Chapter Ten
Alicia
I had to give Gray’s kid one thing, her continued quiet only aided in my ability to get work done. I basically had one foot in Mayfield, Kansas, and one back home in Chicago. My days consisted of conference calls and telecasts, my headset on as I spoke with clients. My aunt had an office and that worked out well for my situation. I stayed in there pretty much all day, taking my breaks to ask Gray if he needed anything—which he never did—or take care of the essentials like eating or sleeping. A week went by easily this way, then a few more days after which I lost count. When it came to work I could easily get lost in it.
I had to admit the first couple days had been… intense. I wasn’t sure how all this would work, a child in my aunt’s house. I mean, children played and generally made noise.
But not Gray’s daughter.
When she wasn’t in the living room or at the kitchen table coloring, she was—I assumed—taking a nap. I figured this because when I didn’t find her in all the usual places the door would be closed to the guest room. Gray did say if she weren’t coloring she’d be napping, so yeah. I decided that was my best bet on her location. She actually slept quite a bit, more than I thought children usually did. But then again, I didn’t know much about kids. Kids did nap, though. So yes, I figured this was all normal. Besides the fact that she was eerily quiet in demeanor and play, she was normal.
But then there was the piano… thing she did.
I couldn’t remember what day it’d been when I found her a certain way at the piano in particular, but after I continued to spot her sitting on the piano bench by herself I lost count how many times I did after. She didn’t do this often, but when she did, she sat for what seemed like hours.
Back facing the room, she’d have her palms in her lap. I knew because I wandered a little bit into the living room. I never came directly in, not wanting to bother or scare her. But once I was in, what she was doing could be easily seen. She sat there, quiet of course and she’d have her little forehead rested on the upper panel of the piano. Eyes open, she’d watch the keys, sometimes her little fingers in her lap moving. It was as if she was imitating playing, hearing it in her mind.
One day, I wondered if she did play or if her fascination with the piano had to do with something else. Gray did say my aunt used to play for her.
Maybe that’s it.
I got lost watching her one day, truly fascinated. My headset still on after a call, I turned it off, my head tilted at the little girl. Her wild locks pooled on the piano keys, her fingers moving.
“She’s not bothering you, is she?”
Despite his size and overall stature, Gray could be as quiet as a weeping willow’s branches in the wind.
I turned to find him behind me, his hands together and lips pressed firmly in concern. His intense blue eyes creased hard in the corners and I realized he had a constant worry there even when he seemed at ease, the day we met coming back to me. He looked the same way then and as I’d seen him nearly every day for a little bit now. I noticed he always seemed to look as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.
I think the little girl currently resting on my aunt’s piano gave me a clue as to why.
I pulled my headset off, fixing and fluffing my hair, a stubborn habit with me I supposed.
“Of course not,” I told him, slipping the mobile device into my pocket. “It’s like she’s too well behaved sometimes.”
In fact, it was exactly that. His daughter didn’t play at all besides with her coloring book, which, if not for her extreme quiet, I would find surprising. I figured after she got herself settled in she’d at least go outside and play while she watched her dad work. Gray spent the majority of his time out there, though, he had brought in a handful of guys over the past few days. They’d completely torn down the shed and a garage that hadn’t looked usable. They’d been restructuring that, as well as making repairs to the roof and his title as a “handyman” didn’t seem much to suit him now. He obviously knew much more than he let on about his trade.
What else is new?
The man had been a complete mystery to me since he came into my life, so why not add another thing?
With the tension that left the crease of Gray’s brow after my words, one would think I had given the man the greatest gift. Maybe in a way, I had. He had a tool in his hand, a large mallet of some sort and he stamped it restlessly on his palm.
“Well, good,” he said, hurried like this conversation was taking everything for him to keep going. His throat hiking, he started to walk away.
“It’s going well outside?” I asked, choosing to make small talk today. I didn’t often. He made it hard.
His large boots stopped in the hall.
“We’re making progress,” he told me, nodding. “We’ll probably be in the house after while. I’ll let you know when that happens.”
“Okay, thank you.”
He bounced his head of dusky locks once in acknowledgement. Passing a look back to the living room, he gripped the top of his mallet. His daughter still had her head rested against the back of the piano, little shoulders moving up and down with her breaths.
“Does she know how to play?” I asked him. He looked back at me and I shrugged. “She just sits there a lot.”
That worry touched his lips this time at the question and he turned his broad body to me, shaking his head.
“Jo just used to play for her like I told you,” he said. “She probably just misses that.”
But there was no probably in his statement. She did miss someone and that was easily discerned.
He left me in the hallway after that and I had no choice but to move on to my next conference call.
A few days later, I was surprised by a soft knock to my door. The surprise came from the fact that workers were warned—mostly by Gray—that knocking was strictly prohibited. He’d even put a note on the door that said to come to the backyard and bypass the house entirely. Under that, another note said there was a child in the home that needed quiet so if one had to knock, to do so softly.
Which was why I only heard Ava’s knock because I happened to be walking past the door. She’d caught me on my way from the stairwell and into the living room, my intent to get a cold drink on this terribly hot day. My summer clothes had come in from my downtown apartment, but still, it seemed the heat down here in Kansas was tenfold over that in Chicago and I’d experienced some hella hot Midwestern climate changes.
I knew it was Ava by the way her curls bounced through the glass design on the door, my eyes traveling that way and smiling a little.
Rerouting, I stopped on another pair of eyes, though.
Laura sat in her usual position in the middle of my aunt’s living room, color pencil stopped in her hands as she looked up. She wasn’t always in the house on days Gray worked, but most. Sometimes she had summer school with a local school teacher in town.
I wonder how well she does with her?
I had to say I wasn’t really getting anywhere with the quiet little girl, not that I’d been trying. I pretty much kept my steps swift when passing in front of the living room, already feeling awkward since I generally didn’t know what to do around children. Laura seemed to be getting used to me being around. Normally, she didn’t even look at me when I passed by.
But today she did, those little eyes dark and wide in their doe-eyed demeanor. Her expression somewhere between content and disinterest, she watched me and I did something incredibly random.
I waved at her.
I literally lifted my hand, moving my fingers just as randomly and awkwardly as I did the first day I caught Gray working and sweating his backside off on that shed. His t-shirt had been stuck to his back, his sizable arms engorged. He could be a very attractive man on a good day.
Had he not seemed so tortured.
Like that day, my wave went without a return, not surprising. Like father like daughter. Laura barely looked at me when I did it let alone wave back. Her gaze leaving mine, it returned to the coloring book, her hand moving underneath her.
I let out a breath, Ava waiting at the door for me. Moving, my gaze slid back to Laura absentmindedly.
And imagine my surprise when I managed to gain her attention again.
I didn’t stop this time, moving toward the door, but she was definitely looking at me and for the first time, I felt I could make out a little bit of expression on her face. She wasn’t smiling or anything.
But she didn’t look expressionless anymore.
My notice of the acknowledgement could have been wishful thinking on my part to get something out of her, and in the end, I did take it for that when I opened the door. Ava had actually started to leave, I took so long, and she had a case of beer in her hands.
Turning in her combat boots, she bounced her curls, the nicest grin on her face.
“Wasn’t sure if you heard me so I was going to go to the back like the note said,” she exclaimed, swiveling around. She lifted the beer. “You didn’t go to the bonfire before so I was going to bring the party to you.”
That was very sweet of her. I was coming to associate her in that way regularly.
“And what is with the sign?” she questioned, angling her head a little toward it. “I mean, did I do it right? The knock and—”
I waved her off, not even having the energy to explain it to her. Stepping inside, I grabbed my tennis shoes from inside the door.
“You said something about a party right?” I asked, tipping my chin toward the beer. “Because if so, let’s go. I’d love a break.”
Ava took me deep into the woods later that day, behind my aunt’s property and away from the working men and women who operated on my aunt’s house. Case of beer in hand, Ava asked about that during our strides to which I could only say, “progress.” We’d been getting there and I wanted to surprise both her and the rest of the town with what I had planned.
Among working over the passing weeks, I’d been speaking to some developers and potential buyers of my aunt’s property. If it went to the right person, some serious money could be flowing in and right into the pockets of the people who lived here. If my aunt’s land ended up being transformed into a potential attraction for tourists that could only be good for Mayfield and its small businesses.
And would they have a site to see.
My sneakers scraping the sand, I took it all in, a scenic landscape of a crystal-clear lake and the expansive display of trees surrounding it. Winding, the lake weaved along the bank and behind the trees, its soft run rushing over smooth rock and algae.
“Beautiful,” I said, my hands bracing my hips. I wasn’t much of a nature girl, but this, yes, this was amazing.
Flanking me, Ava came up on my side in her shorts and tank. Setting the beer down, she popped a squat and began taking off her boots.
I joined her, wanting to feel the sand under my feet as well.
“It’s your aunt’s you know,” she said to me, stacking her boots beside her. She opened up a beer with a device on her keychain, then handed it to me before opening one for herself.
Sipping the cold brew, I was well aware this was all Josephine’s. I just hadn’t experienced it.
Ava smiled, taking another swig. “Do you remember all this?” she asked, tilting her head. “She took us here before as kids and didn’t mind us coming out here before she passed. Like I said, we have our bonfires out here all the time.”
Waving her off, I told her of course I didn’t mind too, but I wished I could tell her what she wanted to hear about the former.
I dragged my finger across the sand, trying to feel something.
“I don’t,” I told her, looking up. “I don’t remember. I want to remember.”
The brain was selective. While I had faint memories of her and of course some of my aunt, this place seemed to have been a casualty of my mind.
Ava’s smile wavered a little by what I said. Nursing her beer in her hand, she shook it toward the lake.
“Well, that’s okay,” she said. “It’s been a long time.”
It didn’t seem like it was okay, but I guess I had to take her word for it.
I took another drink, not a beer drinker, but seeming always to find one in my hand around her. I guess I just found comfort in her. We had a history. She was really my only link here besides my aunt’s actual house.
“So how long will you be here?” she asked after a while.
I shrugged.
“A little bit,” I said, then bumped her arm. “So you’re going to have to show me more of this place.”
Laughing, her curls rocked back.
“I think you saw about all of it when I showed you before, but I’m happy to show you whatever you want to see.”
I appreciated that, clinking my bottle against hers. We watched the babble of the lake for a little while before I heard her voice again.
“You got something for Gray?” she asked, then hit her default shyness when she lowered her head. She bit her lip. “I mean, with me taking you over to his place and all.”
She was referring to my visit with him obviously, something she didn’t ask me about after I returned to her car. Then, with my questions about him in the bar, the man seemed to have always been on my lips. I wasn’t surprised by her assumption.
“Oh, no,” I told her, emphasizing the fact. “Anyway, I have a boyfriend.”
Kinda… well. I still wasn’t sure and when I went silent Ava definitely noticed. Choosing not to say anything, she looked ahead.
I sloshed the beer in the bottle. “He’s just helping me with a project. He knows my aunt’s house pretty well and he’s fixing it up for me.”
She lifted and lowered her head.
“That one’s definitely different,” she said. “And his daughter…”
“What about her?” I asked, my attention definitely hers. I didn’t ask Gray about Laura, not my place.
But if she knew something…
Shrugging, Ava leaned back, elbows in the sand.
“Nothing really,” she said. “Like I said, I don’t really know anything about him or her, but this is a small town and people talk, is all. I don’t make it my business but yeah people talk when you choose not to associate with anyone. I guess people assume he thinks he’s better. He’s only ever spent extended time at Jo’s house and no one knows anything about his little girl.”
That’s because she didn’t talk, not to her daddy, me, or even herself as kids sometimes do. She spoke to no one and I definitely noticed.
Deciding to join Ava in the sand, I put my bottle down and leaned back.
“Did Jo ever say anything about either of them?” I asked. “You said he spent a lot of time over there.”
The smile went full over Ava’s lips with her laugh.
“Don’t get me wrong, Josephine Bradley could gossip just like the rest of them and was particularly bad at church on Sundays. But the thing is, despite all that she’d never talk about Gray and his kid. Very tight-lipped and I know she was asked. Like I said, I try to stay out of all that, but yeah. She’d never talked about Gray. Almost as if he and his were out of bounds. Eventually, people stopped asking and then with her passing…”
I’d heard she’d died in her sleep, old age.
I watched Ava, the beam on her face leaving.
“Anyway, I sound like my mama and I’m not trying to be a gossip hen with the rest of them.”
We laughed together at that and I was happy to see her smile returning. Drinking our beers, we lay back, watching as the sun lowered below the trees. I guessed I wouldn’t get anything out of her. When it came to Gray and his secrets, I supposed my aunt decided to take all that with her in the end.