Chapter 2 #2
Downstairs, Mabel was braiding Adelaide’s long strawberry blond locks. Owen had the Buckley coloring—golden skin, chestnut hair, warm brown eyes—but Adelaide looked more like her mother, a fair-skinned, green-eyed redhead, every year. But that’s where their similarities ended.
“I don’t have to get too much cut off today, do I?” Adelaide looked up at me with worried eyes.
“Nope. Just a trim. But you need sunscreen on the part in your hair,” I told her, stuffing the clean towel into Owen’s backpack. “Don’t forget.”
“I can spray it before we get in the car.” Mabel quickly wrapped an elastic around the second braid and gave it a tug. “Done.”
“Mabel says we’re getting a new nanny, because she’s going on a dig,” Adelaide said. “Is that true?”
“Yes.” I pointed at two pairs of sneakers by the door. “Shoes on. Both of you.”
“What’s a dig?” Owen asked, standing still while his sister dropped down and tugged on her sneakers, then tied two perfect bows, making sure the ends of the shoelaces were even.
“It’s where you forage in the dirt to find artifacts from the past,” Mabel said dramatically. “It’s like treasure hunting for a job!”
“Wait—that’s a job? You can get paid to dig in the dirt?” Owen sounded interested in this kind of career path.
“Yes. But not much.” Mabel laughed. “Archaeologists aren’t really in it for the money.”
“Who’s going to be the new nanny?” Owen wondered.
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “We’ll have to find one.”
“Like Mary Poppins?” Adelaide’s voice rose hopefully.
“We can’t afford her.”
“Is she going to live over the garage like Aunt Mabel?” Owen had his shoes on now, but still untied.
“I guess,” I said, although I wasn’t looking forward to having a stranger up in my business. I liked order. I liked routine. I liked things done a certain way—my way—and I didn’t need someone coming in who’d ignore my instructions or, worse, try to take charge and make changes.
“Can you pick us up from camp today, Daddy?” Adelaide asked.
“Sorry, June bug.” Guilt nicked at me. “I have to work. I’m putting in a new deck out on Lighthouse Point.”
“Can’t Grandpa put in the new deck?”
“He can help, but if I wasn’t there, he’d try to do things he shouldn’t, because he forgets he’s old now.”
“You’re old too,” Owen pointed out.
“Thanks.” I bent down to tie his shoes, giving the bill of his cap a thump.
“Thirty-two isn’t that old,” Adelaide argued, and just when I was about to thank her, she added, “I mean, it’s old, but not like grandpa old.”
Mabel laughed, grabbing her bag from a chair near the front door and slinging it over her shoulder.
“Okay, so I’m dropping them at camp, then I’m going to run some errands and do some packing, then I’ll get them back here to clean up.
Next, I’ll take them for their haircuts, and afterward we’ll come home and I’ll make dinner. ”
“Don’t forget to add find replacement nanny to that list, unless you think she’s just going to magically blow in on the breeze.”
Mabel laughed and punched my shoulder. “Maybe she will.”
I followed my sister and the kids out the door, pulling it shut behind me. While they piled into her hatchback that was parked at the curb, I walked around to the driveway and jumped into a battered white pickup that said TWO BUCKLEYS HOME IMPROVEMENT on the side.
We did a little of everything—carpentry, painting, flooring, tile work, plaster repair, light remodels—and we did it well.
Despite the fact that we could have made more money if my dad would just take on more employees, he’d always insisted that Two Buckleys would remain exactly that—a small family business.
Which was why it fell to me to hire on as the second Buckley after our uncle’s death.
Not only was I the oldest brother, but at that time, I was really the only one suited for the job.
Xander had one year of school left and then planned on joining the Navy.
Devlin had still been in driver’s training and had zero interest in working with his hands. Dashiel was barely fourteen.
My dad had needed me, and I wanted to do right by him, like he’d done by us.
Waving to Arthur, our mail carrier, I made my way from our neighborhood down toward the harbor, usually only a five-minute drive.
But even though it wasn’t quite eight a.m., the traffic on Main Street was already slow, and the sidewalks were crowded with people looking for the perfect cup of coffee or handmade pastry.
Many were already dressed for the beach or a day on the boat.
With the truck windows down, I could smell the scent of fudge wafting through the air—I’d once read that Cherry Tree Harbor sold five tons of fudge every summer.
It was a small town with barely over a thousand year-round residents, but the population swelled each May to the point where it felt like every restaurant, inn, and shop was bursting at the seams, and stayed that way until September.
It would pick up again for ski season, then quiet down in spring once more.
Many of the seasonal visitors weren’t just tourists, but families who’d owned homes here for generations.
The biggest ones were century-old Victorian “cottages” on Bayview Road, which curved along the shoreline, overlooking the crescent-shaped harbor that was nestled at the base of the bluff.
I loved working on those old homes—restoring the exterior porches, gables, and trim, or the interior floors, moldings, and staircases.
A few times, owners had asked me to restore original furnishings too, but what I enjoyed best was taking old materials like resawn beams, plank flooring, barn wood, or even whiskey barrels, and making them into something new.
I passed The Pier Inn, the popular hotel and restaurant at the harbor where Xander and Dash had bused tables every summer and Mabel had been the hostess.
At the light, I waved to my Aunt Faye, who was crossing Bayview with her yellow lab, a cup of coffee in one hand.
She was my Uncle Harry’s widow and still kept the books for Two Buckleys.
Faye waved back, calling out, “Morning, Austin! Say hi to your dad!”
At the base of Lighthouse Point, a narrow strip of prime real estate jutting into the bay, I had to stop at the gatehouse and give my name.
The attendant was an old friend of my father’s, a mechanic who’d retired about five years ago and worked part-time at the gatehouse when he wasn’t out fishing.
He grinned as I pulled up and came out of the gatehouse to chat. “How’s it going, Austin?”
I put the truck in park. “Pretty good, Gus. Catch anything good lately?”
“You know it. I just told your dad he needs to give up this full-time stuff and get out on the water more often.” He jerked his thumb up the road. “He was here a minute or so ago.”
“I suppose he turned you down, huh?”
“As usual.” Gus grunted. “I don’t know why he wants to keep working so hard. I told him, I says, ‘George, we’re sixty-five, for cripes’ sake. It’s time to slow down.’”
“I agree with you.” I adjusted the cap on my head. “But he doesn’t listen to me either.”
“I hear Xander’s back in town. He could pass Two Buckleys on to you and Xander, easy.”
“Nah, Xander’s never had any interest. He’s starting his own business.” Plus Xander and I would kill each other.
“What kind of business? Private security stuff?” Then he laughed. “We don’t have too many people that need bodyguarding around these parts.”
I shook my head. “He’s opening a bar. He just bought the old Tiki Tom’s and he’s working on renovations.”
“Oh. Well, shoot. What about your brother Devlin? He still out east someplace?”
“Boston,” I confirmed.
“Guess he’s more of a suit and tie guy, huh?” Gus removed his bucket hat and scratched the top of his head with his thumb. “And I don’t suppose your brother Dashiel has any interest.”
“None at all.” Dash had chased his dream of being a movie star out to L.A., where he was an actor on a popular show called Malibu Splash—something we gave him endless shit about, although we were proud of him.
“My granddaughters love that show he’s on. They watch it all the time. Think maybe I could get them an autograph?”
“How old are they?”
“Ten and twelve.”
I grinned. Dash was twenty-six, but he played a teenage lifeguard on the show, and his fan base was solidly prepubescent. “I bet we could arrange it.”
“Thanks. They even have pillowcases with his face on them.” He chortled, shaking his head. “Like Elvis or something.”
“Right.” Getting restless, I put the truck in drive again.
If my dad was left alone on a job too long, he’d either do something dangerous like climb a ladder to check someone’s gutters (for free), which made him dizzy, or waste time chatting away with the homeowner, adding on to the hours I’d have to spend finishing the work we’d been hired to do.
“Well, I should get going, but next time I talk to Dash, I’ll mention it. ”
“Thanks.” Gus thumped the driver’s side door of my truck. “Have a good one, Austin.”
“You too.”
Sure enough, when I arrived at the address and went around back, Dad was standing out on the homeowner’s dock, holding a cup of coffee and nodding along as the homeowner chattered away gesturing toward his boat.
Dad smiled and waved to me, but made no move toward the deck that needed refinishing, and I waved back before getting to work by myself.
In the back of my mind, I imagined what it would be like to spend a whole day working on my own projects, to be free to go after what I really wanted to do, the way my siblings were.
Xander with his bar. Devlin with his pricey real estate deals.
Dash with his movie career. Mabel with her treasure hunts.
But they were different from me. Their situations were different.
They didn’t have kids, and they didn’t remember—maybe they’d just been too young to appreciate—how hard our dad had worked to raise us on his own after our mom was gone.
They didn’t understand how fully he’d supported me when I announced I was about to become a father of two, insisting we move in with him so he could help out.
I owed it to him to keep the family business alive and keep quiet about what I wanted for myself. And I owed it to my kids to be the kind of father they deserved. If that meant deferring my own dream, so be it.
That’s what love was.