Chapter Eight
Gray
The evidence sobered me, my reality in the form of the financial spreadsheets I kept displayed in a weathered-down notebook on my kitchen table. The notebook had seen a few replacements in its day, but the general information inside remained the same. I wasn’t organized in many things, but when it came to Laura and me and our livelihood, I didn’t cut corners with that. I wanted to know what we had at all times, and right now, it wasn’t much.
Another move would literally cripple us financially, not to mention what relocating would once again do to the currently fragile emotional state of my daughter. Laura had always been fragile and might always be, but she did tend to do better with routine. Places like Mayfield were small, intimate and that allowed for less emotional stimuli for my kid who never had a great time dealing with pretty much anything new or unexplored. She didn’t do well with change, but I wasn’t sure I had a choice.
Josephine was no longer here, both Laura’s and my mental rock, and with Jolene Berry, Laura’s teacher, getting on me about putting Laura in school in several weeks…
Then there was that thing with Alicia.
Caging my face with my hand, the incident itself had caused me to open up the books and see if moving was an option in the first place. I had given up. I literally saw nothing for us here anymore with Jo gone. I couldn’t possibly go back to Alicia and do any more work on the house with her in town, she might not let what happened at her aunt’s house go. She might question.
They always do…
My hand fell from my face and hit the table, a noise from an adjoining room getting my attention. Laura always watched afternoon cartoons around this time, Bugs Bunny messing with Daffy Duck on the screen in her bedroom. I went ahead and set her up with her own small television set, the box sitting on her dresser while she watched cross-legged on her bed.
Head tilted, the braid I did for her this morning draped across her back. The entire image of a young child watching afternoon cartoons completely normal.
She was normal. In there, inside her, was a kid just wanting to be a kid. I think she was just trapped and didn’t know how to express herself.
I wish she’d just talk to me…
I stopped wishing that long ago. I guess I got tired of disappointing myself in dreaming and wishing.
My arms crossed over my notebook and my gaze severed from my daughter at a rumble clunking down the road. I didn’t hear many, Laura’s and my trailer on the outskirts of town.
My hand hit my knee and I rose as the sound suddenly stopped. It hadn’t passed by or moved on.
That sent me on red alert.
Standing tall, I peered across the room as well as I could through my trailer’s sheer curtains. A car had stopped in front of my house. Tilting my head, movement from inside the car could be witnessed, clear and distinct, as well as the sound of distant voices. The door of the car slammed suddenly and the hairs stood up on the back of my neck.
What the…
Not thinking, not doing anything but acting, I got a visual on my daughter still at her position on the bed. She hadn’t heard the activity outside and if I had my way, she never would.
Quickly, I moved around my chair in the open kitchen, which joined with the living room. Our trailer basically only had four rooms, the living room/kitchen area, my daughter’s bedroom, my own, and then the bathroom. I knew the schematics of this place like the back of my hand, our bags—our lives tucked away in the closet could be moved with a single grab. We could literally pack up and leave at a moment’s notice if need be.
And sometimes there was a need.
I slid my notebook off the table, traveling across the room with gentle steps. Whoever was moving outside the house was getting closer, too close.
A glance in Laura’s direction told she hadn’t budged or made any type of movement at all and I crossed in front of her open door, pulling it closed a little. Letting go, I grabbed the handle of the closet door next to her room.
I’d cracked it open just a little, my attempt to get our single bag in there and grab my kid next when I caught a glimpse of someone.
A woman who seemed vaguely familiar.
My palm sliding off the closet door, I lowered, inching closer to get to the living room window. Getting there, I pushed the curtains open, which had been the very moment the visitor had closed our chain-link fence behind herself.
Alicia…
Feeling as if I was seeing things, I pushed the curtains fully open, an unease prevalent and deep within me as I watched stiletto heels stamp and sink in the earth outside my house. They actually slowed her a bit and she had to stop for a second.
What is she…?
But she was coming here for some reason in her short skirt and top, which flowed gently in the wind. Every soft stride exposed a sliver of the creamy brown skin at her waist and I immediately let go of the curtains. She couldn’t knock.
I couldn’t risk the repercussions of the sound.
The presence of sudden visitors generally lacked at my home. People didn’t come here. People didn’t see either of us and that’d been a general understanding by both my daughter and me. People weren’t usually seen unless planned. That’s how I preferred it.
My palm covered the trailer’s living room doorknob and I pulled it open to a pair of wide eyes and red painted lips. Alicia’s hand had been poised to inflict that very knock I sought to prevent. I moved between her and the door, pulling it with me a little. Even in her heels, Alicia barely reached that of my chin.
“Hi,” she exclaimed, a shot of breath escaping her lips when she took a step back. I’d clearly surprised her, which hadn’t been my intent. I just didn’t want anything unnecessary happening today if I could prevent it.
I told her hello, gazing above the top of her head at the car she’d arrived in. Powder blue, the Honda could beat my truck with its condition, but that spoke of nothing of the way it drove. My truck was very sturdy considering the road and miles it had experienced.
Upon squinting the driver appeared familiar and when she bounced her head of full spiral curls once at me in acknowledgement, I remembered the owner worked at the bar in town. She’d always been nice, causal and didn’t linger to talk when I took my business there.
I nodded back to her, my hand still firmly on the doorknob. Closing the door wasn’t an option and neither was keeping it open, the door lingering somewhere in the middle between open and closed.
Noticing my hand, Alicia ventured a little more away from my personal space though she’d already taken a healthy step back.
“I, um,” she started, not ever seeming like someone to lack words. She’d been quite confident around me in the past.
Your daughter hadn’t freaked her out before.
My palm warmed the door handle. “What can I do for you?”
My voice sudden, her lashes lifted up and she took another step back.
“Nothing urgent. I just…” Pausing, she played with the ends of her skirt. “I wondered if you had a moment. I’d uh… I guess I’d like to talk if possible.”
Talk…
Talk.
Nothing sounded worse considering the other day and I think she had an indicator of that, how I felt about a talk, when her gaze escaped mine.
It drifted in the direction of the door I had partially closed and bracing the knob, I made sure her sight didn’t have the opportunity to go any farther.
I moved my lips.
“I’m not—”
“We can talk outside,” she said, blinking. She messed with the chain of her purse on her arm. “And it won’t take long. I don’t want to bother you. I really just came to ask you something. A… quick something.”
The fact she’d taken one more step back wasn’t lost on me. We could have easily stretched two or three people between us and still would have had room with the space she’d created between us.
Rocking on her heels, she awaited my answer, her travel companion behind her and trying not to watch. The bartender’s thumbs played at the wheel, her gaze facing forward.
Breathing, I stretched my arm up, scratching the back of my head. The odds of Alicia coming down here to confront me about what happened at her aunt’s home I found highly unlikely. The situation had been uncomfortable for all three of us.
I moved my jaw, lifting a finger to indicate one moment to her before going back inside the house. Not quit closing the door, I stepped back from it and then found my daughter where I left her.
Completely unaware to the presence of our visitor, Laura continued to watch television, the tube playing old episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants.
“Laura?” I questioned, hoping I didn’t have to do more than that to know she was listening to me. But like many things, they couldn’t be easy when they came to my daughter.
I pushed my hair forward, messing with it again. “Sweetheart, we talked about this. What do we do when people speak to you directly?”
She knew the answer. One faced people when they were acknowledged and my kid knew that.
Using her knuckles, she turned softly from her position on her bed until she was doing just what I asked, facing me. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, she placed her hands in her lap, expressionless with neither anger nor annoyance by me telling her to do something, or anything else. She just sat, not so much in contentment but something else.
I supposed I’d take that. At least she listened to me when I forcefully told her to. Some parents might not find value in that but when one had an essentially mute child the situation changed.
Breathing, I scratched into my hair, not knowing for how long I actually did have her attention.
“Dad’s got a visitor,” I said to her, not expecting much from that statement, which was what I got. I dropped my hand. “She’s going to come inside for a little bit, the living room, but she won’t be any bother to you. You don’t have to do anything.”
Again, no reaction. My kid had the endurance to be silent and still as an oak tree’s trunk.
I breathed again.
“You just stay in here,” I went on. “I’ll leave your door cracked if you… well, if you need me.”
She never did, and sometimes I really wondered how much my kid actually did need anything outside of the obvious of food and shelter over her head. She trusted me, that was a given, listened to me when I needed her to, but she was absolutely absent from anything else. I had a blood-related child, but I didn’t feel like her father sometimes, my kid passing through life like a zombie.
The hole in my chest just expanded that much more before I inched the door closed, Laura’s eyes still on me until they couldn’t be. I closed it silently and, standing for a second, I heard shifting, what I assumed to be her moving on the bed and watching television again.
Shaking it off, I returned to the door that hadn’t been tampered with since I left it. I opened it so quietly this time Alicia’s gaze didn’t sever from the ground, her fingers wrapped around the chain of her purse at her hip.
“You can come in… if you want.”
Dark eyes the color of midnight found mine, the delicate skin of her neck moving a little with her swallow shortly after.
Blinking, Alicia faced the woman from the bar who still sat in her car. She waved the woman off, and shifting, her ride buckled herself in and then started the Honda. The beater chugged down the street and Alicia smiled at me.
“She’s going to tour around the block a little before coming back for me. I didn’t want her to wait or anything.”
I could drive her home if she wanted. Though, that probably wasn’t a good idea considering Laura.
Choosing not to suggest the option, I pushed a hand behind my neck, guiding Alicia inside with the wave of a hand. Gingerly, she parted from the grass and stepped from in front of me into the house and I had a little smile at that before I closed the door behind her. She was literally trying not to disturb the peace of the environment or possibly even rock the situation with me.
I’d given her a reason for that I supposed and the expression eased away from my lips. Especially, as I watched Alicia circulate the room with her gaze. She took in that of a beat-up couch and dated carpet that came with the trailer. I was happy to find a place outside of town. I didn’t always get that when I moved, the privacy.
“You said something about talking?” I questioned and stopping at her side, I lost her, attention on a particular part of the room.
The part in question happened to be the very room my daughter sat in, the sounds of SpongeBob SquarePants traveling from underneath the door.
“Uh, yeah,” she said, turning away from the direction of the sound. Crossing in front of her, I directed her toward the kitchen, moving a chair out for her.
She took the seat and I moved my notebook over to the side and away when I took mine. I placed my hands on the table, Alicia doing the same.
She looked up at me. “I guess I thought it was important I come out here.”
I sat back, not understanding why.
“For what reason exactly?” I asked shaking my head.
Hadn’t the other day been enough for her, the awkwardness of it?
It’d been enough for me and there’d been no intention on my part to ever go back to her and her aunt’s place. No matter how much it hurt to know I would never be able to finish fixing up Josephine’s house.
Perhaps Alicia felt differently than I had.
She faced that room again, the one containing my daughter, and I started to question whether or not letting Alicia inside, so close to my skittish kid, had been a good idea. I didn’t think she’d come all the way here only to bring up events of the other day but maybe I had been wrong.
“You seem to care a lot,” she said, returning to me. “About my aunt’s house. I remembered what you said about working for free. That’s a big deal.”
“Not really,” I told her, tapping my finger against the triangles that made up the table’s design. “Your aunt was good to me, my daughter and me. Laura, she doesn’t—”
“Laura?” Alicia questioned, soft. “That’s her name?”
I swallowed.
“Yes. She doesn’t get along with a lot of people, but your aunt was one of her favorites. And I did ask you if she could come inside. You said yes at the time.”
Though, she had been distracted.
It had been something I took advantage of.
I had a task to do that day and my daughter unfortunately had to be there with me. I knew full well Alicia had sounded preoccupied, but I didn’t care. I guess in the end I paid the price for that.
I swallowed before I found dark eyes on me.
Pushing her fingers together, Alicia leaned forward, that flowy blouse of hers brushing the table. “I don’t remember that, but I’m sure you’re right. I was just a little out of it that morning and the night before.”
My memories of the wine bottles in the sink stapled themselves at the forefront of my mind. Had she drunk all that over the course of one night? She didn’t seem like an alcoholic, but then again, no one ever did.
“The situation had nothing to do with you of course,” Alicia continued, shaking her head, “but I brought all of that with me that morning. I was already flustered, so I ended up screaming—surprised at any little thing.”
The “any little thing” happened to be my kid that day.
Alicia ran her teeth across matte lipstick that didn’t wear away with the motion.
“I apologize,” she told me finding my eyes. She blinked once. “I didn’t mean to scare her and if you could please pass that apology on for me? I really didn’t mean to scare her. I feel so bad about that.”
She was apologizing… to me?
My mind pushed in wonder of that. She’d definitely done nothing wrong. It had been myself who brought an already timid little girl into her house with barely any permission at all to do so. I probably should be apologizing to her.
I stared at her, that remorse on her face, as she played with her fingers.
“Anyway,” she said, looking up. “I’d like to ask you a favor. You don’t have to do it of course. Especially with…” Her gaze traveled in the direction of Laura again before returning. “Basically, you can tell me to leave right now if you want. I just don’t know who else to go to.”
I watched her shrink in her chair and gripped my arms before I leaned forward.
“What is it? I mean.” I paused, moving my jaw. “What do you need exactly?”
I was still in awe that this woman was even here and apologizing let alone asking me for something, and yet, here she was.
Alicia chewed the inside of her cheek. “I just came from my aunt’s estate planner’s office. I was there for only an hour, but what they loaded on me in that time I wasn’t expecting. My aunt has more than just the house, quite a bit more, and I’ve got a lot of thinking to do in regards to how the property should be handled.”
Because she wasn’t staying in it or on it. She wasn’t keeping the property.
She was leaving.
She didn’t have to tell me any of that in the end, though. I just assumed.
I knew nothing about this woman before me besides the generalizations I’d already made. She had obvious quirks about her personality that could be easily discerned. She walked and talked in a certain way that spoke of the city and a possible higher upbringing. Between that and the general state of her dress, well, I figured she wouldn’t be staying in Mayfield, Kansas, long. She didn’t particularly fit this place and I believed I could be correct in assuming that.
But she was suddenly surprising me, her appearance here today to apologize amongst other things.
Clearing her throat, Alicia reached a finger over to play with, what I assumed to be, a diamond tennis bracelet on her wrist.
“Regardless of what ends up happening to the property I want my aunt’s home to be preserved. I spent a handful of summers there as a child and I guess I have a place in my heart for it. I also want something of my aunt’s to remain in the state in which she left it. I’ll be making calls to the city to see if I can get the home recognized as maybe a local landmark. From what the estate planner told me, it’s got quite a long history.”
I took her at face value with her comments, not knowing the history of the house or the property itself other than the clear understanding I had with my own history. That place was special to my family and me, just as her aunt was.
I opened my hands. “That sounds nice, wonderful actually, but I don’t know what that has to do with me.”
I wasn’t trying to be smart with her, but genuinely wanted to know my role in all this. She said she had a question for me and sought me out for it.
Something of a soft light touched her eyes after my words, bringing out the various tones of brown in them and I recalled such a detail in someone else I used to know, the eyes more aged around the corners and the face fuller. She looked so much like her aunt. Like sneaking a beautiful glance into the past of one who’d been so special.
My gaze severed from those haunting eyes when Alicia moved her chair over and spread out what looked like a map on my kitchen table. Her smell wafted with the maneuver and I watched the top of her head while she adjusted the map. Light and airy, the woman had a subtle aroma reminiscent of roses in the wind and I realized I hadn’t smelled anything like that in many years.
“This is everything the property entails,” she said to me, looking, and I realized she needed my attention. I’d seen diagrams like this before, again many years ago, but yes, I understood them.
I leaned forward, my eyes wide.
Josephine owned… all this? I mean, I had a bit of an indictor of the property’s width with the lake and all that, but still this was quite a surprise.
I blinked up. “What will be done with it?”
Shrugging, Alicia leaned back. “I have some ideas, but my priority is the house and the surrounding land. I want it as beautiful as can be and that’s where you come in.”
I shook my head, not understanding.
Alicia’s eyes crinkled in the corners. “You have a care for this place that no one I could hire would have. I’d like you to lead a complete restoration. You don’t have to do anything technical if you’re not comfortable with that. I know you’re a handyman so I wouldn’t put that type of pressure on you, but I want you there to consult with the team that’s brought in. You’ll be paid of course. Anything you want. The value of my aunt’s land is quite high, but even if it wasn’t I have the means to make this happen. I want this place to look the best it could be and I feel I need your help to do that. You knew my aunt. I just feel in my heart you’d know what she’d want done.”
Everything she’d laid out before me had my mind lost in a sea of possibility, generosity, as well as her own care and graciousness she had to have to take on such a task. She could easily sell this place to the highest bidder and be done with it.
But she wasn’t.
My hand moved across the map.
“What you’re asking could take months,” I told her, spelling out her reality. “You have to know this won’t be easy.”
Alicia’s eyes worried a little after my words and I immediately regretted saying them. I didn’t want to make her feel bad, but this would be a challenge. Not just for me, but especially her. She’d be in charge of all this. Essentially, the boss of the entire project.
She blinked at me.
“Are you not up to it?” she asked, chewing her lip a little. She moved her hair around. “I mean, if you don’t want to commit to this I understand. I could find someone else. I just feel like… I don’t know…”
She trusted me, and more than that, she trusted that I knew what Josephine would want. She was right about all that she assumed. No one else would care about this house like I would. I’d put everything I had into it and I owed that to a wonderful woman. I had something invested in Josephine’s house and land that no one else she hired would, as well as an expertise that went far beyond what Alicia could ever imagine. I acquired it in a life I had before, and though happily left behind, I’d never forgotten.
I couldn’t even if I wanted to.
“I’d like to hire my own team,” I told her, pushing my hand over the property map. I looked up at her. “And we need to talk about my daughter.”