Chapter Four
M onday morning, Adam had watched Lee take off toward the beach at eight. A couple of hours later, she was back at her house. At eleven-thirty, she’d gotten into then out of her Jeep.
He’d wondered off and on all day where she’d gone and what she was doing as he tried to juggle work and Jessie. By late afternoon, Lee still wasn’t back. Was she at the shop?
“Not that I’m keeping track,” he assured Jessie, who was busy shredding a box of tissues.
He’d thought about taking the tissues away from her, but she was having a great time and, other than a mess, there didn’t seem any harm, so he let her go at it. He imagined Lee would have approved.
“Not that I care what Lee thinks.”
Jessie blew a raspberry.
“Now, that’s just rude,” he assured her as the phone rang…again.
He hadn’t given much thought to how many calls he received until Lee had mentioned it. This was supposed to be a break so he could figure things out, but he felt as if he were working as hard as ever.
He looked at the caller ID before he answered. “Hi, Darius.”
Darius Sheridan was his right-hand man. He was determined to make his own mark on the business and worked harder than anyone Adam knew.
Adam respected that attitude, as much as he enjoyed his friendship with Darius. He’d never have been able to take this leave if it weren’t for Darius looking after Delmark.
“How’s it going out in the backwoods?” Darius asked.
“Erie’s not quite the backwoods.” Adam could proclaim that fact until his face turned blue, but he knew Darius believed that any city that wasn’t New York was indeed a backwoods.
“It’s also not New York,” he said, as if on cue. “Speaking of New York…uh, we’ve got a bit of a glitch I need to talk to you about.”
Adam suddenly came to a decision. Something he hadn’t even known he was thinking about. “No. I don’t think so.”
“Huh?”
Adam recognized Darius’s shock at his response. As a matter of fact, he felt a bit of that himself. But Lee’s comments still rang in his ears. “Listen, I wouldn’t have left you in charge if I didn’t trust you. Whatever the glitch is, fix it.”
“But—”
“I said call if there was an emergency. A dire emergency. Something you can’t handle. I think you can handle almost whatever comes up. Yet, you’ve called every day—”
“Because it’s your company.”
“But you’re in charge. Now, do you really need me, or can you handle whatever it is?”
There was a long pause. “I can handle it. If you’re sure.”
“If I hadn’t been sure, I wouldn’t have left. I need this time, Darius. You need the experience this is giving you. So, if there’s a real emergency, something you can’t handle, call. Otherwise, I’ll check in with you daily, like we planned.” Adam hung up.
He sat for a moment, thinking about what he’d just done. He’d started Delmark, Inc. right out of college. He’d been in total control ever since. But he’d just basically handed everything over to Darius.
It should feel scary. His insides should be twisting.
Instead, he realized, it felt good.
Free.
Jessie blew a few spit bubbles, then babbled to herself as she switched from shredding tissues to stacking her plastic multicolored rings.
He looked at his laptop. Even if he’d stemmed the flow of office calls, he still had things he should attend to. He looked back at Jessie.
“Want to get some dinner, squirt?”
She babbled again and he was pretty sure between the das and bas , there was a yes.
“Well, then let’s go. We could ask Lee.” He’d noticed her drive off with her father earlier. “Let’s see if her parents will help us track her down and we’ll find out if she’ll join us.”
He scooped Jessie up and left the cottage.
Adam realized as he reached the door of the RV and knocked that Jessie was starting to feel at home on his hip. There was an art to properly placing a baby. He’d finally acquired it.
The door swung open, and Adam felt as if he’d somehow been transported back to junior high, showing up on a doorstep to collect a girl for a date.
“Hi, Mrs. Singer. I was wondering if you knew where Lee went? Her car’s still in the driveway, but she’s not around.” Yes, he was indeed reduced to his awkward teen years.
“My daughter went to work today. Her check engine light was coming on, so her father took her in. He tinkered with it and found it was just a clogged air filter.”
“Do you know when she’s closing the shop today?”
“Since she feels as if working more than six hours on any given day is tantamount to giving in to the man— ”
Mr. Singer came up behind his wife. “Lee closes the store around five. I’m supposed to pick her up then.”
“Jessie and I are heading into town. We could save you a trip and bring her home.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Mrs. Singer assured him.
For a moment, he thought Lee’s dad was going to agree with her, but he said, “Thanks. That would be great.”
Adam beat a hasty retreat.
Though he knew Lee and Mrs. Singer were mother and daughter, he found the connection amazing. Other than a cursory physical resemblance, he didn’t see any similarities between then. Lee was open, always smiling, while her mother had lines on her face that Adam doubted had anything to with laughter.
“Come on, Jessie. How about we head into town for that dinner? You can catch a bit of a nap in the car on the way.”
She burbled her agreement as he carried her back into the house to pack a diaper bag. He grabbed his keys, and automatically reached for his cell phone. For an instant, remembering Lee’s words, he was tempted to leave it behind. But despite his talk with Darius, he had responsibilities, so reluctantly he slipped the device into his pocket.
“Come on, Jessie. Let’s go.”
Lee sat at the back counter and pretended to work, but in actuality, she was praying for some kind of distraction.
A customer.
A phone call.
Heck, even her mom and dad would be welcomed.
She needed something to keep her from her thoughts. Her mind would drift to Adam, then to Jessie. From there her thoughts tripped in directions that tore at her heart. She’d think back, delving into the past and a place she’d hoped she’d put behind her.
As if an answer to a prayer, Pearly Gates waltzed into the shop. “A bunch of us are going over to the Five and Dine for dinner. You interested?”
“I don’t know. I probably should—”
“They have potato soup today.”
“You’re not playing fair.” The Five and Dine’s potato soup was out of this world.
“And rumor has it the soup comes with garlic bread. You know how theirs is always so crispy around the edges, but soft in the middle. It practically melts in your mouth.”
Well, she’d been hoping for a distraction, and dinner would certainly qualify. “I’m in.”
“Good, we’ll—” Pearly cut herself off when Adam opened the door and tried to hold it wide while pushing the stroller through.
“Here, let me help,” Pearly said, propping the door for him.
“Thanks. You’d think there was a better system for this,” he grumbled as he wheeled in. He grinned at Lee. “We ran out of tissues.”
She must have looked puzzled, because he added, “Jessie’s decided de-rolling toilet paper isn’t nearly as fascinating as shredding tissues. But we’re out, so we’re off to buy more. And as long as we’re in town, we thought we’d see if you’d like to get dinner.”
“I’m sorry. I just made plans with—”
“What’s one more? Well, one and a half.” Pearly mussed Jessie’s wispy hair. “I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say, the more the merrier.”
Before Lee could offer up some excuse, Adam said, “As long as you don’t mind, Jessie and I would be delighted to join you.”
“Tell you what, Lee,” Pearly said. “You just take your time closing up the shop and I’ll meander over to the Five and Dine with Adam here.”
“You know my name?” Adam said, as he was practically herded, stroller and all, out the door by Pearly.
“I know about everythin’ that happens here on the Square,” Pearly said. “It’s a gift. Sort of like my great-uncle Josiah Gates. Why he…”
As Pearly helped Adam maneuver the stroller back through the door, he cast Lee a final help-me look.
Lee might have found the situation amusing, but she knew that Pearly was going to pump Adam for information. And she knew from past experience that before this dinner was over, Pearly would know all the pertinent, and probably not so pertinent, facts about Mr. Adam Mathias Benton.
That’s why she was hurrying to close up the shop. Out of a feeling of loyalty to her old school friend.
Okay, school nemesis. But even nemeses formed bonds, and it was up to her to save Adam.
She closed the register, counted the drawer, prepared the day’s deposit and was just about ready to make her getaway and ride to Adam’s rescue, when the door opened and Mrs. Ramsey came in. “Lee, dear, I’m so glad you’re still here. I need a present for tonight…”
Part of Lee wanted to tell Mrs. Ramsey that the store was closed, but her mother’s latest lecture was still ringing in her ears, so she forced herself to do the responsible thing and say, “What did you have in mind?”
“That was…” Adam paused, looking for a word, and finally settled on saying, “Interesting,” as they drove back toward the cottages.
Lee laughed. “I should have warned you, but Pearly had you out the door and headed across the park before I could get a word out edgewise.”
“I imagined meeting a few of your friends again. A quiet , intimate dinner.”
“When Perry Square gets together it’s always more than a few. But hey, at least this was just a small get-together. You should see them when they have a real all-out bash.”
“There’s more?” In Adam’s opinion, there had been enough Perry Square residents to fill most of the Five and Dine, and all of them had felt the need to look out for Lee, which meant finding out about him.
“Yes. Lots more.”
“And do they all consider you a surrogate daughter, sister, or simply a friend?” he asked.
“I’d like to think so.”
“Well, let’s just say, your parents didn’t grill me that hard. As a matter of fact, they haven’t grilled me at all.” He laughed.
Lee tried to join him, but couldn’t quite muster up any humor. “My mother and father aren’t the grilling type. To be honest, I don’t remember them ever checking out a man I was seeing.” She paused.
He glanced over, and she was blushing.
“Not that we’re seeing each other,” she added quickly.
Part of Adam wanted to argue, but he chose not to say anything mainly because he wasn’t sure what to say.
He hadn’t come to Erie to date anyone. He didn’t have the time and definitely had more than enough on his plate right now with the baby and the business. But despite his best intentions, he thought there was a very good possibility he’d inadvertently added Lee to the mix.
They rode in silence for a while, and finally Lee said, “Would it be awful if I confess that I don’t want to go home just yet?”
“Because of your parents?” There was something there, between the three of them. Listening to Lee’s comments, he could feel it. Having watched them all together, he sensed a formality, and maybe a nervousness.
“I love them,” Lee said. “Really, I do. But…”
“They make it hard.”
She nodded. “Listen, I know how lucky I am. Truly. I have friends who can’t stand their parents and vice versa. I love mine, and I know they love me. The kind of love that would do anything. If I needed blood, they’d slit open their wrists to give it to me without a second thought. But while they were at it, they’d lecture me about how irresponsible I was to lose my own blood and need theirs.”
Adam tried to hold it back—Lee could see how valiantly he fought—but in the end, he lost and chuckled.
“It’s not funny,” she protested, but even as the words came out of her mouth, she started to chuckle, too. “Okay, so maybe I was a bit melodramatic.”
“I could see the picture you painted. Having met your parents, I can really see it in my head.”
“Like I said, I love them, but sometimes it’s hard to remember that I do.”
“Like when their RV’s parked in your driveway, next to your cabin?”
“Especially then. Or when they start on yet another one of their you’re-wasting-your-life lectures.”
“Well, I can’t fix all that, but I can make the evening last longer,” Adam offered. “Go for a drive. If I remember correctly, there’s that small public beach in North East—”
“Freeport,” she supplied.
“Yes. We could take a walk there and look for more of your beach glass.”
“You wouldn’t mind? I mean, you don’t have work you have to do?”
“A very wise person pointed out that maybe I work too much. Did you notice not one cell phone call during dinner?”
“I’ll confess, I did.”
He glanced over again and she was smiling. “I told my replacement to deal with the current crisis, and came to find you.”
“I’m glad you did find me…and the rest as well. Life is meant to be enjoyed.”
“Well, I plan on enjoying an evening walking along the lake with you and Jessie.”
It turned out that Jessie preferred walking in the water, to along the shore.
As they walked, Lee realized that there was something different about tonight, as she took a turn carrying the rather soggy Jessie.
She glanced at Adam, who was diligently studying the sand, watching for the brief sparkle of the sun’s last rays catching a piece of glass.
So earnest and intent.
It touched her.
Most of her walks were solitary ones. She suddenly realized how much time she had spent by herself the last year.
More than that.
Even when she’d been married to Alan, he’d traveled a lot, so she’d been on her own more often than not.
She was lucky though, she had friends on the Square. She went out to lunches and dinners, even attended the occasional party. But the majority of her time she spent in her own company.
Until this moment, that was the way she’d liked it. She’d appreciated being by herself with her thoughts. But she had to confess, there was something that felt right about walking with Adam and Jessie. They weren’t talking, just sharing the experience.
At that moment, Jessie tried to dive out of her arms and back into the water. Lee held on and laughed. “No more swimming tonight.
Adam looked and their eyes met. He offered her a slow, lazy smile. And the sight, all the time she’d spent alone didn’t feel so comfortable.
It felt…lonely.
She realized that when the month was over and Adam left, she’d miss him. She’d miss this. It really was ridiculous. They hadn’t been very close friends when they were young, and now he’d only been in Erie a handful of days. But even knowing that it didn’t make sense, she knew the feeling was real.
She’d miss him when he was gone.
She reached out and touched Jessie’s hair, laughing as the toddler continued to squirm and tried to break free.
“I almost had a baby once just like you.” She realized she’d said the words out loud, and turned away, ready to hurry back to the car.
Why on earth had she said that?
Maybe Adam hadn’t noticed.
She didn’t look at him to see if he had. Even if he’d heard her, maybe he’d just let it go? But he touched her arm and Lee knew he knew.
Lee froze as he took Jessie from her arms and sat the toddler on the ground. Jessie squealed with laughter.
“Tell me,” he asked, simply. He pulled her down onto the sand. They sat, side by side, almost touching, but not quite.
“I didn’t mean to say that. I don’t know why I did. I never talk about…” She just let the sentence die.
“Maybe you said it because you never talk about it. Tell me. I’d like to know.”
Lee drew in a deep breath, and tried to sort out where to start.
The sun was slipping, almost touching the water now. Jessie was picking up small stones and tossing them.
Lee concentrated on the toddler, rather than look at Adam as she began. “I married right out of college. Alan was older. He was an established businessman by the time I graduated. Driven to make something of himself. And me? I was naive. I thought our marriage would be different than our dating and engagement were, and it was. It was worse. I hardly ever saw him. He traveled much of the time, and when he was in town he worked impossibly long hours. I guess I hadn’t noticed as much when I was in school because there was always so much going on. But after we were married, I did…boy, did I notice. When we decided to start a family and I got pregnant, again I naively thought maybe he’d change.”
There. The sun was touching the water now.
Lee knew from years of experience that it would quickly slide beneath the horizon. Pink and orange tinged the lower edge of the sky as the lake seemingly swallowed up the sun. The color backlit Jessie, and Lee wished she’d brought a camera so she could capture this moment.
“But he didn’t change?” Adam asked softly.
Lee shook her head. Bit by bit, the sun was disappearing, blazing a final color display in its wake.
“What happened?”
“I was six months along. I could feel the baby move and kick. I’d sit for hours trying to decide if a particular bulge was an arm, or maybe a little foot. The night I started bleeding, Alan was in Chicago. I called 911. The whole trip to the hospital, I kept calling him, but by the time he got my message it was over. We’d lost our baby girl.”
Adam draped an arm on her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
She finally looked at him. She could see empathy in his eyes as he tightened his arm around her.
When she’d lost the baby, there had been no one to hold her like this. No one to lean on. It hadn’t even occurred to her to call her parents until the next morning.
Her mother had come right away, arriving before Alan, but she’d looked uncomfortable when Lee had started to talk about her baby and her sense of loss, so she’d stopped.
When Alan had come, he’d said the right words, but she’d found it hard to forgive him for not being there.
It would be easy to blame her marriage’s failure on losing the baby, but afterward, she’d realized her marriage had stopped working a long time before they’d lost their daughter.
Sometimes she’d wondered if it ever really had worked at all.
“Lee,” Adam said. Just her name. But there was a world of concern infused in it.
“I try and tell myself it was probably for the best. They say you learn your parenting skills from your parents, and if that’s the case, it’s best history does not repeat itself.”
“Your parents were that bad?” he asked.
“No,” she said, honestly. “They were just that disinterested. Like Alan, they lived for ambition, for getting ahead.”
“But you’re not like that.”
“Maybe. I mean, I don’t live to work. But I’m selfish in my own way. I like having time for myself, for my art,” she confessed, voicing her worry for the first time. “I don’t fool myself that I’m a Picasso, but I love creating things. It’s different than being driven in the business world, but maybe my needs would eventually supercede the baby’s needs. And I truly believe you shouldn’t have children unless you can put them first. I don’t know that I’d be able to do that, so it’s best I don’t have any.”
“At least that’s what you tell yourself.”
His insight surprised her, but she found herself nodding. “Yes. It makes the pain a little more tolerable…sometimes.”
At that moment a wave swept near Jessie and she went over. Both Adam and Lee jumped up, but before they could pull Jessie up, the toddler righted herself, giggling as she smacked the sand.
Laughing as well, Adam lifted the more than slightly soggy little girl. “Time to head home.”
Placing Jessie on his hip, he held her with one arm, reached out with the other and took Lee’s hand. He gave it the slightest squeeze.
As Lee looked up at him, she realized how much things had changed. She wasn’t sure to what extent but, at the moment, she didn’t want to analyze it. She simply held Adam’s hand and walked toward the car listening to Jessie gurgle.
And she realized, at this moment in time, she wasn’t lonely at all.