Chapter 6 Julian
The satellite company is right on time. I see the white van turning into the yard as I rinse my coffee mug under the faucet. I check my watch. Eight forty-five. I have not seen Wyatt this morning.
The walls in this house are thin enough that I heard him breathing through mine half the night, or thought I did, and at some point that must have slid over into sleep, because when I opened my eyes at five there was birdsong and gray light and his truck was already gone.
There’s not a lot of doubt now that he is avoiding me. It’s no great surprise. If I were in his position, I’d be avoiding me too.
The van’s door opens. A man in a navy coverall climbs out, stretches, and pulls a ladder off the roof rack.
I set the mug down and go out to meet him. The installer waves at me as I open the porch door.
“Morning,” he says.
“Morning.” I clear my throat. “Thanks for coming out so early.”
“First job of the day.” He slings a bag over his shoulder. “You Mr. Briggs?”
“No. I’m — the guest. Julian Duffield.” It is the first time I have said the word guest about myself here. It’s not the right word but I don’t have a better one. “Mr. Briggs had to be out early. He asked me to point you at the roof.”
The installer nods, already scanning the building. He walks the perimeter, looking up. I follow him around the house, picking my way around the dew. We settle on a patch of south-facing roof above the kitchen, and he sets up the ladder and goes up.
I stand in the yard and look out at the land. Somewhere out there, Wyatt is already working. I can’t work him out. I also know I’ve never seen anyone work as hard as he does.
The second car of the morning comes up the drive shortly after. I hear the gravel before I see the vehicle, and when I turn around a dark truck is pulling in behind the van.
The back door of the house bangs open. Caleb comes out first, a backpack slung over one shoulder, a piece of toast in his mouth. Matthew follows, carrying a lunchbox.
“Bye, Julian,” Matthew says around his lunchbox, and then, without waiting for a reply, “Caleb, wait.”
“I am waiting,” Caleb says, not waiting.
“Caleb.”
“I said I’m waiting.”
“Julian Duffield,” she says. It is not a question. “Donna. Ray’s wife. We live just over the ridge.” She points.
I have no idea who Ray is, but I smile anyway and offer my hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
She takes it. Her grip is dry and firm. She tilts her head slightly. “Wyatt around?”
“He was out before I got up.”
“Mm.” She nods once, as though I have confirmed something she already knew. “That would be Wyatt.”
Behind her, Caleb is loading his backpack into the car and Matthew is stalling, poking at a patch of gravel with the toe of his shoe.
Donna turns a little, so that she is angled between me and the boys, and her voice drops to the pitch of a thing that is meant only for me.
“I’ll say a couple of things and then I’ll go,” she says. “Because nobody else is going to say them.”
“Okay.”
“You better be good to my Maggie’s Wyatt. He’s a good kid, always was. And I know he’s quiet and doesn’t say much but that’s not his fault. He always was shy.”
She is watching my face. I try to keep my face still.
“He has been doing a grown man’s job since he was Matthew’s age,” she says. “So if you are here for two weeks, Mr. Duffield, you just keep that in mind.”
There is a small sound behind her. Matthew has dropped his lunchbox. He picks it up.
She steps back half a step and raises her voice again, back to its normal working volume.
“Matthew,” she says, “in the car.”
She looks at me one more time. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too.”
Matthew climbs into the back. Caleb drops into the passenger seat. Donna starts the engine and then they are gone.
I watch them go, thinking.
Shy. He’s a good kid.
He’s not a ‘kid’. Wyatt Briggs is a grown man. Yes, he’s young but he’s also an adult who can’t do much more than grunt at me. Clearly, Donna intended to make excuses to make me see the man in a better light but instead, I just feel irritation pooling low and hot in my belly.
I’m the one who came all the way out here because Wyatt couldn’t even be bothered to meet me half way at the regional office.
I am spending a fortune on installing an internet connection into his house.
I have walked away from my job for two weeks at a pivotal time in my career because he won’t make any effort whatsoever.
I have been polite, cooked for him, done my best to keep out of his way, but apparently I’m the one who needs to be told to be understanding.
Because poor Wyatt Briggs, the grown man running a whole damn ranch is shy. He’s a pain in my ass, is what he is.
The installer comes down off the roof at nine, then he goes into the house with his drill and toolbox. Another half hour later, he comes to find me where I am sitting on the porch with my laptop, eagerly awaiting his news.
“You’re live,” he says, handing me a clipboard. “Signal strength is good. Router’s under the kitchen table, I stuck the credentials on the bottom of it. Sign here.”
I sign. He takes the clipboard back. He nods, slings his bag, and drives off.
I set up at the kitchen table.
The router winks at me from underneath. I pull the credentials sticker off and type them in.
Finally.
Oh shit. I have four hundred and seventy-three unread emails. Teams and Slack and Outlook all trying to make themselves known at once.
I put my head down and work.
I clear the worst of the inbox in forty minutes. Most of it is noise I can archive.
The rest is two flagged messages from Richard, one of them from yesterday afternoon, one from this morning. The afternoon one says, Call me when you’re settled. The morning one says, Are you settled?
I send a reply. Settled. Internet just went up. Will call this evening your time. — J.
Then I open Teams and spend the next twenty minutes replying to messages.
I’m about to open the project tracking software for the waterfront project when curiosity bites at me.
I don’t get involved much any more in the Parish Ridge project.
I designed the buildings and then I stepped back.
Occasionally, someone will ask me for my opinion on some minor thing, but I’ve not looked at it in any real way for over two years.
I’m still in the project channel for Parish Ridge, although I muted it years ago.
I open it up and read through. Most of the chatter is mundane. People apologizing for dropping out of meetings or asking for sign off on various parts of the build.
But there’s also chatter about the town hall that was just held.
Another three hours of town-meeting last night, kill me
Feels like they think if they drag it out long enough the project goes away.
Welcome to working with the locals lads
Honestly at this point I’d just like someone to explain the word “progress” using small words
Last night a woman asked if we’d be “paving over the aquifer.” I nearly lost it.
She didn’t even know what an aquifer is
They don’t. That’s the problem.
NIMBY bingo: 1. water table 2. traffic 3. “character of the area” 4. schools 5. “we’ve always”
You forgot “my grandfather”
“My grandfather would be turning in his grave” — every public meeting, every time
yokels
Lads don’t put that in writing
Fine. Rural stakeholders. Lol.
I can hear the shake of the pumps from the table that I am sitting at. Wyatt Briggs, I don’t particularly care about, but I like Caleb and Matthew, especially Matthew. He’s a great kid.
I don’t know why Briggs is still here. He would have been made some kind of offer that mitigated the damage done. I know that much. He can’t have taken it.
Or maybe he’s one of those crazy misers who everyone only finds out is a multi-millionaire the moment that he dies.
But something, sitting at the edge of my memory, has started scratching. Not about the channel. About the project.
There was something about groundwater. There was a subsection on dewatering during foundation works, and I remember — or I think I remember — that the projected drawdown cone extended somewhat further than the original modeling had assumed.
I remember reading that line and thinking, that’ll be an issue for legal to deal with.
I wonder what the radius is. I’m about to go searching for the documentation when the mudroom door opens.
My hand is already closing the laptop before I have thought about it.
Briggs has taken his boots off in the mudroom. He is in socks, and his shirt is damp at the collarbones with sweat, and his hair is flattened where a cap has been on it and a line of dust runs along the inside of his forearm from wrist to elbow.
He smells, very faintly, of horse and diesel.
“The internet is up,” I say.
He gives me a nod, not looking me in the eye and walks through the kitchen on his way to somewhere else in the house.
I hear him go up the stairs. A door shuts somewhere above.
Fine. Weirdo.
I work. I work through the afternoon. I answer emails and I draft a list of questions for the waterfront project team.
The Wi-Fi is excellent. I put my headphones on and listen to music while I work.
I don’t know how anyone manages without internet.
I need my Spotify. I’d be surprised if Briggs knows what it is.
I hear the car turning into the yard at three forty, and a few minutes later Matthew comes up the porch steps two at a time, the way he does, and the screen door bangs behind him. Caleb is quieter, a step behind. Matthew is already talking before he is all the way into the kitchen.
“Julian. Julian. Is it working? I can see the satellite!”
“We’re live.” I turn the laptop so he can see that I’ve got Chrome open. “Full signal.”
“Oh wow,” he says. Then, “I have homework but you need to show me how to connect on Mom’s old computer.”