A Roof Over Their Heads

by M. K. Stelmack

  She was shifting Callie in her arms to check when Matt piped up. “But, Mom, the landlord won’t talk to us. Your phone is dead, anyway. And we can’t afford to fix it.”

  Alexi felt her face grow hot. It was bad enough that a stranger knew she couldn’t afford a repairman, but that he had to learn it from her kid was even more shameful. It meant she couldn’t hide her poverty from her own kids.

  “And Seth Greene offered to do it. This is the right thing to do.” He squared to her. “I feel it in my gut.”

  Her own gut screamed something else. If Matt had got it in his mind that Seth was who they needed—heaven help them all. She needed this man out of her house now. But how? She couldn’t even call the police. And what did it matter? He was chummy with them, anyway.

  He pointed to his temple. “What happened to your head?”

  What? She touched her forehead and discovered a huge bump and, as she felt more carefully, a cut. Dried blood flaked onto her fingers. That explained his odd way of looking at her.

  “I guess it was a hailstone. I—I was out getting the sleeping bags.”

  “You didn’t know you got hit?”

  “I felt something. It was dark. It didn’t hurt, really. I thought it was rain, not blood.” Why was she explaining this? She felt the wide eyes of the kids on her like bright bare bulbs. Why hadn’t they said anything? “It looks worse than it is, I’m sure. I bruise easily.”

  “What were you doing in a tent with a storm forecasted?”

  “It was my fault,” Matt interjected. “I suggested it because the place stunk so bad.”

  “You suggested it, not decided it. Therefore, it’s not your fault,” Seth said.

  Which implied it was hers. “You’re right,” she said, her voice squeaky with frustration. “I should’ve checked. It—it was a good thing it worked out as well as it did.”

  Seth stared at the bruise on her head as if it were an enormous, hideous wart. “Why is your phone dead?” he said, jumping to another deficiency.

  “The battery ran down and she can’t find the charger,” Matt explained.

  Were there any more ways to display her incompetency? “I’m sure it’ll show up,” Alexi said.

  Seth tipped his head down the stairs. “It’s in the box by the front door.”

  There were ways. “I—I forgot that I’d brought it in.”

  “I’ll go get it,” Amy said, running down the stairs.

  “I get to plug it in,” Bryn said.

  Callie slid down about to follow, then reconsidered and wound her arms around Alexi’s left thigh. Matt didn’t budge, and there was no subtle way of dismissing him.

  Seth turned to her. “I hate—no, loathe—home renovations. Frankly I’ve got better things to do with my time.”

  And she had better things to do than hear him gripe. “Then get doing them.”

  Matt gasped, but she was beyond caring how rude she was. Could he think any less of her, anyway?

  Seth merely shrugged. “I was until I saw your busted tent from the roof I was on. And I saw the roof here I’d put on three years ago, banged up but still good and I’d wondered why you’d chosen a tent over it. Then I remembered you saying it stunk inside and then I wondered if you got the water running. I’ll be making plenty from this storm. I figured I’d take a few hours to help out before it gets crazy. Like Matt said, it seems like the right thing to do.”

  So. He saw her as a charity case. A victim in need of services. Exactly what she’d been for a third of her life. From age seven to the day she turned eighteen, she’d lived in foster care. Only when she’d married Richard had she been someone else. A wife. A mother. A full member of society. With him gone, she’d reverted to her childhood status.

  Except now she had four children under her care. Their well-being, not her pride, was what mattered. As for how Matt’s proximity to an adult male would play out, well—well, no water was also a complication she’d have a hard time explaining, too.

  She swallowed. “Okay, I do need help. I accept your offer. Thank you.”

  “Yes!” Matt jabbed his fist in the air and tore into the kitchen, shouting the news to Amy and Bryn. The solid pressure of Callie disappeared as she broke away to join her brothers and sisters.

  Seth grimaced at her swollen temple, and she touched it self-consciously. “A man died last night from a hailstone,” he said quietly. “Him and my dad...knew each other. So when I see you like that—” He broke off. “It can end so fast.”

  Old familiar pain, the never-healing bruise on her heart from Richard’s death, swelled inside her. No, this was not the time, not the place and definitely not the person. She looked him in the eye. “I know that.”

  He went still, then worked his jaw from side to side, shifted on his feet. “I don’t think I caught your name.”

  He hadn’t? Had they overlooked introductions yesterday with everything happening? No, she’d learned his name and then not extended him the same courtesy, the man who’d brought Bryn back, kept her day from crossing into a living nightmare. Now he was here again today, willing to help someone he didn’t know the name of from the goodness of his heart. His grumpy heart, but still...

  She dropped her hand from her temple to hold it out to him. “Alexandra Docker. Alexi, for short.”

  “Alexi,” he said and gave her hand a quick, hard squeeze before letting go. His own hand felt warm and solid—and gritty, like a sandpaper block.

  “Alexi,” he repeated and then added what made no sense at all given that he was the one doing her a favor. “Thank you.”

  * * *

  SETH RESTED THE drainpipe against his shoulder as he wrestled to get the fitting on, one shoulder brushing against a stud, his head bent to clear a copper intake pipe that ran across the utility room. This was a two-person job really, but the only handy person was Alexi Docker and she was the last person he wanted to face.

  Literally, to face. Seeing her all banged up had rattled him, and then when he’d heard how it had happened, it felt like the fresh death of Stephensson was there before him, and he’d come off—well, a little harsh. He’d made it worse with his boneheaded comment about losing others suddenly. She’d shut down just like yesterday when the subject of her dead husband had come up. No room there to explain that he understood how she felt, that his own father had died unexpectedly, too, even if it was twenty years ago, not one.

  “Hello?”

  At the sound of Alexi’s voice, he jerked, which shot the pipe out of place.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Didn’t mean to sneak up on you.” She stood at the entrance to the utility room, her long legs set apart enough for Callie with her pink-framed glasses to peep through. The second Seth made eye contact she slipped from view. That one was either really shy or she didn’t like the looks of him, or both.

  Alexi pointed to the pipe. “Can I help?”

  It made no sense to refuse her, now that she was standing right here. Right here in a T-shirt that fit real well. He snapped his focus back on the job at hand. “Yeah, actually. Could you hold this pipe here? I need to put on a fitting and cut the pipe to the right length.”

  She angled in beside him and steadied the pipe exactly where he wanted it.

  “Thanks,” he said, for the second time in this visit. At least this time, it made sense.

  “It’s me that should be thanking you.”

  That was true.

  “I didn’t know it would be so involved,” she continued.

  Anything involving Connie got way more complicated than necessary. “Turns out that I just can’t clamp off the valves,” he explained. “Looks as if the entire waterworks is getting revamped so I have to install a drainpipe first.”

  “Oh, I heard you leave. You went for supplies?” Was there reproach in her voice, as if he should’ve checked in with her?

 
“I didn’t know I was supposed to tell you.” Despite his attempt at politeness, he could hear belligerence in his voice.

  Her eyes were on the pipe as she replied coolly, “I didn’t know I was not supposed to wonder where you went. After all, wondering about us was what brought you here this morning.”

  He didn’t answer because she’d made a couple of good points he wasn’t about to concede. He chalked a line on the pipe.

  “Excuse me. I need to use the cutter,” he said instead. Rather than let her back out and exit before he followed with the pipe, he tried to edge past her, which forced them into shuffling around each other, dodging pipes and each other’s body parts.

  Could his time with her be more awkward? Free of the tight quarters of the utility room, he headed straight for the cutter he’d had to rent, but that would be a conversation with Connie, and fired it up. Two minutes of noise and he was done. This time Alexi gave him plenty of room to get around her, but that didn’t stop her from following him in. Callie lingered at the entrance.

  “Since I am in a wondering state of mind,” she said, steadying the pipe for him again, “I was wondering if, since you lived here before, if you know the number of the landlord. I got her cell number but she’s not answering. I thought there might be a landline I could use.”

  Seth took his time lining the pipe up with the fitting to buy himself a few seconds of fast thinking. “Landline won’t do you much use. She’s in Las Vegas.”

  “Las Vegas? Are you sure?”

  “Very.”

  She looked over her upraised arm and pinned him with her full blue gaze. “How do you know this?”

  Seth fiddled with his end of the pipe. “How do I know this?”

  “Yes.” The faint hiss at the end of her one word conveyed her opinion of his delay tactic.

  “I was at a ball game last night and a guy there knows Connie. Said she was in Vegas.” There, not a word of a lie. He slipped the fitting over the freshly cut end of the pipe. Perfect.

  He slid his hand along the pipe to hers. It was a beautiful hand. Large and capable and smooth, like his favorite hammer and with a good heft to it. “I got it,” he said.

  She dropped her hand and it immediately strayed to her back pocket. She’d already done that three times since coming downstairs. Strange habit. “I will have to find out what my rights are,” she said. “I didn’t sign up for this. I should’ve asked the officer what I could do when I had him on the line.”

  It would serve Connie right if Alexi took legal action. Hadn’t he warned Connie just last night? But if history was anything to go by, his sister would go down dragging as many as she could grab hold of—like Mel and him. “She might come around yet.”

  Alexi shoved her beautiful hands into the tangled heap of hair. “Meanwhile, what am I supposed to do? What about the kids? I can’t go back. And I’ve nowhere else to go.”

  She clamped her mouth to a thin line and looked away. If he was anybody other than being a practical stranger to her, he could’ve hugged her, told her everything was going to be all right. If he was anybody other than who he was, he could make things right. As it was, he stood there, holding the pipe, clueless about what to say or do. No, he knew what to do: attach the other end of the pipe, but he wasn’t about to restart another round of shuffling that would bring him alongside her body parts.

  Her hand went to her back pocket again, and it dawned on him what she wanted. Her phone. That’s where she carried her phone, which was charging now. The world was addicted to phones but her case was severe.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s not your problem, and you are being so kind.”

  Kind? Hardly. He didn’t want to lie to her. It made her think she had to be grateful to him and from the way her voice had gone tight, she hated depending on him. He understood; he didn’t want her to depend on him in any way, shape or form. He decided to set the record straight. “Not doing it for you. It’s for Connie.”

  She frowned. “For the landlady?” Her eyes widened. “I mean—of course. I didn’t realize you and she might be...” She trailed off and took a step backward, which brought her up hard against a stud.

  He now had room to move to the other end of the pipe but no way did he want Alexi thinking he actually chose Connie. “She’s my sister.”

  “Your sister?” Her eyes narrowed. “So yesterday, when you asked about the landlady, you were really asking if your sister had contacted me?”

  He took his time to get to the other end of the pipe. “Yep,” he said, his back half-turned to her. “I didn’t want to get involved in her business.” He shoved the other end of the pipe into a fitting. It went in easy and straight. Good. So long as he used his hands and not his mouth, things went well. “Still don’t, but she’s a bad habit.”

  He felt her slide behind him and out of the room. At the door, she paused. “You think helping others is a bad habit?”

  Seth had long ago lost track of the number of people he’d been obliged to help during the past couple of years, all because he had helped the wrong person. “Yeah,” he said, “I guess so.”

  A smile played at the edge of her mouth. “So you’re saying that I shouldn’t feel guilty that you took time out of your schedule to help me?”

  Guilt. He knew too much of that. “You can only be guilty for your own choices, and it was my choice to come here today.”

  It was the truth. He’d really done what he wanted, when he wanted.

  Her hand moved and he supposed it was going to her phantom phone. Instead it rose to her cheek, her hair, to wrap around the back of her neck, as if she didn’t know what to do with it.

  “Thanks,” she whispered. “I needed to hear that.”

  Whaddaya know, Seth thought, he’d made her feel better. His bad habit had finally done some genuine good.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  TWO DAYS LATER, Alexi shouldered open the front door of the house, Callie in tow, carrying the last box from the U-Haul trailer, a plastic tub of cloth scraps and stuffing for her craft business. Matt sat on the stairs to the main level, his shoulders slumped.

  Poor kid. She’d relied on him to carry load after load and then help her wheel and lift the furniture when not four days ago he was packing it into the trailer. She set down the tub and sat on it, suddenly aware of how good it felt to take the weight off her sore ankle. “I’m sorry, Matt. You must be exhausted.”

  Callie sat beside him, her way of showing sympathy. He shrugged. “I’ll live.”

  His answer recalled what Richard would say to the kids whenever they howled about a scrape or a bruise. He hadn’t. He was killed on impact in a head-on collision on the highway south of Fort McMurray on his way home after a twenty-one-day stint in the oil patch. Since then, only Callie cried over a scraped knee or a bruised elbow. Alexi wished they all would. Tears were normal.

  “Listen, I’d like you to treat yourself. Go on up to Mac’s. Get yourself a slushie, okay?”

  “Should I ask Seth Greene if he wants anything?”

  Seth was jury-rigging the kitchen sink with planks and sawhorses and running pipes underneath. Time he could be profiting from his jobs that she knew from the calls on his cell were stacking up. Yes, she didn’t want Matt getting chummy with Seth. He was a good part of the reason she’d kept Matt busy with unpacking. The last thing the already complicated adoption process needed was the introduction of a relationship between Matt and this man, but no sense making a big deal out of a small courtesy, either.

  “Yes,” she said. “You should. Make it clear that I’m paying and it’s my pleasure.” She couldn’t resist adding that last bit, knowing full well Mr. Grumpy could hear every word.

  Matt shot up the stairs while Alexi headed outside to sweep out the back of the U-Haul, Callie right behind like a devoted puppy.

  She barely had broom in hand before Matt popped
his head in. “He said thanks but he’s okay. Should I get him something anyway?”

  Richard again. He’d always get her a treat even when she specifically said she didn’t want one because he didn’t want to ever leave her out.

  “It’s enough that you offered.”

  She handed him a twenty, and told him to make sure he pocketed the change before taking the drinks. She skirted the house into the backyard, Callie on her heels. Amy was riding a stick with her posse of imaginary friends, her bow legs for once looking appropriate. Callie broke away to join Amy, while Alexi scanned the yard for Bryn. Where, oh, where, oh, please—

  There. Under the weeping birch, lost in the shadows with Seth Greene’s old baseball bat. He was pounding it into the ground with a rock. She was about to call to ask the reason for that when her phone sounded. It was a number without a name. The landlady?

  She tapped the green bar. “Hello.”

  “Alexi. How are you?” It was the measured voice of her caseworker.

  She was so not prepared to take this call. She climbed the stairs, careful with her bad ankle, to the back deck, so the kids didn’t overhear. Callie—miracles of miracles—watched her leave but turned back to Bryn and Amy when Alexi stayed within sight.

  Alexi drew breath and aimed for a tone of airy confidence. “Oh, hi, Brenda. Fine. And you?”

  “I must admit to a little confusion. Weren’t we supposed to meet yesterday?”

  Shoot, she’d forgotten to reschedule, which would’ve bought her time before having to officially notify Brenda of a change of address. “Oh, yes, right. That’s my fault entirely. I forgot to tell you that I wouldn’t be able to make the meeting.”

  “Did you also forget to tell me that you’d moved?”

  How did she know? Alexi turned away from the open kitchen window where Seth was working and kept her voice low. “No. I mean, yes. Yes, I did move. To Spirit Lake.”

  “Spirit Lake. I’ve heard of it. Near Red Deer, right?”