Patriot Residential did well. Larry and Cole had similar philosophies both in business and in life, so the pairing was a good fit. They kept their bills paid and their customers happy. They knew their niche. Most of their customers were folks either retired or nearing retirement who wanted a rustic mountain home with a little wood, a little stone, and a lot of glass. They wanted wood stoves, hot tubs, and stainless steel appliances. The men knew how to build the homes their customers loved. It kept them in a steady stream of word-of-mouth referrals.
Cole’s truck crawled up the gravel road to the job site and he found his crew getting set up for the day. Men were rolling out cords and pulling sheets of plastic from piles of lumber. One man rolled a generator in place beside a cinderblock foundation that had nothing more than a subfloor on it at this point. Men strapped on tool belts and dropped hammers into the steel loops. They unwrapped cords from battered circular saws and slammed fresh batteries into cordless drills. Two men were taking measurements on the subfloor and snapping chalk lines to indicate where interior walls would go. They sucked down the last sips of coffee or energy drinks, because when work started the pace was steady. They took regular breaks, but until one came along it was expected that everyone would be working up a sweat. Slackers were not tolerated.
Cole thought the jobsite might be a good place for his daughter. These were good men and the atmosphere was always light with joking and a few pranks. Cole imagined the good-natured hazing his daughter would undergo over the next weeks. He knew how this played out. Every day they would send her to the tool trailer to look for the same imaginary tools that apprentices had been sent after for decades now. It usually started with the board stretcher, then would progress to tools like the left-handed screwdriver, the wood knot eraser, the toe nails, the pre-drilled holes, and the hammer tuner.
He loved building homes on these remote mountain lots. It was like hanging out all day in a state park and having a picnic for lunch. There were fantastic views and fresh air, the chirps and tweets of birds interspersed with periods of total and complete silence. It kept you in touch with the elements and generally raised your level of awareness.
The road to this job had been cut into the hillside with a dozer a few weeks back. The excavation contractor had laid a base of large stones that would make a stable road eventually. For now, they made for rough ride. The occupants of the truck bounced and jostled. Cole parked beside Larry's truck and killed the engine. Amanda sat in the passenger seat eating a honey bun and drinking a Sun Drop.
"I'll let Lupe put you where he needs you," Cole said. “There’s always lumber that needs carried or tools that need fetched until you learn a few of the basics. Don’t be afraid to take a break if you need one. The work can be physically challenging if you’re not used to it. In my experience, hard physical exertion is the best way to distract yourself from an overactive mind.”
"We’ll see," Amanda grumbled, her mouth full of food. Although she wasn’t against fetching tools or anything, carrying lumber sounded like it would suck. The last thing she wanted to do was get big muscles and look like one of those female weightlifters.
Cole opened his door and slid out of the truck. He flipped open the toolbox and slipped on his own tool belt, the brown leather stained from years of sweat. There were worn pouches hanging off both sides and a pair of red suspenders kept the whole rig from sliding down his hips under the weight of the tools and nails. He double checked that everything was where it was supposed to be: pencil, tape measure, utility knife, chalk line, speed square, and framing hammer.
When his gear was in place, he took his mug of coffee and joined Larry over by the foundation. He stood watching the men lay out the interior walls and filled his lip with a pinch of tobacco.
"Well you got her here. That's half the battle," Larry said.
"It was a battle. I was tempted to give up and leave her at home."
Larry shook his head. "Nah, it’ll be good for her to be out here. She’ll be so exhausted when she gets home tonight she won't have time to think about anything. She’ll just fall across the bed and pass out cold."
"I hope," Cole said. A truck door slammed and the men turned to see Amanda coming, a pair of gloves crumpled in one hand.
“Oh my Lord,” Larry said, so loud his voice probably did carry to the heavens. “You done went and grew up on me.”
Amanda smiled as Larry went over and wrapped her in a burly hug.
Cole couldn’t remember the last time Larry had seen Amanda. Their visits were always rushed and they never got to do everything he wanted to do. Larry had asked numerous times over the years for him to bring Amanda over to shoot at his range or ride ATVs but they’d never made it.
“Thanks,” Amanda said. Larry had always been nice to her as a child, more like an uncle than a family friend. All of the attention made her uncomfortable. “What do you need me to do?”
"Lupe!" Larry yelled. "Give this young lady something to do."
Lupe looked up from where he was doing layout on the subfloor. He nodded a greeting at Amanda. "We’re doing layout now. How about you work one end of the chalk line? I’ll explain what we’re doing as we go.”
“Great,” Amanda said, climbing onto the subfloor.
“She’s just like you, Cole,” Larry said. “Ain’t much for standing around jawing.”
Cole smiled, watching Lupe show his daughter how to snap a chalk line. He hoped he’d done the right thing. He was happy to have her back in his life, though still sick over how it came about. He couldn’t believe the hostility Amanda had toward him. He wondered what his ex-wife had said about him. It sounded like she blamed the divorce on him, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. He wasn’t ready to get into that with his daughter.
Cole needed to get his mind out of that eddy too. He needed to bury his head and work up a sweat. “Where are we at?” he asked Larry.
“Exterior walls.”
Cole looked around the site, spotting Daniel, the gopher and laborer. “Daniel! I need two by six by sixteens around the perimeter for laying out top and bottom plates. You get that done and I need two by six studs. A shitload of them.”
Daniel gave a nod of acknowledgement and went to it. Cole pitched in and humped a stack of the sixteen-footers himself. He spread a copy of the printout on the subfloor and started calling out measurements to Larry. Using a framing square, he put identical sets of layout marks on both boards. Those marks would tell the framers where to put the studs and what type of stud to put in each location.
On a good day, a framing crew worked like a well-oiled machine. Everyone had a role and everyone knew what to do. The crew was considerate of Amanda and always made sure she had something within her abilities to do. They were patient and taught her the things she needed to know.
Time flew and Cole was surprised when Lupe called out. “It’s dinnertime boss.”
Cole checked his watch. “Sure is. Let’s take lunch.”
The men wasted no time dropping their heavy tool belts. The coolers the men used for lunchboxes were scattered around the site and each man went for his. Most of the crew stretched out on the subfloor, finding a sheathed wall to lean against. Larry, Amanda, and Cole sat on their tailgates.
“Your daddy buy you anything decent to eat?” Larry asked. “If not, I’ve got plenty.”
Amanda had lunch but eyed his lunchbox suspiciously. “What are you eating?”
“Boloney and cheese, liverwurst and cheese,” Larry said, holding up two sandwiches.
Amanda wrinkled her nose. “No way! Nasty!”
“Oh, honey, you don’t know good eating,” Larry said. “This here is the caviar of ground lunch meats.”
“Yesterday was anchovy and pickles,” Cole told his daughter.
“Damn good eating too,” Larry said. “I can’t help it if you all have unrefined palates. Let a man try to broaden your horizons and this is the response he gets. I’ll just eat my own sandwiches.”
“You do
that,” Cole said.
Amanda had yogurt and potato chips with another Sun Drop cola. She was going back and forth between eating and thumbing through her phone.
“You’re going to wear those fingers out,” Larry said.
“It’s how everyone keeps in touch these days,” Amanda said.
“In my day we went visiting on Sunday and sat on the front porch with people,” Larry replied. “We didn’t stare at little screens, liking and poking every damn thing.”
“I can’t help it you’re old and don’t understand technology,” Amanda teased.
“Oh, I understand it all right,” Larry said. “I understand it will be the death of us all one day, all those phones and the internet.”
Amanda laughed at Larry.
He laughed back. “It’s true!”
“You should do social media, Dad,” Amanda said. “You could keep in touch with people and reconnect with old friends.”
Cole crunched a Dorito. “Everyone I need to stay in touch with is right here, right now.”
“Oh come on,” Amanda persisted. “Aren’t there old friends out there you might want to see again?”
Cole shook his head. “I’ve seen what that shit can do. Your mother was all into that social media stuff. She had all these profiles and stuff. I never understood it.” He stopped, like he had more to say but didn’t want to. He hadn’t planned on mentioning his ex-wife. It just came out. Now there was no taking it back.
Amanda didn’t show any reaction but she didn’t talk for the rest of the lunch break. Larry and Cole talked about the house they were building and other jobs they were looking at but Amanda stayed on her phone. Sometimes she was reading, other times she was messaging people.
She messaged her friend Raven.
Amanda: What’s up, girl? Whatcha doing?
Raven: Over at Vicky’s house chillin’ by the pool.
Amanda: I’m jealous. I’m sweating with old dudes building a house.
Raven: That sucks.
Amanda: On lunch now. My dad just told me my mom had a ton of social media accounts when they were married. Can you believe that?
Raven responded immediately.
Raven: You knew that. We were all friends with her on Facebook and Instagram.
Amanda: Those were under her married name. Her second married name. I’ve never seen the old ones. I wonder if they’re still active.
Raven: You gonna stalk your mom’s social media?
Amanda: Hell yeah. As soon as I get home.
7
Amanda was sitting on the back porch drinking a Sun Drop and scrolling through her mom’s social media. After she and her dad got home from work, they cooked steaks and baked potatoes on the grill. Her dad was now in his man cave/spare bedroom reloading ammunition and cleaning guns. It was an okay evening, all things considered, but she could see clouds ahead of her. Thinking about her mom, about her mom’s life, was going to stir things within her. There would be tears before the evening was over. It was inevitable.
Her mother was named Christina. Most people knew her as Chris, including Amanda’s friends. Like most involved parents of school-aged children, she had social media accounts because that was the primary way anyone shared information about extracurricular activities. Parents communicated using social media to coordinate who was shuttling kids to games. Coaches used social media to publicize the schedules and any other details the kids or parents might need to know. As kids got to know other parents, sometimes they followed them on social media too.
These accounts were public facades and typically generic. If adults wanted to share more personal information, they had alternate accounts for that. The public accounts were usually pictures of kids, dogs, weather, or vacations. It was never pictures of getting drunk in the hot tub, going to the club with the old college roommates, or class reunions that got a little too wild. Although Amanda hadn’t seen those kind of pictures on her mom’s account or on any of the accounts belonging to her friends’ parents, she couldn’t imagine adults didn’t take pictures like that. Surely they all had a secret, more fun life than the one they presented to their children. If not, their existences must truly be pathetic.
The account she was looking at was the public “mom account” everyone used as a means of contacting Chris. Amanda had never spent much time on it. It took her nearly thirty minutes to scroll all the way back to her mom’s earliest posts. She’d never been that far back in it before. She’d never had any reason to want to. There were certainly more interesting things to do in the world than scroll through your mom’s social media. At least it had seemed so at the time. Right now, it felt like one of the saddest things she’d ever done.
She tried to avoid getting wrapped-up in the pictures and breaking into tears. Still, seeing her mom’s smiling face, seeing the happy moments they’d had together, was gut-wrenching. Like any family, they expected it to go on forever. No one imagined an end to the happiness. An end to the family.
For Amanda, it was the second time her family had ended. She’d felt that way when her parents got divorced and they moved in with Fox. It was the way she felt again when her mother died. It would be hard for her to ever trust that feelings of happiness and security were a permanent thing. It was likely she would always have an eye toward the end, watching for signs that the good times would soon be over. She texted her friend Raven.
Amanda: Looks like she opened her social media accounts when I started school in Virginia. Nothing before that.
Raven: Really?
Amanda: Yep, and this is some depressing shit. Sorry I started down this road.
Raven: I’m sorry.
Amanda sent a crying face emoji to her friend.
Raven: What names did you look under?
Amanda: Names? Plural? I just looked under Christina Castle-Martelle.
Raven: Dude, you’re only getting started. Are you telling me you haven’t looked under Christina Castle?
Amanda: No. Haven’t.
Amanda immediately plugged that name into the popular social media site and got a ton of hits. Scrolling down, she found one with her mother’s picture on it, a much younger Amanda sitting in her lap. She immediately felt the tears returning.
Amanda: Oh shit.
Raven: ??
Amanda: Found it. All the crap from before Virginia. When I was a kid.
Raven: You sure you’re up for seeing all that?
Amanda: Guess I’ll find out. But I doubt it.
Amanda clicked on the old Christina Castle profile and it opened. She felt butterflies in her stomach, like she was opening an old trunk in an attic somewhere, looking for clues to a mysterious past. Perhaps in this case not so mysterious. Just clues to a life. To a person.
The profile opened to the most recent posting, which was not recent at all. It was five years ago. There was no picture, only a few sentences: “Worst day ever. Can’t wait for it to be over. Excited for a new life for me and my daughter.”
Amanda couldn’t help but contrast her mother’s attitude against her own. Her mother had been excited for a new life, which Amanda assumed must have meant leaving North Carolina for Virginia. Amanda had been less excited about starting a new life. For her, it was a last resort. It was like a prison sentence for circumstances beyond her control.
Other posts were innocent shares of recipes, memes, or sayings that must have meant something to her mother. Some of the feelings she shared appeared desperate and unhappy. Others made no sense relative to the situation.
“Some people make your laugh a little louder, your smile a little brighter, and your life a little better,” read one meme.
“It’s amazing how one day someone walks into your life and you can’t remember how you ever lived without them,” read another.
Amanda opened the messaging app.
Amanda: WTF? This shit makes no sense. Check out her profile and tell me what you think.
Raven: Which one is it?
Amanda: Younger picture
of her. Little kid in her lap. That’s me.
Raven: Oh, you were cute!
Amanda sent a rolling-eyes emoji.
Amanda: Forget that. Scroll down to the memes and quotes. What the hell?
Amanda went back to the social media site and continued scrolling through the posts. She saw pictures of herself and her family she either didn’t remember or had never seen. She would have to get on here at some point and save all of this. She needed these pictures and screenshots of her mother’s posts. They were memories she didn’t want to lose.
Her messenger app dinged and she opened the text window.
Raven: Girl, I think your mom was having an affair. This is only the kind of shit you say when you’re in love. If your mom was married, she must have had some dude on the side.
Amanda was floored but it made perfect sense. She’d seen people posting similar quotes before and they almost always meant exactly what Raven said. Someone was in love and that someone was her mother. She couldn’t believe it.
Raven: You okay?
Amanda started to reply but was startled by the screen door sliding open behind her. She lost her grip on her phone and it dropped to the deck.
“I’m sorry,” Cole said. “Did I startle you?”
“Yes,” Amanda replied, scooping her phone up from the deck.
“Sorry.” Cole took a seat at a table with a roll-up umbrella. He propped his feet up on the rail and placed a sweaty beer on the mesh table. “Needed a break.”
“That’s fine.”
Cole turned to his daughter. “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Did I scare you that bad?”
Amanda shook her head. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?” he insisted.
“I’m just feeling emotional, Dad,” she said, hoping he’d give it up. “Don’t want to talk about it.”
Cole nodded. “Do you want me to go somewhere else?”
Amanda thought it over for a second. “No, it’s okay.”
Random Acts Page 5
