Chapter 38
— Chapter 38 —
By the time Eddie comes over, Bee and I have gone through not just my mother’s dresser, but my father’s too. We stripped the bed. Emptied the nightstands. Bee took photos of the pages Step marked in his book and said she’d drop it off at the library. We’ve removed the empty drawers from all the furniture and carried them to the basement.
Eddie helps us move the big pieces. We peel back the carpet and padding. Prop it up with laundry baskets and run Step’s old box fan.
“It’ll dry,” Eddie says. “Not as bad as it looks.” I know he’s read the worry on my face. He puts his arm around my shoulder. He smells like sweat and sawdust and aftershave. “It’s gonna be alright, Frey. These things happen. My roof was leaking too.”
“I need to head home,” Bee says. The way she smiles makes me think she’s leaving me and Eddie alone on purpose. “You’ve got it without me, right?” She takes the garbage bags of my parents’ things with her so I don’t have to think about them anymore.
After Bee leaves, we arm ourselves with gloves and goggles and climb the ladder to the attic. Eddie carries a piece of plywood over his shoulder. I follow with a stack of towels tucked under my arm. Once I get to the top, I perch awkwardly on the two-by-fours that frame the trap door. Eddie walks across the beams, sure of his steps. His leather tool belt has a layered patina of paint spatters, and it moves with his body like it’s part of him. His work boots are creased, shiny at the friction points. I like the way he has existed in his life. Stayed rooted. Worn things down.
I try to join him, but I’m terrified of losing my balance and falling through the sheetrock. My knees stop working. When Eddie notices, he lays the plywood down over the joists at the other end of the attic and walks back to me. Takes the stack of towels. Offers his hand.
“You got this,” he says. “I got you.”
We walk across the boards, his fingers threaded between mine, grip so strong that I believe he could keep me from falling. After each step, he waits to make sure I’ve caught my balance. We make it to the plywood landing and get to work ripping out wet insulation and sopping up the water pooled in the bubble. We settle into the thing we had as kids, that way of working nicely together.
Eddie follows the drip up the rafter. “It’s usually not right above the leak in the ceiling. Everyone expects it to be, but the water travels along the wood.” After he locates the source, he goes out to his truck and comes back with a sheet of shingles, a tube of wet-dry roofing cement, and a caulk gun. “I know, I know, shingles go on the outside,” he says. “But since we can’t get on the roof with all that ice, this’ll stop the bleeding.”
He shows me the right way to apply the cement and makes me do it so I’ll know how. Then he has me press the shingle over the leak, like a band-aid, and hold it in place until it dries enough to stick. After a minute, he reaches up to take over for me, flat palming the shingle, twisting his hand to make sure the cement has dried enough to hold.
“It’s not a long-term fix,” he says, wiping his hand on his jeans. “But I’ll help you re-roof this summer if you want. And I’ll come back when the ceiling is dry so we can cut out that bubble and patch it. It’s not hard, but it’s a two-person job.” He smiles and I feel a shock of warmth in my chest.
“How are you still single?” I ask and immediately wish I could grab the words and put them back.
“I was married,” Eddie says, clearing his throat. “To Lexi Doyle.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” I mumble, my face flushing.
Lexi was in our grade. She was super sweet and pretty. Always had a good part in school plays because she was a great dancer. I don’t think they dated in high school, but I’m not sure I would have noticed. I catch myself wondering if Bee has the scoop on what happened, but it wouldn’t be right to ask. That’s the ultimate unfairness of small towns. You become a character stitched from everyone else’s version of the things that happened to you.
Eddie holds his hand out to walk me back across the boards. We make each step in unison. He’s quiet and it feels heavy.
“I’m sorry,” I say when we’re back to the ladder. “I didn’t mean to—”
“S’okay.” He climbs down ahead of me. “We’re separated—for a while now. Waiting on paperwork and then we’ll be divorced. Lexi is a really good person. Just—sometimes you have the best intentions, and the facts work against you, you know?”
I want to ask what he means, but it feels too personal, so I just agree.
When I step off the last rung, Eddie puts his arm out as if he thinks I might still need steadying. He laughs when he realizes it’s overkill. “Sorry, I’m so awkward,” he says. “The divorce isn’t something I’ve talked about much.”
“I’m sorry. I wanted to say something nice about you helping me and somehow I turned into my Aunt DeeDee.”
Eddie grins. “Aunt DeeDee sounds like a catch. Is she single?”
“I don’t know. She was my Uncle Angelo’s second wife. He’s got to be on number four by now.”
“Then I hope she has a hot young boyfriend to make him jealous,” Eddie says. “Not a guy like me with an almost-ex-wife and achy knees.”
“She could do worse than a guy like you,” I say, in my best Aunt DeeDee accent.
“Thanks,” Eddie says sincerely, like he needed the encouragement. He goes back into the attic to retrieve the plywood board, and as I’m watching him climb the ladder, I imagine what his life with Lexi was like. I bet she decorates for different seasons and planned their dinners on a calendar. Even though their marriage didn’t work out, the fact that Eddie tried means he had an idea of what he wanted and reached for it, which is so much more than I can say for myself.
“I gotta get back to my mom,” he says when he climbs down. He folds the ladder into the ceiling and pushes the trap door closed. “Call if you need me. Go up there a few times in the next two-three days while the ice is melting. Flash a light to check for shine from water leaking in. It’s no problem for me to come back.”
I help him carry stuff to his truck. He hugs me goodbye before he leaves, and I know that when I go to bed tonight, I will think about the feeling of his strong arms around my back, the way his stomach curves out where mine curves in, like we were made to have no space between our bodies. I wonder if, across the pond, in his bed, he’ll think about me at all.
I stand in the driveway after Eddie leaves, listening to the ice melt dripping from the trees. The sun is low in the sky. I don’t know if all the ice will be gone by morning, so I try to memorize the glowing branches, the frosted ground.
There’s a huge crash behind the house. A sheet of ice fallen from a branch maybe, tiny broken pieces following. I hear crunching. Something shatters.
I trudge to the backyard, my feet breaking ice with every step.
When I round the corner of the house, I see the deer. She is wild-eyed, charging toward the fence she easily jumped over while running down the hill, retreating when she realizes it’s too high for her to clear in the other direction. She grunts when she sees me. Rears up, then crashes into another section of raspberry canes, shattering the ice encasing them.
I am afraid for her as much as for myself.
“I’ll show you how to get out,” I say. I back away, but every step I take comes with the loud crackle of ice beneath my feet.
She stares at me. I back away a little more, hug the wall of the house. She returns her focus to the fence, barreling toward it, bailing at the last minute. Trying again with the same result.
While she’s distracted, I manage to get behind her.
“Go on.” I hold my arms wide, stomping my feet on the ice.
She jumps sideways, then backsteps.
I stomp more and it scares her in the right direction.
Slowly, I herd her toward the front yard. As soon as she spots the open gate, she turns her back on me, running down the driveway into the unfenced woods across the street.