Chapter 6 #2
“It was an emotional call. Cass has had a hard time over the last few years.” I gave him the bare-bones description of the trauma of her life as we went inside the Woodson family home, which was also my new home.
Despite the neglect of the last few decades, it was still a very nice place.
A big front hall, one that had enough room for the rug that Aunt Paula had forced on me, opened to a living room, dining room, office, and library.
They were all spacious, too, and they all had lovely wood moldings that Marc would have admired a lot.
He hadn’t been a guest yet, but he’d be checking this out soon enough.
Things were busy at the barn…
Anyway, there was also a powder room and a very large kitchen with a seating area attached.
Upstairs, there were five bedrooms and bathrooms to go along with them and yes, it was a big house for a single woman and her dog, even if he was over a hundred pounds now.
It was big and empty, because my tiny kitchen table, little couch, and bed frame didn’t fill much of it.
And yes, it was also run-down.
The tenants who’d been living here for twenty-odd years had gone along without doing many (if any) repairs, and it appeared that, unlike her son, Lara-Lee Woodson had been a very hands-off landlord.
When Caleb and I had first come up to check out the place, we found that the electricity wasn’t working in all the rooms, the pillars on the porch were definitely rotting, and the water that emerged from the bathroom and kitchen faucets was a scary color of orange.
It seemed ok to use for showers and it did come out with force, unlike the taps at his farm which only trickled, but I wasn’t drinking it and neither was Sir.
We had bottled.
In spite of those things, I felt extremely lucky to have this place for the two of us.
It was in a lovely neighborhood and Aunt Paula was thrilled that more McCourts had joined her on the mountain.
In fact, I was lucky in many areas of my life, because now there was Cassidy’s wedding, too.
That was going to be one of my new affirmations tomorrow morning: you’re so fortunate.
“Hawaii is beautiful,” Caleb commented after I’d wrapped up Cassidy’s story.
“You’ve been there?”
“We never went anywhere when I was a kid because there was so much to do on the farm, but I did some traveling once I had the money,” he said.
“I didn’t go very much.”
“Because you’ve been busy,” I filled in.
Too busy to travel, too busy to find love.
“I used to read about all these places, just like how you watch the documentaries about them. Unfortunately, the books caused my expectations to be a little dated. My mother didn’t believe in modern literature.”
“Like, you thought the citizens of Rome would wear togas?” Sir and I had been watching a ten-part series on ancient peoples of Europe.
He smiled. “Not that bad. I also didn’t really think I’d find horse-drawn carriages in the mews in London or a queen in Hawaii.”
“There was a queen?”
We looked up more information about the islands and Cassidy sent a flurry of texts and emails, too, telling Aria and me what we should pack, where we would stay, and what we would be doing once we got there.
It was going to be a short trip, since Jack (her soon-to-be husband) would have to return to his music tour.
In answer to my question: yes, she had already found a dress, and she sent pictures.
She told us that we should wear whatever we wanted, whatever made us happy.
“I’m so happy too!!!” she wrote, and she’d never been a multiple-exclamation point kind of girl.
“Kayleigh?” Caleb asked.
I realized that I’d been lost in thought.
“Are you hungry for dinner?”
“I am,” I agreed.
“We have the stuff that my mom dropped off.” Concerned that I wasn’t eating well without any post-church leftovers to prop up my diet, she’d come by the office with a huge cooler of food, and a toy for Sir.
They were making up, I supposed.
I’d managed to keep Marc out of the containers but that was mostly because he was working a lot at the barn project.
A real lot. I’d asked him if he felt like he was over his head and he said no, but he’d been so upset by my question.
He had asked me why I would doubt him and I’d felt terrible and had said that of course I didn’t!
But I was worried.
“The reason I ask,” Caleb said, breaking into my thoughts again, “is that you’re crying more. I thought maybe it was low blood sugar?”
“Probably,” I said as I wiped my cheeks.
“Also, I’m overwhelmed about Cassidy. I knew it was going to happen, because Jack loves her so much and she feels the same way about him. At every one of his concerts, he mentions her. He has this group of fans named the Call Girls, and they keep track of everything he says because they think it’s so sweet. It really is, too.”
“What did you just say about his fans? Their group is named…”
“He’s Jack Calder , so they’re the Call Girls. They add the extra L because they love him so much.”
Caleb looked as if he’d smelled something unpleasant, such as Sir’s odor before his first ten or so baths.
“Anyway, he can’t linger in Hawaii because he has to get back to all those fans who spent a lot of money on their tickets,” I continued, “but Cass says it’s really all about the merch.” And as someone so well-versed in economics, I bet Caleb knew that already.
But he seemed confused.
“Uh, I’m not sure…what are we talking about?”
“You wanted dinner,” I reminded him.
“Yes, but you were crying,” he said.
“There’s just a lot of emotion surrounding all this. First, there’s happiness because Cassidy’s over the moon, and because I know that she and Jack are going to be great together. And I remember that you said that things weren’t going to work between Marc and his fiancée,” I pointed out, although I was also worried about that relationship.
Their argument over the shutters hadn’t been the first issue I’d had to mediate lately.
“I don’t think that every couple is going to break up. I don’t think that every marriage is going to fail, either.” He rubbed his jaw.
“So you were crying due to your cousin’s emotions of happiness?”
“Mostly,” I said, and removed his plate from the microwave that I’d brought from my former apartment.
Along with the refrigerator, it was the kitchen appliance that I was really good at.
Caleb sat down at the little table and I put in my dinner to heat next.
“I also feel like I lost her. I actually already lost her, but this makes it permanent.” I thought of what Marc had said to his fiancé.
“I sound very dramatic.”
“No, I think I understand what you mean.”
“She’ll have a new focus, which is great. I really don’t want her life to center on me!” I swore.
“But I won’t factor in much at all. I won’t really be a part of anything and I’m going to miss her. I already do and it’s just going to get worse now.”
“People grow apart, which is a reason to cry.”
“That’s part of the reason, along with the joy.” I took a paper towel from the holder I’d also brought from my former house, and I blew my nose.
“There’s all the joy but also some sadness, because she’s gaining so much but I’m losing her, too.” I put my plate on the table and sighed.
“Here I go again, telling you more terrible things about myself.”
“This sounds pretty normal, not terrible. Are you going to feel the same way when Marc gets married?”
“I’ll still see him every day,” I answered.
“He won’t be able to completely get away from me.”
“I see your philosophy about boyfriends extends to other relationships as well.” He laughed behind his fist and it made me laugh, too, although he was correct.
If I could have grabbed and physically held onto all the people I loved, I would have.
We took another walk with Sir after dinner, but the morning runs that he and I were taking now really did a lot to tire him, and I personally felt done in.
Aria was excitedly texting about the wedding, like about what we would wear and what her kids would wear, how she’d never been to Hawaii and I knew how she got sunburned (I did know that after dealing with several problems in our youth when she’d wanted “a little color” and things went wrong).
When she’d gotten married, we’d stood with her in a rainy garden while her husband acted terrible.
Terrible! I told Caleb and Sir about that day and how rotten Cain had been in the weeks after the event, too.
“You never would have thought that it would work out,” I said as we returned to the house, and I raised my eyebrows to emphasize the significance of that statement.
“But it did work out,” Caleb filled in, and frowned at the small overhead light fixture above the front door.
“It’s pretty dark. Are you scared?”
“Of the dark?” I asked, puzzled.
“No.”
“You got so nervous when you were in the farmhouse. Because of the mice,” he reminded me.
“Because of Sir. He was the one who got nervous and then he turned very threatening. I bet if someone broke into this place, he’d be mad. Unless they brought cheese.”
“Or a pot roast,” Caleb suggested.
“Or any food item.”
He had to leave not long after that, to drive back to that house with the mice in the walls and the lack of heat.
“I don’t know how you can take it,” I said.
I stood in his vehicle’s open door and he wasn’t able to close it, but he didn’t appear bothered about having to stay a little longer.
“How can you go from this warm truck into your freezing house?”
“I’m used to it. That was how I grew up, too.”
I hadn’t thought about it before, but now I imagined Caleb as a child in the cold bedroom where there was no fireplace, and with scrabbling mice in the walls.
“I don’t know why anyone would choose to live in a place like that with a kid.”
“She was different from you.”
“Is that why you moved to Florida? Because it’s warm there?”
“Ostensibly, I moved for business reasons.” He paused.
“In the back of my mind, I was also glad that it was warm in the winter. Just like Hawaii will be,” he pointed out.
“You’ll have a great vacation in the tropical sun, get to swim in the ocean, and enjoy some good poke.”
“You almost sound like you’re doing an affirmation,” I said, and he grinned.
“I’ve been doing them every morning. ‘Today, you won’t micromanage Marc in the barn,’” he said, and he did a pretty good imitation of me imitating my aunt Amber.
“This morning, they carried out my mom’s old desk. Now it’s on the front porch of the house.”
“Why was her desk in the barn? Were you storing it there?”
“No, she spent a lot of time in that building, working.”
Of course, since it was cold, dark, and dingy.
The perfect office space!
I stepped away from his door to allow him to leave.
“You spend a lot of time working, too, so you need to rest. We’ll see you soon.”
I watched the truck go and turned to Sir, who was crying quietly.
“No, it’s ok! We really will see him soon.”
Either the dog didn’t understand or he didn’t believe me, because he kept up the sad sounds.
“Let’s go inside and get a piece of cheese,” I suggested, and he liked that idea a lot.
We entered the dim foyer, where the old chandelier wasn’t functioning at all even with new bulbs, and the outlets in the walls didn’t work either.
I’d already called my cousin Amory’s husband, an electrician, to see if he could come up and take a look.
Caleb was giving me such a good deal on the rent that I’d figured I could help him out in return by getting some repairs done on my own.
I’d depend on JT and Owen to work on the wires, and my cousin Dasia could take a look at the old furnace.
A new one would probably be too expensive for me to tackle, but maybe she could tune it up, like a car engine, and give it a few more years of service.
I also wanted to talk to her and see how she was doing.
Just before Christmas, she’d gotten married and had blended her family of two kids with her new husband and his family of three.
Her mother swore it was going great, but I was interested in hearing from the source instead of relying on texts of thumbs-up or smiley faces.
I was sure the family had questions about what I was doing as well, and I had already fielded a lot of messages and calls about why and where I was moving.
I did appreciate their concern, but I hated knowing the cause of it: they thought that I couldn’t handle my life on my own—but I could, because I’d changed.
I had. Right?
Even in the dark of this February night and even with the electricity not totally great in every room, the house wasn’t at all scary like Caleb’s other place down in the valley.
I didn’t really mind the dark or the emptiness.
Sir settled down on my couch in his usual space and I took the other end, and he gradually worked his way over until he was in my lap.
I told him all about Cassidy having a baby, which was safe because he wasn’t able to spill that secret to anyone else.
“She’s so glad,” I said, and thought about it.
She and Jack would be great parents.
“What would you think?”
The dog’s eyes remained closed, but his eyebrow moved slightly.
“I’m not asking about your desire to be a dad…my Lord, that’s something I need to discuss the next time we go to the vet. I’m sorry but a mob of little Sirs running around here would be very difficult.”
I took his silence for agreement.
No, he wasn’t ready to be a parent.
“Am I?” I asked him.
“I don’t do so badly with you, do I? We still have some disciplinary problems, like how you tried to chase that truck this morning and pulled me down.”
He had no response now and after it had happened, he also hadn’t seemed very sorry.
Two neighbors had come over to help me, but I’d said that I was fine.
It was a good time to introduce myself and they had been friendly after they realized that my huge dog wasn’t going to try to kill them.
“But besides the discipline, we’re doing ok,” I said.
“I mean, you eat great. I brush your coat and your teeth, and we do our nails together. I read up on dog health all the time, and I buy you whatever you need. And the most important thing is that I love you so much. Do you know that? I love you like crazy and I think you love me, too. That’s the most important thing,” I echoed, and paused.
“Sometimes that isn’t enough. No matter how much you love someone, you can’t protect them from everything. No matter how much you love someone, you can really hurt them, too. Like how you pulled me down today. Or how I used to make my parents cry.”
My Lord!
Now I was crying again, too.
“We’re ok. Let’s go to bed now and do more affirmations. I think I could use some.”
Sir plodded along with me up the stairs and into the bedroom, to the new mattress I’d had to purchase due to the pot roast problem.
We cuddled there and I told us that we were just fine.