Fat frigging chance.
Luke rose, went to the kitchen, opened his last can of beer and returned to the living room. He stood in front of Jenny’s portrait. “I’m doin’ the best I can, babe,” he said. “But I don’t know where to turn anymore.”
He looked around at the pretty house Jenny had painted and decorated with her own hands. It was charming and cozy and filled with love. And it was his sanctuary, where his memories of Jenny lived in every room. For over two years, he’d kept her dream that they would be a family in this house going. He felt he owed it to Jenny. She had worked so hard, and so had he. He told himself that Jenny would have wanted him to keep the house at all costs. But the brutal truth was that selling the house was his only hope for his financial problems.
Luke couldn’t believe how much his hand shook when he picked up the telephone receiver and placed the call to Cate Sullivan, a Realtor he knew in town. Luke had put off the inevitable as long as he could. He was finally at the end of his rope.
* * *
LUKE MET CATE at her office the next day at noon. They had met once before at a fund-raiser walk-a-thon when Jenny was alive. Even then, Cate had impressed him as being aggressive. She’d been handing out business cards to adults and giving kids balloons adorned with her contact information. Other than her apparent marketing skills, he’d heard around town that she was a fair and professional Realtor.
In order to get the best price for his house, Luke was determined to find an ace. Cate fit the bill.
“I know your house well,” Cate said, motioning for Luke to sit down. “Jenny hosted a committee meeting there once, and I told her how impressed I was with her decorating talents.”
“I didn’t know that,” Luke said.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Luke. She was a lovely woman. I think we would have been friends if she had lived. Now,” she said, taking out a sheaf of papers, “I’ve run some comps of the area to give us an overall picture of what we can expect.” She placed four sheets of statistics and photographs of neighboring houses in front of him.
Luke was surprised. “Our house looks much better than these,” he said.
“I know!” Cate replied enthusiastically. “With the new windows you installed and all the things Jenny did, frankly, your house is far superior to what’s out there right now. It’s not a big house, but it’s a doll’s house.”
“And is that good?”
“Since you want to sell over the summer before the kids start school, I would say it is absolutely a good thing.”
Luke struggled to catch Cate’s enthusiasm, but as she continued talking about the specifics of listing the house, the lockbox, the advertising campaign and the contracts he needed to sign, Luke began to feel as if Jenny was sitting next to him, holding his hand, urging him to be strong.
Luke’s heart was as heavy as stone. Jenny was slipping away from him once again. Once the house was sold, he could not get it back. He would not be able to walk through the rooms and pretend she was there, sitting in her favorite chair, waiting for him to tell her about his day. There would be no more hauntings from his beautiful wife, or night whispers when she came to him in his sleep. He could no longer imagine her touch.
He was losing his dream.
And it was as if Jenny had died all over again.
Luke signed the papers and Cate promised to put the for-sale sign up on the front lawn the next day, after he’d had the opportunity to tell the children that their lives were about to change. Again.
* * *
LUKE STIRRED THE macaroni and cheese while Annie emptied a bag of prewashed, premixed greens into the wooden salad bowl.
“How about Ranch?” Annie asked her brother, dumping too much dressing on the greens.
“I hate salad. Can I have graham crackers, instead?” Timmy asked.
“No,” Annie said emphatically, with a tortured look on her face. “Graham crackers are for dessert.”
“Uh-uh,” Timmy said. “Ice cream is for dessert. We got that sugar-free stuff. Low fat. Right, Dad?”
Luke only nodded. “You guys want hot dogs with or without the buns?”
“Bun,” Annie said, looking at him as if any other form of presentation was ludicrous.
“No bun,” Timmy said. “I have to have room for ice cream.”
“Daaaad,” Annie groaned as if she thought Timmy should be reprimanded.
Because Luke dreaded what he was about to say to his children he replied, “We should all save room for ice cream tonight.”
Luke put the mac and cheese in a bowl and served the hot dogs. Annie placed a spoonful of salad on Timmy’s plate. Timmy groaned and pushed it to the far rim, making sure nothing green touched his pasta.
They sat down and Annie lowered her head. Before Luke could say a word, Annie rattled very quickly, “Thank you, Lord, for this food. Amen.”
She looked at her father with a great deal of triumph in her eyes. “Pass the ketchup, please,” she said.
They ate silently for several minutes while Luke gathered his courage. Finally, he wiped his mouth with his paper napkin and said, “Kids. I have to talk to you about something.”
Annie dropped her fork. “You’re taking me out of Sarah’s play?” she asked, horrified.
“No.” Luke shook his head.
“Whew,” Timmy said. “I wouldn’t want to be around Annie if you did that!”
Luke took a deep gulp of his ice water. “This is much more serious.”
Both children stopped eating and gave him their solemn attention.
“What, Dad?” Annie asked.
“First of all, I want to apologize for my short temper over the past months. I have had a lot on my mind, and none of what I’ve been feeling has anything to do with what you guys have done. I love you both more than you know. More than I ever thought it was possible to love anybody,” Luke said, feeling his buried emotions erupt in his chest. “My worries have been about money.”
“We know.” Annie nodded.
Luke shook his head. “You don’t know all of it. When Mom died, there were a lot of hospital bills. To pay them and pay for your school and, well, everything, I have had to use our credit cards. A lot.” He looked at them.
They stared back at him blankly.
He changed his tact. “To pay for everything, I’m going to have to sell our house.”
“The whole house?” Timmy asked. “My trains and toys, too?”
“No, sweetheart. Not the things in the house. Just the house.”
“When?” Annie asked.
“Tomorrow it goes up for sale. I don’t know how long it will take to sell. It could be weeks, even months, before we get a buyer.”
Annie’s expression was granite, but Luke could see the wheels in her mind spinning as she calculated out the truth from what he was and was not telling her. “Where will we go?”
“We’ll find an apartment. Someplace fun for a while. Once I get us back on track, we’ll find a new house. And we’ll move again. I don’t want you kids to go too long without a backyard to play in....”
“We’ll have to leave St. Mark’s. Right?” Annie demanded. “If there’s no money for a house, then it costs too much for St. Mark’s. Right?”
Timmy’s face spun from his sister to his father. “No way.”
Luke nodded, but only once. “I’m afraid so. But you’ll still go there this summer for Vacation Bible School. And you’ll still go to Sunday school. You can see your friends then.” Luke tried to reason, but his excuses sounded patronizing and lame, even to himself.
Timmy was aghast. “I don’t want to go to a strange school! Annie knows everybody at St. Mark’s! They all like her and they all like me!”
“I love...my school,” Annie said, her voice hopping over the tears in her th
roat. She’d learned to keep her tears out of her eyes when her mother died, by swallowing them. But for some reason, she couldn’t choke them back now. Before she knew it, she couldn’t see a thing in the kitchen anymore. Her father’s face floated in front of her as if she was swimming under water.
Annie felt as if her insides were on fire. She was no longer going to be living in her home and no longer going to her school where she loved her teachers and her friends.
She looked at her father and he seemed to become smaller, as if he were nothing more than a cartoon. Not real. And all of this was not happening to her.
Annie exploded in a burst of anger. “I hate you!” She jumped up from her chair. “I hate you!”
Luke watched as Annie raced from the kitchen, down the hall and up the stairs. She slammed her bedroom door. It was the second time Annie had sought safe harbor in her tent and not in her father’s arms.
This time, Luke had no alternative actions that would give his daughter solace. He had to sell the house. Annie would have to deal with a new school and new peers. In time, she would realize that the only real change was that her circle of friends had grown larger, not smaller.
Timmy sat in his chair, fighting tears. “Will we ever move back here?”
“No, Timmy. I’m afraid we won’t. I’m so sorry this has to happen, buddy. I’m hoping we can find something in town and not have to move away. I want you to be able to go to Maple Avenue whenever you want.”
Timmy sniffed and blew his nose into his napkin.
“Does it bother you a whole lot to leave the house where your mother lived?” Luke asked.
Timmy shrugged his shoulders. “I was only four when she died, Daddy. I don’t remember her much.” Timmy scooted his chair back, gathered his Spiderman action figures and left the kitchen.
Luke sat in stunned silence. Timmy’s unhappiness had nothing to do with Jenny’s death and everything to do with the way in which Luke was treating his son. Timmy was crying over the fact that he would have to change schools. Annie was afraid she wouldn’t have new friends. His children’s fears were rooted in the present and their uncertain future.
It was only Luke who feared leaving Jenny behind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
EARLY JULY WAS when Indian Lake was resplendent. Down the avenues, the side streets and the winding roads around the lakes, the houses were festooned with flags, red geraniums and blue ageratum. Lawns were lush velvet green before the blazing Midwestern summer heat turned them to toast in August. Flower beds were weeded and mulched and planted with mounds of begonias, impatiens and marigolds. Daylilies and Asian lilies shot up like fireworks and exploded into orange, yellow, crimson and white blooms.
Every Victorian, Colonial and Italianate stucco home sparkled with clean windows that caught summer sun rays in their beveled corners.
On every streetlamp on every street of the downtown area, American flags flapped in the summer breeze.
The lakes were filled with boaters, skiers and fishermen. Across the town, the Fourth of July church bells pealed out the joy of freedom.
Roaring sonic booms exploded over the Indian Lake County Courthouse at precisely eleven in the morning on the 4th of July. Three Air Force F-16 jets flew in formation over Main Street, where thirty thousand local townsfolk and tourists cheered and waved at the pilots. Originating from Grissom Air Force Base in Peru, Indiana, the pilots would fly over the city three times and tip their wings, exciting the crowds.
Sarah stood in the middle of Main Street and felt the thrill of her own deep love of country erupt in goose bumps all over her body. She waved at the planes, and as they soared out of sight, the air filled with dozens of fire engines’ peeling sirens. Sarah and the other townspeople hurried to the sidewalks to watch the beginning of the Fourth of July Parade.
She waited for the first few trucks to pass, then headed down the street toward St. Mark’s. Today was the summer festival, and she had an impossible number of finishing touches to complete. But no list of chores and obligations would ever keep her from seeing the flyover.
Sarah was filled with excitement as she entered St. Mark’s parking lot, which for today was the St. Mark’s Summer Festival grounds. She’d followed Luke’s suggestion for the entrance gates, and they now resembled the drawbridge to a fairy-tale castle. She’d draped deep blue fabric along the sides and tied these “curtains” back with twisted gold ropes. From the bar that spanned the wide entrance, she’d strung two hundred silver, glittery stars that Isabelle had made. Inside the gates, the grounds looked like a Renaissance village.
The false-fronted booths she had painted and cut out of Sheetrock, as Luke had suggested, formed a wonderland of little fantasy shops. With butcher paper and gold spray paint, Sarah had created a walkway for people to follow through the “village.”
Sarah had promised Scott Abbott that she would place his booth next to that of Isabelle Hawks. Sarah and half the town knew Scott was so smitten with Isabelle that he would do anything to be near her. Since Isabelle was one of Sarah’s closest friends, Sarah made certain that Isabelle had no objections. Isabelle’s ambition was to see her oil paintings hung in a Chicago art gallery someday. She was hoping the summer festival just might draw a gallery owner or two to her booth.
Scott hooked up his cappuccino machine to a portable generator and stacked a mountain of bags of roasted coffee on a sparkling stainless-steel rack. He’d doubled the size of his booth and then tripled it. Sarah wasn’t sure if it was ego that urged Scott to have the largest booth, or if all his staging was to impress Isabelle.
Scott had found three authors who lived in the area and brought them in to sign books at the Book Shop and Java Stop booth. He’d rigged up a very large computer screen that flashed the names of the different authors and the covers of their books. As people came in to buy the books or talk to the authors, Scott would entice them to buy a latte.
Maddie Strong’s booth was a confection of pink batiste cotton and tulle all whipped up to look like a giant cupcake with mounds of icing. Lester MacDougal had constructed the plywood cupcake bottom and Maddie had painted the wood. Maddie and her new employee, nineteen-year-old Chloe Knowland, used staples and hot-glue guns to whirl the yards and yards of fabric into what looked like a giant mound of pink buttercream frosting. On four tiered displays that Lester had constructed out of plywood and staircase posts, Maddie placed her best-selling cupcakes. Maddie did not have a generator for her espresso machine, and instead chose to sell coffee from tall, stainless-steel carafes.
Helen Knowland, Chloe’s aunt, spearheaded the Quilting Bee booth and even Sarah was amazed at the number of quilts and crib blankets that the very small group of women had produced for the festival.
“Oh, most of us have had some of these quilts around for years,” Helen explained. “Just didn’t know what to do with them. So we dug everything out. We have table runners, placemats, tablecloths, even some aprons that Mrs. Beabots and I made years ago. They fell out of favor for a long time, but the young girls tell me aprons are back.”
“It’s true,” Sarah said, glancing over Helen’s shoulder toward the food tent. “Must be the influence of all those cooking shows on television. Helen, I have to check on something.”
Sarah walked quickly toward the food tent.
Aunt Emily and Uncle George were hauling huge electric roasters filled with shredded pork. They were going to sell barbecue pork sandwiches along with potato chips, coleslaw and baked beans.
The dining tent had been set up the night before by a professional company Sarah had hired from South Bend. The canvas was red-and-white-striped with a scalloped edge. Sarah had hung baskets of red geraniums, potato ivy, white daisies and tiny blue dayflowers from the tie-down ropes. From the top of each basket she’d hung red, white and blue bows that she and Maddie had been working on until well after midnight.
&
nbsp; “People are coming in already,” Sarah told Emily.
“I figured that would happen. We’re doing fine here. You’d better make sure there’s someone up front to collect the entry fee.”
“Father Michael and Lester are on duty,” Sarah said. “I’ll make sure the rides are ready to go. I told them we wouldn’t start until after the parade.”
Sarah talked to the rides supervisor and was assured that the carousel, Ferris wheel, children’s train and the toddler’s boat ride were set up.
Sarah walked past the elephant ear cart, the taffy apple booth, the corn on the cob booth and the hot dog cart, which was usually parked downtown during the parade. This year, the owner believed St. Mark’s was a better bet for making money.
There were over a dozen booths set up by local artisans—pottery, blown glass and handmade jewelry were all on display. Three booths were selling women’s purses, hats, decorated shoes and boots, women’s faux fur vests and men’s felt hats.
Thanks to Luke’s ideas, Sarah had found a young girls’ costume maker whose booth displayed princess dresses, tall cone hats with streaming veils, sequined pinafores, glittery sneakers and hundreds of decorated headbands and flower crowns.
Sarah passed the maple syrup booth and quickly put in an order for three bottles. Next to it was a booth with bright ropes of colored lights set against midnight-blue fabric that sold bread-and-butter pickles, pickled watermelon, spiced peaches and even homemade ketchup.
Liz Crenshaw was advertising her grandfather’s wine at a very small booth, though by law she was not allowed to give out samples. She handed out elegant brochures announcing that next year, the Crenshaw Vineyards would be selling their first bottles of Pinot Noir, which had been produced three years previously.
Sarah couldn’t help admiring Liz’s assertive marketing strategies. When Liz paid for the booth, she told Sarah that the Fourth of July was usually a “dead” time for the vineyard. But with this chance to advertise, Liz was hoping to pick up some new out-of-town customers.
Before the parade was even over, the trickle of people into the church parking lot became a stream. Music blared from the calliope inside the round housing of the carousel. People flocked to the Ferris wheel, and as far as Sarah could see, the carnies wouldn’t need worry about filling the rides. The lines were already long.
Love Shadows Page 17
