Saving Jake

by Sharon Sala

  Jake sighed. He did know. That’s pretty much how people had been treating him before he came home. He’d had hopes of this being different, but like the scars in his hair, he could hide them, but they didn’t go away.

  “It’s all good. No problems. Call if you need me,” he said, then turned around in her driveway and disappeared over the hill.

  Laurel took a deep breath and turned around. Her old truck was still there, waiting to be unloaded. The trailer still needed repairs, and winter was coming.

  Bonnie came around the corner of the house carrying Lavonne and waved.

  Laurel waved back, ignored the ache in her chest, and started walking.

  * * *

  Truman Slade unloaded the piece of Sheetrock he’d bought and carried it into the house. His buddy, Nester Williams, grabbed an armload of two-by-fours and followed him inside.

  “Wow, it’s a mess in here,” Nester said.

  “Wait till you see my bedroom,” Truman muttered. “Damn squirrel tore it up. It’s in the house somewhere. Keeps tearing up my stuff.”

  “In the house?”

  “Yeah. It fell in when the ceiling fell. I can’t catch it.”

  “Maybe you could just leave the door open for a while. It might run itself outside.”

  Truman shrugged. “I guess.”

  Nester didn’t see any doors opening themselves, but he didn’t live here and wasn’t going to get involved. He’d offered to help patch up the ceiling, and that’s where his helping stopped.

  “So, let’s get this started. I have a date tonight,” Nester said.

  Truman frowned. “I haven’t had a date in months.”

  Nester shrugged. That wasn’t his problem either. “I’m going to get my tools.”

  Truman leaned the Sheetrock against a wall in the hall, then went to the utility room and opened the back door. The place needed a little airing out, and if the squirrel left in the process, so much the better.

  Chapter 8

  Laurel felt bad all evening about how she’d behaved. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. One minute she was grateful for Jake’s help and compassion, and the next thing she did was treat him like a pariah after all he’d done for them. She was ashamed of herself.

  So while Bonnie was taking a bath and getting ready for bed, Laurel mixed up some cookie dough and put it in the refrigerator to cool. She heard Bonnie moving from the bathroom to the bedroom and went to put her to bed. The first thing she saw when she entered was Brave Bear on her pillow. He was obviously here to stay.

  “Did you brush your teeth?” Laurel asked.

  Bonnie nodded and opened her mouth to show her, as if looking at her teeth would be evidence enough, but she could smell the minty toothpaste.

  “Good job, honey. Now hop in bed. Tomorrow is going to be a big day at school. First-graders get to wear their Halloween costumes to school, and then you will have a costume parade through the other classes.”

  Bonnie giggled. “I’m going to be the best panda bear ever!”

  Laurel smiled, thinking about the costume she’d made out of black sweats and a black sock cap. Adding a little face paint to finish the look wouldn’t take long in the morning. She wished she could go to school on class party days and be one of the parents who got to help host the party or, like tomorrow, go to watch the parade with the other mothers, but she had to work.

  “You’ll be great. Now get to sleep, okay?”

  “Okay,” Bonnie said, and tucked Brave Bear beneath her chin and closed her eyes. “Don’t turn out all the lights,” she added.

  “I won’t,” Laurel said, leaving the night-light on and closing the door.

  She went back to the kitchen and turned on the oven and began getting the cookie pans ready. As soon as the first pan went in, she set the timer, filled the other two sheet pans with cookie dough, set them aside, and began cleaning up the dirty dishes.

  By the time the last pan came out of the oven, she had cleaned the kitchen and written checks to pay the bills that had come in the mail. They were a bitter reminder of her earlier faux pas. Hopefully, the cookies would be a sweet recipe for forgiveness.

  Finally, the cookies were cooled and packaged to give away, and she was stretched out in bed, too tired to turn over. The lights were out, and she was listening to a faucet drip when she fell asleep.

  She woke once and went to check on Bonnie, but she was still asleep. After a quick trip to the bathroom, she went back to bed. The alarm wouldn’t go off for another three hours.

  The next time she woke up, she could hear Bonnie in the hall. She groaned. The alarm wasn’t due to go off for another twenty minutes, but Bonnie was obviously excited about costume day because she was up.

  At the last minute, Bonnie insisted her panda bear should have a fat belly, and so Laurel tied an old throw pillow around Bonnie’s waist and called it done. Bonnie was so entranced with her look that she kept patting it.

  “Mommy, how do I look?” Bonnie asked.

  “You look amazing,” Laurel said. “Let me get my phone to take a picture.” She took a half dozen and then stopped. “That should be enough. We’ll send one to Granny and Gramps, okay?”

  “Yes!” Bonnie said. “And send one to Jake, too, okay?”

  “I’ll be sure to show him,” Laurel said. If he’ll ever talk to me again. Then she glanced at the clock. “Okay, kiddo, it’s time to head up the road. The bus will be here any minute. Grab your backpack. Your lunch bag is inside it.”

  “Are you gonna walk with me?”

  “Absolutely. I wouldn’t make a little panda bear walk to the bus stop alone.”

  Bonnie giggled, and out the door they went with Laurel carrying the backpack and Bonnie practicing her fat-belly walk. Laurel laughed all the way to the mailbox and then got teary as the bus drove away, thinking of what beautiful moments Adam was missing.

  Once back at the trailer, she loaded everything she would need in the truck, then went back for the cookies before she locked up. Just thinking about facing Jake again made her sick to her stomach, but Laurel was anything but a coward. She’d messed up. It was her job to fix it.

  * * *

  Jake tried to sleep, but he couldn’t relax. Between being blindsided by Laurel and sick at heart about DeSosa, he was too angry to sleep. He’d emptied an entire pot of fresh coffee between 10:00 p.m. and midnight, pulled a pie from the freezer, then opted against eating it and put it back.

  He’d paced the halls, then wandered into his dad’s bedroom, thinking he might find solace. Instead, it was as empty as his life. The longer he was up, the colder the house became, until he either had to turn the thermostat back up or build a fire. He opted for the fire. It took a little while to carry in the firewood and even longer for the fire to start, giving off heat enough to warm the room, but it was both cheery and comforting.

  He locked up, turned off all the lights, threw a quilt and a pillow on the floor in front of the fireplace, and then stretched out. Slowly, the warmth seeped into his body, and his muscles began to relax. He was getting sleepy, so he pulled the afghan off the sofa beside him and covered up. He was watching the flames gorging on a trio of oak logs when he fell asleep, and the next thing he knew it was morning.

  His body was stiff as he got off the floor, but by the time he’d folded up the quilt and afghan and tossed the pillow on the sofa, his mobility was better. He went into the kitchen to make coffee and was thinking about breakfast when he heard the school bus go by. It reminded him of Bonnie, which reminded him of her pretty mother, which made his heart hurt all over again.

  He was about to scramble some eggs when his phone pinged a text, and when he checked it and saw the picture of Bonnie dressed as a panda bear, he grinned. He was still smiling when he heard a car pull up. He put the eggs back and went to the living room, then was shocked to see Laurel getting out o
f her truck.

  A few moments later, she was at the door. She knocked. He took a deep breath and went to the door, and the moment he opened it, she started talking.

  “I made cookies. They are my peace offering and the ‘I’m sorry I was an ass’ letter I didn’t know how to write. All I can say is I’m sorry for how I treated you. I have a chip on my shoulder because I’m a single mother. I’m always afraid someone will think I’m not doing a good job. You just got in the way of my very damaged ego, okay?” She thrust the box forward. “Will you accept my apology?”

  Jake felt the knot in his stomach unwinding and smiled in spite of himself. He was impressed that she so quickly acknowledged her mistake and was so willing to apologize. He didn’t know any women like that.

  He narrowed his eyes, pretending to give her question a lot of consideration, then pointed at the box. “The picture was a good start, so I might. What kind of cookies did you bring?”

  “Chocolate walnut.”

  “Okay then, we’re good,” he said, and took the box out of her hands. “Breakfast has been served. Do you have time to come in and eat a cookie with me?”

  She grimaced. “No, and I wish I did. I have two houses to clean before school is out, so I need to stay on a schedule. Maybe another time?”

  “Absolutely,” he said.

  She hesitated and then extended her hand. “Friends?”

  When he grasped her hand, he felt the calluses on her palm. He was thinking about how tough she was, and then she smiled. It was tentative and brief but it touched his heart, and then she was gone. He watched until she disappeared over the hill and then took the box into the kitchen, refilled his coffee, and opened the lid.

  The scent of chocolate rose to meet him as he took the first bite, then closed his eyes in appreciation of how good they tasted. If this was how Laurel said I’m sorry, she could be mad anytime she wanted.

  * * *

  Truman’s night wasn’t much better than Jake’s. He and Nester had fixed the ceiling. The tape and bed job was drying, but he wasn’t going to repaint. The digs weren’t high-class enough to worry about all that.

  He’d tried to fix his bed frame, but the wood had shattered, and one of the metal pieces on the side was severely bent. So he’d swept the insulation out of the floor, dragged his mattress back into the room, and called it done.

  Then he’d set the live trap he’d borrowed from Nester in the kitchen and gone to bed. He was so tired he slept the entire night without waking, and by the time the sun was up, so was Truman.

  After a quick trip to the bathroom, he went to check the trap, and then crowed with delight when he saw the beady-eyed critter staring back at him.

  “Ha!” he said, slapping his leg. “Caught you, you little bastard. I oughta make stew and dumplings out of you, but I’m not in the mood to cook, so this is your lucky day. I’m taking you with me today when I go see what Jake Lorde is doing. I’m gonna let you go so far away from me that you’ll never find your way back, and then see what I can do to ruin his day.”

  * * *

  Jake had a half dozen cookies and two cups of coffee under his belt before he finally left the house. Having made peace with Laurel made him feel better about everything. Even though he had more wood he could split and there were still repairs to be done in and around the barn, he wanted to do a little exploring today. Bonnie made the trip from her house to his by using the creek as her highway, and he was curious to see it. Just in case he saw some overgrowth that he wanted to take down, he took the ax. He’d played in that creek as a kid, but there was no telling what it looked like now.

  The heavy frost that had been on the grass when he got up was fading, but enough was still there that he could see where small animals had moved through the area, disturbing the crystals on the grass as they’d passed. He saw rabbit tracks. A small dog or a fox had been behind the rabbit, and when he got into some loose dirt, he even saw wild turkey tracks. He smiled as he kept moving toward the creek, completely comfortable with the environment.

  As he got closer to the creek, he finally saw a small trail through the grass and guessed it was where Bonnie came and went. Once he reached the top of the creek bank, he stopped to look down and was surprised by how far it was to the water. There must have been a big flood through here in the last five or ten years because he didn’t remember it being like this.

  When he started down, he grabbed on to some overhanging branches, using them for balance as he moved down the bank. Once he was down, he was surprised by how quiet it was. Sound was muffled by the heavy growth of bushes below and the forest above.

  The water wasn’t deep, less than two feet, and was running swiftly over the rocks. He paused to test the solidity of the creek bed and almost slipped on a moss-covered rock. Once he regained his footing, he began moving up the creek, looking for signs of animal dens or dangers of which Bonnie wouldn’t be aware.

  When he saw an unusual grouping of rocks, he stopped for a closer look, only to realize it was something Bonnie had built. When he saw that she’d written her name in red crayon on one of the flat rocks, he smiled. It made him remember trying to build a dam across the creek when he was about ten, and that it had washed out every time it rained. And now, another generation later, a little girl named Bonnie had made a similar pile of rocks and had the foresight to mark it with her name.

  On impulse, he hacked a small limb from a branch and then stuck it in between the rocks to let her know another traveler had passed by her marker. He smiled, knowing her imagination would take her places he had never thought to go, and then kept walking.

  It took almost ten minutes to get from where he’d come down to the creek to the little path Bonnie took out of it. He could see the indentation in the bank where she’d slipped and slid going up and coming down so many times that she’d almost made a rut. And he could tell which trees and bushes she used for handholds by the lack of leaves where she’d gripped them so tight she’d stripped them off.

  On impulse, he exited the creek on the same path, expecting to see their trailer house when he got to the top, only to realize there was still a considerable amount of tree growth between the creek and their home. He frowned, thinking of how long the land had been neglected to allow that much growth into what had once been pasture, then reminded himself it was none of his business and went back down the same way and began retracing his steps, this time going downstream with the flow.

  He was about halfway home when he heard something snap in the woods up on the far side of the creek bank. He stopped to listen, thinking it was most likely a deer moving through the brush. But then it dawned on him everything had gone quiet. Except for the sound of the water flow, he heard nothing.

  The hair suddenly rose on the back of his neck, and he gripped the ax handle a little tighter. He knew this feeling. It had been with him many times in the desert while going through bombed out villages looking for snipers.

  He was being watched.

  “Who’s there?” he called out, as he did a slow three-sixty turn where he was standing. “I know you’re there. Either speak up, or get the hell off my land!”

  He strode into the water and was halfway across with full intent of going up the other embankment when he heard the sudden flurry of footsteps running through the forest, crushing the dead leaves as they went. He stopped, his grip tightening even more in frustration, knowing he’d been right. Someone had been watching him. He thought of Bonnie running up and down the creek in all innocence. Was the watcher just someone out hunting, or was there a more sinister reason for staying obscured?

  Jake waited a few seconds more until he was certain there was no one around and then waded out of the water and headed for home.

  * * *

  Truman Slade’s heart was hammering so hard he thought he was going to pass out. He’d been too confident of himself and nearly got caught. When he
got back to his truck, he wasted no time leaving. He’d already let the squirrel loose, and his business here was done. He spun out as he accelerated and didn’t look back.

  * * *

  Laurel’s last job for the day had canceled because the owner was sick in bed. After rescheduling the cleaning job, she realized she might just make the parade. She knew it was going to be just before the kids went to lunch, so she hurried to the school and parked, then ran through the parking lot and into the office.

  Mavis West looked up as Laurel entered the office, breathless and windblown. “Mrs. Payne? Is everything alright?”

  Laurel nodded. “Am I too late to see the first-graders costume parade on their way to the lunchroom?”

  “Why no, you’re not too late at all. They are at the far end of the building lining up. I think there are at least a half dozen other parents to walk along with them. Clip this visitor pass onto your jacket and head that way. Just drop it off here before you leave.”

  “Oh, thank you,” Laurel said, and then clipped the pass to her jacket as she headed toward the far end of the hall.

  As soon as she turned the corner to go toward Bonnie’s classroom, she saw Mrs. White trying to get them lined up and quiet. Bonnie saw her and began jumping up and down and waving. Laurel waved back, glad she’d made the effort to come. Bonnie looked so happy.

  The teacher turned, saw Laurel, and smiled. “You’re just in time. We’re about to begin our parade.”

  “Mommy, Mommy,” Bonnie cried.

  Laurel gave her a quick hug and then put a finger to her lips to indicate quiet and tried not to laugh. The black sock cap was still on Bonnie’s head, but it had become twisted, and the ears were running perpendicular on her head like a Mohawk haircut, rather than side to side like ears. The face paint was still in pretty good shape except for the black nose, which had obviously been blown a time or two. She could see where little fingers had used a tissue and smudged it.

  Bonnie was so hyper she was shaking. “You can hold my hand, Mommy. Lissa’s mommy is holding hers.”