Building a Family

by M. K. Stelmack

  Your name on my list. I can’t do or be anything with anyone until I can strike off each and every name. Until then I can’t look you in the eye. And looking someone in the eye when you promise your life to them is kinda important.

  She could say none of that, because he’d tell her that he forgave her—giving her a ring proved that. He’d push her to move on, even while she still felt like the same destructive cheat who’d wrecked so many lives.

  The best she could do was stay silent. Let her heart tie her tongue.

  * * *

  SHE LEFT. As Ben expected. He would’ve been more surprised if she’d burst into his workshop and jumped into his arms, his ring on her finger. He stared at the wood. The answer was there, he swore. He could sense the form begin to surface and then it would blur and sink back down.

  Like his hopes.

  Which was exactly what they did when the workshop door handle turned again. Soared at the thought it was Connie, and then nosedived when in walked her brother. Seth was the male version of Connie. The easiest way to rile either one of them was to mention how much alike they were.

  “Ben, you got to help me out here,” Seth said. He pushed aside Ben’s cans of stains and paints and slapped down a pink folder and a pencil. “It’s these vows. They’re the next thing on the checklist.”

  “You’re not going with the traditional ‘for better or worse, in sickness and in health’ ones?”

  “No, Alexi said them with her first husband, so she wants to do something new with me.”

  “Sure, glad to help. It’s not as if I’ve got anything better to do.”

  Seth cut him a look. “Sarcasm’s my thing. What’s with you?”

  There was no good answer. If he said he’d proposed to Connie, Seth would blow a gasket and tell him how stupid he was. If he then said she’d refused, he’d blow another gasket for how stupid she was.

  “I’m just jealous,” Ben said, because that was true. “Not that I want Alexi for mine,” he added quickly. “Just the idea, I guess.”

  Seth said what he’d been saying every few months for the past three years. “I could set you up with somebody.”

  Ben repeated his standard reply. “I’m not looking right now. So,” he added quickly, to get Seth back on track, “what have you got so far?”

  Seth flipped open the folder. “According to Amy, I should say, ‘I will love you forever. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Thank you for marrying me.’”

  “Are you sure Alexi’s seven-year-old said that? Sounds more like you,” Ben said. He opened his phone. “Let’s see if Pinterest can do better.”

  “You’re kidding, right? You are the first male I’ve ever heard of who’s on Pinterest.”

  “For my woodworking.” Which wasn’t entirely a lie but there was no way he was telling Seth that he had pins on wedding lists. Ben tilted the phone away from Seth as he scrolled to a site with his red pin.

  He’d pinned it when he had high hopes.

  When the ring had sat on the highest shelf in his workshop in the wooden box he’d made for Connie during his grade ten industrial arts class.

  He’d never given her the box because it had been too weird for a sixteen-year-old to give anything to his best friend’s sister who was twelve. Even if he’d meant it as a small way to cheer her up after losing her dad. When they’d become a couple fifteen or so years later, it hadn’t seemed necessary.

  “How about this one?” He began reading one of the several examples on the site. Seth listened, head bent, butt to the bench. When Ben finished, Seth seesawed his head. “Not bad. Any others?”

  Ben wasn’t halfway through the next one before Seth nixed it. Two more got the same treatment and the third one didn’t go beyond “Insert name, you were the only one who could rev my engines...” before Seth groaned. “Isn’t there one there that says it like it is?”

  There was—the one he’d chosen for himself. Ben must’ve spent too long staring at the phone because Seth prompted him. “Well? What is it?”

  “It’s not the entire thing,” Ben said. “Just some, uh, lines.”

  “Anything at this point,” Seth said, and waited for Ben to deliver.

  Ben didn’t want to. It felt like a betrayal to his fantasy of love everlasting with Connie, an admission of surrender. He swiped the screen away from the leaf-embroidered words and began to make stuff up. “You are my one and only, my alpha and my omega, my world without—”

  “Stop, stop. No man talks like that. You’re on this site with woodworkers, you say?”

  Ben really didn’t want his Pinterest addiction investigated. “More to see what’s trending. Look, why don’t you ask Alexi’s maid of honor for ideas? She probably knows Alexi’s vows, and then you can coordinate yours with hers.”

  Seth rolled up the folder, drummed it quickly on a can of stain. “Thing is, she doesn’t have a maid of honor. She feels she’s not close enough to anyone in town to ask them.” He paused. “And before you ask, she’s not asking Connie.”

  “Because you said so or she said so?”

  “Neither of us. It’s unspoken. We both have issues with her.”

  An image of Connie’s defiant eyes this morning came to mind. “Who doesn’t?”

  Her brother immediately went on high alert. “Why? What’s she done now?”

  “Nothing.” The truth and the problem.

  Seth’s green eyes—Connie’s eyes—narrowed, and Ben dug deep for something to redirect Seth. “You should reconsider. Alexi needs someone, and Connie is your sister.”

  Seth rerolled the folder so tight it took on the dimensions of a plastic straw. “You think I haven’t considered her? Connie would make an awesome maid of honor. She could fix up Alexi, decorate the venue, organize all the parties, everything. What’ll happen, though, is that something’ll come up, she’ll chase it and we’ll be stuck with the mess. Don’t think I’m right? Two words—Mom’s house. Our wedding will end up looking like the house. Trashed with no idea when it’ll get done.”

  Seth’s frustration and bitterness were unmistakable—and justified. Three years ago, he’d taken the rap for Connie on police charges. He’d expected Connie to take advantage of the break he’d given her, and he’d never forgiven her for running it into the ground instead.

  “All I’m saying is that you and Alexi should think about it. I’m sure Connie would like to help out.”

  “She babysits every Thursday night. That’s enough.”

  “And the kids call her Auntie Connie. Isn’t that reason to involve her in the wedding?”

  “Look, when Connie shows up for something, she’s all in. When. I can deal with her skipping a Thursday if she decides she’s got better things to do. I can’t have her skipping my wedding.”

  “A maid of honor isn’t required for a wedding to take place. You and Alexi will still get married, even if she doesn’t show.”

  “Better none than one who can’t be trusted.”

  Stubbornness, that was the other thing the two siblings had in common.

  “Give her a chance,” Ben said.

  “We have. You more than me. I’ve learned my lesson. Have you?”

  Ben didn’t answer, looking back at the wood. Images rose up through the grain of what he could carve. A vine, probably inspired by the tattoo that twined up her leg. A wheel from when they’d met as kids. More. Ben reached for his pencil, flicking in marks here and across there, following the lines that finally, finally matched what was in his head.

  When the design was captured, he stepped back and reality drifted down like sawdust.

  He whipped around. “Seth! Sorry, I—”

  Seth was gone. Probably a good thing, too, because if he’d seen all Ben had drawn, he would know the answer to his question.

  * * *

  “WHAT’S YOUR PLAN if it r
ains?”

  Connie snapped her attention away from the wedding photo on Lindsay’s desk, and focused on the town’s special events coordinator. Right, they were talking about the upcoming Lakers-on-the-Go Summer Launch event she was organizing for the community.

  “What are my options?” Connie asked. She knew the answer, but it bought her a few seconds to figure out how to tell Lindsay about Derek and Shari. It had seemed like the right and good thing to do—right up until she’d sat across from Lindsay and seen the photos of her and Derek at their wedding and of them with their two kids. Suddenly, it was impossible to form the simple statement: Derek is cheating on you. Five words that would destroy those photos as surely as if she had torn them from the frame and ripped them to shreds.

  Ben’s advice to stay quiet might be the wisest course. Maybe things would work out on their own.

  Snatches of Lindsay’s answer drifted into Connie’s brain. Move to the civic center. Same activities. Cancel the bonfire.

  Connie jerked. “We can’t cancel the bonfire. What kid above twelve comes to a school-end party just to get their face painted? Remember the event is aimed at middle school and high school.”

  Lindsay interlaced her fingers and rested her elbows on the desk. The pose of a patient adult dealing with a poorly informed human. “Then maybe consider expanding on activities to attract the higher grades in case of bad weather. That way all your bases are covered.”

  Connie didn’t want to compromise. Lakers-on-the-Go was her brainchild, a social club for the people of Spirit Lake to do ordinary and extraordinary things together. She’d conceived it less than four years ago when they were all sitting in the kitchen—her, Mel, Seth, Ben and her mother. She remembered the growing excitement in the faces of her mother and Mel as the ideas had tumbled loose from her imagination. Even Seth went so far as to say that it might be a good thing.

  And Ben... Ben had watched her with his knee-buckling, private look.

  Not two months later, she’d ruined everything, particularly with Seth. A drug boss had come up from Calgary, looking for Miranda.

  He convinced Connie to make it right between him and Miranda by making a single delivery of cocaine and meth for him. Seth had insisted on coming along to protect her.

  But it was a setup. Cops walked right in.

  Seth had taken the fall for Connie. She had a string of minor charges from her wild days, and he hadn’t wanted a fresh one to derail her attempts to get into nursing. With his clean record, he’d argued, his sentence would be easy.

  He was right; he’d gotten off with community service. She’d done nothing to stop him. Loathing herself, she’d fallen straight back into her bad habits. She took to drinking again, partying all night. She withdrew her application for the nursing program. She lost one job after another. She drove Seth and Ben away. Ben had taken longer to shake, but faking an affair had done the trick. And in the nick of time, too. She wouldn’t have resisted the temptation of a ring back then.

  Seth had worked off his community service with Lakers-on-the-Go, but now he was too busy, so she’d made it her responsibility again. This time, she wasn’t going to screw it up.

  “The point of the event is to celebrate a change, right?” Connie said. “Moving on. Moving up. Freedom. New challenges. All that.”

  Lindsay bobbed her head, encouraging Connie to keep brainstorming.

  “New friendships. New connections. New...new memories.” Her eyes strayed to the wedding photo. Luke and Shari would’ve been at the wedding—he’d been Derek’s best friend for years. Had Derek been happy with Lindsay then? Or had he been faking it right from the start?

  Focus.

  “We could launch balloons with messages inside, or write one in permanent marker on the outside and then let them go.”

  “In the rain?”

  Good point. “Look, if it’s too miserable, I’ll just cancel the event. It’s supposed to be a happy day, not something where no one shows up and those that do wish they were playing a video game in their basement.” In the wedding photo, Lindsay was smiling up at Derek while he smiled at the camera. Had that been a planned or spontaneous shot?

  “You’re going to hope for good weather?” Lindsay prodded.

  “Just hoping it all turns out for the best.”

  Lindsay huffed. “I have to say it, Connie. As special events coordinator, the way I keep it special is to imagine every scenario and plan for it.”

  And what is your plan if you find out your husband is cheating on you? “Let’s just say, Linds, that I’m an optimist.”

  “Okay.” Lindsay drew out the single word of agreement in a long, slow way to indicate she wasn’t at all okay with Connie. “I’ll send you links with the forms we need completed.” She turned to the computer, tapped and clicked, clicked and tapped. In the forced quiet, Connie set up a silent chant: Do as Ben says, do as Ben says.

  Given that her record with relationships was as abysmal as a Hollywood star’s, his advice was probably sound. Besides, it wasn’t as if she and Lindsay were BFFs. Who’d believe a waitress?

  Lindsay sat back and laughed. “This is all your fault, Connie.”

  She’d heard that said plenty in her life, but this was the first time from Lindsay.

  “You showed us too much of a good time last night. I can’t find the forms—my brain is so blitzed.

  “I’d forgotten how good it is to be with others and have fun. Don’t get me wrong, but my whole job is to create fun for others—and that’s work. As you know. And I love my kids more than life itself, but it was nice to have someone wait on me. So...thanks.”

  Lindsay had headed into personal territory. Yikes. Connie opened the calendar app on her phone. “Glad to be of help. The forms. When’s the deadline on them?”

  Lindsay ran a finger along the keyboard, releasing a low staccato purr. “It was nice having Derek to myself,” she added softly. “It’s been a while.”

  Stop talking, Lindsay. Get back to work. Please.

  “Of course, I had to share him with Luke and Shari. But they’ve been part of our lives for so long I can’t imagine Derek and me without them.”

  Connie hunted for something neutral to say. “Luke and Derek have been best buds since elementary.”

  “So I hear. I grew up in Calgary. But yeah, I guess they’re the same as Ben and Seth.”

  An image of Ben cheating on Seth with Alexi rose in Connie’s mind. Seth would be devastated, their friendship over. There was no coming back from that kind of betrayal. As for her and Ben, well, she had no claim on him so it wouldn’t be as if she had a right to feel hurt.

  Still, for what he’d done to Seth, she would burn him alive.

  “They are close,” Connie affirmed. “No getting between those two.”

  Except she had and still did. She was the constant burr, thorn, fly, poison, wrench in their friendship. She was forever grateful that when she broke up with Ben, Seth had sided with him. If anything, it had made them closer.

  Lindsay would have heard the story of her betrayal from Luke and Derek. Not the heart of it—only she knew that—but the bare fact that Connie had dumped Ben for another man. They would have judged her, and rightly so.

  Lindsay had resumed her job at the keyboard. Tap, tap, tap. She stopped. “It’s why I try so hard with Shari,” Lindsay said in a rush. “I don’t want our husbands to feel any kind of...I dunno, divided loyalties. Do you know what I mean?”

  Connie raised her head to look at Lindsay. It was like lifting a ten-pin bowling ball. “Yes. I know what you mean.”

  Lindsay’s eyes rounded. “I’m sorry. I forgot what happened with you and Ben. I’m sorry. It wasn’t directed at you. Honest.”

  Connie felt a wave of sympathetic embarrassment for them both. “Listen, it’s fine. I hear you. I’m glad you and Shari get along.” Unless the proverbial poop hits the
marriage fan.

  “Nine years,” Lindsay said to the ceiling, and then looked at Connie. “Shari and I see each other every week, two at the most. We have kids the same age. Our youngest are a month apart. But I still feel we have no connection. We’re just two people whose husbands are best friends. That doesn’t seem right, does it?”

  Connie had no idea. Would she and Alexi have the same stilted friendship nine years from now? She had to make a relationship with Alexi work, or she could never erase Seth’s name. “I don’t think anyone expects you two to be best friends just because your husbands are.”

  Lindsay leaned across her desk and whispered, “But I don’t know that we are friends of any kind. You and I have talked maybe a dozen times in the past ten years, yet I feel closer to you than to Shari.” She frowned. “You get what I mean?”

  Yes. They worked well together when organizing events, shared the same political views, enjoyed the same veggie dip, detested the same breed of dog. Except that if she was really Lindsay’s friend, she’d tell her that her husband was cheating on her.

  Connie dug deep for some kind of truth. “I want to be your friend. Only, let’s face it, I have a lousy track record.” There, that was the best she could do—an invitation and a warning.

  Lindsay clapped her hands, as if Connie had informed her of an excellent deal on venues. “You saying that means you’ll be an awesome friend.” She swiveled her chair to the computer screen. “Now, where were we?”

  Sitting here, launching a friendship already weighed down with secrets and half-truths, with no chance of taking off.

  “The forms,” Connie said. “When is my deadline?”

  * * *

  A WEEK LATER, Trevor McCready walked into Smooth Sailing ten minutes before the last drinks were served.

  Now, as he swung himself up onto the bar stool, he was finally making an appearance in her life again, and from the state of his face, what an appearance it was.

  “Looks like you got rocks thrown in your face,” she said.

  From his one good eye, Trevor shot her a murderous glare. Nervousness shivered through her. She glanced about to check her options.