Love Built to Last

by Lisa Ricard Claro

  “Oh, sweetheart.” Her face softened and her eyes filled with tears. “I know you won’t.”

  Cal eased himself into the chair beside the bed. He knew within a day or so Big Will would be sitting up and grousing about the uncomfortable mattress and lousy hospital food. Knowing that didn’t ease the worry of the moment.

  He rested his head against the back of the hard-cushioned chair and mulled over what Sada had told him. In all the times his father had badgered him about joining the family business, he had never indicated that what he really needed was help. It didn’t surprise Cal in the slightest. William Walker ate pride for breakfast, and the notion he needed anyone’s help, much less his son’s, wouldn’t sit well.

  Cal wondered if his mother was right and, if so, would his father ever admit to it? And what would he do if he did? Caleb didn’t want to build subdivisions and office parks. He liked the hands-on detail work required for building furniture and rehabs like Maddie’s kitchen.

  And as much as he loved his father, at thirty-five years old, he sure as hell wasn’t going to start taking orders from the old man again.

  He leaned forward, rested his warm hand over his father’s cold one, and squeezed with gentle pressure. “We’ll figure it out, Dad,” he said and settled back in the chair to wait.

  ***

  “That is one cute little fella.” Papa Ron joined Edie, Brenna, and Maddie on the patio. He tugged the sliding glass door closed behind him and enjoyed a long pull on his beer. His Bermuda shorts, the color of salmon, hung loose past his knees, while the buttons of his Hawaiian shirt strained across his round belly. Maddie grinned at his fashion choices. From June to September, Papa Ron always looked ready for a luau.

  “The boy or the dog?” Edie asked over the top of her rhinestone-studded sunglasses.

  “Well, both, now that you mention it. But I meant the boy. Cute little guy. Smart, too. You know, he talked baseball with me down in my man cave.” His beer belly jiggled when he chuckled. “Knew all the players. His daddy must be a Braves fan.”

  “Have you heard anything from Caleb?” Edie asked Maddie. “I need to bring a casserole over to Sada this week. Something healthy. Those doctors will have Big Will on a strict diet from now on and that will affect Sada just as much as William, bless her heart.”

  “I don’t expect to talk to him until he comes for TJ,” Maddie said. “He’s picking him up at nine, so we need to leave soon. Thanks for dinner, by the way. It was wonderful.”

  “Well, what boy doesn’t like mac and cheese?” Edie pulled off the sunglasses and tucked them into her pocket. “No wonder I can only half see.” She laughed at herself. “Sun’s going down.”

  “Look at that dog run. Fast as any other dog, and on only three legs.” Papa Ron shook his balding head. “And retrieving the ball like a champ. You sure he doesn’t belong to anyone, Maddie girl?”

  “He wasn’t chipped, but I’m still going to run a notice in the local paper and post flyers downtown with his picture. If he is someone’s pet, I’m sure they miss him. He’s a sweetheart.”

  “Hard to believe he was hiding in an alley just this morning,” Brenna said. “When you think of it, it’s pretty amazing how fast things can change. Ten hours ago he was abandoned and starving, and now he’s romping like he’s never had a care in the world. And I agree with Dad. TJ is one seriously cute kid.” She nudged Maddie with her elbow. “Does he look anything like his father?”

  Same green eyes, same sun-kissed hair, same smile, Maddie thought, but all she said was, “I suppose.”

  She called to TJ who begged another few minutes of playtime with Pirate. She let him play while she said her goodbyes.

  “Keep us posted on you-know-who,” Brenna teased, giving Maddie a hug goodbye.

  “Who’s you-know-who?” They all turned toward the sound of Sean’s voice, and Maddie’s heart did a little flip. She loved Sean like a brother, but his resemblance to Jack always gave her a start. He came through the sliding door as had Papa Ron, beer in hand.

  “Maddie’s new boyfriend,” Brenna said.

  “What’s this?” Sean turned his eyes, so like Jack’s, toward Maddie, a smile tugging at his lips. “Little sister has a boyfriend, huh?” He drew her into a gentle headlock. “So who’s the lucky guy?”

  “There is no lucky guy. Brenna’s just teasing me. The carpenter I hired to remodel my kitchen had an emergency this morning, and since he was at my place dropping off materials for the job when the call came in, I offered to watch his little boy. That’s all, end of story.” She extricated herself from Sean and crossed her arms over her chest. “And as you’re a new arrival and have missed all the Tease Maddie repartee going on tonight, I’ll thank you to put a lock on it.”

  Sean grinned and lifted his beer bottle for emphasis. “Looks like they touched a nerve.”

  “My last nerve.” Maddie elicited an “Ouch!” from Sean when she twisted his ear. “And on that, I’m leaving.”

  “But I just got here,” Sean said, rubbing his ear. “You can’t go yet.”

  “Next time.” Maddie patted his back and called again for TJ, this time using her teacher’s voice and brooking no argument.

  “Aw, but Miss Maddie,” TJ trudged toward her with Pirate trotting along beside him, tongue lolling. “We’re still playing!”

  “He’s coming with us, TJ. You can play with him some more at my house while we wait for your dad to pick you up.”

  “Where’d the dog come from?” Sean did a double take. “A three-legged dog. Wow.” He glanced at Maddie. “Has it been that long since I’ve seen you? When did you get a dog?”

  “You really should’ve been here sooner, Sean.” Maddie pulled him into a quick hug and smiled when he dropped a brotherly kiss on the top of her head. “This is old news now. I’ll let everybody else fill you in. I have to get these guys home. C’mon, you two.”

  “Thanks for the mac and cheese, Miss Edie. It was great!”

  “I’ll fix it again the next time you come, okay?”

  “Sweet!” TJ did his requisite fist pump. “I love that stuff! Cheesy stuff is yummy. Like pizza! Dad says too much cheese is bad for me ’cause it makes it hard for me to poop, but I still like it.”

  Edie bit her lip but the laughter came anyway. “I’ll remember that, sweetheart.”

  “And the cookies were good, too! Bye!” He waved like a departing dignitary and followed Maddie through the house. Edie ran quick on their heels. She stopped Maddie on the porch with a touch of her hand.

  “Brenna told me about the accident last week. I didn’t mention it because I figured you’d bring it up, and when you didn’t, well, I didn’t either. But, honey, I know it has to have rattled you bad.” Her eyes probed Maddie’s with concern. “I’m so glad you’re okay. If you want to talk about it, you know I’m here.”

  Maddie smiled and embraced her motherin-law. “I know you are, and I’m grateful for it. But I’m okay. The woman in the Volvo, Jenny French, is okay, too. And what a miracle that is. I used the internet to hunt her down, and I called her. The hospital held her overnight but released her the next day. She didn’t waste any time going to spend time with her daughters in California, either. She left earlier in the week. She’s okay.”

  “What about the boys who caused the accident?”

  “Gone like the wind.” Maddie frowned and shook her head. “They probably never even looked back.”

  ***

  “I have an idea,” Edie said later as she walked Brenna out to her car. She stopped at the top of the porch steps and folded her arms.

  “Uh-oh.” Brenna pulled her car keys from her purse and regarded her mother with raised brows. “You have that look you get when you’re going to do something Dad would tell you not to do.”

  Edie gave her daughter a light shove and laughed. “Listen, now, this is a really great idea. We usually gather here for our Fourth of July picnic, right? But what if we do something different this year? What if we pack up coolers
and go out to the park to watch the fireworks?”

  “Mom, we have a great view of the fireworks from here.” Brenna jerked her thumb upward. “We sit on the porch roof. Why go into town? It’s crowded and it’ll take forever to get home once the fireworks are done.”

  “Because.” Edie widened her eyes for emphasis. “If we invite the Walkers to our home for the holiday, it will be obvious we’re nudging Maddie and Caleb together. But! If we meet up with them at the park, you know—” She bobbled her head and made air quotes with her fingers. “—accidentally, then Maddie and Caleb won’t suspect anything.”

  Brenna stared at her mother for several seconds before erupting with laughter.

  “Mama, there are hundreds of people who go to that park on July fourth. Do you know the odds of claiming a space somewhere near the Walkers?”

  “One-hundred percent, if Sada and I arrange it ahead of time. I’ll be bringing her a casserole later this week anyway. The last thing she needs to worry about now is fixing a meal.”

  “What makes you think Caleb Walker’s mother is going to play matchmaker with you?”

  “Well, I don’t know that she will.” Edie picked a piece of lint from her linen top and flicked it into the evening air. “But there’s no harm in asking. And I know from our conversations at the food bank that she wishes her son would meet a nice woman. He’s a widower, you know, lost his wife, just like we lost our Jack.”

  “Have you talked to Dad about this? He’s not going to want to go traipsing into the center of town, fight the crowd, just so you can hook up Maddie and her carpenter.”

  “You just leave everything to me.” Edie hugged Brenna and patted her back. “We both know it’s time Maddie moved on. She needs some happiness in her life again. I intend to do everything in my power to see that she has it.” Her expression softened. “And we owe it to Jack. He wouldn’t want her to be alone.”

  “Mama, don’t cry now. You know I’ll help you with your scheming. Don’t I always?” Brenna wrapped Edie in another hug.

  Edie sniffled and laughed a little. “You do. You’re such a good daughter.”

  “And you know Dad will do whatever you want. He’ll complain, but comply. You could talk him into anything.”

  “I only use my powers for good,” Edie insisted, only half joking. “And this is a good idea. The worst that will happen is that nothing will come of it. And if we’re lucky, Jack’s girl will find her heart again. Oh, and you must promise me you won’t breathe a word of this to Maddie. Not a word. Promise?”

  “Maddie’s lucky to have you in her corner, so yes, I promise not to tell Maddie about your scheming. But you have to promise me something, too. “

  “That I’ll help you someday the way I’m helping Maddie?”

  “No, Mama.” Brenna pulled back and narrowed her eyes. “That you’ll keep your busybody nose out of my business.”

  Edie blinked in surprise, laughed, and sputtered, “Well, I never!”

  “See that you don’t.”

  Edie stayed on the porch while Brenna drove away. Out in the yard fireflies blinked. The subtle flashes drew Edie’s eye and she turned out the porch light and sat in one of the rocking chairs, pushing back and forth with a light touch of her sandaled foot on the wood floor.

  Brenna might think of Edie’s matchmaking as meddling, but Edie thought otherwise. She loved Maddie. If Maddie was her own daughter, she couldn’t love her more, and sometimes daughters needed a little push.

  The front door opened and Papa Ron poked his head out.

  “Why are you sitting in the dark?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  “God help us.” Papa Ron cast his gaze heavenward as he closed the door.

  Edie tapped the pad of her index finger on her curved lips and kept on rocking.

  Chapter 8

  Cal buzzed the window down on his truck and hoped the cooling swirls of evening air would help him stay awake. He cranked up the radio and sang along to Bob Seger, another ploy to stay alert that was interrupted by a jaw-wrenching yawn.

  He muttered an oath when he sailed past the turnoff to Maddie’s house, had to find a safe spot to pull a U-turn, then repeat the process. He slowed, fully awake now—his navigation error proved to be the best wake-up ploy of all—and made the turn onto Maddie’s half-mile drive.

  Cal clicked off the radio and slowed the truck, more cognizant than usual of the narrowness of the lane. Dense woods surrounded the drive and arching branches reached out to scratch at the vehicle as it passed. He clicked his beams to high and hit the brakes when a trio of deer leapt from the woods on his right, crossed on nimble legs in front of the truck, and disappeared into the trees on the left.

  No streetlights out here in the middle of nowhere. It was damned dark on Maddie’s long road with the arch of trees blocking the moonlight. How, he wondered, and not for the first time, did Maddie live at the end of this silent road all alone?

  She’s not alone. She has Jack.

  He ignored the voice in his head and corrected himself. The road wasn’t silent. The forest overflowed with the music of twilight that was anything but hushed, with every forest denizen chirping, whirring, or croaking at maximum amplitude. The cacophony was damn near deafening, now that he thought about it, so he changed his thinking. The question wasn’t how did she stand the quiet. It was how did she tolerate all this noise?

  And then into his reverie came the soft light of Maddie’s warm home just up ahead, a beacon at the end of a dark road. He took in the clapboard siding, white washed to gray in the shadowy twilight, the wraparound porch that invited comfort with padded wicker chairs, lounges and rockers, bushy ferns and trailing plants, and the weather-worn barn looming off to the side like an ugly stepsister.

  The porch light just outside the kitchen door was turned off so he didn’t see her on the steps until he pulled his truck around to the side yard. She sat alone in the purple shadows of twilight watching the fireflies as the yard exploded with their soft incandescence.

  He thought her lips curved in a smile, but he wasn’t sure until his stride closed the distance and he came to stand in front of her. She patted the space on the step beside her and scooted over a couple inches to allow him ample room. He pocketed his keys, eased himself down beside her, and returned her smile with one of his own.

  “How is your dad? Your family? Everyone holding up okay?”

  “Dad was still out of it when I left the hospital. He’ll be in ICU overnight and then they’ll move him to the cardiac care floor tomorrow. Mom is staying the night. My sister Rebecca took our grandfather home and will bring him back in the morning.”

  Maddie nodded. “I’m glad your dad will be okay. How about you? Can I feed you? My kitchen is inoperable, as you know, but my microwave is plugged in and ready for duty on the dining room table, and I have drinks in the fridge.”

  “Thanks, no. I think you’ve already done your good deed for the day.”

  “I don’t mind doing more than one. TJ is sound asleep on the sofa. Are you sure I can’t get you anything? A sandwich? Beer or a glass of wine?”

  “Thanks, but no. I ate some fries on the way over, and as great as a beer sounds I’ll be driving again in a minute. Anyway, it’d probably put me to sleep at this point.”

  “Sweet tea, then.” Maddie warmed him with a smile as she stood, and when Cal moved to follow her she rested her hand on his shoulder with firm pressure. “Stay. Enjoy the firefly show. I’ll be right back.”

  He breathed the loamy perfume that hung in the North Georgia air, an invisible scent that leached into the molecules of humidity with near overpowering sweetness. The breezy nighttime both warmed and cooled him, a simultaneous sensation brought to fruition by the marriage of moisture in the air and the cooling temperatures of sundown.

  And how the fireflies glowed. Here, there, and back again, a random lightshow growing denser as the evening darkened, accompanied by the symphony of nighttime inhabitants he had noted earlier. Somew
here in the woods an owl hooted.

  No wonder she loved it here. Lonely she might be, but not alone.

  He didn’t turn at the squeak of the screen door. What caused him to twist around was the click-clack of claws on the exposed kitchen subfloor.

  “Some watchdog you are,” Maddie said, and a moment later, the gray wraith that moved at her side materialized into a dog. And a homely one at that. Speechless, Cal watched the animal approach, unprepared for the sudden lurch toward him by the dog and the swipe of his slobbery tongue.

  “Whoa, there, fella.” Cal pulled back. The gray beast dropped to a sit and thumped his tail. The errant tongue hung sideways from his smiling doggy mouth.

  “Meet Pirate, very aptly named by TJ. We found this poor guy hunkered down in the alley outside Caravicci’s and decided he needed rescuing.” She handed Cal a frosty glass of sweet tea, urged Pirate off the porch to do his business, and took her place on the steps next to Cal. Pirate obliged and trotted off to sniff at the edge of the woods, making it his mission to pee on every bit of flora in sight.

  “Huh. In this light he looks like he’s missing a leg.”

  “That’s because he is. Dr. McManus said he was born that way, so he doesn’t know the difference. And he has conjunctivitis in his left eye, but it looks a lot better now that it’s been cleaned up and he’s getting medicine for it.”

  Cal looked from Pirate to Maddie. “You’ve had a busy day.”

  She laughed. “We had a great day. Pizza and video games at Caravicci’s, a dog rescue, a visit to the vet, a very exciting tee-ball game—which we won, by the way—and macaroni and cheese, and brownie sundaes at the Kinkaids’. We arrived back here around eight. TJ took a bath, played with Pirate, and crashed on the couch. All in all, a very pleasant Saturday.”

  “You made it fun for TJ, and easy for me. Thank you.”

  She smiled, engaging not only her splendid mouth, but those eyes that never quite lost their sadness. They glowed now in the meager light. For that moment, the perpetual grief that held her in thrall gave way to something else.