The Carpenter's Daughter (2 page)

Sarah

“You okay, Sarah?”

I leaned back against the plastic hotel chair, forcing a smile. “Fine, Dad.”

Uncle Dan squinted my way from his side of the table. “You look a little done in, kid. Maybe a touch of sunstroke?”

Sunstroke—not hardly. I’d been working in the heat day in and day out for my whole adult life, and then some. Never once had I wilted.

“I’m fine.”

“Why’d you get a cold cut? You don’t like ham.” Dad watched me while I searched for an answer. His brow furrowed a little more with every silent moment.

Dad and I were straight with each other. Neither of us had anything to hide. But this… I needed to sort through it on my own. For now.

“It…it was busy,” I stuttered. “I didn’t get a chance to make up my mind, so I thought it would be easiest to order three of the same.”

Dad eyed me with a suspicious mask. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

I sighed. Didn’t want to talk about it. “Yeah, I’m okay. Think I’m done for the day.” I folded up the paper our sandwiches had been wrapped in and stopped at the garbage on my way out of Dad’s room. “See you both in the morning.”

I left before they could pester me more, heading down the hall. Jamming the key card into the door, I let myself into room eight. It was uninspiring. Cream walls that needed fresh paint set the backdrop for out-of-date décor that had probably been bought at an auction. It smelled faintly of mold and smoke, despite the No Smoking sign on the door.

People rarely offered their best when a profit margin could be damaged. We’d stayed in enough lousy hotels to know that was a simple fact. One in particular stood out in my memory. The man at the front desk threatened me if I touched more than one bed. How dumb. Why would I sleep in two different beds? Anyway, it didn’t matter. I never actually slept between hotel sheets. Yuck.

I reached to the chair across from the bed, snagging the sleeping bag I’d rolled up that morning. With a flick of one hand, I pulled the cover off the bed and, with an easy flip of the other, unrolled the bag in its place. There. The bed was ready. I dropped onto it and bent to remove my steel-toed boots.

How many women wore these things?

Butch.

I pushed the harsh voice away. Heading to the shower, I hoped the low-pressure water would wash away more than just the day’s sweat and grime.

Fifteen minutes later, the steam slowly melted from the small square mirror as I brushed my teeth. I studied my reflection. Clean, but not really better
.
For the first time in my life, I wondered what people thought of me. I mean, really thought. Maybe they rated me about like I did this bathroom. Hard-water stains, rust, and poor upkeep made it completely unattractive. Ugly.

My nose stung. I’d worked hard every day of my life, doing a job most women couldn’t. Ugly was all I could say for it?

A knock at the door interrupted my spiraling thoughts. I pushed away the unwelcome tears and sniffed. It’d been years since I’d cried, and never about something so superficial. I scowled at my reflection, leaning closer to the mirror. “You’ve never seen much value in appearances. After twenty-one years, why start now?”

That was only partially true. I didn’t see much value in the appearance of
people
. Architecture was entirely different. A good design led to a solid build. And a well-built project was more than satisfying. It was a source of pride, of dignity.

The knock beckoned again. I left my musings at the sink and went to the door. A quick check through the peephole, and I found Dad pacing in the dim hall.

I resisted the urge to yank on the door, pulling it open as though nothing brewed inside. “Hi, Dad.”

“Hey.” He entered and stepped to the only chair in the room.

I followed, pushing the entry closed after he’d passed through. He waited until I sat on the bed directly across from him. Dressed in baggy gym shorts and an old T-shirt, and sitting with my legs crisscrossed, I felt like I had when he’d coached my high school basketball team.

A long time ago. But in reality, not much had changed. Was that good or bad? I’d been happy. Well, maybe happy was an overstatement. But up until about an hour ago, I hadn’t been unhappy.

“What’s going on, Sarah?”

I didn’t want to look at him. What if he was disappointed in me? He always said what other people thought didn’t matter. Work hard. Be honest. Treat people right. Those were his standards.
Pretty
was a word he’d probably marked out in his dictionary. If he had one.

I glanced to the shabby headboard. “Nothing.”

“Let me see those blue eyes.” He leaned both elbows against his knees. “We don’t lie to each other.”

Blue eyes.
They were Mother’s. The only part of her that remained in our lives. Sometimes I hated that I had her eyes. When I was small, Dad could hardly look at me, especially when some well-meaning person would comment on how much my eyes looked like my mother’s. He probably thought I couldn’t remember those days. I wasn’t gonna tell him I did. We’d made it, me and Dad. Through a whole lot of garbage, we were strong together. I wasn’t going to dishonor that by dragging up old wounds.

“Sarah?” He expected an answer. An honest one.

Frankly, I didn’t know how to lie to my dad.

I ran my rough man-hand through my wet black hair, which still clung to my neck.
She’s trying not to look pretty.
Why did I care what some middle-aged woman who was clearly desperate to recapture her own youth had said?

Huffing, I finally looked Dad in the eye. “I’m not pretty.”

Dad’s jaw dropped. So, so stupid. This was just stupid. I was a steady and levelheaded woman. Because that was what Dad raised me to be.
Pretty
belonged to empty-headed, mean-spirited girls who couldn’t see anyone but themselves—because they were too busy looking in the mirror. I wasn’t one of those.

“Why are you worrying about that?”

See? I knew it. He was disappointed. “I didn’t know before.” My voice faltered. I hated it. We had real work to do in the morning. Sleep was necessary—not for beauty, which, as Dad said, went about as deep as a mud puddle. I shouldn’t waste my energy on something so stupid. “I found out today. I never thought about it before.”

“What?” His eyebrows drew together.

“I never gave it a thought before tonight.” I shrugged, wishing the whole deal was easily brushed away. “I barely look in the mirror. We’re off to work before my eyes can focus in the morning, and I come home covered with dirt and sweat. By the time I shower, I’m too tired to care about what I look like. So, I’ve never thought about it. But now I know. I’m not pretty.” Crying? I was crying now? “I’m sorry, Dad. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

He leaned back against his chair, looking like I’d kicked him in the gut. “Why do you think you’re not pretty?”

I rubbed away the dumb tears and shook my head.
Just let the stupid thing go.
My lips quivered. “A woman at Subway said it. She called me butch—said I was trying to hide the fact that I’m a woman.”

Dad covered one fist in the tight squeeze of the other. His knuckles paled. “Women.” The word sizzled from his lips.

My eyelids slid closed, and something high pitched rang in my ears.

“Not you.” Dad reached across the space and gripped my hand. “I didn’t mean you.” He searched my face, a fierceness in his eyes.

Dad adored me. I’d known that since the day he taught me how to pound a nail straight. But he didn’t raise me to be like
them
. Like
her
.
No sir, he raised me with a determination that I would know what things were important, which things had true value. Vanity was never part of his agenda.

Silence dangled awkwardly between us, and I wished I’d left it all unsaid.

Dad sighed and pushed to his feet. “Don’t let some cat get to you.”

Right. I knew that.

He paused, dropping a hand to my head. “You’re better than them.”

Was I?

Dad shoved his hand into his pocket and moved to the door. “Sleep it off, kid. They don’t know you, so it doesn’t matter.”

The latch clicked behind him, and emptiness settled in my room. I left the bed to flick the light switch, but caught my reflection in the mirror near the door.

Butch.

They don’t know you…

That was when I realized it. I didn’t know me either.

I couldn’t sleep it off. I couldn’t sleep at all.

Dale

I paced the worn-out carpet in my room, my fist clenching the phone with a grip that might have killed.

“Who said that?” Darcy’s indignation spewed hot over the line.

My sister and I shared the same temper, which meant it heated up in a hurry. Mine was already above boiling point.

“I don’t know, just some woman.”

“Why would anyone say something like that to a stranger?”

“I don’t know.” If I did, I wouldn’t be standing in the hotel talking on the phone. I’d be in someone’s face. “It doesn’t matter, Dars. I need your help. I don’t know what to do.”

“Seems a few years late.”

“What’s that mean?”

“No. Not your asking for help. Sorry.” Darcy sighed. “I meant this whole ordeal. She made it all the way through school without having to deal with this garbage. Seems like a rotten deal that it comes up now.”

“She was quiet in high school.”

“Sarah’s quiet now. What’s that got to do with it?”

“I think people were afraid of her. The strong, silent type.”

“Dale.” Her voice carried an eye roll. “You can’t assign a male stereotype to your teenage daughter. Or your grown-up one, for that matter.”

Lectures from my big sister. Some things never changed.

“What do I do?”

“I’m not sure.” Darcy sighed again. “Do you want me to call her?”

“Would you? Maybe you could do a girls’ weekend or something? Take her shopping or whatever it is women do on those things.”

Her eye-roll voice carried over again. “Dale, new clothes and a tube of lipstick aren’t going to fix this.”

Who said anything about lipstick? “Like she’d wear that junk anyway. That’s not what I was saying. Look, just take her out.”

A long pause made me doubt Darcy’s concern. Darcy was the closest thing Sarah had to a mother. She ought to be concerned. At least a little. I couldn’t handle this. All this junk was nowhere in my playbook.

Finally, in a soft, tender voice, Darcy spoke. “Did she take it hard?”

The moment tears seeped from Sarah’s eyes replayed. She was a steady girl, not a bundle of emotional explosions. I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “She cried.”

Darcy’s voice cracked. “I’ll call.”

I grunted a thanks, and that was that. Should take care of it. Except, the whole thing kept looping through my mind.

I’m not pretty.

I lowered onto the lumpy double bed in my room, still dumbfounded that
my
daughter said those words. Sarah wasn’t that kind of woman. She wasn’t shallow. Wasn’t frail. And wasn’t ugly.

She looked like the best combination possible of Cassie and me, and Cassie was a looker.

Cassandra von Holtzhausen, or locally known as Cassie Holtz, had made it. She’d achieved exactly what she’d abandoned us for—fame and envy among the vain and superficial.

Sarah didn’t know her mother’s adopted and very well-known last name, which was for the best. She didn’t need to know that her mother had taken three other husbands, squandered her wealth built from face-lifts, updos, and scandalous photos. And she especially didn’t need to know…

All Sarah knew was that she had Cassie’s eyes. That was enough. She didn’t need anything else from the woman.

I reached for the TV remote. I was too old for this. And too…blue collar. That was why Cassie left. She didn’t want the ordinary life I could give her. That, and she’d cracked. All of the crap her faith-freak dad had dumped on her finally split her right in two, and she lost it. Crazy didn’t just happen.

Old reels of events I’d rather forget started ticking, flashing my most hated memories with cruel accuracy.

We were eighteen and in love. I was in love, anyway, even if I couldn’t figure why Cassie wanted me. Maybe because of basketball. She thought she’d latched on to a star who could lift her out of the nightmare she’d lived in.

Me. Imagine that. The son of a drunk and of a floozy who’d run off and killed herself. My future was sealed before I drew breath—I wasn’t going anywhere special, and I sure couldn’t fix her mess. Even if Kansas State thought I’d be a game changer on their basketball court.

The scholarship offer was revoked, proving the unspoken prophecy. I’d failed the drug test, which was stupid. I never tried cocaine again. Especially after I found out Cassie was pregnant.

That vivid and horrific moment still haunted me. I’d found her in her father’s basement. In the nine months we had been together, I’d learned that when she went missing, she was probably down there, raw knees pressed to the concrete floor, facedown, hands covering her hair. Repenting. That was what her father called it.