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“But—”
“We’re not discussing this.”
“How can I work on this project knowing you’re going to lose the house? Are you suddenly going to go back to work after retiring? Your health can’t take it and I couldn’t bear it.”
“You will because I tell you to.”
“Mom wouldn’t have wanted this. She loved this house.”
“Your mother loved you, and I promised your mother that you would follow your dreams. I promised her.” He fisted his hand tight, a determined look in his eyes I’d never seen before.
“Dad… Mom has been gone for a long time and I’ve gotten to follow my dreams. You always made sure of that.” A chill crept down my neck whispering with dread. “This is going to cost our home. It’s not worth that to me.”
“What kind of home is it if your mother isn’t here to share it with me? It’s just a house. This hasn’t been a home since she died.”
Shocked at the revelation of his feelings, feelings I hadn’t countered before, my fingers flipped over what I realized now was a stack of mostly unpaid bills. Bills my father wouldn’t have had if he hadn’t been giving me my dream.
I pushed the envelopes, spreading them over the desk, noting several were late notices that I could probably try to cover. Maybe if I asked the bank to modify the mortgage I was taking I could pay these until the project house sold. I knew there were ethically wrong decisions robbing Peter to pay Paul mixed up in those thoughts, but this was all we had of Jolene Bryant and I couldn’t lose this too.
Grabbing a lightweight jacket from the hall closet, Dad stood in the hall, putting it on. “You coming to lunch or what?”
I nodded, leaving the pile for later. It wasn’t as if the notices were going anywhere. Shame and guilt filled me up faster than gyros ever could, killing my appetite, but I went along because it made him happy. I was going to have my work cut out for me and the pressure to succeed took a stranglehold, evaporating my happiness from the ride with Hunter earlier.
It was time I put aside some of my wants for my dad’s needs. I had to make this project work and I had to sell it when it was complete to pay off the bills here. It was time I took care of home and be the adult my mother would have been proud of if she were here today.
5
Hunter
“Hey, Lumberjack!” Whittaker Jones picked up the phone on the second ring, and I could hear his teeth grinding at my greeting. I was feeling especially chipper today sharing the good news of Taylor Jane’s project, cue sarcasm of course.
“What do you want? I don’t do free labor anymore.” Whit had been a longtime friend who now worked for the Park Service in our area. He sounded unusually grumpy, while his day job consisted of chasing drunken, underage campers from the park and breaking up the occasional fight over sleeping arrangements. I envied his job because there were times when he hiked in the woods for hours on end without a soul to bother him. I craved that kind of silence with the noise in my head sometimes that no one understood.
“I know that, but since I helped you install that pellet stove in your house I figured you could give me a couple hours of grunt work in the next few weeks.”
He groaned through the phone, making me laugh because I knew exactly how he felt.
“For what?”
I hesitated speaking the words out loud for fear this really wasn’t a nightmare I had to run damage control on. “Taylor Jane bought this condemned property she wants to flip for some television show contest. She’s made me the lead contractor, but I wanted your thoughts on
some eco-friendly approaches.”
“Bullshit. You’re looking for cheap labor. I know how this works. I’m going back to bed on my day off.” Whit chuckled pretending to snore through the phone. He wasn’t totally wrong. This project was going to need all the help it could get and I wasn’t afraid to pull a few strings.
“Yes, but considering her budget isn’t what it should be for a project like this I’m calling in all my favors. Come on, bro, help a guy out.”
“Oh Christ.” Whit was probably rolling over trying to hide under flannel sheets or whatever he decorated his house with these days. “Is that shit-head Damien doing the plumbing?”
“Of course.”
Damien owed me for a decade of shit and he wasn’t getting out of this little adventure. If I had to suffer, he was going down with me.
“Does he know that yet?” Whit nailed me with that one.
Holding back my amusement, I said, “He will.”
“All right, fuuuuck, fine. I’m in.”
