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15
Bree
“Jackson has had to go back to the city,” Ben says, when I arrive the next morning. I can’t help the frown, and I kick myself that Ben sees it.
He shakes his head. “It’s nothing to do with yesterday,” he continues.
So, Ben knows what happened yesterday. I shouldn’t be surprised. Ben and Jackson must have talked about it. But I am a little surprised. Jackson had given me the impression that he didn’t want Ben to know. He hadn’t mentioned running into Claire to Ben when we returned. It certainly wasn’t my place to bring it up, so I had taken my cue from Jackson and kept quiet about it.
Clearly, Jackson had changed his mind at some point.
“It’s just some work stuff he has to attend to,” Ben carries on, as I push him out to the porch, his book balanced atop his knee.
“OK,” I reply.
I don’t know what else to say. It’s not really my business. I had thought a lot about our encounter with Jackson’s ex-wife when I got home yesterday. One thing that clearly stuck out to me was the fact that Jackson would never have disclosed all that stuff about himself to me, if I hadn’t been with him when he ran into Claire. I have a definite feeling that he wished I hadn’t been there. I’ve already deduced he’s a pretty private guy.
The Sunday afternoon that we had spent talking on the porch, he had merely skimmed over his divorce. He had found her in bed with another guy, so they got divorced. End of story. While he had scared me to death with his crazy driving when we left the town yesterday, by the time he had told me everything, I understood Jackson Scott far better.
There was no way I could have known how painful the entire situation had really been for him, but it did explain quite a lot about his demeanor. The coldness toward me, his wariness of getting close to someone else. I had also wondered whether the fact that I too was from the city, as Claire had been, had played a part. Probably.
Ben is now looking at me with a strange expression. I raise my eyebrows at him.
“What?” I ask.
“He’s not had it easy, Bree. I know he can be hard work at times, but he wasn’t always like that. Before her,” Ben snarls, “he was happy, easygoing. The world was his oyster and his future was bright.” Ben sighs and looks whimsically out into the immaculate garden. “She damaged him more than Jackson will ever admit. Now, his outlook toward life has been tainted, he sees danger where there is none.”
“That’s what a crappy experience does to you, Ben,” I say.
He glances up at me then, a knowing look in his eyes. I get the impression that Jackson has shared my story with his father.
“I told Jackson last night, and I will tell you the same. Life is a contact sport. Nobody gets through it without pain. Believe me, I know.”
I think of the hardships Ben has suffered in his life. Losing two wives could not have been easy. Raising his children alone was likely just as difficult. And yet, by looking at him or speaking with him, no one would ever think he had suffered such woes. His was always positive. In fact, I cannot remember a day since I arrived at this house where I hadn’t been greeted by him with a smile or a witty remark. Ben believed in moving on. I too believed it with him.
The next few days pass by, and each morning, I arrive at Ben’s house and do the chores he’s paying me to do. It’s strange not seeing Jackson. When he first arrived, with his moody attitude and blatant dismissal of my existence, I dreaded the few weeks that I’d have to tolerate him. But now, I miss him. It’s not like we were always together. He had been at work in Ben’s workshop most of the time. But the fleeting times when our paths cross in the house has become the norm for me. It’s just not the same without him here.
You know it’s deeper than that.
Maybe I do. But maybe, I’m just not ready to admit it yet. In the back of my mind, there’s still that niggling voice, telling me that I came out to Sharon Springs to find myself, not another guy.
I lay in my comfortable bed, and as is usual on a Sunday morning, don’t want to move. It’s not just the warm, snuggly comfort that it provides. It’s also the only morning I don’t need to jump up and be out of the door by eight ‘o’ clock.
I’ll get up soon and have a well-deserved shower. After that, I might call Sylvie. We could meet for coffee this afternoon, or maybe something a little stronger. I reach for my phone on the bedside locker to check the time. It’s 10:37am. But there’s something else that catches my attention. A text message from my brother Jonathan.
“Hey, lazy one. You up yet?”
I smile. I quickly and excitedly tap a reply. “Oh, yeah. I’ve been up since five this morning. You know me.” I add a laughing emoji and press send.
The phone rings immediately afterwards and Jonathan’s name pops up on the screen.
“Sure, I believe you,” Jonathan responds, after I swipe to answer. I can hear the smile in his voice.
“How are you?” I say with a grin. “It feels like ages since we talked. What are you up to?”
“Oh, nothing much. Just the usual Sunday morning.”
For Jonathan, that likely means he’s been up since six, been out for a run, been to the gym, and is now comfortably back home. He’s probably sipping a smoothy at this very minute, made of every vegetable he can get his hands on. He’s been a gym rat for a few years now. Right after he had strange palpitations and the doctors told him he needed to exorcise burgers and junk food from his lifestyle.
