Chapter 9 #2
My mother and everyone else would have been upset if I cried on my cake, not to mention how nasty it was to drip tears on food, so I fell back on my pageant training.
I attempted the smile that was reserved for when we won something: “Show me surprised, delighted, and humble!” Aunt Amber had told us, and we’d done our best to make our features demonstrate those emotions.
Whatever I was doing now, it must have worked.
Everyone smiled back at me and clapped.
I got busy cutting the slices and my mama brought out the sheet cake she’d made and cut that, too, so that all the guests got a piece.
They were having fun and it was delicious, and after they’d had their fill of the dessert, everyone started to peel off and head for home or to another Saturday night activity.
It was early and in years past, I would have gone somewhere else, too, like maybe a bar around here, or maybe to dance in Chattanooga.
After my twentieth, I’d woken up in Atlanta without a lot of memory of how I’d gotten there and then…
that hadn’t been a good day.
I put my plate in the kitchen sink and looked through the window above it at the swings.
They moved a little in the breeze, like invisible children were on them.
Aria could bring her kids over to play and my parents would like that a lot.
I’d ask her if she would do me that favor.
Marc and Taygen might, too, if they stayed together.
He had left quickly after kissing my cheek, and I hadn’t brought up that his fiancée had disappeared a while before that.
“Why are you standing here by yourself, sighing?” Caleb asked from behind me.
I turned to him and resumed the “surprised, happy, and delighted” smile, but when he frowned back, I dropped it.
“I was just thinking about when we were kids,” I explained.
“I’ve had a lot of birthdays here, so many birthdays.”
“Not that many,” he disagreed, and I shrugged.
He was the one who had been so far ahead in math, so obviously he could count.
“I need to help my mom clean up and then I’ll drive Aunt Paula home.”
“I’ll help, too,” he offered, and did.
I could see how much he rose in my parents’ estimation as he picked up plates and dried what my dad washed, and the house returned to a much better order.
Aunt Paula was asleep in one of the recliners as we tiptoed into the living room.
“How about your present?” Caleb suggested quietly.
I had opened Aria’s before she’d left.
She’d given me a beautiful gold bracelet with little charms on it, including an A, a K, and a C for Cassidy, who hadn’t been able to come back for this silly little party, of course.
“You really didn’t have to get anything. What could it be?” I wondered as I picked up the shoebox.
Inside was a pair of very expensive tennis shoes, much, much nicer than the ones I wore.
“They’re for running,” he explained.
“You’re going so much farther and you needed them. I got your size from your old ones, but I can exchange them if they don’t fit right.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“I love them!”
“They’re pink,” he pointed out.
“They match Sir’s collar.”
“This was so thoughtful. Sir, look at my new shoes,” I offered, and he did pick up his head for a moment before settling it again on Aunt Paula’s feet.
If his mouth ever got near these, he would be in for it.
“I’m sorry I was late and missed so much of the party,” Caleb told me.
“I had a problem at my house.”
“Oh, no.” My thoughts went immediately to the barn.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t have any water.” He rubbed his knuckles against his lips.
“It worked fine this afternoon, but when I turned on the faucet again later, there was only air. I had noticed that it was getting cloudier but it was never very clear anyway, and it always tasted terrible.”
“Did you call the water company?”
“We have a well, and I have no idea how my mother put that in. She probably had it dug in the cheapest way and probably not legally, if that’s even a concern. There’s more I have to learn about that topic.” He sounded less than thrilled.
“Anyway, I’m going a hotel tonight.”
“Don’t be silly. You have another house,” I reminded him.
“Come up and sleep on the mountain.”
“There are no extra beds.”
“We can pack more of your stuff at the farm and put your twin mattress in the truck. Sir and I can sleep on that because we’ll fit better than you do.”
“He’ll fit better than I do?” We both looked at the floor, where the dog’s sprawled body covered an area about as large as Middle Tennessee.
“No, it’s my bed and I’ll lie on it.”
I had a strong desire to get Caleb out of that dark, sad farmhouse, in a permanent way.
“You don’t know how long it will take to fix your well, and you don’t want to waste money at a hotel when you already have another house that’s perfectly fine.”
Being a person who was good at economic stuff, he eventually agreed with me.
He did say that I wouldn’t pay him any rent for the time that he was in the house with me, though.
We left the sleepers, Aunt Paula and Sir, and went to the farm to load his truck.
It was worse there at night.
I had grown up on a street with other houses on either side, but I’d never been bothered by being out in nature.
This, however…it was so still, but it wasn’t peaceful.
It seemed to be waiting.
I shivered as he unlocked the front door.
“Kayleigh?”
“Yes?” I answered.
“You’re standing on the backs of my shoes,” Caleb said.
“You’re also holding on to my belt.”
“Sorry.” I gave him more room to breathe.
It didn’t take too long to carry down his bed, and he already had a bag packed for the night.
“If I can’t get things fixed quickly, I’ll come back for the crap in my office,” he mentioned, frowning into that room.
“You know, I was thinking that you might want to rent a little space in town. They have really cute offices available in the old bank building, and I know for a fact that there’s air conditioning because Cassidy used to work there one summer.”
“It’s something to think about. Did you talk to her today?”
“She called, but I missed it. She and Jack left a message, singing to me. But she’ll be back soon to go to the doctor here. She wants to have the baby in Tennessee.” Everyone knew about her pregnancy now, so Sir and I didn’t have to keep the secret.
“Her voice has changed.”
“Mine did, too, around my fourteenth birthday.”
“No,” I said, smiling.
“I mean that for the last few years, she sounded flat. Now it’s like there’s so much joy in her that it comes out when she speaks.”
He smiled too, but also covered it with his fist. “That’s nice.”
“Why do you do that?”
“What?” he asked, and I took his fist in my two hands.
“You cover your face when you smile and laugh. When you get mad, you do it, too. Why?”
“Habit. What else do I need here?” he asked me, and we did another walk-through.
I kept myself from kicking his heels but I was very close, and I was very glad when we stepped off the creaking porch and climbed into the truck.
Neither Sir nor Aunt Paula wanted to be disturbed when we returned to my parents’ house.
“I was comfortable,” she grumbled.
“You’ll be better in your own bed.”
She held up her index finger.
“You may be right, but don’t patronize me, young lady.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered promptly and behind her, my mother rolled her eyes.
We got them loaded up, the dog into the truck and my aunt into the car with its extremely gentle ride.
“So he’s coming to stay?” she asked, looking at the headlights in our rearview.
“Caleb’s having some maintenance problems at the farm. We brought his bed so that he could have one of the guest rooms,” I said, speaking slowly so that she would get the information correct.
It was important that she had it right, since she’d share it with everyone else.
“That’s plain dumb.”
“What?” l glanced over, confused.
“If I had him in my house, I’d have him in my bed, not some guest room.”
“Aunt Paula, would you really?”
“What are you waiting for?” she asked me.
“You haven’t had a problem attracting men in the past.”
“They didn’t have a problem dropping me afterwards, either,” I reminded her.
“Caleb’s not like my other boyfriends.”
“In the dark, they’re all the same.”
“Aunt Paula!”
“Do as you please,” she sniped crankily.
“My back hurts from that recliner.”
Maybe it wasn’t as comfortable as she’d previously mentioned.
“I’m sorry. This car has seat heaters and that might help.” We messed with buttons and knobs until she said it did feel better.
“I used to watch you with your boyfriends and worry,” she mentioned after a while.
She didn’t know the half of it, either.
“I guess the ones I brought around weren’t so great.” I remembered how my parents had insisted on meeting one of them, and I’d forced him to attend church with me.
It had been a big error.
He’d gotten a call during the service and his ringtone had been a raunchy song with words that were not church- or parent-appropriate.
He did get up and leave before he’d started talking, but when we all went to the parking lot?
He hadn’t been there to give me the ride I needed, because he’d left for real.
My relatives hadn’t been impressed, but I’d gotten a lift with the son of other parishioners.
The two of us had gone to a bar and I’d had a beer with some shots as chasers, and I’d stopped being concerned about the ringtone or my former boyfriend’s disappearance.
“I was embarrassed for you,” Aunt Paula continued.
“Well, it may make you happy to know that I’m embarrassed about it now, too,” I shot back.
“I’m sorry that I brought any of them home to meet y’all.”
“I knew you should have had better, but you never seemed to know it yourself,” she said.
“Silly girl.”
She was in such a mood that I didn’t want to engage in more conversation, and she dozed again as we drove to the Brow Road where she lived.
I helped her out of the car, somewhat begrudgingly, and walked her to her door.
“Well, I’m sorry,” she announced as she opened it.
“I got my dander up and I’m sorry.”
“That’s ok. I do appreciate that you worry about me,” I answered.
She walked inside but then turned around.
“I’ve liked my life.”
I took a step backwards.
“Please don’t start talking about how you’re going to die, not today. It’s my birthday.”
“That’s why I’m telling you,” she snapped.
“I’ve liked my life and I didn’t want a husband or children. I thought about it, but I don’t even want a little dog.”
“Ok,” I said, and retreated another step away.
“You and I aren’t the same,” Aunt Paula said.
“I think you’ll be very unhappy if you don’t have those things, and I hate to think that what happened is going to ruin it for you. Don’t let it.”
“It’s my birthday,” I repeated, but now my voice sounded reedy.
“I really don’t want to discuss this.”
“I’m sorry, Kayleigh. Come here and let me hug you.” She did, and then I left.
I took the long, long way home to give myself a moment.
Caleb and Sir had already arrived and were unloading the truck by the time I pulled into the driveway at the rental house.
The dog ran over to greet me when I got out of the nice car.
I felt that he probably hadn’t been much help with the unpacking, but I stepped in to do my part.
“Where were you?” Caleb asked as we carried his mattress up the stairs.
“Aunt Paula wanted to talk. No, you need to go on the other side of the hall,” I directed as he started toward a bedroom.
“The lights aren’t good on the left.” JT and Owen were working on it, but it was a big job to fix this big place.
“The whole side of the house is out? Hell.” He leaned the mattress against the wall of one of the guest rooms. “I have two shitty houses.”
“I have not even one shitty house,” I told him, and sniffled.
Apparently, the extra-long trip hadn’t been long enough for me to get a handle on my emotions.
I wished, pretty hard, that I could have a drink to help to wash them away.
“Hell,” Caleb repeated as he looked at me, and Sir took up crying, too.
“Is this some, uh, problem about being old?”
I wasn’t going to drink so I took a firm grip on myself, because I was making the dog so upset and Caleb so confused.
“No,” I said. “I know that more than a quarter of my life is gone, wasted in a stupid way, and that I’ll never get it back or be able to repair the damage I’ve done. But at this moment, I’m not upset about that.”
“Oh.”
“And I’m not really crying about Taygen getting mad at me and accusing me of trying to ruin her relationship with Marc, even though I’ve been the one trying to salvage it for both of them.”
“She said that to you? That was a shitty thing to do.” His own emotions switched from confusion to anger.
“On your birthday, when she was supposed to sing and eat cake?”
“She left before the cake,” I assured him.
“I’m not even upset that the whole birthday deal was just a pity party.”
“You mean, people sitting around feeling sorry for themselves?” Caleb was back to confusion.
“Is that what was happening at your parents’ house? I didn’t pick up on it at all. But I’m very bad at this.”
“No, not that kind of pity party,” I corrected.
“I mean that the guests felt pity for me, since I’m getting so old and there’s nothing else to celebrate, not a degree in school, or career advancement, or a home purchase. There’s definitely no bridal shower or christening coming up.”
“So, uh, this is actually about being old? I think I’ve lost the thread,” he admitted.
“No. No, and I’m ok,” I told him.
“I’m a very lucky person. I have parents, relatives, friends, and a dog who all care about me, no matter what I’ve done in the past. Which is a topic I’m not getting into,” I said as a sidenote.
“I did a bunch of affirmations just this morning and I reminded myself that I’m lucky and fortunate. It wasn’t that long ago that we fell off your porch and I was so happy!”
“Happy?” he questioned.
“You got a big scrape on your arm and I had a bruise on my…back. I wasn’t happy about that at all, because I learned I have wood rot. And I’m sorry, but I still don’t understand why you were just about to cry. Was it due to one of those problems or is there something else that I should know? Did I do something?”
“No,” I told him.
“You should have texted that you were going to be late so I didn’t worry that your truck had broken down on one of those lonely roads and bears had attacked you, but it’s really not about something that you did.”
“When was the last bear attack in Sequatchie County? I’m sorry that I didn’t let you know what was happening. I tried to see what was wrong with the water and then I was so pissed, I threw things in my bag and left. I’m glad that you’re not upset because of something I did, but I’m still lost.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, and tucked the sheet around his tiny mattress.
“I’m really thankful for the shoes, by the way. I love them and I’ll wear them to run tomorrow before we leave for church.”
He smiled in a hesitating kind of way.
“Good. You know what else would be good? I know there’s a new ten-part series on travel in South America. I’ve never been there, and I’m very interested.”
“That does sound interesting.” I blew out a breath.
“I’m sorry to be such a mess.” He followed me as I went toward the stairs.
“Well, it’s your birthday. Isn’t there a song about crying if you want to?”
“Something like that,” I agreed.
“I don’t really want to, though, and this was the last birthday that I’m celebrating. Today was the last party, the last cake, and the last gifts. The birthday phase of my life is now over.”
“I don’t think you’ll be able to stop them from coming but if you want to ignore them, then I’ll go along with that. Sir, there’s not enough room for the three of us.” The dog reluctantly jumped down and Caleb joined me on the couch in front of my laptop.
“Could I do this?” He put his arm around my shoulders.
“Whatever was making you upset, I hope you feel better.”
I rested my head against him.
“I’m glad you came up here.”
“Me too.” He pulled me a little closer, and we learned a lot about South America.