How on earth did Eva manage? She must have had help—on a hunch, Ella called her father.
He had just gotten home, but he said, “Again? That son of a—”
“That’s not helping, Dad. And the kids are already up. What should I do?”
“Lock him in the garage?”
“Tempting, but he’s too heavy for me to lift and the kids are scared now.”
“I’ll come back.”
Together, they got the kids back to bed, telling them their father was just feeling tired from work. And then Ella and her dad talked about what came next.
“I could take the kids back to the house,” he said. “Let you deal with him in the morning.”
“No, they are settled in again, and I think Mother would never let Eva hear the end of it. What do you usually do when this happens?”
“Eva says one of the neighbors helps, and sometimes I go get him for her and bring him to sleep it off. Other times—”
“Just how often does this happen?”
He said, “How many days are there in a week.”
“Son of a—“
But Ella cut off when she saw Robbie leaning against the doorway, his stuffed bear dragging on the floor behind him. He might be smart, but he was still a little boy.
She said, “Want to go home with Grandpa?”
“Is Daddy dead? He only comes here when he’s sick.”
“He’s not sick,” Ella’s dad said, “but I bet you’d like to come stay and help me in the workshop tomorrow.”
“Mom says we have to go to church on Sundays.”
“Tomorrow is Saturday, little man,” Ella said.
“Is Mom coming back by then?”
“Not if I can help it,” she said, but too low for him to hear.
Her dad said, “Come on, let’s get your overnight bag and bring along your bear. Just you and me, this time, son, we’ll leave the girls to their own fun.”
The little boy nodded, and Ella saw them off. She checked on his sisters again, and they were still sleeping.
Out in the living room, Rodney was snoring now, quite loudly. She closed the girls’ bedroom door and went to roll him over. Turns out he wasn’t as drunk as she thought, and he grabbed her.
She smacked his hands away and searched for the bottle again.
He sat up and said, “Hey, you cut your hair. It looks good, you should have done it a long time ago—maybe we’d still be together. I like it . . . I like it a lot.”
He had that stupid look that meant his was thinking with his pants, not his head.
She said, “As long as you’re here, why not hand over some child support money. You’re behind quite a bit, and the kids need some things—winter is coming.”
He made a show of searching his pockets, and then giggling, he said, “I seem to have lost my checkbook somewhere. How about coming to look for yourself?”
Disgusting.
She said, “Then give me your wallet.”
He blurted, “What?”
She shushed him; the girls were still sleeping. Then she said, “Give me your damn wallet.”
He said, “That hair cut makes you sound like your sister.”
Then his eyes got big, as the realization hit. He automatically covered his privates.
She remembered why—their last date ended that way because he wasn’t planning on taking ‘no’ for an answer. Given when their first child was born, Ella now wondered what really happened with Eva. It only made her madder.
She said again, through her teeth, “Give me your wallet.”
He did, with fumbling hands.
She searched through it—plenty of cash. His paycheck must have been just cashed, which is why he hit the bar.
She said, “We’re going to call Eva and ask her how much you owe. Then in the morning, we’re going to the bank and—”
“Banks are closed on Saturdays,” he said triumphantly.
She said, “The cash machines aren’t. I see you have a debit card here, and one, two, three credit cards too. Settle in, Rodney, and don’t even think of leaving in the night, because I’m keeping your wallet. I just spent the last two months overseas, I’m still on India time, and I can stay up all night. We’ll take the girls to the mall in the morning for some shopping with your credit cards, and then past your bank on the way home.”
“You can’t make me do that!”
It sounded like some spoiled brat—just what he was.
She crossed her arms and said very low, “Do you want me to call your father instead?”
Ella didn’t really know what was between the two, only that the threat of reporting to the father was enough to ensure the son corrected his bad behavior . . . for a while.
Rodney’s mouth was still moving, but no sounds were coming out. But he had gotten a bit pale, and then the rest of him faded as well. He slumped back and might have passed out, but she wasn’t about to get close enough to check.
Ella might have nodded off too, because she woke to the noise of his daughters calling, “Daddy!”
One said, “Ew, you stink.”
The other said, “Daddy, is that puke?”
It was morning—time for breakfast and then some shopping. Maybe she’d call her folks and see if they all wanted to go to church first. It had been a while since she’d gone herself, and Ella figured the same was true of Rodney Bloom.
~~~
Eva got past the security of Ella’s office building without any problem at all. Ella had called and asked one of the guards to show her around as well, so Eva wouldn’t get lost. He was a very nice man named Tyrone, and Eva said, “Have you known my sister long?”
“Ella? Yeah, she got me this job. My brother works on her team, and he mentioned that I was coming back from deployment, and she had them sign me on.”
“Where were you deployed?”
He counted on his fingers: “Afghanistan, Korea, Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan again and then Germany—I wasn’t deployed there, I was wounded and recovering before I came stateside again.”
Eva was a little shocked; unguarded, she said, “This is the first time I’ve been away from my hometown—well, except for college and even that was close—a hundred miles, no more.”
He smiled and gave her a little salute. He said, “If you need anything, ma’am, just hit 1 on the phone—that’s security for all the floors. I have tours set up for every afternoon for the next few days to keep you busy. If you don’t want to go, just let me know and we’ll figure out something instead. Ella said you might want to see some of the other businesses around here too, but they are mostly the same sort of thing.”
“What do you like the best?”
He blushed, but said, “The candy-making place a few blocks over—they call it a factory, but they work a lot by hand too. You can take the tour and watch through glass, and they have a candy-making class—you get to sample. I met my wife there.”
She couldn’t imagine the big man doing that . . . or maybe she could. He was grinning now, just thinking of it. It must have been a totally different experience for him than going to war.
She said, “How do you do it?”
“Do what? Make the candy? Well, they have this—”
“No, be so optimistic after what you’ve been through, after what you’ve seen and what happened to you.”
He said, “I survived. Everyday I wake up in my own home with my wife beside me is a blessing. I have a job and I have some friends who won’t end up dead, and soon, I’ll be okay again.”
Soon, I’ll be okay again.
Eva knew what he meant. She hadn’t understood it when it was happening, but now she knew she’d been through something life-altering too. Nothing like him, but that didn’t matter. It was time to let the wounds heal.
Rodney kept picking at the scabs of what she thought was her love for him, but now she knew it hadn’t been that for years. She let him, and that was her fault, but that had to end. Rodney’s failings were not her failings.
He’d used that weapon of guilt against her too much.
And if this man could heal after what he’d been through, then she certainly should be able to. Eva took him up on his tours, and at the candy factory, she also met his wife—they were expecting a child.
Eva found herself tearing up, happy for this couple that she barely knew at all.
She even went to dinner at his home one evening, and answered all their questions about childbirth and new babies and just how to expect the unexpected.
That’s where Eva met the man’s brother as well, the man who worked for Ella. His name was Michael, and he was typical, the security guard assured—all the programmers on Ella’s team were a little strange to the casual observer.
His wife said with humor, “Seems like the weirder they look, the smarter they are.”
Her brother-in-law blushed to high Heaven then, but he laughed anyway. The woman added, “Been trying to find him a sweetheart, too bad you’re not staying long.”
Eva blushed then, and the young man tried to change the subject. His brother helped with that, and between them, they had plenty to say: Stories about Ella that sounded like a stranger to Eva.
Eva realized how far they had grown apart. Yet, when she saw her sister, it was still like looking in a mirror. How could it have been the same when they were so different?
~~~
Meanwhile, the rush of people and the comings and goings in the city was overwhelming, and Eva wondered how Ella coped. Must just be a matter of getting used to it. After all, there were crowds at college—sports and concerts and such.
Ella had lent Eva her car, but she had parked it at the garage for her apartment and hadn’t moved it since. There were buses, but she hadn’t quite figured out the schedule and where to get on or get off.
Catching a cab was a luxury, and more money than she’d spent on herself in some time. It was just the beginning. After all, Ella had paid for a bunch of traveler’s checks in Eva’s name, and her sister let her do it.
Somehow Eva knew she’d make it up to Ella—not how, or when, but in some way.
Ella’s apartment had a lovely view, a cleaning woman came twice a week—her name was Maggie and she was several years older than their mother, Eva guessed. Beforehand Ella had called the woman as well, and so Maggie had already made the place welcoming with some of what used to be Eva’s favorite things.
Not that she’d been allowed those things lately either—they were too expensive to get, considering that the kids didn’t like them or use them, or if they would have, shouldn’t have. The first few days, Eva sampled everything—from shampoo and lotions to some of the food in the compact kitchen.
But everything was spotless, neat and very homey. It turned out that Maggie was the housewife-type-mom the twins never had.
Eva was terribly nervous the first time she went to the office, but after the first tour, the security guards didn’t even bother to look up when she came and went.
The few folks she passed on the way to Ella’s office only nodded and not one person challenged her when she unlocked Ella’s office. Inside, there was ultra-modern furniture—clean lines and a few plants. On closer inspection, those plants were not real, but silk.
There were bookcases with books about technology, and binders with the names of software products. There were also a few books on languages too—both computer languages, and foreign: a few European, but more on Asian countries.
Out of boredom, Eva began to read a few of the high-tech books: Just as she thought, her sister was a geek. Nothing interested her much, so she started going through Ella’s emails. After all, her sister was accessing them from home anyway, so what was the harm. If she didn’t want her looking, she shouldn’t have left them accessible.
There were some places she couldn’t get to on the computer, so she figured her sister had set that up for security—though the notion of being an international industrial spy was kind of appealing to Eva.
But the emails seemed to be fair game.
One had an attachment—it was a manual for one of their products. Eva only knew that because she’d been looking through one of the dreadfully boring books. She began reading the attached file, but it was terrible.
Eva copied it and began to edit the new version. She thought about her students when she did it, back when she taught in elementary school. She also thought of her girls. More pictures would look good too, she decided, and found some on the Internet. She put them in, in jest, but it made the flow more interesting.
When it was acceptable (to the elementary school teacher in her), as a joke, Eva sent it to her sister with the note: Thought I’d make a few improvements.
The next day, Ella called. She said, “You’re hired.”
“What?”
“It’s called technical writing, and it’s not as much money much as a programmer, Evie, but I’m guessing it’s more than you make now.”
“Given I’m not making anything now, that’s pretty good. How are my kids, by the way?”
Of course, Eva thought her sister had been kidding.
“Your kids are fine, and Dad came by. He thinks we’re brave.”
Eva was unable to respond. She always knew that their dad thought of Ella that way, but never of her. She finally managed, “I’m not brave.”
“Of course you are. Other than Tyrone, you are the bravest person I know.”
That didn’t help—Eva almost broke down and sobbed. She definitely couldn’t help the sounds as she fought it back.
Ella must have known that. She quickly added, “Being a mom—yikes, Evie, this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
“If you expect me to say that your job is worse, you’re wrong, it’s cake.”
“I know—it’s obscene how much they pay me too. All I have to do is herd some cats now and again, but otherwise, I hired good people and they do a good job.”
“Life is not fair.”
“Ready to come home? I’m serious about the job. How did you now how to do that?”
“I just made it legible to a fourth grader—the grade I taught in school.”
“Perfect. I sent it to some of my programmers, and for once in their lives, they actually looked at it. They all came back with comments—mostly about the pictures. Some wanted to leave them like that, but we’ll have to replace them. I liked the colors though—makes it more . . . what’s the word . . . Impressionable? Memorable? Stimulating? There must be a word that means you don’t fall asleep when you read it?”
Eva was amazed. “You’re serious?”
“You can work from home, but I have one condition.”
“What?”
“You take Aunt Hope’s house.”
“How can I do that? The executors said we each take one thing.”
Ella said, “Technically, that’s true. So know what I picked?”
“What?”
Ella said, “The land.”
“The land?”
“Yeah, the 10.4 acres next to the house. I was serious about the horses, and Dad offered me a job. I’m moving back, well, part-time, that is.”
“So I can just say I want ‘the house,’ and the executors will go for that?”
“Why not?”
“Wow, that’s like magic. So you talked to the executors?”
“I confess.”
“Who are the executors?”
“Dad is one, Maggie is another.”
“Oh . . . well, good. Why didn’t he tell us?”
“He was waiting, but we never asked.”
“Man, talk about the obvious. When can I come back, and if you are leaving your job, will I still get to do that technical writing work? And also, can Maggie come with me, she’s a national treasure.”
“I can do both. Don’t worry, you’re all set, and no, I need Maggie there. Besides, she also works for other folks too there in the city. She actually lives in some rich people’s houses as their caretaker when they are gone and don’t want to leave thei
r places empty. She’s a modern day Gypsy, in a way.”
“She’s magic, and so are you, Ella. The girls told me about the shopping trip.”
“I have cash too, for bills and anything else that Robbie needs. He was with Dad when we went to the mall. I figured Rodney, the Rat, would hate that the worst—girls at the mall is torture to men. But the girls had a great time, I think.”
“I don’t need your money, El, you’ve done enough.”
Ella said, “It’s not mine, it’s yours. I got it from Rodney, in fact.”
“How’d you do that?”
Ella paused, not sure how much to say. Finally, she said, “That’s another story on some other day.”
“I can’t wait to hear it. Hey, how did you meet Maggie?”
“Didn’t I say? Dad recommended her, they go way back.”
~~~
When Eva got home from work, Maggie stood there with her hands on her hips: “What happened to all the caramel sauce?”
Eva liked to eat it with a spoon with the kids—just like the twins had done when they were young. She didn’t realize she had gone through half a jar that was left and finished it off.
Maggie said, “Should I get more?”
“Suit yourself, I’m going home tomorrow.”
Maggie smirked. “Miss Ella missing her life?”
“Didn’t sound like it, but I know I’m missing mine.”
Maggie shrugged. “It was bound to happen, just a matter of how long it would take. Sometimes people aren’t happy with their road until they go round the bend, and find it’s not a bend at all, but a U-turn.”
“That’s both confusing and profound.”
Maggie said, “Before you leave, miss, mind telling me what you decided to choose?”
“Choose? Oh, that’s right. You could have said something about being one of the executors.”
“Wasn’t supposed to.”
Eva only nodded, “Interesting question that, I assume you already know what Ella picked.”
Maggie wasn’t talking.
A Little Romance: Stories for Hopeful Hearts Page 15
