by Terri Kraus
“Hi, I’m Trevor’s father. Mike Reidmiller. Trevor has told me all about your daughter.”
Leslie’s hand felt small inside his large, almost massive hand. Yet for a man, his handshake was surprisingly gentle. If teddy bears came in human form, Mike Reidmiller would be one of that species—sort of round, but in a pleasant way, with a neatly trimmed dark beard, thick dark hair, and a wide, eager smile.
“Well, I want to thank you for the cupcakes. Ava says Trevor insists on sharing. I hope that it’s not a problem,” Leslie replied.
Mike Reidmiller had sought out Leslie while they waited for the bell to sound, announcing the end of kindergarten at the Emily Brittian Elementary School. Both were standing in the dappled shadows of the large oak tree on the corner of the school ground.
“Trevor pointed Ava out to me yesterday, and I saw you then, but by the time Trev got his backpack together, you were gone.”
Leslie waited, unsure if that required an apology or some manner of explanation. She decided that it did not.
“Anyhow,” Mr. Reidmiller continued, “Trev goes on and on about Ava, and I thought I should say hello. He says that Ava and you just moved to Butler.”
“We did, a little over a month ago. We really like it.”
Mr. Reidmiller looked over to the playground, as did Leslie, both checking on their children. “Is Ava your only child? Trevor said she was, but sometimes I have difficulty making sure everything he says is really real, and not just something he wants to believe.”
“She is an only child, Mr. Reidmiller. And I have the same problem with Ava. I guess it goes with the age,” Leslie replied with a smile.
“I know this is probably way too forward, because I’ve been so out of practice. Trevor said that Ava said that you’re divorced. I know it’s none of my business, but you know how kids talk and tell all sorts of details that perhaps parents don’t want to be made public.” Mr. Reidmiller waited for a moment, with what Leslie interpreted as his best nonthreatening look, then continued. “I’m sure Ava has heard all sorts of stories from Trevor as well.”
“She didn’t tell me all that much, really. She likes him, but Trevor must be some sort of cipher to Ava. She did say that he didn’t talk much about his mother, though,” Leslie said, as kindly as she could.
“Yeah, that’s Trevor,” Mr. Reidmiller said, as if admitting to some secret.
The happy screams from the playground seemed to diminish slightly, as parents arrived and students began heading home.
“So I guess I need to tell you that I’m a single parent as well.”
Leslie waited again. She seemed to wait a lot lately, not knowing how people expected her to respond and trying her very best not to try and meet someone’s else’s expectation of just what she should be and just how she should act.
“So … I don’t know anything else about you, Mrs. Ruskin, but since we’re both single parents … well, I thought maybe we could get coffee sometime. Maybe at Cunningham’s—the new ice-cream and coffee shop on Main Street? My cousin owns it and he could use the business.”
He waited, and Leslie was certain he was hoping for an affirmative reply. The date of Leslie’s official divorce decree was less than one year old, though her emotional divorce had occurred much earlier. She knew that, at some moment in time, in the future, some man, somewhere, might just ask her out. Part of her wanted that to happen, and there were moments she wanted it to happen soon, when she wanted to be with a man very badly.
I’m young. I guess I’m sort of attractive. I still want to be with a … in a relationship with a … dating a …
She’d always known dating would be in her future, yet she had no idea what to say now and how to decide.
Does my new life start from here?
Leslie had made one very disastrous choice, based on looks and lust, and she had no additional training in how to avoid making another one choice as inopportune as the first.
Ava picked this instant to charge at her mother full speed, hair flowing behind her pretty young face as if caught in the wind. Her lips opened with a gigantic grin and she called out, “Mommy!” as she opened her arms wide. Leslie bent to receive her daughter and scooped her up, holding her close. She turned back to the invitation at hand.
“Mr. Reidmiller …”
“Mike. Mr. Reidmiller is my father,” he said with a grin.
“Mike, thank you for the invitation. I would—”
Just then, Trevor came screaming toward them, his Thomas the Tank Engine backpack windmilling as he ran, straps flapping, his scream not of fear or terror, but of sheer joy of being five and out of school on a warm, pleasant fall afternoon.
“Mike, thanks for the invitation. I would like that, but maybe in a couple of weeks. A rain check, okay? We’re still getting settled in, and I’ve got a contractor that started the work on my place this morning and … well, a lot on my plate.”
She knew for certain that having to face a man, a cup of coffee, and possibly uncomfortable silence, was more than enough to cause beads of sweat to form on her forehead and her stomach to ache ever so slightly.
Mr. Reidmiller appeared relieved—in a disappointed but teddy-bear-like way. “No problem at all, Mrs. Ruskin. Leslie. I’ll remind you about my invite in a few weeks. I think my cousin can hang on until then.”
Amelia Westland, age thirteen years, six months
Butler County, Pennsylvania
December 14, 1875
He will regard the prayer of the destitute,
and not despise their prayer.
—Psalm 102:17
It has been two months since coming to live with the Reverend Wilcox. I thank my God that he had taken pity on me—left without relative nor close friend to provide quarter, since three homes in the vicinity of our farm—those of the Stalls, Enquists, and Johnsons—also lost one or both parents due to the pox. I have stayed in an upper loft of the reverend’s small parsonage, a pallet with quilts on which to sleep. The weather had not yet turned bitterly cold, so it was tolerable.
It is great consolation that I have my books, which I have been allowed to keep, upon the petition made by the reverend, who prevailed upon officials on my behalf.
It was the reverend’s sister who bid him find a suitable situation for me. “How shall it appear to your church,” she demanded, “for a widower like you to have a budding young woman in your abode? They will think evil of you. She must go.”
Reverend Wilcox has now made arrangements for me to enter the Butler Asylum for Orphans. “They will take care of your needs,” he promised, then embraced me until I began to feel uncomfortable. I now await the conveyance they are sending for my few possessions and me.
I pray that God will go before me and find me there.
Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort.
—2 Corinthians 1:3
CHAPTER SIX
LESLIE WOKE THE NEXT MORNING to muted music. She sat up in bed and squinted at the clock. It was 7:00.
My heavens, we’ll be late!
She jumped out of bed and tossed on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. She ran across the hall to Ava’s room and swung the door open. “Ava! Get up …”
There was no Ava! The bed was rumpled; pink pajamas were in a heap on the floor—but no Ava!
Leslie spun about and sprinted down the hall, racing toward the phone. Should she call 9-1-1? Her ex-husband?
Where could my baby girl have gone!?
Then she stopped dead in her tracks. Ava, wearing a mismatched shirt and pair of shorts, sat calmly at the kitchen table. A bowl of Cheerios, with several scoops of sugar slowly dissolving, was in front of her. There were two small puddles of milk—one on the table and one on the floor between the coun
ter and table. Ava looked up at her mother, chewing most deliberately.
“Do you know what time it is?” Leslie asked, her voice wavering, higher than it should be, her attempt to control an implosion of nerves obvious to everyone but Ava.
Ava looked at her mother, over to the clock on the microwave, then back to her mother. “Nope. Mrs. DiGiulio hasn’t taught us that yet.” Then she dug into the Cheerios, making sure the spoonful was half cereal, half sugar, with a light sprinkling of milk.
Leslie let her mothering/homemaking autopilot kick in. She snapped two paper towels off the roll, wet them slightly, and bent first to the spilled milk on the table, carefully and completely wiping it up, then attending to the puddle on the floor. By the time she tossed the wet paper towels in the trash, she had regained control of her breathing but not her emotions. She pulled out a chair and sat down next to Ava.
“Sweetie,” she said calmly, “the next time you wake up in the morning and Mommy’s not awake, will you remember to come into my room and wake me up?”
Ava’s brow almost furrowed. Then her face lightened as if she’d been calculating the cost or time of responding to this specific request. “Okay. I will. Even if it’s like, real, real early?”
“Yep. Even if it’s dark outside. This morning I went to your bedroom and it was empty. Mommy got scared.”
Ava nodded … knowingly, Leslie thought.
Then, from somewhere, came a wisp of rock ’n’ roll music. It was certainly not coming from the Stickles’ apartment. Leslie had talked with them often and liked them, but they weren’t the sort of people who would play ’80s music in the morning.
Leslie leaned in to the sound. She recognized it as a hit by the band U2.
Ava chewed, swallowed, and wiped her mouth on her forearm. “It’s Mr. Kenyon. He had a radio. I saw him … I like his music.”
Jack did not pound a nail nor cut a board until well after 8:00. When he had applied for his contractor’s license at city hall, he’d made sure he knew the codes regarding starting times: 8:00 for indoor work, 7:00 for work outside. But he knew that the squeal of a circular saw at 8:01 was not conducive to maintaining cordial relationships with neighbors. Instead of pounding and cutting, Jack planned to spend the first half hour reviewing what he would be tackling that day, taking measurements, jotting down notes, making sure his supplies matched his plan. There were few things more aggravating and frustrating than to be in the middle of something, only to find out that the one part, or the one piece of wood, or the one specific nail required to finish the job, was simply not there. If he had a crew, then the newest and lowest-paid man on the job would be sent out for supplies. Jack was both the highest and lowest man on his very small totem pole.
Jack carefully arranged what he needed for the day. He set up his new $29.95 radio on the counter in the kitchen, tuned it to WWSW—“All the Hits of Yesterday”—lowered the volume to middle-aged levels and started to nip away at the peeling wall in the front room of the apartment. He had brought a half-gallon of bleach with him, with an empty spray bottle, just in case there was mold behind the wall. He didn’t smell a hint of it when he estimated the job, but you never knew with construction on old buildings.
With a pry bar, he began to pull away the flaking plasterboard; most of it came off in chunks. In less than an hour, he had the wall clean to the studs. Another thirty minutes and all the nails were removed from the studs.
No mold. That’s good. Saves a lot of headaches. And all the wood is in good shape.
Jack packed the debris into large, sturdy contractor’s trash bags. He was determined to be a different sort of contractor—one who cleaned as he went. And, well, he had to. There was no low-paid laborer to follow the crew around, picking up after them.
I can offer charm to my customers, but if I couple my charm with a clean job site, that’s the stuff of good recommendations.
By noon, the new stack of drywall panels had been screwed into the studs, and the surface was nearly perfect. He had measured close, too close apparently, for he needed part of one more sheet to finish. Instead of having his ham-and-cheese sandwich on the balcony by himself, he planned on offering himself a treat: a real lunch, with real people. Since he had to go back to the lumberyard for drywall, he thought a quick stop at The Palm would be a nice reward. After all, he had a job—and a solid prospect for a second job. Things were definitely looking up for Kenyon Construction.
He pulled his truck around to the worn red-brick tavern and slipped out into the noon sun. Even though it was autumn, the sunshine was bright. Jack squinted as he made his way up the steps.
“Howdy, and welcome back,” the bartender said.
The room was nearly empty. Two old men sat at the end of the bar, their faces a study in emptiness, their hands gently caressing the bottom half of a half-empty glass of draft beer.
“Thanks. A cheeseburger again today. American cheese. And a couple of bags of chips. No fries at lunch, right?”
“You got it,” the bartender replied and made his way back toward the kitchen.
The television mounted above the bar was tuned in to some talk show unfamiliar to Jack. The audience hooted about something.
Jack nodded to the two old men who sat in shadows. They nodded back, then turned again to the TV, their watery eyes reflecting the blue light of the set.
The bartender came back with a big glass of Coke in his hand and carefully placed it in front of Jack. “A Coke is good, right?”
Jack nodded. He unwrapped a straw and folded the paper neatly.
The bartender leaned backward against the counter and placed his palms on the worn wooden trim.
“How long has it been?”
Jack glanced up from his Coke. He wasn’t surprised by the question or that the bartender recognized the situation. Jack knew the two men at the end of the bar had given up. He knew the signs. He knew what the men were. He knew that they knew that he knew. Everything was brutally obvious to members of the club, even if it was a secret club, complete with secret looks and behaviors. And if anyone recognized the signs, it would be a man who worked tending bar.
“Thirteen months.”
“Long time. Congratulations.”
“I guess.”
“For me, it’s been fifteen years, three months … and a week, I think. I haven’t checked the calendar for a few days. By the way, my name is Earl. Earl Chapman.”
Jack extended his hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Jack Kenyon.”
Before Jack could ask the question that immediately came to mind, the old bartender beat him to it.
“What am I doing here?” he said, sweeping the air with his arm. “You’re thinking it, aren’t you? Well, the truth of the matter is, I can’t do anything else. I dropped out of high school a long time ago. My back ain’t up to working in a mill. I like the people here. Most of the time, anyway. Once I stopped drinking, once I gave it up for good, it wasn’t that hard anymore. Wasn’t really tempted, I guess. I gotta work somewhere, and this place ain’t that bad.”
A rough female voice boomed out of the kitchen, which was hidden, except for a small window, “Burger’s up!”
In a minute, a hot, greasy, delicious cheeseburger was in front of Jack, with two bags of Dan Dee potato chips, and a two-inch stack of paper napkins.
“Everything’s a little greasy,” Earl explained.
“No problem. A little grease won’t hurt. Don’t have to dress for my job,” Jack said, taking a large bite out of the burger.
“What are you doing in Butler, Mr. Kenyon?”
“It’s Jack.”
Earl waved his hand in dismissal. “Everyone here is a mister. Only one name instead of two. Helps me remember. And it adds a little couth and dignity to the place, don’t ya think?”
Jack smiled, not wanting to laugh with his mo
uth full. “I’m starting a construction business. I’m a carpenter.”
“Are you good, Mr. Kenyon?”
Jack shrugged. “I think so. Spent the last year, a little over, actually, working up in Franklin on a big job—restoring an old mansion. Yeah, I think I’m pretty good.”
“I saw a TV show about a mansion up that way … Carlson, or Carson …”
“Carter.”
“Yeah, that’s it. Big old place. By the river. Beautiful.”
“It was the old Carter Mansion. They featured the place on a Pittsburgh cable station show named Three Rivers Restorations. Did a story on the renovation. It took a while to get done, but it turned out great. We finished it this past spring.”
“And sober since then, right?”
Jack nodded. “All through the project. Nothing at all.”
“Meetings?”
“Not for a while. Not since April.”
“You should go. There’s a couple of them in town.”
Jack chewed, as if in thought. “Maybe I will.”
“Where you working now? You said you had a project going on.”
Jack spent a few minutes explaining what he was doing and where.
“Yeah, I know the building. It’s a landmark. With the green screened balconies? I like that place. Somebody bought it?”
“A single mom … divorced. From Greensburg. She has a young daughter.” As soon as he said it, Jack wondered if he’d said too much.
Jack saw Earl look at his left hand. There was no ring on that finger. There hadn’t been a ring there for a few years. There was no longer even a hint of whiteness, where a thick gold wedding band had once protected the skin from the sun.
Jack looked up and saw the question in the old man’s eyes. “I’m by myself too, now. Seems like ages ago.”
Earl nodded, as if in sympathy.
“It’s been a long time,” Jack murmured. He took a deep breath, then added, even softer, “Feels like forever.”
