Chapter 9
NINE
Love is when you like something really much.
By the time I closed up the café, prepped as much as I could for Monday, ran a couple of errands, and made it back home, it was after two. Gil was already there.
I had a feeling Gil was never late for anything.
If his car in the driveway wasn’t enough of a clue, when I went to change into something that didn’t smell like maple syrup and bacon, I saw the tent.
In fact, it was hard to miss seeing as he’d erected it to the right of the broken-down trailer, about twenty yards from the house, and directly in front of my bedroom window.
The tent was neon-highlighter yellow, so bright it probably glowed in the dark.
It was smaller than I expected, big enough for perhaps two adults with a little neon-yellow awning over the entrance.
Beside it, he’d placed a camping chair (blue, not yellow) with what looked to be a portable firepit in front of it.
It was early February. In Texas, that could mean anything from twenty degrees to eighty. Thankfully for Gil, it had been a mild winter, and the temp hovered around sixty-five. Perfectly acceptable tent weather. Even if it was supposed to dip into the forties tonight, he’d be fine.
Probably.
Oliver had his face pressed against the large window that faced the backyard when I made it back to the kitchen lugging a basket of clothes to throw in the wash. “That’s a cool tent, Mommy. Look!”
“I saw it.”
“Can we go say hi, please?” He bounced over to me. “Pretty please?”
I guess it would have to happen sooner than later. With a sigh, I set the basket of clothes on the kitchen counter and ushered Oliver to the side door. But when I opened it, Gil was in front of it, a hand raised to knock.
I startled and then got annoyed I’d been startled. “What do you want?”
“Thank you for such a warm welcome,” he said dryly. “I was hoping I could see the kitchen and bathroom since I’ll need to use them. My tent didn’t come with plumbing.”
“Right. Come on.” I stepped aside and let him into the kitchen. I may want him to sleep outside for Oliver’s safety, but I’d already come to terms with the fact that he would need to use the bathroom and kitchen. I didn’t have to be happy about it, though.
Oliver pressed against my side. I put a hand on his head. “This is Oliver. Oliver, this is Mr. Dalton.”
Gil crouched down to Oliver’s level. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“You, too. I like your tent. It’s the same color as a banana. Is yellow your favorite color? My favorite color is red or sometimes blue,” Oliver said. “When I grow up and go be a pale-tologist and study dinosaurs, I’m going to live in a tent. Maybe just like yours.”
“You like dinosaurs?” Gil asked.
Oliver was obsessed with dinosaurs. Everyone told me he’d get over it and move on to something else.
But he seemed to double down. He’d had three straight years of dinosaur-themed birthday parties.
His favorite book was a giant encyclopedia of dinosaurs.
All his pajamas had dinosaurs on them at his insistence.
Oliver nodded. “I love dinosaurs. I’m gonna go get my favorite dinosaur toy and show you.”
Before anyone could say another word, he took off, his feet pounding through the house.
“No running,” I yelled.
“’Kay.” The pounding stopped and then started up again, a little less loudly.
Gil stood up slowly and faced me. “Cute kid.”
“Yeah, he is. And he’s sweet and wants to be everyone’s friend,” I said, giving him a pointed look.
He held up a hand. “I get it.”
“Good.”
“Great.” Our eyes met and I got a wobbly sort of feeling in my stomach. Frowning, I looked away and crossed my arms; he rubbed the back of his neck.
“I guess I should give you the tour.” I’d spent time after Oliver went to bed last night tidying up as best I could, but I knew the house was…unique. I waved a hand around the room. “This is the kitchen.”
It was my favorite room in the house. Right out of a nineteen sixties design magazine, with lime-green Formica countertops, oak cabinets, and dark-green linoleum floors.
You’d think since I spent so much time baking for the café, I’d be tired of kitchens by the time I got home, but all the best things happened in kitchens.
Families congregated, food was cooked and enjoyed, people talked and laughed, milestones were celebrated.
At least that’s how it had always been at my house growing up.
In the kitchen, I’d felt one step ahead of the rest of my siblings.
My brother could brag about winning a football game, my sisters about an art project or basketball game or grades, but me?
I could brag about two things: drama club and baking.
I turned to ask Gil if he planned to cook a lot and found him standing in front of the wall above the little round kitchen table, arms crossed as he studied the wall.
“What is this?”
“Oh, that.” I moved next to him. “It’s something to keep me organized.”
It had been Sunny who suggested I might have ADHD and encouraged me to seek a diagnosis.
That had been a huge step for me. And, let’s face it, it explained a lot.
But a diagnosis was just that…it wasn’t a cure.
So, Sunny helped me find ways to calm myself when the overwhelm overtook me.
She helped me set up systems. Some of those failed spectacularly and some of them I’d adopted as part of my life.
This one had worked.
I’d used painter’s tape to create three connected boxes. One labeled TODAY, another said SOON and yet another said FUTURE. Each box held brightly colored sticky notes.
One task per note. The TODAY box was only allowed to have three notes at any given time.
But the other two boxes were crowded with sticky notes upon sticky notes, hastily scribbled tasks I needed to complete.
Things like all my hopeful house projects, a reminder to pay a bill or make a dentist appointment.
But it was only the TODAY box I had to worry about.
Three little notes I could do right now.
When I cleared one off, I found another to replace it.
Today’s three notes:
Make two pies for church potluck tomorrow
Grocery list
Two loads of laundry
The visual helped.
So did medication.
It wasn’t a secret I had ADHD, and it was nothing I was embarrassed about. Which made the curl of discomfort in my stomach all the more surprising. Why did I care what Gilbert Dalton thought of me? He glanced at me, his eyes more curious than anything, and I opened my mouth, ready to defend myself.
“It’s smart. Good idea.”
That took the wind out of my sails. “Oh, thanks.”
I snatched the note about the grocery list from the wall and crumpled it up. It always felt satisfying to throw one of these away. A mini hit of dopamine, I guess.
I scanned the SOON box, passed over GET OIL CHANGE and HAIRCUT and FINISH MOM’S SLIPPER. Reaching across Gil, I pulled off the note that said GET V DAY CARDS FOR O’S CLASS and stuck it in the TODAY box.
Gil turned toward the kitchen. “Am I allowed to store food in here?”
I marched to the cabinet on the right of the stove, a cabinet I didn’t use much because the middle shelf was missing one of those pegs that kept it level. If the items weren’t balanced just so, they’d all fall out when the cabinet opened. He could have that one.
“Only because I don’t want to attract the coyotes with food outside.”
He froze at the word coyote. “Thanks.”
I quickly pulled out the paper goods I had stored in it. “Is that enough room or do you require half the cabinets?”
“That’s fine.”
“Great.” I grabbed a sticky notepad—I kept them everywhere to make sure I could write things down as I remembered them—and wrote GIL. I stuck it on the cabinet.
He scowled. “Gilbert.”
“Close enough.” I popped the lid back on the pen. “Let’s go see the rest of the house.”
As we passed the window looking out on to his tent, Gil asked, “There aren’t really coyotes out there, are there?”
“Oh, no. I mean, probably not.” I bustled out of the kitchen without looking back. That way he couldn’t seem my fiendish grin.
We trooped through the living room and to the hallway where the bedrooms were.
“Is this a sliding glass door in the middle of the house?” Gil asked.
“What? You don’t have one of these in your house?” I patted the door, which we always kept open.
A hundred years ago, this house had only two rooms. Over the years, each generation had added onto it without any real concern for aesthetics. This was a house built for practical purposes.
“The dining room and this formal living room were added on in a renovation in the sixties. They never bothered to take out the sliding glass door when they did it.”
“Huh.”
“Gives it character, don’t you think?”
I liked to think of it as a Franken-house, parts pieced together with screws and nails.
Not pretty, but it did the job. There was a certain charm in it, quirky though it might be.
Some part of me felt a little like this house.
I often felt like a Franken-woman, pieced together from all my dumb life choices.
Sunny said I needed to give myself grace. I bet Sunny’s man picker was working just fine, though.
“There are four bedrooms. Oliver has the smallest one, there. Mine is next to his.” I paused and slid him a sideways glance. “It has a very sturdy lock on it, too.”
“Don’t lock it on my account,” he muttered.
“The one at the end is Ollie’s room. I haven’t been in there since, you know. It didn’t feel right.” Pushing aside a wave of sadness at the thought of Ollie, I patted the door across from mine. “This is a spare bedroom. For guests.”
He pressed his lips together but didn’t say a word. He wanted to though, I could see it in his eyes, the way they fairly glistened with sarcasm.
I opened the next door. “And this is the only bathroom. At least for now. I think there might be one in Ollie’s room, though.”