Building a Family

by M. K. Stelmack

  “Maybe I should tell her that? Tell her I want the chance to fix things.”

  Derek glanced at his phone, picked up his beer, set it down.

  Connie thought of Ariel. Her second chance to make it right with Miranda, maybe her only chance now. In her heart, Connie had sensed that when she chose Ben, it meant nothing good for both Miranda and Ariel. She’d done it for her own happiness. A purely selfish act. Now it was payback time.

  “I think,” she said to Luke while looking at Derek, “if you’re given a second chance, you should grab hold of it with both hands.”

  * * *

  “LETTUCE? TOMATO? PEPPERS?”

  Ben waited for Ariel to answer the questions of the Subway sandwich maker, but she was too busy scrolling through her playlist. He got in her space. “Ariel. What do you want?”

  “I thought you were ordering.”

  “No. I’m paying.”

  “Whatever. Everything except no olives, no jalapeños. Mustard, mayo, salt, pepper.”

  “Tell him that.”

  Ariel did an eye roll, the third since he’d picked her up, and repeated the information in the general direction of the sandwich guy.

  At the pay counter, she informed the cashier she wanted the order combo’d, without clearing it with Ben first. Not that he would’ve refused her, but could she not have shown common courtesy and asked first?

  Then again, what did he expect from someone raised by Miranda? Connie’s old BFF had defined the word selfish.

  Back in his truck, Ariel ate her foot-long sub in great tearing gulps. Into his mind leaped a sudden memory of Ariel’s mother eating pizza in his kitchen the same starved way. In the low light of the late afternoon, he started the engine and rolled down the street. “You’re welcome,” he said pointedly.

  Her cheek popped out with stored food, she said, “You’re only doing this because Auntie Connie told you to.”

  “Auntie Connie doesn’t tell me to do anything.” Except not marry her. “She said you were probably hungry and I said I’d take care of it. I’m doing it so she doesn’t worry. That doesn’t mean I have to accept rudeness.”

  “Whatever.” Ariel ripped off another huge chunk. Bits of lettuce dropped down onto his floor to be ground into the carpet. No use telling her that. She’d deliberately shake some more loose, just to rile him.

  The last time he’d been this annoyed with anyone was years ago with Miranda. The very mention of her had been enough to make him want to kick walls. The Miranda Effect, Connie had called it. Connie had been immune to it, but Seth, Mrs. Greene and Ben had all been on its receiving end until the day she moved away.

  Connie had always seen the best in people, totally blind to their faults. Ben could only see Miranda’s faults because she’d been the one to introduce Connie to partying, alcohol and drugs.

  Now the Miranda Effect was back, her daughter as the carrier. He’d caught Ariel’s ugly look at Connie, who had curled in on herself as if she deserved it. Connie owed nothing—nothing—to Miranda’s kid. It was Miranda, not Connie, who had left with Ariel five years ago.

  Ariel gave a sudden cry and cupped her jaw. Good, she’d bit her tongue.

  No. No. He gripped the wheel. He needed to get his nasty thoughts under control. Sins of the mother didn’t extend to the daughter. “You okay?”

  He expected a “Whatever,” but she whimpered, “My tooth. Sometimes it hurts.”

  A cavity. A dental bill Connie would have to pay. She had no insurance, either. “Can’t you get dental work covered through the government?”

  “No.”

  “Have you checked?”

  “No.”

  “Then—”

  Her pale hand squeezed hard on her sub, the veggie innards plopping onto the paper wrap. “I’m not a foster kid.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I just thought there might be a few programs out there for minors, those on low income. I don’t know.”

  “You’re right. You don’t know.”

  Ben chose silence over a retort for the last few blocks to the house. Ariel clutched her destroyed sub to her chest and grabbed for the chips and bottle of water. Hands full, she couldn’t unbuckle her seat belt. To get her out of the truck, Ben released the belt and it zipped up into Ariel’s food, catching the wrapper and flipping her entire sub onto the truck floor.

  Miranda, too, had complicated the simplest things.

  “Why didn’t you marry Auntie Connie?” Ariel’s pale fingers clenched on the empty wrapper. “You made Auntie Connie choose between you and us. She chose you, so why didn’t you keep her?”

  She made no sense whatsoever.

  “Don’t act as if you don’t know what I’m talking about. You always hated me and my mom, even though we did nothing to you. Nothing. Fine, hate me all you want.” She pushed open the door, ran out and slammed it shut.

  Ben watched Ariel stalk up the driveway and enter the house. He sat there as questions crackled and popped into his brain.

  “Connie,” he whispered. “What did you do?”

  * * *

  THE INSTANT CONNIE slid into Ben’s truck, she was hit with the smell of mustard and bread. She squished stuff under her boot. She looked between her knees.

  “Uh, Ben,” she said as he took the driver’s seat. “There’s a whole salad down here.”

  “That was Ariel.”

  Connie tensed at the sharpness in his voice. “Are we about to have another conversation in which you advise me against consorting with certain people?”

  “You mean a conversation in which you confess to more feelings for me than you say you have?”

  The temperature in the cab was suddenly unbelievably warm. The heat from her seat alone was enough to make her squirm. “I said we were friends, which—”

  “Ariel told me I made you choose between Miranda and me. We both know that I did no such thing. What is the truth?”

  Shame drew her insides into a tight ball. “I thought I couldn’t have you both,” she whispered, her head bent toward her fisted gloves. “You two didn’t get along.”

  “For good reason! She dragged you into her illegal schemes. You were charged with crimes she instigated, remember.”

  “I know that, Ben. But—but she was still a friend, and it was hard for her, too. She gave me an ultimatum. Her or you. And I chose you.”

  She closed her eyes and saw Miranda’s stricken expression. Then she’d drawn herself up to say, “Have a nice life, Cons.” She had called to Ariel, who was working on her turns at the skateboard park. Miranda had walked away and Ariel had had to run to catch up to her, giving Connie a quick wave goodbye. She never saw Ariel again, until today.

  She felt her hair being smoothed away from her face, felt the gentle swipe of Ben’s finger across her cheek. His signature gesture of affection. Years ago, the gesture would have been accompanied by soft, teasing words of love. Today, he said, “I wish I’d known. It would’ve made a difference. Later.”

  “Later? You mean when you discovered that I was a lying cheater? No, I think you got that right.” Actually, he still had it wrong.

  Ben gave her a sad, little smile. “Yeah, but I wouldn’t have concluded that you never cared.”

  Connie was never hotter. Her throat was sandpaper, her jacket a boiling wrap, the air from the heater a blast from the desert. She fumbled with the heat controls. “That’s stupid, Ben. You know I’ve always cared.”

  He leaned against the headrest, and in his profile was the sad downturn of his mouth. “No, Connie. I’ve always believed that you started dating me because I was there. You didn’t choose me. You ended up with me. The one time I’d seen you choose...it wasn’t me.”

  She pressed on the passenger-side window button and in swept cold air. Lifesaving. She drew in a cool, cleansing breath.

  “But n
ow I know,” Ben continued in his slow, soft way. “You keep showing me how much I mattered to you, Connie. How much I still matter.”

  There it was. His deep, to-the-marrow tenderness that was strong enough to crack her wide-open. She couldn’t let him in. Not when she had so many messes left to clean up. Especially when a mess like Trevor could draw Ben into a whole world of hurt. She sucked in another cold breath. “I have a list. Five names are on it. These five names represent the people that I have hurt so badly that I can’t move on until I’ve set things right with them.”

  A second cleansing breath. “You are on that list, Ben. But so is Miranda and Ariel. I’m not turning Ariel over to foster care. She’s my one chance to do right by my friend.”

  “Connie—”

  “I know she’s dead. But I didn’t know that when I put her name on it, so it stays.”

  “Connie—”

  “I bet you can guess the other two. Seth. Trevor.”

  “Connie—”

  She couldn’t bear the soft persistence in his voice. “Ben. Don’t you dare say that you’ve forgiven me. That all you want is for me to marry you and be with you for the rest of our lives. Don’t you dare take what I did to you and sweep it away, as if it didn’t matter. Because it should. It should. Forgive me if you must, but don’t take up with me again. What does it matter if I care for you, if that won’t stop me from hurting you? Don’t you get it?”

  Silence settled in the cab. She stole a look at him. He was smiling at her. Smiling! “How, then, Connie, do you intend to make it up to me if you won’t marry me?”

  “I have no idea,” she admitted, “but I’ll figure it out.”

  “Do you want a clue?”

  “All right.”

  “You chose me once. Choose me again.”

  Connie closed her eyes. How she wanted to. But if she chose him now—really chose him above all else—she’d be turning her back on the others she’d hurt. And her guilt over not finishing her list would eat away at their marriage.

  She shook her head. “No, Ben. Not now. Maybe never.”

  She risked looking at him again. His smile had faded but had not disappeared. “I’m proud of you,” he said.

  How to get through to him? Before she could answer, he added, “You take care of that list. Leave me to last.” He gently swept her cheek again. “I’ll be waiting.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  BEN HAD HIS own mental list with its one name: Connie. Which meant that in addition to keeping a watch out for Trevor McCready, he also needed to manage Ariel. If Ariel was going to be a part of Connie’s life, then she’d be a part of his, as well.

  How to make that happen? Under the midmorning light, he worked his chisel along a faint line for the first spoke in his wheel. It was a wheel that had brought him and Connie together.

  People assumed that Ben and Seth had become friends and Connie had tagged along behind, but the truth was Connie had found him first.

  He’d been twelve and biking around town alone. Biking was something normal for a kid to do in the summer. It wasn’t normal to be alone in a house. Houses weren’t made for one, especially one kid. He would’ve biked straight past Connie’s house—a long, white, split-level bungalow, except this girl in pink shorts with lace edging, a sparkly pink top and a high ponytail was in his way on the street, drawing with chalk.

  He stopped to look at her sketch of a giant yellow flower, which spread a good yard or two on either side of the street’s yellow line. In the center of the petals was a chalked blue face with pink heart-shaped sunglasses and a thick pink smile. A human, a much smaller version of the face, lit on him when he stopped.

  “Hi!”

  How to talk to a happy girl in pink. “Why are you drawing in the middle of the street?”

  “So the most people possible see it.” She looked over his shoulder. “Car coming.”

  She scooped up her bucket of chalk and stepped against a parked truck. He followed, walking his bike. The girl waved at the passing car. The old man behind the wheel honked back. The girl jumped out onto the street and waved more vigorously at the car’s rear window.

  “Here,” she said. “I need to get the letters done. You watch for traffic. Both ways, okay?”

  He did, because he had nothing better to do. He later admitted he would have, anyway, even if he’d been promised a million dollars to keep going. He and Connie had talked—or, to be exact, she’d asked questions and he’d answered them. Between cars and honking and chalk breakages and washings for misspellings, she’d gotten Ben to drop the whole story. About how his mom had left for a family visit to Ontario four years ago and never came back. How his dad worked oil and gas out west and would often be gone until late at night. How he could cook anything out of a box or can.

  He’d been in the middle of telling her that he was thinking of a getting a newspaper route so he could buy a power drill when a boy about his age had popped out from between the parked vehicles.

  “Connie! What are you doing in the middle of the road? Serves you right if you get run over.” He frowned at Ben. “Who are you?”

  Connie stood from where she’d been squatting over the O in AWESOME. “This is Ben. He’s my spotter. So I won’t get run over. So there.”

  The boy’s frown deepened and he said to Ben, “You don’t have to listen to her.”

  “When Dad comes home,” Connie said, squatting again at her O, “he’s barbecuing hot dogs and hamburgers and then we’re having watermelon and Neapolitan ice cream for dessert. Do you want to stay, Ben?”

  Ben had been pretty sure he should say no. His dad had warned him about not going into strangers’ houses. But supper was soup from a can because his dad’s shift didn’t end until after ten.

  “Car’s coming,” Ben and the boy he figured to be Connie’s brother said at the same time. They shrugged and smiled at each other.

  “You can stay if you want,” Connie’s brother said.

  Ben’s dad usually gave him ten dollars to buy something to eat from Mac’s. He’d bought corn dogs and ice-cream bars for a while, until he’d grown tired of people looking at him strange because he stood outside and ate by himself. Eating at home alone worried him because what happened if he choked? There’d be no one to perform the Heimlich maneuver. His dad said if that was his only problem, he didn’t have problems.

  “Sure,” Ben said to the boy, answering Connie’s invitation, “if that’s okay with your mom and dad.”

  It was, because they’d assumed Seth had invited Ben and Seth rarely had anyone over. Connie, he learned later, invited anyone—cat, dog, girl, man on motorized chair, kid on skateboard. On that first night, after a supper of meat and sweetness, he played with Seth and Connie in the backyard. That night, for the first time ever, he got home after his dad, who had been happy to hear where he’d been. He handed Ben twenty dollars to buy his new friends treats at Mac’s.

  Ben did, and from then on he was over at the Greenes’ nearly every day for years. He was one of Connie’s lost kids who had worked out. Other kids hadn’t, and her parents had cut off those friendships fast. After their dad died, the screening system had weakened and Miranda had sneaked in. Well, this time he would be the one doing the screening.

  He laid down the hammer and went over to his computer. A quick Google search called up Miranda’s obit. It wasn’t long, but it looked accurate enough, especially the mention of their town—Spirit Lake, Alberta. It said she’d passed away after a brief illness. Ariel’s name was stated as the surviving family member. Nobody else was listed. She’d been cremated. Obits cost money. So did cremations. How had Ariel afforded it? Had the government paid?

  He called Seth. “How are the vows going?”

  “Good. I got Connie helping me.”

  “Connie? Helping you?”

  Seth gusted out his breath. “Word for word, that�
�s exactly what Alexi said.”

  “Can you blame us?”

  “I can, when you are the two always telling me and Connie to get along. You two act like it’s a miracle.”

  It very nearly was. It would be unbelievably good if Seth and Connie reconciled. Well, as reconciled as those two ever could be. “Careful she doesn’t slip in something about how you vow to obey your wife’s sister-in-law.”

  “She tried. She’s treating these vows like a contract. I might as well be reading a legal document. She’s acting as if being maid of honor makes her Alexi’s legal representative. Did you know she asked me about a prenuptial agreement?”

  Ben had only half heard the last part. “Whoa, wait. She’s Alexi’s maid of honor?”

  “Yeah, she didn’t tell you?”

  “No.”

  “Typical Connie.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Ben couldn’t help himself. He always got defensive about Connie with Seth.

  “Okay, I take it back. Otherwise I’ll get into trouble with both you and Alexi. She and Connie seem to be getting along, mostly because Alexi has the patience of a saint. Not that Connie is misbehaving,” he added quickly. “Anyway, what can I do for you?”

  Well, now that Connie had been the warm-up event, he was going to have to lead with her, too. “It’s Connie.”

  Seth groaned. “What now?”

  “It’s actually not her,” Ben began, and filled Seth in on the details of Ariel’s arrival.

  “Doesn’t she have anyone she can go to besides Connie?” Seth said.

  “The obit was pretty short.”

  “She’s not Connie’s problem.”

  “I tried to tell your sister that.”

  “She’s finally taking responsibility, and it’s with the wrong person and for the wrong reasons.”

  Seth obviously had no idea about Connie’s list. Ben doubted Seth knew that Connie had started studying toward her nursing certificate again. He was also pretty sure that she hadn’t told him that Trevor McCready had resurfaced. Connie was taking responsibility for plenty of people.

  “Not to her way of thinking,” Ben said. “She feels guilty about what happened to Miranda and wants to make up for it with Ariel.”