Wrecked (Stories of Serendipity #8): #8 (8 page)

“Hey Dad, you know Christmas isn’t for another couple of months, right? What did you do to your eye?”

Joe’s eyes flicked to Mark, then back to the TV. “I think one of these terrorist cells live here. The neighbors upstairs acts strange, coming in at all hours.”

Mark rolled his eyes. “He tripped on the bedpost again. And I can’t keep any other clothes on him. He dresses himself, but if I don’t let him wear what he’s got on, he strips naked as a jay bird the first time my back’s turned.”

“I’ve been dressing myself for seventy-five years, boy.”

“Whatever. I’m gonna go grab a smoke.” Mark raised himself from his seat on the couch and sauntered outside. Jason took his place.

“What’s for dinner, Dad?”

Joe shrugged. “Don’t know. Meals on Wheels hasn’t gotten here yet.” His gaze turned from the TV to Jason, suddenly serious. “I don’t need a baby sitter. That boy’s got some problems. I don’t like him.”

“It makes me feel better to have him here, and there aren’t a lot of choices. Most of the people I interviewed were worse than him. And hopefully, it’s only temporary. Until you can get around better.”

“I need you to bring me my gun. I don’t trust him.”

Jason held back the disbelieving laugh that bubbled in his throat. “We’ll see, okay?”

They watched the news until Joe’s dinner arrived, and he immediately took it into the kitchen to eat it. He ate like it was his first meal in a decade, huge bites, barely chewing.

“Hey, slow down. You’ll choke.”

“I’ve got to eat it all before he comes back.” Joe said simply before continuing to shovel food into his mouth.

Jason sighed heavily and went to find Mark.

Mark was a young man in his early twenties who could probably shave more often and needed a hair cut. But that was youth. Jason could remember being that age and needing a job, flouting authority by his own passive aggressive tendencies. He seemed thrilled with the idea that Jason paid him cash and didn’t ask for his social security number when he’d hired him to watch over his dad during the days.

“Hey man. How’s he been today?”

Mark shrugged. “About the same as every other day, I guess. He thinks I’m trying to poison his colas, strips when I’m not watching, accuses me of stealing his food or beating him.”

“Well, you can go home. I got this tonight. You’ll take him to church on Sunday?” Mark shrugged again.

“Sure.”

“Cool. I’ll be by in the afternoon, then. See ya.”

Mark practically ran to his own car, and Jason mused about a young kid like him sitting with the elderly. He didn’t seem to particularly enjoy his job, but in this economy a job was a job. At least he was willing to do something for money instead of taking handouts. He had to give him some credit.

He went back inside to get his dad ready for bed and call Jodie with an update so he could go back to the shop.

“Hey man, how’s Dad today?”

“The same. He hates his caretaker, and thinks terrorists live above him,” Jason answered wearily. He looked over at his dad, who had hobbled back to his recliner and was watching “Wheel of Fortune.” “I’m about to get him into pajamas then go back to the shop.”

“Does he do anything besides watch TV?”

“Not really. He goes to church on Sunday, but I can’t stand that shit. Mark’s been taking him.” Jason hated church. All the little old ladies, eagerly grabbing him telling him all about their potluck dinners, preachers eyeballing him during the sermon, and whoever his dad had been trying to fix him up with was there. He just didn’t feel up to dealing with all that right now. He knew church probably wasn’t Mark’s bag either, but he was getting paid his hourly rate to take Joe to church and so far hadn’t complained about it.

“Is there something else around there he’d like to do? I’d say take him out to the shop, but he’d probably scream at all the changes you’ve made.”

Jason could just picture it. “Yeah, I’m not ready for him to see the shop yet. Let me get a month or two under my belt so I can show him the changes are profitable, then I’ll take him there.” He ran his hand through his hair in thought. “I can probably figure someplace to take him. There’s gobs of small-town touristy type shit around here that’s right up his alley. It’ll be good to see how he acts in the general population. Or if he’s just crazy for me.”

R
enae listened to the preacher speak about Proverbs 14: A wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands, the foolish one tears hers down. Of course, the preacher was giving examples of the wise woman versus the foolish woman, and Renae tried to concentrate on the words, but her own thoughts were running away with her.

Which was she?

She knew her diminutive mother in the pew next to her would consider herself a wise woman. A cattle-rancher’s wife, she had raised two children and kept her husband happy on an income of next to nothing. Mary Colt had never worked a day in her life, staying home to take care of the house, the children, and at times, the cattle. She did it all alongside her husband until he died. After his death she had seen both her children ensconced safely back in Serendipity’s arms before moving into a retirement center.

Neither of her children had made the choices she would have chosen for them, but Renae and Dalton had both made it to adulthood. Dalton had two step-children with Alyssa and a newborn son. Renae had Kelly. Mary had always wanted Renae to find a man to take care of her, but Renae’s first choice in that department had been so poor that she had decided to forego the hunt and hunkered down to raise her daughter alone.

She thought she’d done a pretty good job with it. She’d gotten a job at a bank as a teller and had decent working hours if not stellar pay. She scrimped and saved and managed to provide Kelly with everything she needed growing up.

If Renae had been presented with the sermon before she’d looked at her calendar this morning, she would have put herself in the wise woman category. Without a doubt. But seeing that dot on today’s date on the calendar, a week before her forty-fifth birthday, and knowing what it meant definitely brought some foolishness into the picture.

She had managed over the past few weeks to push thoughts of Jason into the background. He was gone. Back to Houston. Back to his life, whatever it was.

She was dealing with that dot alone. That dot, signifying the start date of a period that hadn’t come. For the last twenty-five years, she’d been regular as clockwork except for when she’d been pregnant with Kelly, of course. Thoughts of pregnancy had never entered her mind that night with Jason. No protection. Nothing.

She couldn’t decide if she had been too drunk or just didn’t care in all the excitement of Jason. But the fact of the matter was she’d missed her period, and now she was facing the consequences of that night.

It was time for communion, and after partaking of her tiny piece of bread and plastic cup of grape juice, Renae sat and watched the rest of the church file up the aisle and become one with Christ, trying to tamp down her feelings of hypocrisy.

An ancient couple, the Jeffers, walked down the aisle, Mr. Jeffers cradling Mrs. Jeffers in his arms. She’d had hip surgery in the past year and had recovered well, but her mobility had been compromised. The entire church had watched as Mr. Jeffers cared for his wife through the procedure, helping her with her walker, then her cane, now nothing. Her tiny frame leaned into his as they shuffled together to the front railing. They both stood there, accepting the symbolic body, and Renae felt herself tremble. They had been married nearly seventy years, raised children together, grown old together, and Renae felt a longing she couldn’t suppress.

Her eyes tracked them back up the aisle to their seat, Mr. Jeffers mumbling into his wife’s ear, while she smiled up at him.

Renae wanted that but knew it wasn’t in her future. Cody had ruined her for anything real. Her friends all had found something real with each other, and the Jeffers were a shining example of something real. But Renae knew she would never have that. She’d screwed up with Cody, hadn’t had anything since, and now Jason was gone. All she had left was Kelly, who was gone too, and her dot.

The preacher droned on about committing your life to Christ, Renae barely paying attention anymore until it was time to rise for the final hymn. When it was over, Renae hugged her mother and made her own way back up the aisle to the back of the church and freedom. She didn’t usually feel this way about church, but today the stained-glass subdued the light instead of filtering it. It was oppressive, and she needed out.

She was stopped by a wheelchair. “Renae! When are you coming to my shop to meet my son? He’s decided to stay a little longer than he’d originally planned, and I think he needs some friends his own age.” The pruny old man grabbed her fingers and held on with a death grip. His watery gaze held the depths of despair, and Renae wasn’t sure he was still talking about his son. He mouthed the words “Help. Me.” And his eyes flickered to the bored-looking youth manning his wheel chair.

“Mr. O’Niel, I’ll be out there next week. I’ve got a care package to get to Kelly for midterms. I promise.”

Mention of her daughter’s name brought the dot back to the forefront of her mind where Mr. O’Niel had briefly eclipsed it.

Oh God. How would she tell Kelly?

R
enae made the stoic decision to not tell anybody for a while. She didn’t know how to do it. Some reptilian part of her brain had saved Jason’s number in her phone three days after she’d met him, back when she’d thought she might call him again for another night of bliss before he left. But now she had no idea what to say to him.

Honestly, she didn’t know anything about the man. Was that his normal operation? To pick up women at bars and take them home? He wasn’t in his twenties, so it was hard to say. She didn’t really know many men who did that at her age. But then again, she didn’t really know many men period. Les was all she knew, and he was always in love with someone, it seemed. Right now, it was her, but she knew that was some infatuation, and he’d get over it. Was Jason the same way? He certainly wouldn’t want to be saddled with a baby from a one-night-stand. He wouldn’t move back to Serendipity from Houston to take care of it. And she didn’t want to marry him. Great sex does not a marriage make.

To avoid the entire issue, Renae made a date with her friend Jessie to go out to her farm and learn how to make cheese. It was sort of a birthday present to herself and something she thought she could do alone. Renae had always loved cooking and creating things in the kitchen. If she knew how to make her own cheese, it would give her something to do while she was alone now that Kelly was gone. Not that she had to worry about it too much longer. She wouldn’t be alone anymore.

Later that day in Jessie’s farm kitchen, Renae’s thoughts were wandering back to when Kelly was a baby. The sleepless nights, the diaper changes, the midnight feedings, teething, colic… Of course, she had Cody around for most of that, but he’d never really gotten out of bed to help her, so essentially she’d done it alone. The nighttime stuff anyways. Cody hadn’t died until Kelly was nearly out of diapers. So this time wouldn’t be all that different. Would it? She’d done it once. She could do it again.

But this was so not how she’d imagined her life would go. She was in her mid-forties for crying out loud. Already, the morning sickness had started. It wasn’t bad, just a general nausea in the morning which generally went away after a granola bar. But how would she feel with an extra forty pounds on her relatively small frame? She wasn’t as physically fit as she had been when she was twenty.

“You’re letting the milk get too hot, Renae. Are you paying attention?” Jessie’s voice interrupted her.

Jessie wasn’t living at the farm anymore. She came out twice a day to milk her goats and tend her gardens but she lived in town with her husband Connor and she’d just had a baby herself. Maybe she should ask Jessie how she did it. She was thirty-eight. Was it incredibly hard for her?

“Sorry. I was gathering wool.” Renae grabbed the hot pads and pulled the pot off the heat. Putting the thermometer back in, she saw it was right at the perfect temperature.