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“And what did you say?”
Doug coughed and sipped his coffee. “I told her we’d be fine.”
Ben understood what had happened. In a moment of fear, Doug had called the closest living relative to Thomas, whom he’d been at war with. It was Doug’s way of crying for help.
Outside, car tires splashed through mud puddles. Ben turned to watch as Rebecca rushed from the driver’s side. Her hair was a mess. As she opened the back door of her SUV, her hair flattened to her forehead and cheeks. Her father stepped from the passenger door, his eyes shadowed as he regarded the old house. He’d probably never lived in such a state of squalor. He’d probably had a warm and comfy bed all his life.
Ben couldn’t blame a man like that for his good fortune no more than he could blame himself for his lack of luck.
Rebecca pulled cups of coffee and a big cardboard box from the back of the SUV. She handed the coffees to Victor, who rushed through the rain to the front porch. By the time he reached the door, Ben was there to open it.
“Hi there!” Ben’s voice cracked. He smiled past Victor to Rebecca, who looked as though she’d slept about as much as he had.
Victor stepped through the front door and assessed the tree limb and the glass that had flashed across the hardwood floors of the old house. “Wow,” he breathed.
Rebecca handed Ben the cardboard box. “I’m not sure if you’re hungry, but we brought donuts.”
Ben thanked her, overwhelmed with appreciation. He knew that sometimes food was the only way people knew to translate how sorry they were. This was probably doubly so with Rebecca since she was a chef.
“I hope you weren’t in that bed when the tree came through?” Victor asked Doug.
Doug’s shoulders shook with laughter. “You bet your bottom dollar I was. It’s nothing I can’t handle. Just a little rain and wind.”
“And glass. And wood,” Rebecca pointed out, furrowing her brow. As time passed, her worry intensified.
Doug waved a hand. “What do you have there? Something besides rabbit food?” He pushed the oatmeal to the side and teased Ben, “You know I don’t have long to live, right? Would you want to spend your last days eating oatmeal?”
Ben rolled his eyes and watched as Doug inspected the wide selection of donuts. He selected one with maple icing and smiled to himself. At that moment, Ben could almost imagine his appearance as a little boy—before the war. Before his divorce and his second wife’s death. Before his children had left him in Nantucket all alone.
“Do you have a broom?” Rebecca asked Ben. “Let’s get to work cleaning this up.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Ben assured her.
But Rebecca gave him a look that said she meant business. Ben knew better than to argue with her. He entered the kitchen, grabbed a broom and a dustpan from the cabinet, and returned to find Victor had left.
“Where’s your dad?”
“He had to run out for a minute,” Rebecca explained as she took the broom. Through the window, Ben watched as Victor reversed the SUV onto the street.
Wordlessly, they got to work. Ben picked up the larger pieces of glass with his fingers and set them aside on a big towel. Rebecca swept the smaller shards into the dustbin. Slowly, they worked their way to the big hole in the wall.
By the time they reached the window, Victor had returned with supplies from the nearby hardware store. It seemed he’d purchased half the store—tarps, nails, a drill, fresh wood, and a saw. He stepped between Rebecca and Ben, put on a pair of thick gloves, and shoved the enormous branch away from the house. It fell with a thunk on the damp ground.
Rebecca began to remove the sheets from the damp bed. Ben explained that he’d already moved the bed into the living room because Doug’s bedroom upstairs had a massive hole in the ceiling.
“Did you call someone to fix it?” Rebecca asked as she wadded up the sheets.
Ben grimaced and eyed Doug. How could he describe to this beautiful and successful woman that he and Doug barely had two pennies to rub together? How could he tell her that even the most recent dishwashing job he’d applied for hadn’t called him back? He was washed up. Unwanted. Broke.
“I’ve been waiting to put together some extra funds,” Ben explained.
Rebecca nodded. Her eyes weren’t judgmental. Ben wanted to place his head on her shoulder and cry. It had been so long since anyone had assured him that everything would be all right. Maybe that was because everything wouldn’t be.
Victor stepped into Doug’s bedroom to assess the ceiling. Rebecca and Ben followed him.
“That’s quite a hole,” Victor said. Although Ben had tried to patch it up with the materials he had around the house, it still dripped from the new storm.
“What’s in that box?” Rebecca pointed at an old cardboard box in the corner, upon which Ben had put a number of old pieces of wood and his hammer. Nothing in the house was of any value, so he hadn’t thought anything of it.
