by Pamela Morsi
Or she could go back inside and wait. If Eli left her here, she could try to trust him to come back and get her. That’s what love was supposed to be about, wasn’t it? Believing beyond the time when belief seemed possible.
“I’ve got a foolish heart, but I’m not an idiot,” she said aloud.
She chose option four—going back inside the roadhouse and throwing herself on the mercy of her friends.
She didn’t have to reenter the building. They were coming outside as she reached the doorway.
“There you are!” Karly said. “We were wondering where you’d gotten off to.”
“I went down to see if Eli’s truck is still here,” Mazy said. “It’s not. He’s apparently left me here. I’m hoping that you guys can give me a ride home.”
“He left you?” Karly sounded incredulous.
Che’s brow had come down in that fierce look that Mazy remembered from his motorcycle days. “That doesn’t sound like Eli.”
Mazy shrugged.
“Something must have happened,” her friend said.
“Yeah,” Che agreed. “There’s a lot of guys I wouldn’t put it past, but Eli’s seriously decent. He wouldn’t dump a woman at a roadhouse.”
“She hasn’t been dumped,” Karly insisted. “He’s just kind of disappeared, I guess.”
“Yes,” Mazy agreed. “I guess so.”
“Did you two have an argument or something?”
“No, nothing,” she answered. She considered mentioning Enna Brakeman but decided against it. If that wasn’t what happened, it would just make her look jealous. If it were true...well, she’d deal with that when she knew for sure.”
“Have you tried calling him?”
“It goes straight to voice mail,” she answered. “I hate to ask, but...”
“Absolutely.”
“No problem.”
Mazy was very grateful, although they continued to keep up the defense of the great guy, the straight arrow, the perfect gentleman, all the way to their car. Once inside, they apparently noticed that Mazy was no longer nodding and they fell into silence. For which she was even more grateful.
As they turned on Sawmill Road, she’d visualized the house next door alive with activity, maybe even an ambulance in the driveway. But, no, it was closed up tight. Eli’s truck was nowhere in sight. She tried not to speculate on where he was. She tried not to imagine him in the arms of the blonde. It was like trying not to see the elephant in the room.
Mazy couldn’t think about it anymore, she couldn’t repurpose it any further than she had. Eli had finally taken her out on a date and dumped her at a roadhouse. It was tough to find any positives in that.
She waved goodbye to her friends and let herself in through the back door.
Tears welled in her eyes. She bit her lip against them. She had vowed never to shed one more tear over a worthless man. But it went against all that she knew to imagine Eli as worthless. He had always been the one guy she could run to. The one guy she could believe in. The one guy who was living, breathing evidence that she was worthy of love and care.
Obviously, he no longer loved or cared.
“He wouldn’t do this,” she whispered aloud. “He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.”
But he had and he did.
38
Eli woke up to the sound of youthful laughter outside his window. For one sweet, thoughtless moment it was a happy sound. Then he remembered the night before.
He moaned aloud.
For most of the night he’d walked around in darkness. He had stashed his truck on Tinker Street, near where Enna Brakeman lived. Then he’d walked home in the darkness to watch for Mazy’s return. The roadhouse typically stayed open on Saturday night until 1:00 a.m. He’d already decided that if she wasn’t home by midnight, he’d drive back out there and get her.
Fortunately, a little after eleven, he saw Che’s car pull up in the driveway next door. From his basement window he saw Mazy, looking perfectly fine, wave goodbye to her friends as she let herself in the back door.
He did catch her glancing in his direction. He knew exactly what she saw. His truck was not there and the entire house, including the basement, was dark.
When she closed the door behind her and switched off the porch light, Eli let out a sigh of relief. At least she was home and safe.
Let this be the last, he silently pleaded. Let this be the worst. This had to put her feelings over the top. It had to make her finally value him. She would plead for a commitment and he would give her one. It would keep her out of the clutches of Driscoll and in his arms forever.
Someone tapped excitedly at his door.
Eli ignored it. The need to sleep kept his eyes closed and his body horizontal. He’d walked back and forth across the dark apartment, thinking, planning and worrying until nearly daybreak. Then he’d sneaked out quietly, walked the eight blocks to where he’d left his truck and drove it home to park it in its place. Just in case she’d slept through the engine noise, he slammed the heavy metal driver’s side door for good measure.
Left the roadhouse with another woman. Returned home at dawn. Let Mazy try to filter that through her Mr. Nice Guy stereotype.
The knocking at the door began again, this time louder.
Eli’s eyes popped open with a surge of adrenaline. It might be Mazy. She might have come to have it out. It was like a trumpet call to battle stations.
Eli rolled off the couch, where he’d obviously crashed. He was in a T-shirt and pajama bottoms as he went to the door. He opened it wide, but it was not Mazy standing there.
With the excited giggles, his nieces, Ashley and Ava, greeted him. The two girls were rosy cheeked and literally bouncing with enthusiasm.
“Come out and play with us, Uncle Eli,” Ava pleaded. “Come out and play!”
“We’re kicking the ball around like soccer, but it’s really more a game of Monkey in the Middle.”
“We need you to be the monkey,” the five-year-old pleaded.
He loved the little girls and enjoyed time spent with them. But today was...today he was incapable of having fun. The blood of the bad dude was still running in his veins. It was hard to recapture his nice-guy self.
“Can’t play today, sweeties,” he told them. “Get your dad to do it.”
Ava shook her head. “Daddy’s busy. He’s taking care of Grandpa.”
“What?”
“It’s such a pretty day,” Ashley said. “Mom and Dad decided to bring Grandpa out to sit in the yard.”
Eli was pretty sure that his jaw must have dropped. He was stunned into inaction for a half minute. And then, without stopping to acquire more clothing, he stepped out the back door.
Ava clapped excitedly, as if he’d agreed to entertain them. But Eli walked disbelieving to the little semicircle of lawn chairs sitting in the afternoon sunshine. In the center, seated in the wheelchair that was typically used only for doctor visits, Jonah Latham was wrapped warmly in a red-plaid hunting jacket and breathing fresh mountain air.
His brother looked up and gave a hearty grin. “Hey, it looks like the girls have finally rousted the lazy slug-a-bed. One day working outside the shop and it takes him all the next morning to recover.”
There was laughter. Eli looked at his father. The old man’s expression was unchanged, but his eyes looked bright and he moved his arm as if in greeting.
“Ashley, bring Uncle Eli a chair,” Sheila called out to her daughter.
“He’s going to play with us.”
“Let him wake up first.”
The girls began dragging one of the ancient Adirondacks that had been part of their backyard for so long. Eli became aware of his state of undress.
“I need to get some clothes on.”
“I wonder
ed when you were going to notice that,” Ida told him with a chuckle.
He hurried back into the basement. He went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. His mind was a complete whirl. His father was outside? His father was outside and the sun was shining on his face. And it was Clark who’d brought him there. It was an image so far out of his current expectation that he could hardly grasp it.
Dressing in jeans, Eli pulled on his old-school Connies without socks and loped back outside.
An extra chair had been added to the group, but Beth Ann Gulliver was now sitting in it. Tru was out on the lawn in between the little girls, generously playing the part of monkey.
“Oh, I got your place,” Beth Ann said.
Eli waved away her concern and seated himself cross-legged on the wheat-colored grass. The ground beneath him was colder than the air around, but it provided a better view of his dad’s face, looking somehow happier than he had in months.
The conversation was light and ordinary. It was the kind of talk that might have happened years before. Eli noted that his father was not the only one who seemed happy to be outside. Ida’s smiling face seemed to have dropped a decade of years as she sat next to her husband, laughing and joking.
Beth Ann told stories from long-ago days when she and her husband, Truman, first moved to town. And Ida added her own tales of sleepy life in Brandt Mountain when she was a girl. They spoke of old friends and old times. But their conversation wasn’t totally about the past.
“So what are your plans for Thanksgiving?” Beth Ann questioned.
“Sheila usually brings us a plate by,” Ida answered with a grateful smile toward her stepdaughter-in-law. “I’ve never cooked a turkey in my life and I don’t think I can start now.”
“Why don’t you come over to our house,” Beth Ann suggested. “It’s not much of a holiday with only the three of us.”
“Oh, we wouldn’t want to be a bother,” Ida said.
“There is no such thing as a bother on Thanksgiving,” Beth Ann told her. “It would be a joy. And remind me of times gone by. Jonah and Daisy must have invited us over for holiday feeds with them a half-dozen times. I never really got to reciprocate. Though I’ll admit it will be a lot quieter than when you boys were still at home.”
“Why don’t we come, too?” Clark suggested. “Eli’s going to want to be with Mazy. And we’re not going to Sheila’s parents this year. So we could bring the kids with us for a big celebration.”
Sheila laughed. “Sorry, Beth Ann,” she said. “Normally, Clark doesn’t invite himself to other people’s houses.”
Clark shrugged as if it were a joke. “We could serve it here at Dad’s house. We could set up the dining room, just like we used to. Beth Ann cooks at her house and Eli and I carry it over here.”
Beth Ann nodded thoughtfully. “What a wonderful idea, Clark. All of us together again for the holiday.”
“Well, I can’t let you do all the cooking,” Sheila piped in. “I have a recipe for sweet potatoes that can’t be missed. And I make a real green bean casserole, not the one with the canned mushroom soup.”
The plans went on as if getting together were the most normal thing in the world. The last time the Lathams and Gullivers had shared a dinner, Eli and Mazy must have been young teens. And the last time there had been any kind of celebration in his house was before his father’s stroke.
As the discussion moved to pies, Clark gave a nod toward Eli, the head gesture urging him aside for a private discussion.
Getting up from the ground, he followed his brother to the area of the lawn where the path was worn between the shop and the house.
Clark stood scuffing the denuded ground with his foot.
Eli hoped this was not going to be a rematch of their argument on Friday. Still on pins and needles about the ongoing drama with Mazy, he really only wanted peace. He decided the best way to have it was to make it.
“Have you contracted for a winter storage unit?” he asked.
Clark looked momentarily guilty. “No, honestly I haven’t put enough time into it,” he answered. “I’ll do what I can when I get home and try to have something lined up in the next few days.”
“Would you go look at the second floor of Charlie’s building?”
“The coffee shop building?”
Eli nodded. “I talked to him about it yesterday. It’s big enough and probably cheap enough that we could keep it year-round.”
“If that’s what you want,” Clark said. “You’re the boss.”
Eli did not detect any snideness or resentment in his words. That was a good sign.
“I think it’s a doable idea,” he told Clark. “But I’d value your opinion. We could interact with customers there and keep them out of the shop where it’s dangerous and they’re kind of a nuisance.”
Clark nodded thoughtfully. “I like the sound of that,” he said. “It might actually be a smart move for the business to have a presence on Main Street. But I’m not that keen on dragging some of these big pieces up to the second floor.”
“There’s a freight elevator,” Eli said.
“Then that sounds even better,” Clark said. “I’ll run by in the morning and see if Charlie will let me have a look.”
Eli nodded.
Clark continued to rough up the ground underfoot. “What do you think about this path?” he asked.
“The path?”
“Do you think it’s smooth enough for the wheelchair or would it be better to continue the ramp down the hill?”
“Continue the ramp?”
“I was thinking this morning,” he said, “that maybe we could bring Dad down to the shop during the day.”
“Huh?”
Clark’s brow furrowed. “Well, not every day, of course. And not all day. But sometimes we could bring him down to be in the shop with us. It would be good for him to get out of the house. Probably good for Ida, too.”
Eli stared at his brother, too stunned to speak.
“You don’t like it?” Clark tone was worried.
“No, I do like it,” Eli told him. “I think it’s a great idea.”
“The weather is mostly going to be too cold this time of year,” Clark said. “But some days, like today, are going to be nice. And if he’s...if he’s still with us in the spring, that would be good, right?”
“Right,” Eli agreed. “I’m sure Dad would love that.”
“He went down to work almost every day of his life,” Clark pointed out. “It seems kind of wrong for him to be kept out of there now.”
Eli nodded. “Just being down there ought to make him feel more like himself.”
“Yeah,” Clark agreed. “It kind of makes his life seem more normal again.”
Eli nodded. “Of course we should bring Dad to the shop. The only place he ever sees is home or the doctor’s office. I should have thought of it myself. I should have thought of it long ago.”
Clark shrugged. “I don’t know why you should be expected to think of everything,” he said. “If it is a good idea, I don’t think it matters who comes up with it.”
“No, it doesn’t matter,” Eli said. “And it is a really good idea.”
Clark let out a long breath as if he’d been holding it. “I didn’t want you to think that I was stepping into your territory, second-guessing all you’ve done for Dad. I know it’s been mostly on you and, honestly, I kind of thought you wanted it that way.”
“How could you think that?”
Clark shrugged. “Maybe I wanted to think that. It kind of let me off the hook, I guess.”
It was more honesty and self-reproach than Clark was typically noted for.
“I’m...I’m sorry about going off on you the other day,” Eli told him.
“You were righ
t,” Clark said. “I knew it when you said it. But it still pissed me off. I’m not used to this new, more ballsy kid brother. I went home and griped to Sheila about it. She helped me kind of talk myself through it. That’s one of the advantages of having a wife, you know. They understand exactly how to help you take a long look at yourself.”
Eli raised an eyebrow, but nodded.
Clark pulled the cap with the team logo off his head and ran a hand through his hair. “I feel so bad in so many ways,” he said. “It’s like I’m so glad that Dad’s still with us. But then I feel guilty that he’s so broken.”
Eli nodded. He knew that feeling.
“The more Sheila and I talked about it, the more I realized that I just hate that room,” Clark said.
“The room?”
“It was never Dad’s room. It wasn’t a room that he shared with Mom. It’s a sickroom. And I hate being in there.”
Eli could see that, but there were practical considerations. “If we move him upstairs...we can’t move him up and down two or three times a day.”
“I know,” Clark said. “I’m not criticizing your decision on this. I’m saying what I feel.”
Eli nodded.
“Anyway, Sheila said that I should come up with a new idea. And the idea I came up with was...well, to see him someplace else.”
Clark motioned toward the semicircle of chairs. Their father was still seated there.
Eli felt an expansion in his heart. Seeing Dad someplace else was really about seeing him. He had gotten so accustomed to seeing his father as the invalid in the sickroom that perhaps he, too, had stopped looking at him as a person who had a life and interests not limited to his own health and well-being.
Jonah Latham definitely had physical limitations. But maybe it had been Eli’s limited vision that had kept him trapped within his house for so long.
“Thanks, Clark,” he said. “I’m sure getting down to the shop will mean a lot to Dad. And knowing it was your idea will be even better. I know you two have had your issues.”
Clark shrugged. “We haven’t always gotten along,” he agreed. “But I love him as much as you do, Termite. He knows that, but still it’s time that I showed it more, too.”
