Love by the Yard

by Gail Sattler

  But this was different. Like Shanna, Kathy was alone. Matthew had told her that Brendan didn’t have a daddy anymore, either. Shanna could only assume that Kathy had chosen to remain single. At some point, Shanna would marry again, but for now she didn’t want a boyfriend. But she did need a friend. Perhaps Kathy did, too.

  Shanna watched Brendan’s mother dipping the paint-brush into the can. She wondered if Kathy was lonely now that her son was grown up and not living in her home anymore.

  Shanna couldn’t imagine living alone. Being a self-employed, single mother was busy—very busy. Today was a rare day; both children were gone and everything was quiet. Boffo was even behaving himself, sitting quietly watching Kathy paint while Kathy talked to him. He even seemed to be listening and responding to what she said.

  But her work wasn’t going to get done if she spent the day staring out the window. As she should have done earlier, Shanna took advantage of the silence and got busy.

  Halfway through the afternoon, Shanna poured two glasses of iced tea and joined Kathy.

  As she walked, she looked up to the top of the fort section of the playscape, noticing for the first time that Brendan had put shingles on the roof—the same shingles that were on her house.

  The paint Kathy had applied was exactly the same color as the trim around the windows.

  The man didn’t miss anything.

  She handed Kathy the glass. “I thought we could both use a break.”

  “Thanks. This will really hit the spot.”

  Shanna made sure the ground was dry enough; then she lowered herself to sit in the soft, new grass. “Do you do a lot of this kind of thing?”

  Kathy shook her head. “Not as much as I’d like. Brendan doesn’t get a lot of jobs like your playscape. Usually, if he builds anything, it’s just fences made with pretreated wood, so there’s no paint needed. He’s seeing a new trend with chain-link fences, so now there’s even less for me to paint. I like to help him. I’m also very efficient with a seeder.”

  “I guess you don’t have another job? After all, you’re here in the afternoon.”

  “I have a full-time job, but it’s retail, so the hours and days are flexible. I’m only here today because this week I have to work Saturday. Fortunately for me, it’s a small, privately owned store, so I don’t have to work on Sundays. After church I like to spend the day with my friends, especially in the summer. I try to keep myself busy. I’m sure you know what it’s like. Brendan tells me that you’re a widow, too.”

  “Uh, yes, I am.”

  Kathy smiled, but her eyes lost focus. “You’ve got your children to keep you busy. I only had one child, and he’s all grown up now. He still keeps me busy, but in different ways. He’s a wonderful boy.”

  The image of Brendan towering above her formed a very clear picture in Shanna’s mind. Brendan Gafferty was far from a “boy.”

  Kathy drank some of the iced tea, then lowered the glass, setting it in the grass so it wouldn’t spill while she painted. “I should let you get back to work. Brendan says you’re very busy now that you’ve taken him on as a client of sorts.”

  Shanna rose, brushing a few loose blades of grass off her clothes as she stood. “Yes, he’s right about that. We can talk more tonight when you come back.” As the words left her mouth, she knew they were true. She missed being involved in an adult conversation with someone who had no expectations of her and wanted nothing in return.

  Kathy walked to her paint can and dipped in the brush. “Brendan should be back in another hour. I only have a little left to do, so I wanted to get this finished. I’ll come back later, after supper.”

  Shanna smiled. “That sounds like fun.” As the words left her mouth, her smile widened. It really did sound like fun, and she could hardly wait for Kathy to come back.

  ❧

  Brendan told himself not to worry when his mother didn’t answer her house phone. But then, when her cell phone went to voice mail, he told himself not to panic. He wasn’t calling about anything important. But it was important that she wasn’t home. Tonight was Thursday night. His mother was always home on Thursday night to watch her favorite television program. And even if she wasn’t home, she always answered her cell phone. Before he assumed she was lying on the floor unable to get up, he tried one last thing before he drove to her house to check on her.

  Brendan corrected four errors while typing the message, but he finally entered the words and text-messaged his mother on his cell phone.

  Where are you?

  He waited one long minute for a response, but instead of simply ringing to be answered, the phone signaled the tone for a text message.

  I’m at Shanna’s house. We’re busy. Can’t talk. I’ll see you tomorrow.

  Brendan stared at the message in disbelief. Not only had she not phoned back, but her text message was blunt and she didn’t want to talk to him. Also, if he hadn’t been mistaken, his mother had been at Shanna’s house every day that week. He stared at the message until it timed out and the screen went blank.

  Brendan had wanted his mother to make new friends, but in hindsight, he should have seen this coming. His mother had plenty of friends at church, but there almost every friend she had was half of a couple. His mother often felt the odd person out, regardless of how friendly everyone was and how well they treated her. The bottom line was that she was the only person at most of the occasions who was single. She refused to attend the singles group because everyone there was too young for her; namely, they were his age, not his mother’s age. But lately she’d begun to turn down invitations to functions she normally attended. After all these years of being single, it was starting to wear on her. And it was starting to worry Brendan.

  Brendan wanted very much for his mother to find a good friend who was another single woman. He’d felt that his mother and Shanna would get along well, but he hadn’t envisioned them connecting like this.

  Still, Shanna and his mother had a lot in common. Not that he talked a lot to Shanna, but her kids talked a lot about her while they “helped” him in the backyard. Besides the obvious similarities, as listed by her children, neither Shanna nor his mother had a man in her life, nor were they making any effort to find one. Shanna had even declined his invitation to attend his church’s singles group with him. He’d almost taken the fast rejection personally, but he reminded himself of what Matthew had told him about other men she’d also turned down.

  Brendan snapped his phone shut, but he’d no sooner fastened it back on his belt when it sang the familiar ring tone, this time signaling that it wasn’t a text message, but a real caller.

  The display showed his mother’s cell number.

  “Brendan? I need you to come to Shanna’s right away.”

  The urgency in her voice made his heart skip a beat. His mother was one person who could always be relied upon in the case of an emergency. He’d suffered terrible allergies as a child, and his mother’s quick action had saved him from death more than once. His first thought was that something had happened to one of Shanna’s children. In that case, she should be calling an ambulance, not him. “What’s wrong? Should I bring something? What do you need?”

  “I need you. Come now. Hurry. But don’t speed. I don’t want you getting a ticket, or worse.”

  He abandoned his half-eaten supper on the table and ran out the door. A ticket would be the least of his worries; but he wouldn’t be any good to anyone, especially in an emergency, if he was late or had an accident and injured himself or someone else.

  The traffic lights were on his side. Brendan arrived at Shanna’s home in good time. He ran to the door, opened it without knocking, and dashed in.

  The second his foot touched the floor, Boffo came bounding down the stairs. Brendan pushed down on Boffo’s shoulders to make the dog remember to sit and not jump on people, and Brendan raised his head. “Mom? Shanna? Where are you?” he called up the stairs.

  His mother and Shanna hustled down the stairs, both wea
ring jackets. The children were nowhere to be seen. In the background, he heard the television, but it wasn’t CSI; it was a cartoon.

  “Susan called. I forgot all about the ladies’ Snack ’n Yak night. We need you to watch the children.”

  Shanna smiled weakly. “They both go to bed at 7:30, 8:00 at the latest, or Matthew will be cranky in the morning.”

  Brendan froze where he stood. “You called me here in a big rush so you could go have coffee with a bunch of women?”

  “It’s more than that. This is part of our big fund-raising project. It’s the dessert auction. We’ve raised a lot of money for that orphanage the church is sponsoring, but we still need more. Fortunately, Shanna had just made a batch of cupcakes for the children, so we’re taking most of those tonight. I hope we have enough larger cakes for the auction, but there’s nothing I can do about that now. Susan just called and said a couple of the people who volunteered to help got sick. Shanna said she could help, so we need you to watch Matthew and Ashley. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Well. . . I. . .”

  “I hear that Rosie is making her famous triple chocolate delight cake. If you give me some money, I’ll see if I can bid on it for you.”

  Brendan knew he’d lost the battle. There was no point in trying to fight. He reached into his back pocket for his wallet and gave his mother twice as much as he thought any self-respecting cake should go for.

  After she took his money, his mother reached up to rest her hands on his shoulders. She rose on her tiptoes, pulling him down slightly as she stretched herself out to as much height as she could manage, then gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “You’re a dear. We’ll see you later. Bye.”

  Before he could respond, both women were gone and the door closed behind them.

  “I don’t believe this,” he muttered to the wall.

  His mother’s car started, and within seconds, they were gone.

  Brendan turned his head and listened to what was going on upstairs before he actually went up.

  He’d never been inside Shanna’s house before, except for the brief time it took to get rid of her brother-in-law. Otherwise, he’d only been in the office, through the entrance from the backyard.

  He looked up the stairs. Shanna’s home was like many others in suburban Seattle—a two-story house with a ground-level entry and the main living area on the upper floor. He was a little familiar with the ground level. It was smaller because it was cut out for the garage and consisted of her office, another small room, a small bathroom, and the main entrance foyer where the stairs accessed the living area.

  Before walking up, he peeked to his left, around the corner to see what she had done with the other room he’d never seen.

  It appeared to be a makeshift family room with inexpensive carpeting laid on top of the cement floor. A worn, color-dated sofa and an old television lined the walls, and the floor was strewn with the children’s and Boffo’s toys. On the other side of the room there was a small work space with the washer, dryer, and a laundry sink, all of which butted up to the bathroom wall, for the functionality of keeping the plumbing centrally located. Next to this was another door opening, which led to Shanna’s office at the rear of the house. The setup wasn’t pretty, but it was functional, and mostly, it worked.

  He walked up the stairs, where he found Matthew sitting on the living room floor surrounded by plastic bricks, half his attention on the television and half on what appeared to be the beginnings of a boat. Ashley was curled up in one corner of the couch, hugging a stuffed bear, her gaze glued completely to the television.

  “Hi, kids,” he said, making his best attempt to sound cheerful.

  They both nodded, but neither spoke or broke their attention away from their show.

  Beside him, Boffo wagged his tail and pressed his cold, wet nose into Brendan’s hand.

  One big, happy family. It almost made him want to call out, “Honey, I’m home,” but there was no “honey,” and it wasn’t his home. He didn’t belong here, but he couldn’t leave. He could only stare at the children. Outside, in the backyard, he could keep them busy. Here, in their home, he didn’t know what to do. So he sat on the couch and watched the cartoon with them.

  He wasn’t quite sure how or when it happened, but an hour later, Ashley had wiggled over and was lying with her head in his lap, hugging her bear, fast asleep. Matthew was on his other side, leaning against him, holding a now fully made boat limply in one hand, also sleeping. Boffo lay in front of him, on top of his feet. Not only was Boffo sleeping, but he was also snoring. Brendan wondered when he’d become so boring.

  Instead of spending the evening being used as an oversized pillow, he steadied Matthew, wiggled his feet out from underneath Boffo, and shuffled sideways on the couch so he could slip away from Ashley without waking her. Assured that she was still sleeping and that she wouldn’t fall off the couch, he carried Matthew into the hallway. The first door on the left was a bedroom done in shades of pinks and purples, so he kept going. The next door on the right was definitely an adult bedroom, although he did see some clothes on the floor and the bed wasn’t made.

  The next door was the bathroom, and after that, a bedroom painted with bright primary colors, spotted with posters of racing cars and monster trucks. Scattered on the floor was a variety of cars, trucks, and miscellaneous action figures. A well-used stuffed bear lay haphazardly on the bed.

  Brendan pushed the covers down, then very gently laid Matthew on the bed.

  He stood straight and looked down. He didn’t want to wake the child, but he didn’t think he should leave Matthew fully dressed on his bed. But then, Matthew wasn’t his child, and he didn’t want to do anything that might frighten the boy, which probably included tugging off his clothes.

  Brendan arranged the blankets over Matthew loosely, thinking that if Matthew woke up in the middle of the night, he could change into his pajamas by himself.

  He hurried back to the living room, but neither Ashley nor Boffo had moved. He did the same with Ashley as he had done with Matthew, thinking it was probably even more important to leave Ashley to dress herself.

  When he returned to the living room, Boffo hadn’t moved, although one eye was half open.

  “Well, dog,” he muttered. “Looks like it’s just you and me. We seem to be seeing a lot of each other, don’t we?”

  Boffo’s tail thumped once on the floor; otherwise, he still didn’t move.

  “I guess that’s once for yes, twice for no.”

  Brendan sat on the couch, then rose to walk around the small living room, searching for the remote.

  “You didn’t bury that somewhere, too, did you?” Brendan muttered as he lifted the newspapers on the coffee table, then the couch cushions. He finally found it on the carpet, half under the couch.

  He sat, aimed, and began flipping channels.

  “Has Shanna been going over your lessons? I hope you’ve been listening to her.” He already knew the answer. He’d seen an improvement in Boffo’s behavior, and so had his friend who ran the dog school. So he knew Boffo’s reply would have been a resounding yes.

  He waited for Boffo to thump his tail once, but it didn’t happen. “So how have things been all week?”

  The dog sighed, keeping his chin resting on his paws.

  “That good, huh? Same here.”

  Boffo shifted. Brendan wondered if perhaps one of the children had become restless. He turned his head and looked down the hall, but all was silent. When he turned back to Boffo, he saw that the dog had rolled onto his side.

  “I guess that means no worries. That’s good, because I’ve never been a babysitter before. When I was a teen, I made extra money by cutting lawns, which is probably how I got my start into what I’m doing now.”

  Boffo sighed again, and his eyes closed.

  Brendan wondered what had happened, that he was now talking to a dog. It wasn’t even his dog.

  “I want a glass of water,” a sleepy little voice call
ed from down the hall.

  Immediately Brendan rose, intending to get Ashley her glass of water before she woke up completely and wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. But in his haste, he forgot about Boffo sprawled out on the floor. One foot caught under one of Boffo’s legs, nearly sending Brendan headfirst into the television. He recovered his balance, grumbled to himself, and continued into Ashley’s bedroom.

  He stood in the doorway. “I’ll make you a deal. If you put your pajamas on and get back into bed real nice, I’ll get you a glass of water real fast.”

  Ashley yawned. “Okay.”

  Once in the kitchen, Brendan stared at the cupboards. He didn’t know where the glasses were, but he didn’t want to snoop. Even though he was doing Shanna a favor, he didn’t want to do anything that might be considered invasive.

  He took a guess as to where the glasses were and guessed correctly. As he pulled a glass out, he smiled, noting how the contents were organized. The glasses were on the bottom shelf, mugs on the middle shelf, and on the top were obscure things that looked like they hadn’t been touched for ages. He had no trouble reaching anything on the top shelf, but he had a feeling Shanna did, which was why the top shelf appeared to be used only for storage.

  He wondered what else she considered inaccessible.

  To give Ashley more time to change, he indulged his curiosity. He bent his knees in a semi-squat until he guessed that he was now at Shanna’s height, and surveyed the small room.