The Marine Makes Amends, page 4
Or the way she felt about Micah because of it.
Chapter Three
“Hey, Big Ben,” Micah said affectionately to his grandfather early Sunday morning.
The Camden family farmhouse—a three-story sky blue structure with an elaborate wraparound porch—was where he’d been staying with his grandfather since he’d left the Marines.
He’d searched inside for his grandfather at first, but with no answer to his calls for the elderly man, he’d gone out the back door. The shed was the likeliest place for Ben Camden to be on the only day of the week that he didn’t work. And that was where Micah found him.
“Mornin’,” Ben greeted, glancing up from his worktable.
He was six feet tall and, at seventy-nine, had lost a lot of the bulk he’d had in his youth. He was now less muscular and more wiry, and all four of his grandsons were inches taller than him. But they still sometimes used the nickname they’d given him when they were kids, whenever they didn’t call him Pops.
“Didn’t expect to see you,” Ben continued. “Would have waited to have breakfast if I’da known you were comin’. I could still whip you up some eggs, though. How ’bout it?”
“Nah, thanks. I came to ask a favor and then I have to get back—that tree removal service got everything done yesterday but left one hell of a mess on the ground between the two houses. I want to clean that up.”
“Get more done with a good breakfast in your belly,” his grandfather said, repeating the truism he’d said a million times before. Micah couldn’t help but smile at the familiar words that—like his grandfather’s other sayings—had formed such an irreplaceable part of his childhood.
Micah had only been three years old, the triplets barely two, when their father was killed and they’d moved with their mother to the farm. Ben had helped to raise his grandsons after that, and he’d actually been a better cook and more of a nurturer than their mother had been—and not just because he was the one who’d prepared most of their family meals. It was no surprise that he still wanted to feed Micah—and his brothers—whenever he had the chance.
And since Micah thought Ben might be missing his company, he decided to take the time to spend with him before getting back.
“Yeah, okay, maybe a couple of eggs,” Micah conceded.
“And toast and the sausage I ground and made yesterday—it fried up great for my breakfast. You’re gonna love it.”
“No doubt,” Micah said with a laugh as his grandfather led the way back to the house.
As they worked together to make the breakfast that Ben had decided to share in, he nodded toward the mangled picture frame that Micah had left on the counter when he’d come through looking for Ben. “That the favor?”
“Yeah,” Micah confirmed. “Had a picture in it of Morey Parker with a new tractor. The tree crash knocked it off the wall—I saw it when I first went through the house and left it on the floor because it didn’t look like it could stand hanging up again. But Lexie must have tried when she got there and last night it fell again and really broke. I was wondering if maybe you could fix it, repaint it? You’re good at that stuff.”
Ben left the sausages frying and took a closer look at the frame, then returned to the stove. “I think I can do that. Seems like a drop in the bucket of what’s goin’ on over there, though...”
“Yeah, it is,” Micah confirmed. “But I kind of had the feeling it was the straw that broke the camel’s back with Lexie last night and...I don’t know...I’m hoping it might make a difference somehow...”
“Things not goin’ well with her?”
Micah had never confessed his misdeed to his mother or grandfather. It had never come up. Lexie’s father’s discovery that she and Jason were up to no good had gotten a lot more attention in town, and Micah’s part in what led to that discovery had not been widely discussed.
If his mother ever had any inkling, she hadn’t said anything. But things with Ben had been different than things between Raina and her sons.
Ben had always been careful not to step on his daughter-in-law’s toes, not to contradict her parenting and certainly not to question her authority over her sons.
But in his own way, he had tried to subtly impart lessons without ever overtly reprimanding them. He had given little talks about remembering other people had feelings. About thinking before acting. About making good choices.
He and Micah had never openly discussed what had happened with Lexie. But Micah had heard all those kindly-given lectures for the nth time after the incident, so he assumed his grandfather was at least partially aware that he’d played a role in what occurred.
At any rate, he knew that Micah’s friendship with Lexie and Jason had ended then. And given that Ben also knew that Micah’s forklift delivery had caused the damage to the Parker property now, it made sense that he’d assume there might be some bumps in the road of Lexie’s return to Merritt.
“No, things are not going well with her,” Micah admitted, seeing no reason to deny it.
“And you’re hopin’ a fixed picture frame is gonna help,” Ben said, his tone making it clear that he thought Micah was barking up the wrong tree.
“Hell, I’m hoping anything will help, no matter how small. Plus, Morey was Gertie’s husband. I don’t want her coming home when she gets well and finding one of his pictures without a frame. And just in case the frame has some meaning... Well, I’m glad you can put it back together.”
“I’ll get right on it.”
“Thanks.”
“How’s Gertie doin’?” Ben asked as they sat down to eat.
“Okay. Good. I just wish she hadn’t gotten hurt at all.”
The elderly man nodded his understanding. “Accidents happen, though. This one’s not your fault.”
Micah laughed slightly. “Maybe it’s not my fault but I am accountable.”
Another sage nod of the head. “Good that you recognize that. I’m proud of you. Of the man you are now.”
Micah could acknowledge that only with a brief raise of his chin. The sentimentality embarrassed him. But he still liked hearing it and hoped that it was true.
“I think if you give little Lexie a chance, she’ll come around,” Ben said then. “Just give it some time.”
Micah raised his chin in acknowledgment again, even though he wasn’t convinced Ben was right about that.
But somehow his grandfather’s words helped.
And he’d needed some help.
Because after last night, he’d been pretty discouraged and worried that maybe there was just no hope of reaching even civil ground with Lexie.
* * *
“Oh, you look so much better than you did yesterday!” Lexie exclaimed with relief when she first saw her grandmother on Sunday morning.
Gertrude Parker was dressed in a bright pink sweat suit. Her curly close-cropped, more-salt-than-pepper-colored hair was combed. And she was sitting in a wheelchair, her casted leg braced straight out in front of her.
“I thought you’d still be in bed,” Lexie said, wondering if maybe that’s where her grandmother should be.
“Hate lyin’ around in a bed,” the elderly woman said with her usual spirit.
Lexie knew better than to argue once Gertie had made up her mind about something, but she did look to Mary to ask, “Is it all right that she’s up and dressed?”
“Doctor Joan says whatever she feels like she can do is all right for her to do—as long as she doesn’t put any weight on the leg and keeps it elevated.”
Glancing back to her grandmother, Lexie said, “How do you feel?”
“Good,” Gertie answered unequivocally.
It was Mary who went on, “Doctor Joan and her nurse, Louise, were here early, and Louise is going to come every morning to help get Gertie up and dressed. And she’s only had half a pain pill.”
“Is that enough?”
“It is,” Gertie insisted. “They were making me too woozy and the pain isn’t that bad to start with.” She had been raised by a no-nonsense German father amid four older brothers who had treated her like one of the boys. There was very little about the older woman that succumbed to weakness.
“Doctor Joan said she should judge her pain level and whether or not she needs the pills, and rest if she gets tired,” Mary put in. “But Doctor Joan also says that she has forty-year-old patients who aren’t doing as well as Gert is.”
The color in Gertie’s cheeks today helped Lexie actually believe the report of her grandmother doing well. It also helped her to believe that Gertie would be all right.
“I’m so relieved that you’re okay,” she said, relaxing enough to sit in the rocking chair near her grandmother’s wheelchair.
“You look better than you did yesterday, too,” Gertie said then.
Lexie laughed. “Did I look bad yesterday?”
“You looked tired and so on edge that I thought you might jump right out of your skin,” her grandmother described.
“I was tired and on edge. It was a long trip that I started in the middle of the night and I was worried about you.”
Gertie waved away her concern. “It’ll take more than a broken bone to do me in, honey.”
Lexie didn’t want to think about anything ever doing her in.
“Are you ready for waffles yet, Gert? Maybe Lexie will have them with us...” Mary said then.
“You guys haven’t had breakfast yet?” Lexie asked in some surprise. With all they’d accomplished already today, it seemed as if they must have been up for quite a while.
“We had coffee and toast,” Mary answered. “Neither of us were up yet when Doctor Joan and Louise rang the doorbell this morning. I made the coffee for us all, Doctor Joan made Gert have a few bites of toast to make sure her stomach would accept food and they didn’t leave until a few minutes ago.”
“We’d just decided waffles might be a nice Sunday breakfast when you got here,” Gertie added. “Will you eat with us?”
As tired as Lexie had been the night before, she’d still had some trouble falling asleep. She’d gone from being overwhelmed and aggravated by Micah and telling him off in her head, to picturing him in her mind and—for no reason she could fathom—recalling how handsome he’d grown up to be. The switch from aggravation to attraction was a phenomenon she’d found disturbing.
When she’d finally fallen asleep, though, she’d slept so soundly that at nine thirty, when she’d woken up, she hadn’t even remembered the alarm on her phone sounding or her having turned it off—which she must have done because she was sure she’d set it.
At that point, she’d jumped out of bed, disgusted with herself for not getting to Gertie at the crack of dawn. With no thought other than seeing her grandmother as soon as possible, she’d thrown on the yoga pants and T-shirt she’d worn briefly after her shower the night before, swiped a brush through her hair and refused to add to the delay by applying any makeup.
Then she’d gone downstairs, thrilled to find only a note from Micah, snatched her grandmother’s car keys from the hook near the front door and hurried out to the car—all without so much as a drink of water or a bite to eat.
And since she’d also forgone most of her dinner the night before, she was starving.
“Waffles sound great,” she said.
“Then waffles it is,” Mary responded enthusiastically.
“Can I help?” Lexie offered.
“You just sit and visit with Gertie,” her cousin insisted, leaving them alone in the apartment’s living room.
Her grandmother reached over the wheelchair’s armrest and squeezed Lexie’s knee. “I’m so glad you’re home. And to stay!” the older woman rejoiced.
“I’m so glad you’re glad,” Lexie responded.
“But not glad yourself to be back in Merritt?” Gertie asked, obviously trying to interpret Lexie’s uncertain tone. “I thought that was what you wanted.”
“It was. It is. I am glad to be back. I don’t ever want to leave again.”
“But?” Gertie prompted.
But Lexie was having feelings that confused her.
“It’s nothing really. Everything is all just so...not how I thought it would be,” she said, trying to sort through her own emotions. “I thought I’d come back to find everything still the way it was—home, you know? I thought it would wrap around me like a big comfy blanket, and I’d be able to take a deep breath for the first time in a long time, and figure out my future. Instead—” she gave a humorless laugh “—I don’t know what kind of shape the little house is in or how much work it’ll need to get it to where I can live in it—”
“Micah is going to take care of it.”
Lexie didn’t comment on that. “Plus, this is the first time in my life I’ve been here without Jason.” Lexie struggled for the words to explain what she was having trouble grasping herself. “I hadn’t thought about it being weird, but for some reason it is. And on the flip side, there’s so much Micah...”
“Do you want Jason back?” Gertie asked, probing while still clearly trying to keep her voice neutral.
Lexie answered with another humorless chuckle. “No. It isn’t that. It really isn’t. And this is where I want to be, where I’ve wanted to be for years now. But up until the last few months, whenever I’ve pictured coming home, I’ve also pictured coming home with Jason for a future that we could both dig into. Since the divorce, that picture changed and got sort of off-kilter, but I thought once I hit Merritt, I’d regain some balance—”
“Instead, you came home to chaos and commotion and upheaval. And that’s the last thing you need right now,” her grandmother summed up for her.
“Yeah,” Lexie agreed wistfully before switching to a snarl and repeating, “And there’s so much Micah...”
“But Micah is a good thing because he’s going to get us out of the chaos and commotion and upheaval.”
That didn’t make Lexie laugh—humorlessly or otherwise. Especially after hearing the admiration with which her grandmother kept referring to Micah.
“How much of a mess are we in at the farm?” Gertie asked then.
“There’s definitely a mess,” Lexie said, hedging. She was unsure to what extent she should burden her ailing grandmother.
“How much?” Gertie demanded.
The older woman had never been a shrinking violet or the kind of person who liked being kept in the dark, so Lexie decided not to spare her. “I’ve only seen your house—I haven’t been in the little house yet, though Micah left a note this morning asking me to meet him at the house later today so he could show me things there. But your house is... Well, I suppose it could have been worse...”
Lexie went on to tell her grandmother about that portion of the damage to the farm.
“The tree is already gone, though,” she ended on a more positive note. “There was a crew there yesterday that took care of it.”
“That was Micah’s doing,” Gertie said, again with clear affection for Lexie’s former friend. “I heard him making arrangements before I went into surgery.”
“It’s all been Micah’s doing,” Lexie muttered, unwilling to forget that he bore responsibility for the situation in the first place.
“Don’t blame Micah,” Gertie said firmly.
“It’s his fault.”
“It’s not his fault. This was an accident and he didn’t have anything to do with it—”
“It was his forklift being delivered.”
“But not him unloading it—it was the deliveryman who lost control,” Gertie pointed out. “And accidents happen. I knew that old tree was unstable—the trunk was rotted out. I had it looked at in the fall and the tree man said a good wind could blow it over. But I didn’t want to be bothered with it right then. I thought it could make it to this summer. I shouldn’t have waited. It’s as much—or more—my fault for putting off what I should have had done.”
Lexie hadn’t known that. But still she said, “The tree didn’t just fall down, though. Micah’s wayward forklift knocked it down.”
“And now poor Micah is wracked with guilt.”
Poor Micah...
Lexie couldn’t say his name without scorn and her grandmother couldn’t seem to say it without fondness. Why was that? she wondered.
“You’ve always been so easy on him—I never understood that,” Lexie admitted.
When Micah had betrayed his friendship with her and Jason, Gertie couldn’t have been more sympathetic to Lexie. Gertie had battled with her son over his punishments, fought against him exiling her to boarding school, fought against him ruining her senior year. She’d supported Lexie, championed her. She’d unwaveringly been in Lexie’s corner.
But she also hadn’t condemned Micah.
She hadn’t defended him, she hadn’t broached the subject of him with Lexie or advised forgiveness or even compassion, nor had she made any attempts to reconcile their friendship.
But it had seemed as if she felt protective of Micah, too—not just of Lexie.
And when Lexie had said outright that she didn’t want her grandmother having anything to do with him, Gertie’s response had been, Oh, honey, I can’t do that. But it doesn’t mean that what he did was right. It wasn’t.
She had made sure to keep Micah far from Lexie. And given that Gertie had been her only advocate, Lexie hadn’t been left with much choice but to ignore that Gertie hadn’t shunned Micah.
“I never understood why you kept having anything to do with him—from years ago and right up until now,” Lexie admitted.
“Well, it just wasn’t so cut and dry, honey. He and Jason and Jill had been at the farm with you from when you were little bitty kids. I’d been baking the bunch of you cookies and putting Band-Aids on your boo-boos and helping you with your school projects and listening to your stories and your tall tales and your gripes—you were all like my grandkids.”
