The Leaving Kind, page 16
“Are you there?” the now faraway voice asked.
Cam looked down at Honey, who was gazing up at him. Her eyes reflected the confusing sorrow he felt. “Yeah,” he said into the phone. “I’m here.”
“Would you be available to bring her by the office?”
“Now?”
“If you have time.”
Cam checked the microwave display. Five thirty. His only plan for the evening had been to figure out a scheduling mechanism, eat the rotisserie chicken he’d bought on the way home, and queue up a movie or two. Or three. Why not take a trip into Milford to give away his only happiness?
Maybe we should schedule some time to brood over why you’re not happy.
Shut up.
“Yeah, sure. I can come now. I’ll be there in a few.”
After coaxing Honey into the back seat of the car (repaired once again, but wheezing oddly every time he approached the top of a hill), Cam ran back into the house for her favorite blanket and the two toys he’d picked up for her. She seemed to like the fuzzy banana with the dangling rope legs best. She carried it upstairs every night to bed. Well, he carried it. And her. With her cast, it took her nearly ten minutes to hobble up the stairs—a fact he’d discovered one night after hearing a sound by the front door. When he’d gone to investigate, he’d found Honey halfway to the top, the banana clamped in her jaws.
Back at the car, Cam sat behind the wheel and stared through the open garage door. If he drove all night, he could make Indianapolis by dawn. He and Honey could simply disappear. Tour the open road. Not that Emma’s car would make it to the other side of Pennsylvania.
“Damn it.” He started the car and sped out of the driveway. Best to do this quickly. Rip off the bandage before he felt the pain. Except he was already feeling it. “Damn. It.”
At the animal hospital, Cam carried Honey, her blanket, and her banana inside. He spotted them right away, the couple who’d lost her. Amiable-looking folks. He turned toward them and watched hope brighten their faces like a sunrise. Any minute now, Honey would try to leap from his arms. He tightened his grip a little. Wouldn’t do for her to break another leg.
When he reached the couple, Cam squatted down to let Honey loose. She hopped to the floor and looked up at him, and he handed her the banana, which she dutifully took in her mouth. Cam stood and mustered a smile. It felt like one of his brother’s. Lopsided and awkward.
The receptionist had rounded the desk to crouch by Honey and was enthusiastically stroking her ears. “You’re such a good girl,” she crooned. “So sweet.”
She sure was.
The vet who’d fixed up her leg arrived, all smiles.
Sick of the stretched elastic feel of his own mouth, Cam prepared to make his exit. He glanced at the couple.
They weren’t smiling.
This time, the mysterious hand that scooped out the insides of sad people seemed to sweep the room. Everyone lost their happiness all at once. Even Honey, who’d been enjoying the sudden attention.
“It’s not her?” the vet asked.
They shook their heads.
Cam’s knees trembled. Two weeks. He’d had this dog for two freaking weeks. What was he going to do if another two weeks passed before her owners turned up? He looked to the couple in quiet appeal. The woman met his gaze and shook her head, but gently, as though she understood exactly what he was feeling. Then she crouched to get in on all the petting.
“She’s a sweetheart. What do you call her?”
“Ho-ney.” Cam’s voice caught halfway through.
“Perfect.”
Conversation continued, with Cam only half-aware. The vet took a few minutes to examine Honey’s cast. “While she’s here.” He checked the muscles above, her shoulder joints, and her other legs and pronounced her fit and healing nicely. “Let her walk a little more if you can. Not too far.”
Then Cam was back behind the wheel, Honey in the back seat, both of them sitting there, contemplating the drive to Indianapolis.
“I don’t know why that’d be our first stop, except I’ve never been there.”
Honey huffed.
Cam drove home.
Nick’s truck was parked in the driveway, and there was a shadow behind the wheel. Bizarrely, only an hour had passed since Cam had left. The afternoon seemed barely to have aged, the midsummer sunlight only now starting to dull toward evening. But the phone call might have been a year ago. Man, he was tired. Maybe he’d be able to sleep tonight without the sound of the TV.
Nick hopped out of his truck as Cam was carrying Honey back out of the garage. He broke into a smile at the sight of her. “When did you get a dog? What happened to her leg?”
“I found her on the side of the road one night. She’d been clipped by a car. I just got back from meeting with some folks who might have been her people, but they weren’t.”
“Oh.” Nick’s face shifted into processing mode. “You’re taking care of her for now, then?”
“Yeah.”
“It’ll suck when her people turn up.”
“Yeah.” Cam nodded toward the house. “You could have gone in. You didn’t have to wait out here.”
“I just got here. I was about to call you.”
“Okay.” Cam led the way to the door. Rather than put Honey down, he handed Nick his keys. “She can walk, but stairs are hard for her.”
“Okay.” Nick let them into the house and immediately looked around. “Oh, wow, you repainted in here. It’s so much brighter!”
Last year, Cam and Nick had made a lot of improvements to the house they’d grown up in. It had been a bittersweet journey, replacing windows, tearing out bathrooms, hanging new curtains, refinishing the kitchen. At times, Cam had felt as though they were ripping up pieces of their childhood. But after the death of their sister, Nick had let the house—already old—begin to fall apart around him. The work had needed to be done.
Cam had never liked the color they chose for the hallway that formed the connective tissue of the entire house, though. They’d picked blue for Emma. But it had always felt temporary, as though the walls were simply testing the color out. So, he’d painted again. Downstairs and upstairs.
He smiled at the dove gray walls. “It’s the original color if you can believe it. But three and a half decades fresher. I also repainted the stair rails using a softer white. Less glare and less prone to show wear.” With the dark wood of the stair risers, the combination was homey.
“I like it.”
“Come check out the kitchen.” Cam deposited Honey onto the floor and tossed her blanket over the chair closest to the family room door before hurrying his brother toward the back of the house. “I finally replaced the fridge.”
Proudly, he opened the shiny stainless door to display his sweating roasted chicken, tub of mashed potatoes, and six-pack of beer. There wasn’t a lot else to dull the bright white of the new interior, easily seen through the clean glass shelves.
“Nice,” Nick agreed before running his finger over the countertops and cabinets they’d refinished together. He cocked his head at the wall beside the fridge. “You painted in here too.”
“Yeah. The white felt too clinical. I think the green looks good against the windows. Especially now, with the garden in bloom.”
Nick checked the windows overlooking the backyard. Cam waited for the flinch. His brother had a complicated relationship with the backyard. He’d been unable to venture out there for three years after Rebecca had died. But now, he turned and showed Cam one of his more relaxed smiles. “It all looks great.”
“Thanks.” Cam gestured toward the fridge again. “Want a drink while you’re here? Water, beer? I can put on some coffee.”
“I just came to drop off the truck.” Nick dug keys out of his pocket and put them on the kitchen table, next to the laptop.
Distractedly, Cam noticed the screen was blank and wondered whether he’d turned it off before taking Honey over to the vet. If not, he’d have to dig out the cord and charge the damn thing back up again. He checked back in with Nick, who was watching him with an expectant expression.
“Why are you dropping off the truck?” Cam asked.
“Because you need it more than I do right now.”
“I do?”
“For your landscaping and garden maintenance business.”
Cam felt his jaw unhinge. “You can’t give me your truck.”
“Yes, I can.”
“But, Nick. You need it to deliver your houses. Plus, it’s your truck.”
“I can use Oliver’s van.”
“But—”
“How else are you going to transport the equipment you’ll need?”
Thankfully, most the clients he’d picked up thus far had their own mowers and trimmers, and he and Jorge had managed the six-acre job with the equipment they already owned. The guy who’d wanted the land cleared had seemed a little surprised when Cam had shown up with a weed whacker and a wheelbarrow wedged into the trunk of Emma’s car. Jorge’s beast of a vehicle had room for a mower and another trimmer, but it had been a less-than-professional look.
Regardless, they got the job done. But if he and Jorge planned to grow the business, they would need better vehicles and equipment. Thing was, if they made that sort of commitment, then, well, they’d be making that sort of commitment. And, to Cam, commitment was a dirty word. No, a scary one.
He and Jorge should have a conversation. One where both of them talked.
Studying the keys, Cam chewed thoughtfully on his lip. Then he searched his brother’s face for what he’d never find. Nick didn’t have an ulterior motive. A hidden agenda. He simply wanted to help.
And, hell, if the whole business failed—it was bound to, wasn’t it?—Cam could give the truck back.
Stepping in, Cam lifted his hands in a gentle warning and then pulled his brother into a hug. Kissed the side of his head. “Love you, little bro.”
Nick folded his arms around Cam’s back. “I love you too.”
Cam let him go. “Give me a minute to let Honey water the lawn and I’ll drive you home.”
Nick nodded toward the fridge. “Maybe we could have that beer together first?”
The hollow inside, the chasm that had opened up at a single phone call and developed into some sort of permanent canyon during the drive to and from the vet’s office, began to fill. The sides closed in and the pit lost its depth. The night didn’t feel as endless, and Indiana was now farther away than Cam wanted to drive in a single stint.
“Want to sit outside?” Cam asked. “You need to catch me up on your proposal plans.”
Nick cocked his head. “Do people like public proposals? Like at stadiums and theaters? Or does that only happen in movies?”
Trying not to wince, Cam waved his brother toward the patio. “You’d better tell me what you have planned.”
Victor hummed as he released the lid on the slow cooker. Steam curled up from the dark, rich chili, carrying the aroma of black beans and the sweet and spicy sauce. Stomach rumbling, he stirred in the chopped chipotle pepper and replaced the lid. The best part of Crock-Pot cooking was also the worst: smelling dinner all day.
A knock sounded at the front door. Victor tugged at his apron, pulling it off and using it to wipe his hands at the same time, then tossed it over the back of one of the chairs on his way to the door.
Cam wore his usual smile: happy with an almost sardonic twist, as though he saw the lighter side of life but didn’t always feel welcome there. Honey was hobbling up the couple of steps behind him, and in the driveway sat a shiny silver pickup.
“New truck?”
“It’s my brother’s.”
“Ah.” Victor bent to greet Honey. “Hello, there. How’s the leg today?”
“Vet said she can get some extra exercise.”
“Good for you,” Victor told the dog. Then he straightened and returned Cam’s smile. “Hi.”
Inexplicably, Cam’s cheeks pinked. Just a little. “What smells good?”
“Oh, that’s dinner. If you want to stay.”
“Maybe.” Cam squinted skyward. “Looking like it might rain again. We should check out the path, or where you want to put it.”
“Do you— Ah, yes, of course.” When had he become this awkward?
“Honey, stay,” Cam directed.
The dog flopped down on the stoop, legs splayed inelegantly beneath her, and dropped her chin onto her cast.
Victor pulled the front door closed and followed Cam across the circle at the top of the driveway.
“Isn’t all this gravel a pain in the winter? For plowing?” Cam asked.
“It is, but the driveway is so long. It would cost a fortune to have it paved.” Victor’s art allowed him to live comfortably by any standard, but every winter, he compared the twenty grand estimate for paving with the five-hundred-dollar snow removal service and chose the cheaper way out. He didn’t have to drive the plow, after all. He just had to rake gravel out of the beds and off the lawn come spring.
“I can see that. So, where do you want this path?”
Gesturing, Victor broke into the wooded acre between the front of the house and the road. “Anywhere in here. I thought it might be nice to have it wander a little. Back and forth with wide, shallow steps.”
“Like a switchback down a mountain.”
“Yes, but maybe not as tight as that? I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll plant around it or encourage the ferns back in.”
They’d reached the top of the slope, before the land tipped sharply down toward Raymondskill Road. Cam paused there, hands on hips, and surveyed the forest. He looked up, through the tops of the trees and Victor followed his gaze. Even in the middle of the day, it would be darker here, quieter when the road lay quiet. With rain clouds building castles over their heads, evening had come early.
The wind kicked up, pushing from the northwest, and Victor watched as the trees rustled and undulated in a wave across his property, swayed by the freshening breeze but almost seeming to follow it at the same time. That was what he’d wanted to capture in paint. The way air could ripple through a scene as though it were a living entity.
“I love the way the wind does that, or the trees,” Cam said. Victor glanced over at him, surprised. Cam smiled. “I watch it from the patio behind my house. The wind. It flows along the creek like it’s following the water.”
“Nature is . . .” Victor wanted to mark the occasion with profound words, but the moment—both of them standing at the top of a short hill, surrounded by tall trees and whispering leaves—felt deep enough. Special, in a way. And if he didn’t shake it off, he might do something stupid. Clearing his throat, he wrestled his thoughts back to . . . where? The path. “Do you think a short terrace would work here?” He looked toward the house, barely visible through the trees. “We could clear a little to this point. That dead tree has to go anyway, and maybe the one next to it. A spot of light, a small garden. Lilies along the path, a rhododendron where that tree was . . .”
Victor continued to point out the markers of his imagination, and Cam nodded along, adding a comment here and there as they tackled the slope, both of them sidestepping down the steepest part. Together, they mapped a tentative path to the road, one that curved back toward the mailbox after the last bend.
“A couple of steps down to the road?” Cam suggested. He had his phone out. He’d snapped a couple of pictures, mostly where they’d decided the path should turn. He showed Victor the screen. “How’s this?”
Victor’s lips parted. There, on the phone, was a map. A jagged red line crisscrossed the top half and Raymondskill Road scored a line across the bottom. “How did you do that?”
“GPS. I tracked our walk. We wandered a bit near a couple of turns, but this should do for a start. Help us figure out how much gravel we’ll need. Wood for the frame. I was thinking old railway sleepers. We could get them for next to nothing, and they’re solid enough to last generations. What?”
Victor had not managed to close his mouth. In fact, his lips only moved farther apart as Cam talked. “You’re a natural at this.”
The pink returned to Cam’s cheeks. He ducked his head and shrugged. “It’s just logic.”
“No, it’s not. I’d never have thought to map it out like that. You’re a genius.”
Cam laughed. “Sure.”
“I love the idea of using railway sleepers, by the way. Railways are such a storied part of local history.”
“They are that.”
Victor gazed back up the slope, intending to muse over how the path would look when it was done, but he could barely see between the trees. He checked the sky again, the corridor of cloud over the road, and did not like what he saw.
“We should start heading back up.”
Cam followed his gaze. “Yeah.”
Thunder boomed in the distance, and Victor indicated with a hand-wave they should hop down to the trench that served as a gutter on this side of the road. “And we should take the driveway this time.”
“Definitely.”
The wind gusted sharply, icy fingers pushing at their backs, and thunder rolled closer. Then the rain happened, as though a trapdoor had swung open to release all the water in the sky at once. Lightning arced overhead, disappearing somewhere behind the next curve of the driveway. Likely miles behind the house, but out here, with the wind threatening to drive them through the rain, it seemed closer.
Victor shook off a shiver and ran. Cam’s rapid footfalls crunched beside him, the sound nearly obscured by the sudden storm. Victor led the chase into the next turn and veered too close to the side of the drive. When his foot slid into a rut, he tilted sideways, and a firm hand caught his elbow, yanking him upright.
“Thanks,” he panted.
He could have shaken Cam off at that point. Cam could have let go. But they ran on that way, with Cam holding his arm, until they rounded the final curve and spilled out into the circle at the top of the driveway. Honey stood in the doorway, yipping softly. Cam let go of Victor’s arm and broke across the gravel with an extra burst of speed. He stopped long enough to scoop up his dog and then pushed through the front door.
