CHAPTER NINE
L
UKE
SCANNED
THE
want ads on one of the computers at the public library. He’d sold his laptop right after Jenny died to help pay for her funeral. Slowly, he’d begun selling more and more things to the local pawn shop and to one of the antiques dealers on Main Street. He and Jenny didn’t have much, but there had been some china that her grandmother had given her and a few odd pieces of sterling silver they’d received as wedding gifts. The kids still didn’t know about the sales he’d made since most of the items had still been packed in boxes in the attic. However, Luke’s stash of cranberry cruets, crystal sugar bowls and silver candlesticks was running dry.
Lately, he’d been looking for carpentry and handyman jobs he could do on weekends or evenings to shore up his sinking paycheck from Jerry. But as he scrolled through the ads, his eyes kept wandering over to the meeting room where he’d attended his first counseling session last week. He still had mixed emotions about the value of therapy. He’d never had any therapy after Iraq. He’d had Jenny and all her love. Whatever holes he’d had in his heart, she’d filled them up.
No matter how strenuously Luke tried to block out the session, he couldn’t forget Margot telling him she believed he was mad at the universe for leaving him here on earth to take care of his kids without Jenny. Was that what this burning ache was? Self-pity? Had his sadness brought him this low?
Sure, he was ticked off about the bills and not having enough money to buy the kids what they deserved, and he supposed, if he was really honest with himself, he’d become absorbed in his financial struggles. It was his anxiety over money that had caused him to be short and even distant with his kids.
And that was not Jenny’s fault. It was his.
Raking his hand through his hair, he remembered far too vividly how he must have looked and sounded to Sarah that day at the groomers’. Even now, he could remember the angry fire that had exploded inside him when he saw his kids being muddied by her dog. Now she was part of his counseling group. What were the odds?
Jenny used to say that there were no such things as “accidents.” She said everything happened for a reason. The only reason Luke could see for his encounters with Sarah was that he’d made a complete fool of himself and she kept popping up as a reminder to get his act together. When he’d stormed out of the counseling session last week, he’d planned never to return. He didn’t need a shrink telling him how screwed up he was. He was just hurting. But to actually hear Margot tell him she understood his pain had reached deep inside his mind and heart and twisted some key on a door he didn’t even know existed. The session had unleashed a longing, a real yearning, to want to be a better dad, a healthier person...just for himself. Luke was still shocked at the enormity of emotions he’d felt that night. He’d been so overwhelmed that he simply couldn’t stay there any longer. He would really have made a fool out of himself then.
He’d gone to his truck and could barely turn the key his hand had been shaking so hard. He’d cried his eyes out. Even that had been a revelation. He hadn’t expected to cry anymore. He’d cried for weeks after Jenny died. He thought that phase of his grieving was over. Apparently not.
He agreed with Margot that he was mired in a deep pit of angry tar that stuck to every fabric of his being. He’d never been an angry guy before, but he sure was one now. And he didn’t like it.
He glanced at the door to the meeting room. He’d intended never to go back to counseling, but as he thought about it now, he realized that if he truly wanted a normal life for himself and the kids again, he was going to have to find the courage he’d relied on in Iraq. He’d faced danger, even death. He could face a shrink and a group of fellow grievers.
As a picture of the group filled his mind, Luke remembered the vision of Sarah and her sculling crew on the lake the day before.
Unexpected.
That was the word that came to mind when he thought of her. She mesmerized him. Perhaps it was the strength he saw in her. She was in counseling just as he was, but there she was with friends, laughing and pushing herself to get on with her life. He admired her for that. He might have even been a bit envious.
When she’d walked up to him, he’d been embarrassed about how he’d behaved when they first met, but that had fizzled like steam vapor. She was an expert on the water, and that surprised him. She was a “water person,” too. They had that in common. And she was grieving over her mother. He doubted she was as messed up as he was. Was anybody?
He looked back at the want ads on his screen. There hadn’t been anything remotely close to his skillset for weeks. He was more than discouraged.
He peered closer.
For real?
Luke read the ad requesting a painter for a garage and jotted down the phone number. He couldn’t believe how low he’d had to sink just to make money. This wasn’t even close to his skills as a fine carpenter. He could make custom-made cabinets, vanities and exquisite bookshelves with edge molding. No one could crown mold a room like he could. His work was precision. When he and Jenny first started out, they’d lived near Chicago where the company he worked for always snagged expensive remodeling jobs in the northern suburbs or in the mansions along Sheridan Drive. He’d gotten spoiled too early on, he figured. He remembered working long hours, but the work had been energizing and exciting.
His favorite job was to restore a neglected old home to its earlier glory. Even though he’d never gone to college, his own bookshelves were lined with architecture texts. It was Luke’s bet that he’d read and studied as much as any architect in America. Luke didn’t go to movies. He didn’t spend weekends working on sports cars or playing golf. Luke lived and breathed architecture.
When he wasn’t reading a book on the art itself, he read biographies of Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Jean Louis Charles Garnier, Mies Van der Rohe and his favorite, William Holabird, who along with his partner Martin Roche and others, founded the Chicago School.
Luke had dreams for himself and his career, and he’d told Jenny every one of them. He missed having her there to listen to his ideas and plans. He missed a lot of things.
Luke read the ad again.
Garage painting.
It wasn’t even a house or its interior that needed a painter. It was just a garage. There was no doubt in his mind that the job would be a pain in the butt, and he probably wouldn’t get paid enough to balance out the untold aggravation he’d experience.
But he would take it. He just hoped the position wasn’t already filled.
Taking out his cell phone, Luke bounded down the granite library steps and walked toward his truck. His call was answered on the fourth ring.
“Hello,” an elderly voice said.
“Hi. My name is Luke Bosworth and I’m calling in answer to your ad about the painting. You said in the ad it’s a garage.”
“Well, not exactly, young man,” the woman said. “It’s actually a carriage house.”
Luke rolled his eyes. He didn’t know if he should be excited or deflated. “How old is it?”
“Hundred and ten.”
Luke whistled. “That’s old. And what state of repair is the carriage house in?”
“It could use some carpentry work.”
“How much?” Luke envisioned walls falling in on each other, a rotted foundation and beams that were dried and about to split in half. He’d called on this type of job before, only to tell the owner that the project needed demolition, not a skilled carpenter.
“A few boards are all,” the woman answered.
“When can I take a look at it?”
“How about today?”
“I’m on my way to work right now, but I could drop by this evening. What’s the address?”
“Fifteen ten Maple Avenue.”
“I’ll see you then. Sorry, I forgot to ask your name.”
“It’s Beabots. Mrs. Beabots.”
CHAPTER TEN
L
UKE
TWISTED
THE
crank doorbell at Mrs. Beabots’s house. He was surprised that he felt a bit nervous about this interview. He’d taken over a dozen carpentry and handyman jobs in the past year, but for some inexplicable reason, this one had felt different to him ever since he answered the ad. He could hear light footsteps on bare wood floors. Now they hit carpet or a rug. Through the beveled glass, he saw a short, white-haired woman coming to the door.
“I’m here,” she said with a lilt to her voice. He remembered now that she had sounded quite cheerful on the phone. Perhaps that was the reason he’d wanted the job. Working for someone pleasant was always a plus these days, and not to be taken lightly. The homeowners at his past two extra jobs had acted as if he was ripping them off when he told them the hours he’d worked and total cost of his labor. He’d learned his lesson. He bid the job now, giving a complete estimate prior to beginning the work. People who did not work with their hands seldom truly understood the precision and care that carpentry required. Luke was a perfectionist and he just couldn’t do a job if he didn’t do it right. He hadn’t even seen this woman’s carriage house, but judging from the massive Victorian porch where he stood and the four large stained and beveled-glass windows, he felt as if he’d just won the lottery.
He could only hope this employer would pay him.
The door swung open. “Mrs. Beabots?” he asked.
She tilted her head coquettishly. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought she was flirting with him. She smiled at him, and it was a smile so genuine, he felt his misgivings melt.
“You’re a handsome one, you are,” she said with not a single whit of guile.
Luke dropped his jaw and snapped it shut. He had never in his life heard anyone be so unabashedly blunt. “Thanks.”
“Hmm,” she said, scrutinizing him from head to toe. “You look trustworthy and that’s imperative for this job,” she stated flatly.
“Thanks, again,” he said, assessing her as critically as she was him. Her eyes were clear, direct and intelligent. They were a deep blue color that had apparently not dimmed with age. He noticed that she wore mascara to intensify her eyes, very red lipstick and a touch of blush on her cheeks. She was dressed in a lime-green summer print dress and a white cardigan. She wore slip-on pink-and-lime-green-plaid topsiders, just like the ones Jenny had worn in the summer. Crystal bead earrings that he thought could possibly be antique aurora borealis dangled from her ears. Mrs. Beabots was clearly fashion conscious and proud of her appearance. Her back was ramrod straight, and she walked with purpose and direction. He realized that she was undoubtedly a woman of many facets.
“Let’s go see my little house.”
Luke’s brows furrowed. “Pardon?”
She smiled again. “The carriage house. When I was a little girl, I always wanted a playhouse. My father wouldn’t build one for me. Terrible with his hands, don’tcha know. He didn’t have a single skill to say scat about.” She took a step toward him, carrying a huge ring of keys. She shut the door behind her.
Mrs. Beabots kept talking as she grabbed the wrought-iron handrail and made her way down the front porch steps. “When my husband, God rest his soul, and I bought this house, I always considered the carriage house my playhouse. I wanted to think my husband was kinder to me than my father.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Luke offered.
“Don’t be. My father was all right, I suppose, as fathers go. He just didn’t care for children too much.” She looked up at him. “You are a tall one, aren’tcha?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Luke chuckled under his breath. He hadn’t had this much physical assessment since he went to Great Lakes Naval Base for training.
She babbled on as they rounded the side of the house and passed by the hydrangea bushes and leafed-out forsythia. Yellow remains of tulip leaves flopped over river stones that formed the borders of the flower beds. He noticed there were very few weeds.
She glanced up at him as he observed the flower beds. “Oh, those will be planted with my annuals next week,” she said, as if she were reading his mind. “I have a boy who does my yard work for me. Lester’s his name. He’s about twenty now. I’m not sure. I think he’s always lied about his age. Came here from Kentucky. Runaway, Ann Marie told me.”
“Ann Marie?”
Mrs. Beabots nodded. “Best friend I ever had. She died a few months ago. Ann Marie found him, you know.”
“Found him?”
“Wandered into town on foot, he did. That was two years ago. She was out there on the boulevard doing her fall bulb planting. Lester had been wandering around and saw her on her knees, humming to herself. Ann Marie was always singing to herself. Anyway, Lester just stood there watching Ann Marie and when she turned around to grab the tulip planter, he handed it to her. He told her he liked diggin’ in the dirt. They worked together all that day, side by side. He had no place to stay, so Ann Marie took him home. Fed him, too. He’s still pretty scrawny if you ask me. Ann Marie arranged for him to get a job with Burt Nealy. Burt owns a landscape business and that huge tree nursery on the west side of town. Anyway, Ann Marie talked Maddie Strong into renting that apartment she has up over her coffee shop to Lester.”
“Sounds to me like your friend nearly adopted him.”
“That she did. She was always like that. Helping folks who needed help. Lester doesn’t talk much, but I know he misses Ann Marie something fierce.”
Mrs. Beabots continued walking and telling her story. “Anyway, the boulevard was all Ann Marie’s idea. She started planting the plums and apple trees out there over twenty years ago. Then she designed those curving beds and planted all the perennials herself. The pink tulips and daffodils for spring. Black-eyed Susans, pink cone flowers, Shasta daisies. Labor of love, if you ask me. Ann Marie always made everything beautiful.”
Luke looked over his shoulder at the boulevard down Maple Avenue. “My kids love the boulevard. They make me drive down here just to see the changes in the flowers.”
“You have children?” Mrs. Beabots stopped dead in her tracks. Craning her neck, she looked up at him. “So you’re married?”
“No. Not anymore,” he said with enough sadness that the bitterness of it caused him to wince.
Mrs. Beabots reached out and touched his forearm. “When did your wife die?”
“How could you know that?” he asked.
“It’s in your eyes. I can always tell. I see the same look in my own reflection. It’s never the same after our precious ones pass away, is it?”
“No, it’s not,” he replied simply.
“Well, then you and I have that in common,” she said and dropped her hand. She turned and started walking again.
The carriage house was enormous. It was over two stories high, with a steep gabled roof that Luke thought could house an attic or valuable storage space. The white exterior paint was peeling, and there were a good many rotten fascia boards. He could plainly see old termite damage. The windows were intact, but the sills were split and most likely could not be filled and repaired.
This job, to be done correctly, was going to take far more than just a couple coats of paint.
“This is some playhouse,” he said, looking up to the gutters and rooflines.
“Even as a child, I believed in thinking big.” She went to the side door. “I have it padlocked.”
Luke thought it a silly thing to do. If a thief wanted anything in the rickety old building, all he had to do was give the rotted door a good shove.
Mrs. Beabots inserted the key into the lock, unhooked the latch and turned the old black doorknob, then stepped inside.
Luke followed her as she turned on several ballasts of overhead fluorescent lights. Slowly, Luke walked around the carriage house and assessed the building. “I’m afraid, Mrs. Beabots, that your playhouse needs a huge amount of work. The foundation boards are rotted and need to be replaced. It needs a new roof. Shingles and new gutters. I recommend downspouts to keep the runoff away from the foundation. I need to brace that top beam up there. It’s got two rather large cracks, and I wouldn’t want this roof to cave in. So slapping on a coat of paint would be a waste of your money.”
Mrs. Beabots smiled brightly. “I knew I could trust you. I knew it when I talked to you on the phone. I felt in my bones. You’re hired,” she said with enthusiasm.
“You’re kidding?”
“No. I know what the carriage house needs. My problem is that this is a small town. People talk about a lot of things. Most of the people who used to talk about me are dead. But some aren’t. Every year, I’ve had workmen come to the door and offer to fix my carriage house, but I’ve always turned them away.”
“You didn’t trust them.”
“I did not. I can always tell. Every year, the roof gets worse, and now it’s imperative the work be done. How much will you charge me?”
Luke looked around. “It will take me a couple days to work up an estimate. There are a lot of materials to consider.”
She nodded. “I’ll give you my charge card for the materials and arrange for the Indian Lake Lumber Yard to give you carte blanche. You just figure out how much I’ll owe you for your labor.”
“That’s very fair.”
“Fair is the only way to live your life, Mr. Bosworth.”
“Luke. Please call me Luke.”
“Then we have a deal?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Mrs. Beabots lifted her dainty hand, spit into the palm and held it out to Luke. “Shake on it.”
Luke bit back his laughter, spit into his palm and shook her hand. “Deal.”
“Very well, Mr. Bosworth,” she said, leading him through the door and carefully closing the padlock.
* * *
L
UKE
PARKED
HIS
truck at Redbeard’s Marina. Now that he was going to be working weekends for most of the summer, he would have to find a babysitter. He knew they wouldn’t like going to yet another day care or a sitter’s house, but there was no way around it.
He felt terribly guilty that he didn’t have more time to spend with his children. This money from Mrs. Beabots would help a great deal in paying off his credit cards and the hospital bills. Once more, he would be able to keep his head above water. But only barely. His main concern was where the next job was going to come from after he finished Mrs. Beabots’s
playhouse.
Luke walked up to the dock and peered down the beach to where Red stood waist deep in the water instructing a group of about eight children. Red had just grabbed Timmy’s hand and was using him to demonstrate floating on his back. Timmy was an apt pupil—Luke could tell, even from a distance. He was surprised at the flood of pride he felt for his little boy.
“He’s doing just great,” a woman said as she headed toward Luke from the Indian Lake Yacht Club. He recognized her as Julie, Red’s wife. She shielded her eyes with her hand. “You must be Luke Bosworth.”
“I am,” Luke said. “And you’re Julie Taylor.”
She extended her hand and Luke shook it. “I saw you last week on orientation day, but I was so swamped I didn’t get a chance to meet you formally,” she said.
“Nice to meet you.” Luke guessed her to be in her mid-fifties. She was slender, tall and dressed in chalk-white cargo pants and a tangerine-colored blouse that showed off her tan. She didn’t have a freckle on her face or arms, so Luke guessed her auburn hair was not her natural color.
“Your kids are terrific. Red has really taken a special interest in Timmy. And Annie, she’s a natural for the water, Red says. She’s such a chatterbox. Apparently, she believes there is nothing she can’t do.”
“There isn’t,” Luke replied and looked back toward the beach, where he saw Annie, wearing her pink-and-purple, one-piece bathing suit and an orange life vest. “She’s more grown up than I am.”
“You love them very much,” Julie said as a statement rather than a question.
“With all my heart,” he said. “You have kids?”
“No,” she said flatly. “And yes. All these kids become family to Red and me.”
Luke smiled. “I understand that. The best part is you don’t have to find summer babysitters.”
“That is a problem, isn’t it?”
“For me, it’s a nightmare. I don’t know what to do. I was just hired for a summer weekend job, and...”
“I’ll take them.”
“What?”
“Annie and Timmy. I’ll take them. Just on the weekends, though,” she laughed as if she had the inside track on her own joke. “I take a few extra kids on the weekends while Red is busy renting boats and giving adult ski lessons and whatnot. Keeps me busy, and I love the children.”
“It would help me tremendously,” Luke said. “This is like...”
“An answer to a prayer?” Julie offered.
“I wasn’t exactly going to say it that way.”
“Why not? I would say exactly that.”