The Carpenter & the Queen (3 page)

“Sounds like girl stuff.” Sam took a sip of
his grape juice and shrugged.

Claire put her hands on her hips and tilted
back her head as though she were offended. “If I didn’t do girl
stuff, you’d be in a world of hurt, young man. You’d have no clean
clothes, no clean house, and certainly no pancakes for
breakfast!”

“That’d be OK with me.”

Claire reached over and roughed his hair,
accidentally bumping his glasses down on his nose. He pushed them
up with an index finger.

“May I be excused, Mom?”

“Yes, go get dressed. We’re going to
town.”

Sam groaned. “I wanted to play my DS.”

“You can do it in the car. There’s going to
be more snow this afternoon, so I want to get out and be back
before it comes.”

She heard Sam mumble on the way to his room.
It was hard for him not to get what he wanted. She would bribe him
with a movie rental so she could accomplish what she needed to. Not
exactly textbook parenting, but Claire called it survival.

The phone rang while she was washing dishes.
Since she had only lived in the house a few days, very few people
had her number. A quick check of caller ID confirmed her guess as
to the person on the other line. It was her brother.

“Worried about me already?”

She heard chuckling on the other end as her
brother replied, “I never stop.”

“Your timing’s good. I’m getting ready to go
to town here soon.”

“Yeah? What for?”

“I got some decorating ideas.” She cradled
the phone between her shoulder and ear as she finished up the
dishes.

“Heaven help us.”

“Come on,” she joked. “I’m just talking
paint and ripping out that wallpaper.”

“As long as that’s all it is. Stay away from
the sledgehammer. I can hear it now, a phone call at 3 a.m.,
‘Garrett, I’ve knocked out a load-bearing wall!’”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Want some help?”

“If you want.” She pulled the plug from the
sink and rinsed out her sponge. “But I can do it. I mean, painting
a wall can’t be that hard. It’s not like I have to be an artist or
anything.”

“Buy some drop cloths,” Garrett advised.
“I’ve seen you at work.”

“Funny.”

“I thought I’d drive over this evening and
stay the weekend.”

“You were just here.”

“Are you saying you don’t want me?”

“No. I just don’t want you to think that you
have to take care of me.”

“Why would I think that?”

Claire frowned. Garrett didn’t take hints
well, and she wasn’t brave enough yet to be blunt.

“So,” she said, “you’ll be here for
supper?”

“Unless the storm slows me down. You’d
better get going so you can be home before it hits.”

“I know how to drive in snow, Garrett.”

“That doesn’t mean everyone else does.”

“You’re biased against country living.”

“Untrue. I just don’t want my nephew growing
up a redneck.”

Claire rolled her eyes.

“I could move you back here. I saw some
townhouses yesterday priced right in your range.”

“Garrett—“

“I know. Back off.”

Claire shook her head in frustration. “See
you tonight.”

Anxious to get on the road, Claire didn’t
analyze her phone conversation until Sam was strapped into the
backseat of the car and she pulled out of the garage. Garrett took
care of her in the oppressive, suffocating way older brothers did.
He forced himself where he didn’t belong because he worried she
couldn’t take care of herself. Truly, he had been a great help to
her over the last four years, especially last week when he helped
her move in. Even before that, he was always showing up with a
present he thought she needed. Of course, she usually didn’t, but
Garrett liked giving gifts. The Nintendo DS Sam carried into the
backseat of the car was a prime example, as was the new cell phone
Claire had in her purse. She had a sneaking suspicion that the
gifts and his continual offers of help were his attempts to make up
for what they had lost. Well, no person or thing could replace
Will.

The snow in the driveway was several inches
deep. Claire wasn’t sure if she could get the car up the incline to
the road, but she made it with only a little slipping and sliding.
She would have to shovel the drive later so she wasn’t stranded,
but she dreaded the chore, knowing it would take a few hours given
the space she had to clear. Why couldn’t she just leave the snow as
it was and enjoy the way it covered the cracked driveway and sparse
brown yard? Claire knew the answer, of course. While the snow and
ice were pretty, they were dangerous. But given the choice, she
would rather drive through an icy mess than devote her time to
shoveling every time a new storm blew in—it was a lot of effort
with little reward.

The little road in front of her house was
still slushy, but the county road that would take her to Mt.
Pleasant—which had the closest decent shopping center—was dry.
Claire hadn’t lived in central Michigan in close to twenty years,
but she was surprised how quickly her knowledge of the area came
back to her from her teenage years. Her mother’s mother, Grandma
Thelma, had lived here in Lindberg in a tiny house that looked out
over the picnic area and playground just off Main Street. Claire
and Garrett used to spend a few weeks each summer there from the
time they were school age until they went off to college. Claire
was sixteen the first time she came alone to Grandma Thelma’s. She
smiled just thinking about those magical weeks that had changed her
life forever.

That was the reason she had taken the house.
She wanted Sam to have that connection to his father. Come spring,
she would take him into the yard and teach him how to shoot a bow
and arrow. Maybe she would buy him a dog, too. The yard was big,
and the closest neighbor lived half a mile away.

The sky was the shade of pewter, a sure sign
that snow was on the way. Claire adjusted her rearview mirror so
that she could see how Sam was doing. His furrowed brow and
squinting eyes told her he was concentrating on his DS. The
reflection of the colorful graphics danced in the lenses of his
glasses. Claire focused back on the road and sighed. When he made
that face, Sam was the image of his father. Years ago, back when
the hurt was so bad she could hardly get out of bed, Claire had
feared seeing a carbon copy of Will running around the house. But
time had softened the hurt so that she didn’t feel like crying
every time Sam broke into his father’s grin.

Claire knew Sam needed a man around the
house, someone who understood him. Garrett had tried to be that
person, but his attempts had never succeeded, mostly because
Garrett enjoyed improving things. He couldn’t sit still and
appreciate something for what it was. Garrett, a pacifist to his
core, also could not understand Sam’s fixation on weapons. She
suspected Sam latched on to anything military related as a way of
remembering his father. But Garrett wouldn’t let the situation
alone. Worried that Sam would grow into a serial killer, Garrett
imposed his own will over Sam’s and Claire’s in interest of what
Garrett considered the greater good.

That was another reason Claire had taken the
house. She had to find her own way, apart from Garrett’s persistent
sculpting of their lives into what he wanted for them.

* * * * *

“I come bearing gifts,” Garrett proclaimed
when he arrived that evening.

Garrett removed his hat with the untied
earflaps, revealing spiky blond hair above his oval face of
perpetually tanned skin. He had clothed his tall, thin frame in
green coveralls with his name and his company logo—Peterson
Landscapes—embroidered on his chest. He leaned down to kiss Claire
on the cheek and waved to his nephew.

Sam sat up a little straighter and looked at
his uncle expectantly.

With an elaborate gesture, Garrett unzipped
the top part of his coveralls, reached inside, and pulled out a CD
case.

“Check this out,” Garrett said, grinning.
“It’s a landscaping game. We can plant grass seeds and mow the lawn
with this really cute cartoon mower.”

Sam’s face fell. “Oh,” he said.

“I’ve already tried it out,” Garrett
continued. “Wait until you see the weeds. They sing these annoying
songs until you pull them out with the mouse.”

Claire watched Sam try to smile, and her
heart ached at the situation. Garrett didn’t understand Sam at
all.

“Thanks for thinking of him,” Claire
said.

Garrett stood up straight and plastered a
smile on his face.

“Come outside,” he said to Claire. “I’ve got
something for you, too.”

Claire slipped on her boots and coat and
followed Garrett out the front door. The snow was falling heavily,
although there was no wind this time. The sidewalk was already
covered, even though she had shoveled it just an hour before
Garrett had arrived.

The back of his green pickup with front
snowplow attachment was full of boxes and other objects Claire
couldn’t see readily in the faint light from the porch.

“What’s all this?” she asked.

“I cleaned out the storage unit for you.
Figured since you had a bigger place, there was no need for you to
keep paying the extra rent.”

“I’ve forgotten what was even in there.”

“Then it’s like Christmas two weeks late.”
Garrett pulled down the tailgate and pulled back the tarp. “And
then, there’s this.”

Claire cocked her head as she studied the
object. “A snowblower?”

“Absolutely. I’ll plow the driveway for you
tonight, but you’ll need a way to clear it when I’m gone. Can’t
have you getting stuck.”

“But isn’t this from your business?” she
asked.

“Bought a new one yesterday—more power—and I
thought I’d give you the old one.”

“You really know how to make a girl feel
special.”

“It’s why all the ladies love me.”

“And why you’re still single.”

Garrett pulled a box out from under the tarp
and pushed it into her arms. “We’d better get these out of the wet.
And by the way, I’m starving.”

“Dinner’s ready when you are, your
highness.”

“I’ll show you how to use this after we
eat.”

“I’m shivering in anticipation.”

The box wasn’t heavy, so Claire was able to
slip out of her boots in the entry way before carrying the box
through the house to her bedroom. She didn’t feel like carrying
everything upstairs right now. Sam was clutching his PlayStation
controller, jumping up and down with excitement as he shot droids
in his Star Wars game. Garrett would have something to say about
that.

A snow blower wasn’t exactly the kind of
gift Claire wanted. Garrett wanted her to have useful things, which
was great, but Claire wished that just once, someone would give her
something just because she wanted it, not because it served any
useful purpose. Right now, what she wanted more than anything was
an evening to herself, although admitting that made her feel
guilty. Garrett was here to help her, after all. But she would have
to do everything he wanted, regardless of what had previously been
on her agenda. One of these days, she would stop giving in. She
would set boundaries and tell Garrett when she didn’t want him to
come over.

A new drawing was clear in her mind. She
could see a woman with long hair and large eyes looking out between
the iron bars of a prison cell. But with Garrett present for the
next couple days, the picture would, appropriately, remain trapped
in Claire’s mind.

4

Summer 1986, Lindberg, Michigan

“Grandma, I’m going out for a while.”

Claire Peterson, wearing cut-offs and a pink
tank top, slung her backpack across her shoulders and opened the
front door.

“Have fun.” Her grandma, dressed in a
housecoat and watching Days of Our Lives, waved from her recliner.
“Will you be back in time for supper?”

“I’m not sure.”

When her grandma didn’t protest, Claire
walked out the door, pulling her long blond hair back into a pony
tail and securing it with the scrunchy she wore on her wrist.

Her first week in Lindberg had been a flurry
of chores—cleaning the storage shed, sweeping out the garage,
washing curtains, and dusting all those places Grandma couldn’t
reach anymore. She had picked strawberries and raspberries and
helped make jam. Grandma was exhausted from the yard work this
morning and wanted to rest for the afternoon. The remaining hours
of daylight were Claire’s to spend as she chose.

Not that there was much to choose from.
Lindberg with its population of 2,500 boasted a library, pharmacy,
grocery store, post office and a few little shops on Main Street.
In her ten years of visits, Claire had been inside all these places
many times and was on a first-name basis with Francine, the
librarian. Claire also knew that the town teenagers were either
working summer jobs or getting stoned in the park. There was little
fear of getting caught since the town had one policeman.

Life was pretty dull.

A few years ago, she and Garrett had found a
trail along the old train path and had followed it for several
miles before turning around and going home. The trail followed a
straight line through some swampy territory, rarely passing any
form of civilization. She had caught tadpoles and turtles with
Garrett in the swampy ponds along side the path, climbed up into
deserted deer blinds, and spotted turkeys, deer, and rabbits
galore. But that wasn’t what she had planned for today. One spot
along the trail had fascinated her since the first time she saw it.
That was where she was headed now.

It took her forty-five minutes to get out of
town and walk far enough to reach her destination. The trail banked
up to meet the road, and in the parting of the trees, she could see
the old house which, to her relief, hadn’t changed since last
summer. The building possessed a character that a photograph
couldn’t capture. Garrett had never understood her fascination with
it. But now that she was alone, she could draw it and hopefully put
onto paper the way that she felt when she looked at it.