Chapter 15
MILES
My hands flex around the old, flaking wood that cries out when I pull it off the side of the porch. As promised, Carter and I are working to fix up Ivy’s front porch before she calls one of us to say that her foot’s gone through an old board.
“I went to the lumber yard yesterday after my shift and picked up fresh siding. It’s in the shed on the side of the house.
” Carter flicks his chin towards the structure off the back of the house.
“I also got some sealant and a sprayer to make applying it faster so we aren’t here until the sun goes down. ”
“You got somewhere to be?” I ask as I pull another board off the side of the porch. A bead of sweat drips down the side of my face. My arm comes up to wipe it away instinctively.
“I have some property I want to go look at if I have the time,” he responds, heading back towards the shed, presumably to get the new wood. My eyes narrow on the back of his head as he goes.
“Property? What property?” I ask when he returns, hauling several pieces of lumber over his shoulder. “You moving?”
For the longest time, Carter and I have lived just a few blocks from the firehouse to make our commute as easy as possible. This is the first I’ve heard of him wanting to move let alone buy a piece of property.
“Thinkin’ about it,” he answers, keeping his tone short.
He dumps the new boards onto the ground and heads back for more while I continue to work on pulling down the old ones.
When he rounds the corner of the house with another load, I’m about to ask him more about his property search when another voice cuts me off.
“Ivy wants to know if you two are coming in for breakfast or not?” Willow asks, leaning against the porch frame.
“Off the banister, Willie. It’s not safe right now. Don’t you see that Miles is already starting to rip off the sideboards?” Carter points a finger at the pile of old wood I created and nearly barks at her.
She curls her lip up at him. “Do you always have to be so bossy? I was going to offer to make you a plate and bring it out but now I’m not going to.” Her voice tips up at the end before she turns to me with a smile. “Miles, would you like me to bring you out a plate so you can keep working?”
“That would be great, thank you, Willow.” I smirk back at her before she disappears into the house. When I look at Carter, he’s glaring at me. “What? You shouldn’t have snapped at her. What’s with you today?”
My normally boisterous and happy-go-lucky brother has been nothing but broody and sulking since I picked him up for our weekly breakfast with the family.
He normally talks my ear off in the car as if I don’t already see him everyday at work but today, he was silent.
He didn’t even mess with the radio like he normally does until he finds a song he likes so he can turn it all the way up and sing so bad I want to rip my ears off.
“Nothing. God forbid I try to keep her safe as we replace the front porch. I already had to glue her hand shut at one of our Sunday meals. I don’t really want to have to take her to the hospital with a broken ankle should she trip and fall like she’s always doing.”
“Well maybe next time you should be a little nicer when you look out for her, yeah?”
He flips me the bird before moving to the opposite side of the porch to start pulling back the boards we’re going to replace.
We work in silence working to strip the porch down to its studs.
Thankfully with it being mid-November, it’s not blistering hot outside, which makes the manual labor more bearable.
After a while, the front door swings open again and Willow is back on the porch.
“Here ya go, boys. Eat up.” She moves towards me first and hands me a plate full of food she and Ivy cooked up before we got here.
Turning on her heels, she walks towards the other side of the porch and drops Carter’s plate down on the railing.
When it lands, some of the food jumps up from the impact and falls to the ground.
She doesn’t say anything before spinning around and making a beeline for the front door.
“Thank you, Willow,” Carter calls out, before dropping the volume of his voice. “And I’m sorry for being a jerk.”
She pauses for a moment and casts a glance toward him over her shoulder.
They exchange a look that seems to hold more meaning than I understand and then she’s gone, disappearing inside again.
Carter flits his eyes back to me, sensing my confusion.
He spins the baseball hat he’s wearing so the bill of it covers his face and goes back to working on the porch without another word.
What the hell is going on with them today?
Once we’ve stripped the porch of the old wood that’s rotting away, we move onto cutting the new boards to size.
Being more crafty than I, Carter uses a table saw to cut them to size as I stand back and let him work.
He’s mid-cut when a police cruiser rolls up the driveway and a fully uniformed douchebag steps out.
“Ahh, look at this, Ivy’s put you two to work on your day off I see,” Coop says, slamming the door behind him.
He steps towards the backdoor and opens it, letting Lola out.
She sits and waits for him to release her and when he does, she takes off towards the house, knowing good and well who’s inside.
I jump up the first few steps of the porch and open the door to let her in and it isn’t long until I hear Ivy and Willow baby talking to her from the kitchen.
“She’s not making us do anything; we offered,” Carter explains, lifting his safety glasses from his eyes. “You wanna help?”
“I would but I got called in this morning. I’m only stopping by to see my sister and say hi to Ivy. Maybe steal some bacon while I’m at it.” Coop struts across the front yard for the porch and pulls me into a hug when he passes.
“How many more boards you need to cut?” I ask Carter once Coop steps inside. The saw is already running and when the whining sound of it spinning stops, he looks at me.
“That’s the last one. Come on, let’s get these up so we can work on replacing the steps.”
Helping him carry the planks of wood, we work together to put them in place on the porch.
Using a tool he must have brought over with the lumber, he nails each one into place in a matter of seconds.
His craftsmanship always surprises me when he brings it out.
For a guy who likes to watch old cartoons and dumps half a container of maple syrup on his waffles, it always shocks me to see this side of him.
The guy could build almost anything you ask him to even though you’d have no idea he could by talking to him.
“Where are you looking at property?” I ask him after we get one side of the porch done.
“Who’s looking at property?” Coop’s voice comes from above us. We didn’t hear him come out over the sound of the nail gun but he’s now standing over us, looking down and eating a plate full of scrambled eggs and bacon.
“Carter is.”
“You are?” he asks through a mouth full of food.
“Only if I get done with this in time, I am,” Carter groans, nailing another board into place. He doesn’t even flinch as the pop, pop, pop of the machine goes off.
“Where?” Coop asks, moving from the top of the porch to a lawn chair that’s been sitting in the front yard since we were in high school.
“Somewhere along the river, maybe on an inlet. Near water if I can find something I can afford,” Carter explains. We’ve gotten the boards up on the side and he’s taken it upon himself to start ripping out the steps so we can rebuild them.
I chuckle. “On the water? Do you know how expensive that is? I know how much you make, how are you going to be able to afford that?”
Sighing, he stands up and wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. “I don’t plan on buying new. I’m looking on the outskirts of the city, off the beaten path.”
“The only thing you’ll find out there are homes that are falling down,” Coop points out, his voice full of skepticism.
“That’s right,” Carter replies curtly. “I’m going to fix it up on my own.”
“You’re going to build your own house?” I ask, unable to hide my surprise.
“No, I’m going to fix up my own house,” he corrects. “I’m looking at older homes that have been left or forgotten and I’m going to do what I can to remodel it into a house I can live in.”
I cast a look towards Coop who shrugs.
“I think that’s great man, let me know if I can help in any way,” he praises, lifting a piece of bacon towards Carter before taking a bite out of it.
“Thanks. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to get this done for Ivy today and I have somewhere I need to be by four, so let’s focus.
” His words are directed at me before he bends over to start pulling off more boards.
Looking back towards Coop, he shakes his head as if to say ‘I have no idea, man’ and I’m left to help my brother finish the project we’d started.
“Help me! Someone! Please!” a voice calls out and I try to reach it. Running towards it, sweat drips down my face as my lungs work to breathe through the smoke.
“Anyone! Please, I’m in here!” it calls out again but no matter how hard I try, I can’t get to it. To him. I take a step towards him but before I know it, my foot is going through the floor and I’m falling, falling…
My body flails as I wake up from the nightmare, sweating profusely and trying to catch my breath.
Blinking, I take in my apartment and notice that I must’ve fallen asleep on the couch after getting home from Ivy’s.
Carter and I worked to get the porch done before he had to leave but to make it happen, we had to work at breakneck speed.
By the time four o’clock rolled around, we had completely replaced the siding and front steps and managed to seal it so it would weather properly.
All I remember after getting home is sitting down on the couch to take my shoes off but I must’ve dozed off.
Wiping the sweat from my brow, I take a deep breath and try to collect myself.
This isn’t the first time I’ve had a dream like this.
Or the second or the third. The voice of my fallen company member haunts me in my sleep since I’m the reason we couldn’t reach him.
I’m the reason his wife is now a widow and their kids will never have another holiday with their dad.
I dig the palms of my hands into my eyes, trying to force the sound of his voice out of my mind for good but it doesn’t work.
A panicked feeling starts to creep into my gut the more I think about it.
Do something. Distract yourself.
Looking around, my eye catches the small piece of paper that’s been sitting on my coffee table for the last three weeks since she gave it to me. ‘I’m always here if you need anything.’
Right now I needed a distraction and while she told me there was nothing between us at our last session, she had told me if I ever needed to talk, I could reach out.
I find my phone to open a new text and am grateful when I notice it’s not even nine o’clock. My late afternoon nap is going to fuck with my sleep schedule but I don’t care. The only thing I care about right now is getting the gnawing feeling in my gut to go away as quickly as possible.
I type a message quickly and reread it a few times before sending it off.
Hey, doc, you busy?
I half expect her to ignore my text since that’s what she did last weekend. To my surprise, she starts texting me back almost immediately.
Not at all. Something wrong?
Is something wrong? I don’t know, is it wrong if I continue to have nightmares where I hear the desperate cries of a fallen comrade over and over?
I just needed someone to talk to. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.
Not at all! I’m just sitting at home working.
Working? On a Sunday night? Who works on a Sunday night?
No, no, not *working* working. I’m working on a project.
My eyebrows press together as I read her text.
What kind of project?
You promise not to laugh?
I’d never laugh at you, doc.
Smile, maybe. Think about kissing you, definitely. But not laugh.
It takes a moment for her to respond but when she does, it’s a picture of something. I pull my phone closer to my face and zoom in on the photo, trying to understand what it is. It’s some sort of knitted animal I can’t seem to make out.
I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to explain that to me. What is it exactly?
Lol it’s a very poorly crocheted bunny. I’m having a hard time with its ears. For some reason they keep coming out lopsided and deranged looking. Poor thing looks like the good lord was drunk when he made them.
I burst out laughing at her text. Not because she crochets, but because of her joke. I zoom in again on the photo when I notice a piece of fabric poking into the corner. Zooming in closer, I see the very distinct outline of what look like pajama pants with tiny strawberries printed on them.
I can see it now that you’ve said it. It doesn’t look deranged, it looks…
Deranged? Possessed? Like someone smacked it with a baseball bat then threw it into a blender?
I laugh again.
Okay yeah, maybe a little deranged.
Cute jammies, by the way. I like the strawberries ;)
What?
Oh…thanks I was about to head to bed since I’m a grandma. This is what I do to wind down and chill before going to sleep.
Oh shoot am I keeping you up? I’m sorry I can let you go.
No it’s fine. I told you to reach out if you needed anything, I’m glad you did.
Is there anything you want to talk about?
I know it’s her job to ask but the question still stings. I force out a breath and stare at my phone before replying.
Not really. Getting to see your deranged bunny was enough. I appreciate you texting me back, doc.
Of course. Maybe we can pick up this conversation on Thursday when I see you again?
Thursday sounds good.
Have a good night Hanna.
You too, Miles
Looking at the screen, I consider sending another message.
Something. Anything. But I also don’t want to keep her up or be the reason she doesn’t get to finish her project.
She would be someone who crochets. I laugh to myself thinking about her curled up on her couch, needles in hand, twisting and turning the yarn until it becomes something entirely new.
Maybe I should get a hobby, I think to myself but the thought is gone as quickly as it comes.
Tapping on the photo she sent, I zoom in on the corner where I can see a sliver of her leg and a pair of pajama shorts just out of reach.
Strawberry pajamas and deranged looking crocheted bunnies.
Guess there’s more to the good doctor than meets the eye.
Maybe one day if I’m lucky, she’ll let me see this side of her more often.