TWO

In the blue of endless skies in her eyes, I see a raging storm.

Leelo

“Sorry, Mom, I don’t think I can make it up there until the end of June, at the earliest. It’s crazy busy; we’ve got back-to-back jobs lined up here, and you know I spend the weekends at Jess and Dad’s new house, finishing that up.”

I wince at the reference to my ex and his new wife, and the easy future they seem to be building. I bite my tongue to not to let some snide remark slip out. I’ve done too much of that already, and it has done irreparable damage to my relationship with my kids.

I’m not sure what I’d been thinking when I called Matt that morning, but the sight of yet another massive leak, in the ceiling of room seven this time, had spooked me. Suddenly not so sure about my plans to do some patch work myself, with YouTube as my instructional guide, I caved and called.

Logically I know they’re busy in the spring, I know it would take him a full day of driving to get up here, and I know he doesn’t agree to my moving up here, in the first place. I believe his exact words had been; “You’ve gone fucking mental, Mom!” Yet, as always, there is that small part of me that secretly hopes he’ll surprise me and come to my rescue.

That had been my mistake early on. I’d looked at my kids for support when their father first left, putting unattainable pressure on them when the situation had already been difficult enough. A father who’d lied, not only to me, but to them as well, for the better part of a year before walking out, and a mother who could barely get herself dressed in the morning, let alone look after her kids. It had been ugly and I had been rocked to the absolute essence of me. A new reality I could not recognize, couldn’t handle. I’d felt so safe, so secure, in my place in the world, as a wife and mother. When the house of cards came down, I didn’t even know myself anymore.

That first year had been brutal. I did and said so many things I now wish I could take back, but the damage was done. At the end of it, Gwen, who’d been in her third year in university at the time, had withdrawn altogether, not speaking to either me or David, and Matt started avoiding me. He’d still been in high school and chose to stay with his father.

When Gwen sent me an email, asking me not to disrupt her convocation with my presence, it was an excruciating wake-up call. And when Matt didn’t ask me to come to his graduation the year after, I wasn’t really surprised. Hurt, yes, but not surprised.

I knew I had to find a new way to define myself. Learn how to choose for me, how to take care of me. It’s not been easy.

When Uncle Sam died and left me this place, it seemed like such an amazing opportunity. A chance to start new, to fully stand on my own two feet.

Yet here I am, biting my tongue and fighting tears because my son is too busy to come running to my rescue.

“Of course, honey,” I reassure him with fake cheerfulness. “No worries. It’s not a big deal; I’ll get it done. Your mother’s got some tricks up her sleeve, you know?”

I immediately cringe at my awkward assurances. He’s not stupid, and no matter what I say, it’s like shoving my foot even further down my throat.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Mom,” Matt cautions me. “Don’t go climbing on a roof without someone spotting you. Actually, don’t go climbing at all. Call in a professional.” My twenty-year-old son is telling me what to do. How’s that for lack of faith?

I force myself to shrug it off.

“Gotta go, Mom.”

“Sure thing, Bud. Call me when you have a chance, okay?”

I end the call, drop the phone on the counter, and top up my travel mug with fresh coffee from the pot.

I have a choice. I can feel sorry for myself, which won’t get the roof fixed. I can find a local contractor and get charged through the nose, which I don’t have the bank account for. Or I can get my behind on that ladder, and fix the fucking leak myself.

Determined, I pull my laptop toward me, flip it open and Google do-it-yourself roof repairs.

I’m no wilting flower, goddammit. Not anymore.

Fighting words that come back to bite me in the padded ass only a couple of hours later.

-

I’m feeling pretty smug, having made my way up on the roof. Not really a hero when it comes to heights, my confidence grows with every damaged shingle I pull up and toss over the side, into the parking lot below. I’m thinking I should probably have rented a bin to dispose of old building materials and such. The pile below is rapidly growing and won’t be so easy just to haul away and drop off at the dump myself. Not without at least a pickup truck.

This is the problem, when you take on a project with no experience and limited funds. You start out cutting corners from the get go, and that never ends well.

Fuck it; I’ll make some calls when I get down.

Another thing, I didn’t consider, is that it’s not just the shingles that are old and damaged, but in some spots, the underlying materials have been either ripped or rotted away. Like above room seven, even the decking has soft spots and holes where the wood has rotted away. Everywhere else I can get away with replacing just shingles, but this is one spot where I’ll have to replace everything, and I don’t know if I’m equipped for that. I might be able to get some shingles up on the roof by myself, but I don’t think hauling the plywood decking up here is something I can do alone.

As it stands now, I have a hole in the roof and dark clouds rolling in on the horizon. I’m going to need to get that hole covered before it lets loose. The wind is picking up already.

I remember seeing a blue tarp rolled up in the rafters of the laundry building.

Vertigo hits fresh when I swing my leg over the side to find the rungs of the ladder. I take a deep breath to fortify and steel myself for the trip down.

Of course, I have to haul the damn ladder all the way to the other building and hoist it up against the rafters. Swearing under my breath when I feel spiderwebs hit my arms and face, and I pray to God they don’t come with spiders. I really don’t want to have a major freak-out at the top of a ladder.

The moment I can reach the blue tarp, I yank on it, dislodging it from the rafters. With a wet-sounding thud, it lands on the concrete floor below, sending up a billowing cloud of dust and dirt. That’s gonna be a bitch to haul up on the roof.

With a long rope I spot, hanging looped on a peg beside the old generator, I wrap the tarp and leave it rolled up at the bottom of the ladder. I climb up, taking only the end of the rope with me, and using the ladder as a slide, I start pulling up the blue material.

I think I’ve used every swear word, known to mankind, by the time I manage to finally pull the tarp over the lip of the eavestrough and onto the roof. I let myself fall back and huff it out, when the first raindrops hit my face.

Fucking hell!

In a scramble, I untie the rope, and try to wrestle the material flat. Unfortunately, the wind has other ideas as it gets hold of the edge of the tarp, and I find myself struggling to keep it, and myself, on the damn roof. A corner of the tarp gets hooked on one end of the ladder, and I watch in horror as it slides away from sight. The loud smack of metal against the gravel below is confirmation that my one means on and off this roof is gone.

Adding insult to injury, big fat drops hit my face and drum out a staccato on the roof, mocking the fact that I truly don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing. When a bolt of lightning strikes with a loud crack, close enough I can smell ozone in the air, I drop down on top of the tarp, holding it down, while making myself as flat as possible.

What brilliant irony that would be; woman attempts roof repair in thunderstorm, dies in process.

I don’t even try to hold back the angry tears and pathetic sobs. It’s not like anybody cares, or even sees.

“Get your damn arse down here, you fool woman!”

Roar

I don’t fucking like going into town.

Only reason I went was because Charlie called me. She’s the only woman I’d drop everything for. Especially after finding out Joe Love was going to charge her three hundred dollars in labour to install her new toilet. That bastard is always trying to capitalize on the fact he’s the only plumber in town. He doesn’t care that Charlie is on a fixed income. He’s a fucking weasel.

I spent most of my morning hauling out the cracked old porcelain throne, and listening to Charlie drone on about her meeting with my new neighbour last week. I’m sure that toilet had been there since they first did away with the original outhouse, and I ended up having to replace some of the equally dated and massively corroded drainpipes. Needless to say, I smell like I just crawled out of the goddamn sewer, but Charlie has a working can again.

I passed on having a shower in her tiny claw-footed bathtub to rinse off the stink, since I was going to have to pull on those same clothes again, but I’m starting to regret that. Even with the windows on the truck rolled all the way down, despite the sheet of rain pouring in, the stench is making my eyes water.

A flash of blue to my left catches my eye, and I almost drive off the road, when I see what I assume is my idiot neighbour, struggling with a tarp on the roof of the motel. In the middle of a goddamn thunderstorm. To emphasize my point, a loud crack accompanies the blinding flash of a lightning strike, and I watch the woman go down. Son-of-a-bitch.

I swing the truck around and rush toward the building, getting my teeth rattled when I hit that damn pothole in the middle of the drive. There goes my suspension.

A ladder is down on the gravel, and I pick it up, lean it against the eavestrough, and climb up. I’m not sure what I’ll find, whether she’s hurt or what. All I can see is one foot wearing a pink sneaker stick out over the edge.

“Get your damn arse down here, you fool woman!” I call up, tugging on the foot, which is immediately pulled back before it kicks out at me violently.

“Don’t touch me!” she screeches in a high-pitched, panicked voice.

“Settle down,” I yell over the din of the storm, grabbing onto her ankle when her foot comes precariously close to breaking my nose. It wouldn’t be the first time that happened; my nose has seen action before. “Let go of the tarp and slide toward me.”

“I can’t,” I can hear her sob. “There’s a hole in the roof, the rain will come in.”

I take a deep breath and throw a pleading look for patience up to the dark skies when another flash of light crackles the air.

“Won’t matter if you get yourself killed first. Now let the damn thing go and slide toward me.”

I step one rung higher, so I can see the woman lying face down on the roof. First things I notice, because they’re damn hard to miss, are solid legs and a sizable ass in army fatigues. Beyond, just a bright blue ponytail is visible.

“Let go,” I urge her on. “Before we both drown or get fried.”

She doesn’t respond, but sticks her butt in the air as she moves backward toward me. I carefully guide the foot I was loosely holding onto a rung on the ladder, about three above the one I’m standing on, and she manages to swing her other foot down to join the first. I have to turn my head to the side or I’d have my nose pressed into that ass, and that’s a bit much for a first introduction, even for me.

I keep my arms braced around her as we slowly make our way to the ground, the blue tarp blowing off the side of the roof. With my feet on solid ground, I put my hands on her hips to help her down the rest of the way, dropping them the moment she turns around to face me.

I barely have a chance to take in her soaking wet, bedraggled appearance, when she throws her arms around my neck and starts sobbing into my chest. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? But before I have a chance to figure it out, she releases me and takes a few steps back.

“You reek,” she spits out disgustedly, crinkling up her nose. “You smell like shit.”

“You’re welcome,” I fire back, good and pissed. This is why I don’t do women; they’re confusing as fuck. Bawling, warm and helpless, in my arms one second and spitting venom the next. “And maybe it’s because I just spent all morning servicing Charlie’s drain.”

A look of shock registers in her blue eyes as her mouth falls open.

“Look,” she says, lifting her hands defensively. “I don’t know who you are, but I’m pretty sure your Charlie wouldn’t appreciate being talked about like that. And also; eewww!”

The disgust on her face would be comical if she hadn’t already pissed me off. Without a word, I turn to my truck. I have some tools in the box in the back. The woman clearly thinks I’m leaving, because she hurries after me.

“I’m...I’m sorry,” she stammers. “Thank you for...”

“Go inside.” Her eyes go wide at my growled order and her arms fold defensively around her waist. Arms I now notice are both covered in ink: bold, bright, and colourful ink. Great, a damn hippie.

“Rude!” she spits out, closing a pair of full plum-coloured lips into a straight line.

“Lady, just get in the house and get dry.”

I turn back to my toolbox to find my staple gun, when I finally hear the crunch of her sneakers on the gravel moving away. It takes me a good forty-five minutes to haul that damn tarp back on the roof and staple it over the hole. By the time I lean the ladder on its side against the wall, under the overhang, I’m soaked down to the last thread. There’s one bonus; the stench of sewage is well and washed off.

I haven’t seen or heard the woman since she finally marched herself inside, so I go in search of her. I know the house is behind the bar, since I have some good memories there: watching the occasional Sunday night game with Sam and a bottle of Glenlivet.

The door to the bar is closed, so I walk around the side of the building and find the side door into the kitchen open. The bar and the house are separated by an industrial-sized kitchen. Sam only used the fryer and the grill for wings, fries, and burgers; the only things he’d serve if he was in a good mood. From the kitchen, I find the door to the living room beyond open and step inside.

Nothing has changed, other than the colour on the walls. The yellowed, old wallpaper is replaced with a putty-coloured paint, that actually makes the space look bigger. The furniture is the same, though. Old and ratty.

On the old, grey tattered couch, the woman is lying curled on her side, apparently sleeping. I’m struck by how different she looks with her face peaceful instead of disgusted or panicked, and I take a minute to look her over. Her hair, which she had in a lopsided ponytail earlier, is now loose and partially covering her face. Dark, almost auburn morphing to bright blue halfway down the strands. Those plum lips, that were clamped shut so tight earlier, are now relaxed and slightly pouted, a perfect focal point in her pale round face. I can’t see her eyes, but I know they’re a bright blue. The colour of a morning sky.

Goddammit, just what I need; she’s fucking pretty.

Without waking her, I turn on my heels, make my way straight back outside, and get into my truck.