It’s okay, Kenz. Don’t worry about it. It’s getting late. We should get out of Kate’s hair. Come on. I’ll walk you to your car.”

  After saying goodbye to Kate at the door, Rick and McKenzie descended the porch steps and walked toward the street.

  “Where’s your car?” Rick asked.

  “On the other side of the street, down by the corner. I figured I could catch you in the act without being too obvious.”

  “If you didn’t want to be obvious, you probably should have thought twice before buying a bright yellow Hyundai,” Rick said, shaking his head and smiling. “You’d make a terrible spy, Kenz. The worst.”

  Stopping at the curb, McKenzie turned to look at him.

  “Dad? I really am sorry.”

  “It’s okay, sweetie. I get it. You were just trying to protect your mother. And the family. Something I should have been doing all along. But don’t worry, okay? I will from now on.”

  McKenzie let out a long sigh and shook her head as she examined his face. Seeing the disappointment in her eyes, Rick felt a fresh twinge of guilt.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why didn’t you just tell Mom what you were up to? Why couldn’t you just be straight with her?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, taking McKenzie’s arm as they crossed the street. “Because I was acting like an idiot, I guess. Because life threw me a curveball and all I could think to do was duck. And because, even when you love somebody as much as I love your mother, marriage is tougher than it looks.”