As Wide as the Sky

by Jessica Pack

  “Oh, well, Florence is a good way north of here, four hundred miles or so.”

  “East or west side of the state?” Amanda asked. Her route back to Cincinnati took her right through the middle of Kentucky.

  “Midland,” Coach Miller said with a shrug. “You take the 65 most of the way, head through Louisville, and then ride 71. My wife’s sister lived in Cincinnati, so we made the drive a few times a year. Not bad, as far as drives go.”

  Amanda felt her eyebrows lift in surprise. “Cincinnati? That’s where I’m headed. I’m moving to be closer to my daughter.”

  “Florence is, what, fifteen or twenty miles south of Cincinnati, just west of the Ohio River.”

  The coincidence unnerved her, but heightened her anticipation. She would be driving right through Florence. Steve Mathis lived there. She looked back at the envelope in her hand and had the strangest feeling. Why had she found the ring? Why did she care so much about it?

  “Miss?”

  Amanda looked up at him. When had she last been called “miss”?

  “I just now realized I never asked your name.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, my name is Amanda.”

  Coach Miller nodded. “Right pretty name.”

  Amanda’s blush surprised her and she looked back at the envelope again.

  “You planning to drive on to Florence, then?”

  Amanda shook her head, then paused. “Am I so easy to read?”

  He laughed a low chuckle that ended in a cough. “Well, you best get going, then. Four hundred miles is four hundred miles after all.”

  Amanda looked up at him again, then let her gaze move past him to the kitchen, where it lingered for a moment before she looked back at him again. The success of the last few moments washed her with boldness she didn’t recognize in herself. “When did your wife pass away, Coach Miller?”

  It was a presumptuous comment to make and took Amanda off guard that she had asked it. Part of not putting herself in a position to be asked any questions was making sure not to ask questions herself. Especially personal questions that could create attachment and intimacy. Coach Miller, however, barely reacted, though his smile softened. “Comin’ up on two years,” he said, then lifted a grizzled eyebrow. “Am I so easy to read?”

  For whatever reason the comment made tears come to her eyes along with a thought that she rolled around in her head for a few moments before she dared say it out loud. These last years—nightmares every one of them—had pushed her away from people, connections, relationships, and anything other than the most basic of interactions. She had no friends. She had pulled away from family. She asked nothing of anyone, but in the process, she gave nothing to anyone either. It was too risky. Fear of either rejection or publicity had driven her into herself, hiding and fretful and selfish. But the woman she’d once been had taken meals in to new mothers at church, helped shovel snow for a neighbor woman after she broke her hip, donated to causes, walked in fund-raisers, and generally lifted the hands that hung down. How long it had been since she’d felt the sweetness of those things; how long it had been since she’d dared to risk. Even now it scared her. What if Coach Miller discovered who she was? He might reject her as so many people had.

  But what if Coach Miller didn’t find out? What if she were just Amanda, a pretty name for a pretty face who could help this man who exuded loneliness? And what if she could leave his home an hour from now, maybe two, having done something for someone other than her son or herself? What if his day could be made brighter through her—the mother of Robert Mallorie? Hadn’t Mrs. Hovely at the library already helped Amanda? Hadn’t this man helped her too? Wasn’t it only right that she try to return the favors of their assistance?

  She’d been quiet too long before she accepted her idea as having merit and met his eyes again. He had a patient look on his face and she remembered that the last thing he’d said was that his wife had passed away. She hurried to catch up with their exchange of dialogue. “I’m so sorry about your wife, Coach Miller. I guess you know firsthand that bittersweetness of loss you mentioned earlier.”

  He inclined his head in acknowledgment but still looked at her with an air of expectation.

  “I am eager to meet Mr. Mathis. I want to know how my son got his ring and return it to him.”

  Coach Miller nodded again but continued to leave the talking to her.

  “However,” she said, taking a breath for confidence, “I’ve been traveling for a couple of days now and I’d been packing for several days before that, leaving me to forage for my meals amid cereal boxes and soup cans rather than waste time cooking.”

  Now he was still, as though he knew what she was going to say next.

  “I know you don’t know me, but I’m a pretty good cook and if you don’t mind a little company, it’s been a very long time since I’ve shared a meal with . . . well, anyone.”

  “You’re asking me out to dinner?”

  Amanda blushed at the coy smile that spread across his face. “Well, actually, I was asking you in to dinner.” She nodded toward the kitchen. “I’m sure I could find something to make a meal out of, but I might have to do some dishes along the way.”

  “You, young lady,” he said, making her smile again at his insistence on seeing her as a girl, “have got yourself a deal.” He pushed himself up and out of his chair again while Amanda got to her feet and put her purse on the couch as though it belonged there somehow.

  “I bought some hamburger and there’s any number of other odds and ends in the cupboards, though you’ll want to check the expiration dates. If you’re as good a cook as you say you are, I expect to be very impressed.”

  18

  Coach Miller

  Two years, one month, four days

  While this Amanda woman cooked, she cleaned the kitchen, and even though there were few things Coach liked less than cleaning—to which the current state of his house could attest—he couldn’t very well sit in his chair and watch TV while she cleaned up after him. Kate’s voice sounded in his head as it often did: “If you can lean you can clean.” Then she’d hand him something to put in the garage, or a broom to sweep the floor. Amanda, though, wouldn’t tell him what to do and so he had to come up with tasks on his own. Considering the mess he’d let grow around him these months, he had plenty of starting places to choose from. He hauled newspapers out to the garage, put all the books back onto the shelves, and then disappeared into the bathroom when he realized she would likely need to use it at some point, and wouldn’t he be embarrassed then? There was something mysterious about this woman, a secret bubbling under the surface like that time on the field when the sprinkler had broken and created a pond under the sod. The team had run out to practice, broken through the grass, and ended up in mud to their knees. He didn’t expect Amanda to reveal her secrets—he was still a stranger—but he had the oddest sense that her being here was . . . helping her with it somehow. If Kate were here he could discuss the idea with her and she’d either laugh and shake her head or nod thoughtfully and say, “That’s something to chew on, isn’t it?”

  With the bathroom garbage bag in hand, he went into the kitchen and gathered up the garbage that had fallen around the edges of the garbage can.

  “You and your wife lived here for forty years?” Amanda asked as he sat on a chair so he didn’t have to bend as far to pick up the wadded paper towels and eggshells. What a slob he’d become.

  “Yes, ma’am, it’s the only home we ever owned and we paid a whopping twenty-five thousand dollars for this place.” He slapped his hand against the side of the cabinet by where he sat—original to the house, which had been built in the 60s. He’d replaced the hinges, and Kate had repainted them a decade ago, but the actual cabinets were the same ones. Sturdy. They didn’t sell this kind of think at IKEA. No sir.

  She laughed, then caught herself and blinked as though she didn’t know where the sound had come from. He reached for an empty clam chowder can.

  “How did yo
u two meet?” she asked.

  “Belmont,” he said. “We were both working on our teaching degrees and ended up teaching each other a thing or two.” He grinned broadly when she looked at him. She shook her head the way his daughter did when he said outrageous things.

  “And how many children do you have?”

  “Four,” he said, looking away and using his foot to pull an empty cereal box closer to him. Being this close to the garbage can alerted him to the smell—atrocious. “Carl and Kevin both live in Memphis, the other two are out of state now.”

  “None of them are close by, then.”

  “Nah,” he said. “They come to visit now and then, but they’ve got families of their own—all but Kevin, who I have finally accepted doesn’t like girls—and they’re all busy, busy, busy.” He didn’t try to hide the bitterness in his voice; he’d expected better from all of them, but they seemed pretty content to live their lives without him. At least Linda called him once or twice a month. Kevin stopped by when work brought him through town.

  “Have you ever thought of moving closer to them?”

  Coach shrugged. “I’m not sure any of them want me to.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true,” Amanda said while finding room for just one more plate on the drying rack. Coach was glad she hadn’t asked when he’d last washed dishes because he couldn’t remember. Sometimes he’d rinse something and put it back in the cupboard, but mostly he just piled them up and then wiped off what he needed when he needed it. Kate would be horrified, but then she’d been doing that sort of thing for him for almost sixty years of his life. He didn’t know how to live without her, so he stagnated and marinated in misery and moved in and out of depression, wishing he was dead even on the good days. She’d be disappointed by that, too, but then she wasn’t the one who was left behind, wondering what her purpose was and what good there was left in living.

  “Kate was the one they came to see. Now that it’s just me, there’s not much incentive. Darryl used to live just a few streets over.” He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder toward the neighborhood to the south. “But he got a new job and I barely even talk to him anymore.” He shrugged as though it didn’t matter, but he could tell she wasn’t buying it. He’d have considered himself closest to Darryl before he took the job with that fancy-schmancy law firm in Sioux Falls just months after Kate’s funeral. Coach had needed that relationship more than ever, and Darryl just up and left, took the kids with him, and left Coach to rot. Thinking on it made his chest heat up. He deserved better than what he’d got.

  “You and your daughter must be close for you to be moving near her,” he said to change the subject.

  “Not really,” she admitted after several seconds. “We’ve had some really hard years, and I’m worried that her expectations are higher than I can meet.”

  “Maybe that’s better than her having expectations that are too low,” Coach said, thinking of his own kids, who never asked for his help or his opinions. Maybe because he tended to think there was only one way to do a thing, and they always tried to do it differently. When Kate was here she softened the edges, helped them find common ground, and offered a bridge for everyone. He felt rejected and lonely when he allowed himself to remember that there were people out there with some of Kate in them who didn’t care enough to keep in touch. “Parenting is tough work.”

  She nodded and lifted the lid to the pot on the stove.

  “Smells good,” he said.

  “It’s nothing fancy, hamburger gravy over rice.”

  “Beats soup from a can,” he said, and went into the living room to straighten up in there.

  By the time Amanda announced that dinner was ready, he felt a little sheepish—it hadn’t taken much to fill up a garbage bag with crap he didn’t need and take dishes into the kitchen. The kitchen looked like it had back when Kate was here. It had taken, what, an hour? Which meant that a few minutes a day over the course of years could have made a substantial difference all this time. Or he could hire someone like Linda had suggested a dozen times.

  Coach pulled out the chair set for him at the table. Amanda slid into her chair—Kate’s chair—after setting down the pan on a trivet, something one of the grandkids had made for Kate a few years ago. Did they miss their grandma as much as he did?

  They served up dinner—gravy over rice with a side of canned green beans—and savored a few bites before Coach asked a question. “Do you have any other children, beside your son who passed—sorry about that, again—and your daughter?”

  “No, just the two.” She stared at her plate a moment and shifted uncomfortably. There was a tightness in her answer that kept the rest of his questions about her son to himself. They took a few more bites and against his preference, he decided to talk about himself again. She was more open when the focus wasn’t on her.

  “What do you think I should do about my kids, Amanda?” She looked up, her fork caught halfway between her plate and her mouth. She sat back in her chair and lowered her fork to her plate as though he’d asked a gripping question that required a lot of thought. He was content to wait her out and took another bite. The meal was simple, but delicious. He really should have learned how to cook.

  “Oh, I really don’t know, Coach. I’m no expert.”

  “You raised two kids,” he reminded her, watching the way her eyes moved to a spot on the table and stayed there. “You’ve got the same training any of us have.”

  “Raising kids is only one piece of parenthood,” she said while straightening the silverware next to her plate. Even though they were only using forks, she’d set out all three utensils.

  “True,” Coach said, taking another bite. “This is excellent, by the way, best meal I’ve had in I don’t know how long.”

  She smiled tremulously and picked up her fork again.

  “I’d still like your opinion,” Coach said.

  “I’ll think about it,” Amanda replied.

  They ate the rest of the meal in silence. Then she did the dishes while he cleared the table and wiped everything down with a wet rag. She’d filled a mixing bowl with soapy water she put in a corner of the farmhouse sink to make it a double. They had a dishwasher—a Christmas gift to Kate a decade ago—but it was broken and Coach wasn’t handy with stuff like that. He started drying the dishes beside her with dishtowels he realized Kate must have washed before she’d died. He tended to use the paper variety. He was tempted to lift the dishtowel to his nose and smell the detergent she’d used. He’d recently realized that whatever he was buying wasn’t the same brand. Nothing smelled like her anymore.

  Amanda cleared her throat in a “I have something to say” kind of way. He turned to look at her, but she kept her eyes on the dishes. “My parents would come and see me when my kids were small, and I loved that. My dad would take . . . my son fishing and Mom taught Melissa how to knit. Those were things I didn’t have the patience to do, but they were retired and better at sitting still than I was.”

  “I don’t really know my grandkids very well,” Coach said. Darryl’s had been so little when they’d lived here, or at least they’d seemed so little.

  “That might be the key right there, then,” Amanda said, sounding more confident. “I loved seeing my parents with my kids and it brought us all closer.”

  Coach nodded. “Is that what you’ll be doing in Ohio, being a grandma?”

  Amanda nodded, looking nervous as she rinsed the final pan under the tap. “Might be easier said than done, but I’m going to try to do my best. Lucy is two and I’ve only seen her a handful of times. Melissa’s pregnant with a boy now. I’ll actually be there to help when he’s born. I’m looking forward to that.”

  “All any of us can do is our best, right?”

  Amanda nodded, then glanced at him as though she was going to say something, but turned forward and began wiping down the sink.

  “Spit it out,” he said. “I can take it.”

  “Well, I was going to suggest hirin
g someone to come in and clean once a week—if you can afford it. You don’t seem to like housework, but it might make this place a bit more inviting.” Her cheeks colored. “That was rude, what I meant was—”

  “Not rude,” Coach said. “It’s a valid point. My daughter’s said the same thing. And maybe I should go see the kids instead of waiting for them to come around. I don’t like to travel much, but I’m getting awful lonely knocking around here by myself.”

  “Is there a senior center in town?”

  He acted offended. “And hang out with all those old farts?” He laughed and she smiled. “Maybe my pride is cutting me off from some opportunities—is that what you’re saying?”

  “My dad took an art class at the senior center and ended up with a group of men who would golf once a week. It was really good for him—that’s all I have to say.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  She nodded, then dried her hands and glanced at the clock before turning to face him. “Thank you,” she said with sincerity that touched him.

  “It’s my house that’s clean and my belly that’s full. Thank you.”

  “Well, thank you for letting me. It’s been . . . a while since I’ve been able to take care of someone. Not that you need to be taken care of, that’s not what I meant, only that—”

  “It’s been a while since anyone has taken care of me, and it’s pretty nice. You brought me some sunshine today, Amanda, and I appreciate it. The leftovers should make me a happy man for a few more days.”

  “I’m glad.” She retrieved her purse from the living room and he walked her to the door—it was full dark and he considered inviting her to stay in one of the extra bedrooms, but he’d be basically asking her to clean out a place for herself, and, well, call him old-fashioned, but it wasn’t appropriate to have unmarried men and women under the same roof.