Page 30
“Ford, I don’t need a sales job. Find me a place to rent, okay?”
I listened as my friend gave out a long-suffering sigh. “Fine.”
The Kraft meeting had gone better than I’d hoped.
When I’d got to the Kraft’s house, Margaret Kraft was actually there for once, and it was clear she was ready to rumble. I had no idea why her husband had kept her sidelined if she was the one who was ultimately in charge, but there it was.
Mr. Kraft, for his part, sat at the end of the kitchen table with his head down staring at a cup of coffee that his wife had poured at the beginning of the meeting and didn’t say a word. Not even when I started to mention prices. If I hadn’t spent three weeks spinning my wheels for nothing, it would have been pretty funny.
At least I got good homemade coffee cake out of the deal. And finalized blueprints.
I was still riding high when I turned off I-65 and into the neighborhood where my in-laws lived. They’d been there for forty years. It was the house where Marie was born and raised. The streets narrowed and the trees got older the closer I got to their house.
I checked the clock on the dash. Six-fifteen. Sandra would have picked up James from pre-school hours ago and have him fed and working on some sort of project. She was good at that. He was probably covered in glitter glue or finger paint and blissed out.
I pulled up in front of their house and sat for a moment, leaving the engine idling. I wasn’t looking forward to this conversation, even thought I’d been running it through my head for days. No matter which way I sliced it, they were going to be hurt.
Marie’s mom and dad were integral parts of James’ life. Sandra Nash had been picking James up from pre-school on Tuesdays and Thursdays ever since I lost Marie . Hell, she had a closet dedicated to James’ toys and craft supplies. The kid was adored by the woman. Bill loved him, too.
Sitting here, procrastinating, was not going to make this any easier. I sighed and got out of the truck.
Sandra answered the door before I even knocked, which meant she'd been watching for me. She was a small woman with Marie 's coloring and her way of looking at you like she already knew what you were going to say. I could hear James deeper inside the house; it sounded like he was playing dinosaurs.
"Adam." She stepped back to let me in, and I kissed her cheek as I stepped into the hallway.
The house smelled like it always did. Coffee and something baked and a faint trace of the same lotion Marie had used. I hated that, but I’d never tell Sandra.
"Bill's in the den," she said. "He'll want to see you."
"Let me say hi to James first, then I want to talk to both of you."
James was at the kitchen table with what appeared to be an entire community of small plastic animals arranged on a huge piece of butcher paper covered with a landscape that he must have drawn with Sandra.
“Look. It’s Texas. Back when there were dinosaurs. And right next to it is Africa, because I told grandma big dinosaurs would have been in Texas and Africa.”
“Sounds right to me.”
“Do you want to help?”
“Not right now, I’m going to talk to Grandma and Grandpa for a few minutes in the living room. You keep on doing what you’re doing.”
“Okay. I have to figure out where the ter-duck-tails fly from. Are they related to the ducks in the pond near our house?”
“I don’t know, buddy. Those pterodactyls were pretty big, and our ducks are pretty small.”
“But they both fly, and they both have the word ‘duck’ in them.”
Sandra and I both laughed at the four-year-old logic. “Good point.”
“I’m gonna draw a pond for them in Africa.” James pulled out a blue crayon.
“Good idea.”
James turned back to his task as if Sandra and I no longer existed. We moved to the living room. Bill looked up as we walked in, then stood up.
“How’d your meeting with the Krafts go?” he asked.
“Really well. We finally have things nailed down.”
