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Bradley
Unlike last week, Nolan stayed in touch more over the next few days. We texted a couple of times each day and even spent thirty minutes on the phone Monday night. Since she didn’t have full power in her house yet, she didn’t hang around in the evenings to work late at her place.
Tuesday evening, she had soccer games and then papers to grade, and Wednesday, she went back to Summersville to get more paint and supplies.
Today was Friday, and Pete said he’d have the house back online and completed after a couple of tweaks. Sadly, they had to pull the walls apart in a few places and found a couple of problems that delayed the wiring two days, but it was done right. Nolan was working to patch those back up this weekend and start more painting.
My house build was moving along quickly, and I was working hard so that I wouldn’t have to do more hours on the weekend. I’d much rather spend them helping Nolan than another customer. Although my customer was paying me, and she wasn’t.
I hoped that Nolan would be receptive to coming over to my place tonight. Right after work, I was taking the kids out to Summersville to stay with Wes and Charlotte. They were taking the kids to the lake on tomorrow for a work picnic that Wes had for the hospital.
I was also hoping for a few minutes to speak with Wes alone when I dropped them off. Luckily, the opportunity presented itself as he handed me a beer, and we went to sit on his back deck.
“How are things going?” he asked after taking a sip of his drink.
“Busy, but good.” I proceeded to tell him about the house I was working on, and he listened patiently and then stared at me hard. “What?”
“I was more wondering how things with Nolan were going. I was pretty sure you had your job under control.”
I laughed. “Betterandworse than I expected.”
“Better and worse? How is that?”
I hesitated for a moment, then sighed. “I like her.”
“Is that the better or worse part?”
I laughed. “The better part.”
“And the worst part is she doesn’t like you back?”
“No, I think she does.” I took a drink. “The problem is that she has said several times that once she has her kids back, that things with us need to cool down.”
“Cool down? Or stop?”
“Stop.”
“Why would she say that?”
“Because both of her kids have medical conditions, and I think she’s concerned that I won’t be able to deal with them or that it would cause problems with my kids.”
He studied me carefully. “Are those her worries, or yours?”
“Maybe both,” I told him with a slight shrug.
“What medical conditions do they have?”
“Her older daughter has a heart condition caused by an infection.”
“She probably has rheumatic heart disease. That is a tough one.”
“Yeah, that sounds like what she told me. The younger one is on the autism spectrum. She told me a little about it, but I don’t know anything about that stuff, so it doesn’t exactly make sense to me.”
Wes inhaled deeply and then released it. “Both could be tough to deal with, but if you are wondering if you could do it, I know you could. You are a very patient man, Brad. More patient than any of us. If anyone could learn to deal with those types of things, it’s you.”
“But what would it do to Tonya and Tyler?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I think they would have a harder time adjusting to the fact that you share your life with three other people now. They have had you alone for a long time. I’m sure Tyler doesn’t even remember Cheryl.”
