A long moment and the cleaning picked up speed again. “So why did they stay? After…”
“I’m not real sure. Maybe they didn’t have any place else to go. By the time my great-grandma was there, I think she got paid. Some anyway.” The memory of a stash of cash flashed through her mind and anger poured in with it.
“It couldn’t have been much,” Rachel said. “I remember the stories Ms. P used to tell us when we were serving the community lunches back in high school about how her family ate rock soup because they were so poor.”
That didn’t set any better with Dani. “Makes me crazy sometimes to think of folks doing that to others. Great-grandma had five kids. How could Mrs. Attabury and Mr. Attabury before her let that happen to a whole family? I just don’t get it.”
Rachel was around the back of the desk now, and she stopped, tipped her head in puzzlement and ducked behind the desk.
“What?” Dani asked, stopping her diatribe. “What’s wrong?”
Without answering, Rachel knocked twice on the back of the thing. She tilted her head and knocked again. “I think there’s something back here.”
“Something?” Dani asked, coming up to her knees. “What do you mean?”
Another knock and Rachel started inspecting closer. “It’s like there’s a false panel, like it’s not solid.” She came up and checked with a nod. “There is. Right here.” Backing up a little, she showed Dani the anomaly. “I think there must be some space in there.”
“Maybe it’s just the way it was made.”
“Or maybe it was made that way for a reason.” Rachel had practically laid down on the concrete to get a better look at the dimensions of the thing. She came up and got all the way to her feet. “There’s got to be something…” Swiping her hands on her jeans, she searched closer as Dani pulled herself up and watched. “Here’s a…” She tripped the little push-lever, and the edge of the desk flipped open.
“What?” Dani jumped back in surprise. “No way.”
Rachel worked the lever again, and the little panel snapped back closed. “How cool is that?”
“Awesome.” Without moving, Dani watched her flip the thing back open and bend down. “Is there anything in it?”
“Hm.” Carefully Rachel reached inside. “Yeah. What…?” She pulled something out, held it, and blew it off before wiping it as well. “It’s… a book.”
“What kind of book?” Dani asked, only leaning over a bit to get a better look.
With the utmost care, Rachel opened it. “It looks like a diary.” She puzzled over the pages filled with words.
“What does it say?”
“Hm. December 18, 1945. Louise wrote to say the family is well. So glad to hear her little Harry is doing better. I’ve been so worried for them all this past month. She says William will be home after Christmas sometime. Thank goodness he’s safe and will return to his family. Tony brought our tree in yesterday. It must have been the biggest in the forest. It takes up half the parlor. Can’t wait to decorate it. I still love this time of year though being away from Louise and the others always hangs heavy on my heart during the holidays.”
Dani half-smiled. “Is there more?”
“A lot more.” Rachel leafed through it and then closed it and held it out to her. “I guess it’s yours now.” She shrugged. “Who knows, maybe she talked about your family, your great-grandmother or something.”
Taking the book, Dani let her gaze fall to it and hold. “Yeah. Maybe.”
It was after four when Eric, Caleb, Derek and Jaycee headed back out to the farm. Attabury was ready as it was going to be for the demolition and rebuilding stage that would start in the morning. As crazy as it sounded, he was beginning to love the time he spent at that old house. In a strange way even though it hadn’t been altered by even a board, it was starting to feel like home. Derek and Caleb included him without question even though their expertise was far more hands-on than his was.
They had finished stripping the back servants’ room, so there wasn’t a stick of furniture left anywhere downstairs. Upstairs was still anybody’s guess. After they braced the main floor tomorrow and got the stairs out of the extreme danger zone, they would get to tackle whatever was up there. Excitement danced in him as he thought about both the possibilities and the challenges.
It was only when they got back out to the farm after collecting the kids that his spirit slipped back into the muck from the clouds it had been on all day. He hated that, hated how it felt to be around her, but now he couldn’t deny how weighted down his spirit became the closer they got to being together.
He thought about what Caleb had said about Rachel, how he’d had to decide to love her anyway, how it was harder than he had though it would be. That was weird. Wasn’t love supposed to be easy? Wasn’t that why they called it “falling in love” because falling was always easier than standing? He had felt the falling part. It was just how far he had fallen that now bothered him. In fact, this didn’t feel like love at all. It felt like frustration and exasperation of the highest order.
“Well, looks like y’all made some progress,” Caleb said, leading Eric and Jaden into the little barn-shop thing out back. In his arms, Caleb held Natalie as Rhett trailed behind him.
Eric couldn’t help but think that anyone who didn’t know him would never have so much as guessed they weren’t his. Inside the shop, Rachel straightened from where she was working on the little writing desk. It already looked better now that it was cleaned.
“Hey, you made it,” Rachel said and leaning in to Caleb, she gave him a lingering kiss that spoke of how much she had missed him for the few hours they had been apart.
Reluctantly Eric’s gaze slipped over to Dani who stood not so much as looking at him with her arms crossed. “How’s it been going out here?”
“Good,” Rachel said as if the question was meant for her. “I decided to work on this one today. The other two are going to take more work, and I thought Aaron could get some footage of those.”
“Good plan.”
“Oh, look, Jayc. They started the party without us again,” Derek said, his voice veritably booming in the large space. “Imagine that.”
“Well, how dare they,” Jaycee said, walking up, hanging onto her husband’s hand and arm as if she was afraid she might fall. “And at our shop too. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Who picked these friends anyway?”
“I blame you for that,” he said, and with a grin, leaned down to kiss her.
When it ended, she grinned up at him. “You keep that up, and you can blame me any day.”
His grin stretched farther as he wrapped her under his arm and tightened his embrace. A second and he looked over at the others. “So what are we doing for supper anyway?”
“Let me guess,” Rachel said.
“He’s starving,” she, Caleb, and Jaycee all said together, and they all laughed.
“We could call Greely and get pizza,” Jaycee said, “but that means you guys have to go get it.”
Derek brushed her hair with his lips. “Sounds like a plan. Eric, my man, you interested in riding shotgun?”
That surprised Eric nearly into shock. He looked over at Caleb, having assumed he would be more suited to being asked. “Uh, sure.”
Caleb jerked his chin up. “Be careful accepting. He’s just suckering you into paying.”
Instantly Derek’s mouth fell open in defensive shock. “I was not. You all have such little faith in me.”
“Experience,” Jaycee said, laying her hand on his chest. “It’s called experience, honey.”
However, when he looked down at her, she smiled sweetly up at him, and he kissed her. His face stayed corkscrewed in mock anger. “I resemble that remark.” Tipping his head toward the door, he looked over at Eric. “You ready?”
“Uh. Yeah.” He did think to touch his wallet in case they weren’t kidding. It was there.
With one more kiss, Derek let go of Jaycee. “You call it in. Tell them we’re on our way.”
“No problem.”
When the two of them left, Jaden came over by Dani as Rachel and Caleb had a mini-conference about the writing desk. Jaycee was ordering pizza, which Dani really hoped would hurry. She wasn’t at all sure how the logistics of the vehicles would go, and it was getting late to get Ja home and ready for school the next morning. “How were you?” She dusted the spiral of curls out of the little face. “Were you a good girl?”
Jaden nodded. “We played Go Fish. Aiden and me won.”
“Aiden and I,” Dani corrected.
“Aiden and I,” Jaden parroted.
“Well, that’s good. I’m glad you had a good day.”
“Can we stay?” Jaden asked, her eyes forming wide almond windows to her little soul.
“Stay? Here?” Dani shook her head. “No, baby girl. We’ve got to go home. You’ve got school tomorrow, remember?”
“Oh.” The eyes fell, and the little head nodded.
A moment and Dani gathered her in. “Maybe sometime we can stay a little longer. Would that be good?”
Again the head nodded, but the child uttered not even another syllable.
“Tell you what, we’d better go in and get packed up so we can go as soon as we eat.” She took Jaden’s hand as Jaycee hung up.
However, taking a step toward Rachel and Caleb, Jaycee stumbled on her shoe, barely catching her balance. All three of them jumped toward her though none made it all the way to her.
“Jayc!” Rachel exclaimed with more concern than before. “What…? Whoa. Are you okay?”
Caleb handed Natalie to Rachel and got to Jaycee in three steps. “What happened? Are you all right?”
She laughed and brushed the hair from her face. “I’m fine. Just being a major klutz these days.”
“You’re not getting sick again?” he asked, putting his hand on her arm as if to steady her although she was back to good already.
“No. No. Nothing like that. I really think it’s these shoes. They keep catching on stuff.”
He angled his gaze down past her pants to the shoes. “That ain’t good on a job site, you know?”
“I know. I think it’s time to ditch them, but they look so good.” Jaycee lifted her foot for the others to inspect.
“Good or not. It’s not worth you breaking your neck over.”
“Fine. I’ll lose the shoes.”
“So you’re going to stay tonight?” Derek asked as the two of them headed to Greely.
“Ah. Actually I was thinking I’d take them home and come back in the morning. That way I’d have a car here for tomorrow night.”
Derek nodded. “Sounds like a plan.” He glanced over at his passenger. “So what is it that you do again?”
“I’m a regional structural engineering supervisor. We’re working on the bridge reconstruction over in Greensboro right now.”
“Bridges? Wow. No small potatoes there.”
“No. It can get pretty challenging especially with all the state regs and everything to comply with. Can be a real headache.”
“I bet.”
“So you grew up in Raleigh?” Derek asked.
“Oh. Uh, no. In Mount Airy.” Eric nodded, wondering how much he should tell this guy. After all, he was just making conversation.
“Your family still lives there, in Mount Airy.”
“My mom does. My brothers and sister all moved off after college.” Eric’s thought went to the little house, and he couldn’t help but think he should really get back over there soon. “Yep, Mom’s lived there most her entire life. She and Daddy married when she was only 18.”
The glance was barely there. “And your dad?”
Air and emotion jammed into Eric’s chest. He hadn’t really thought he would be in the middle of this explanation with any of them, but here he was. “Uh, well, my dad died when I was about ten.”
“Oh?” Concern and wishing he hadn’t asked. Both sounded in Derek’s voice.
“Yeah.” Eric nodded hard to get the words to keep going. “He was a cop. ‘Bout to move up on the force from what my mom says. There was a drug bust one night, and he didn’t make it out.”
“Oh, man. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” Shaking his head, Eric let the feelings brush past him. “Long time ago. Lotta water under the bridge since then.” He thought about that time and forgot he was just making small talk. “It’s weird ‘cause sometimes I wonder what memories of him are mine and real, and which ones are just stories they told me and ones I made up to fill in the holes.”
“That had to be rough, losing him at such a young age.”
“In some ways it was, and in other ways, I’m not even sure I really knew what was going on, you know? I mean, I remember the funeral, the police all standing at attention, all the dark blue and badges. I remember the coffin when it came out of that big, black car all draped in the flag and everything. I remember holding my mom’s hand and looking up at her. She wasn’t really crying, more just staring off into space.” Another memory slipped over the others. “I don’t know if it was that night or one just after that, but I remember being in bed and asking her when Daddy was coming home. I can still see her face. She smiled at me real sad and kissed my head. She said Daddy had gone to a better place, and he wouldn’t be coming back anymore.
“It was a long time before I really understood that, you know? A better place. A better place. What did that even mean? Why wasn’t our place good enough for him? And then one day I asked my sister Yvonne about it, about what better place Daddy had gone. She said I needed to grow up and quit asking so many dumb questions because I was making Mama sad.” Eric nodded into the memories. “So I quit asking questions. As I grew up, I filled in pieces here and there, and eventually I figured out that the better place was Heaven though by that point I can’t say I didn’t resent the heck out of that better place.
“Even now when I think about it like that, I still get this knot in my stomach that just feels like, ‘Why weren’t we good enough,’ you know? Why did he have to go to a better place than we were?” He laughed softly. “Crazy stuff when you think about it. There were a hundred ways she could’ve answered that question, and I’m not even sure any of them would have worked any better. But it’s still tough to take that Heaven needed him more than we did.”
Derek glanced over at him, lowered his eyes, and shook his head as his gaze went back out to the road. “There are some things I’m really going to ask God when I get there some day—like why dads leave and why kids are left.” He dragged in a breath. “My story’s different than yours without the hero part, but my dad left too. I got to visit him every other holiday and during the summers growing up. At least the ones he let me come for.” Shaking his head, he shrugged. “I always felt in the way with him, like he’d really rather being doing something else than dealing with me. I think that’s why the idea of being a dad kind of freaks me out so much. I didn’t have a great role model in that area, so what chance do I have of doing it any better?”
“You learn,” Eric said. “When Ja was born, I thought I was going to bust her in half. I was terrified to hold her. But you learn.”
“I don’t know, what if it’s genetic? What if leaving is in my blood?”
That was much harder to answer because leaving had been lurking around in the corner of Eric’s heart. Finally he shook his head. “I think you’ve got to make the decision and stay anyway.”
With a nod, Derek fell silent. It sure would be nice if after ten years, he had better news about what staying was like, but he really didn’t. Staying was an act of willpower over circumstance, that much he had learned, and trying to say it wasn’t and not sound like he was lying through his teeth would be impossible.
“So you’re coming back tomorrow?” Derek finally asked.
“That’s the plan.”
Chapter 11
The trip back to Raleigh had been catacomb quiet. Eric was sure Dani hadn’t been sleeping, but she hardly said three words either
. So instead of talking, he’d let himself think through all the things he had talked about with the guys back in Ridgemount. Although not a single one of them seemed ready to boast about how wonderful they were as husbands, fathers and men, he couldn’t help but think they all knew something he didn’t.
He thought back to when he had gotten together with Dani, trying to see the fatal flaw he was sure had to have been there from the start. Yes, she was driven, ambitious, and focused, but what lawyer wasn’t? Yes, she was organized and precise, but those were good things, right? Without moving it, he shook his head. No, even though the book said this was about him, he was pretty sure it was about her. If he could just find a way to fix her, the rest would take care of itself. He made a note to himself to ask Caleb about it the next morning.
Sleep eluded Dani though it kept brushing just outside her grasp all the way back to Raleigh. She knew Jaden was asleep in the back. They should have headed home sooner. Tomorrow was going to be impossible. Worse, Eric was going back. The heaviness of that settled on her heart. No, she couldn’t understand it—any of it. Why him going back and being involved bothered her so, why she herself didn’t really want to ever go back again, why this whole project felt so impossible to let go even as she wished she could find a way out of it.
Her head was starting to hurt, and she pinched her eyes closed. Maybe she was getting sick again. Great. That’s all she needed. The signs outside her window said they would be home in under a half-hour. That was good. She really needed to throw some laundry in, and tomorrow she had to remember the dry cleaning. It should have been picked up last week. It was already February, so she needed to stop sometime and get Valentine’s cards for Jaden for school. She wished the teacher was a little more organized so she knew approximately what she would need to send for the party. Wondering what day it would be on, she took out her phone, flipped it on, and tapped the calendar. A week from Tuesday. Yes. She’d better get on that one tomorrow as well. Oh, to be able to take a moment’s break somewhere. However, she beat that thought back. Thinking about it didn’t make it come, it just made the ache for it worse.
Raising Attabury: A Contemporary Christian Epic-Novel (The Grace Series Book 5) Page 15
