Page 78 of The Single Dad's Guide to Recreation

“And now you’ve split up with her romantically too?”

Eli’s in my desk chair. I seem to have lost all control of this conversation, so I give up, dropping in the guest chair. “I’m confused.”

“Imagine how I feel. You’re the one who’s supposed to be in charge of community relations, but yesterday both this Avery woman and the mayor hunted me down. Avery has this after-school program idea where kids get bussed to the rec center and the big ones get paid to babysit the little ones. The mayor is in favor of that, but she’s upset because you and Avery broke up.”

He points a finger at me. “She said I have to get you two back together because, and I quote, ‘I can’t have a clock that misfires.’ Now who has a reason to be confused?”

Since I’ve obviously failed, yet again, I stand to take my punishment. “I’m doing the best I can here, Eli. If that’s not good enough, then maybe you should put us both out of our misery and fire me.”

“What? Is that what you want?”

“No, of course not. I’m just… I feel like I’m doing a bad job. Here, at home… everywhere.”

“Well, I’m not going to fire you because you’ve had an off week. This isn’t Wall Street.”

While I’m ripping off Band-aids, I decide to go for them all. “Did you give me the job in the first place because of Lisa?”

To his credit, he doesn’t seem thrown by the topic change. “If I’m being honest, yeah. I felt guilty because I wasn’t a good friend to her when she needed me.”

“So you knew she was unhappy?”

He nods and lets out a heavy sigh. “But I didn’t know how to help.”

“Welcome to the club.”

“But that’s not why I want you to stay. You’re good with people, at least when you don’t have your head up your ass. And I like having you around.”

I believe him. And I think he’s right. I am good with people. My mom is right too. I can trust that I know what to do. I’m going to fuck up on occasion, my kids will probably still need therapy, but I’m not quitting any of it.

“Okay then. Tell me why you moved Trede to Climax.”

“This is connected how?”

“Just trust me, it is.”

He hesitates a beat before spitting out, “I moved here for a year and a half in high school and it’s the only place I’ve ever really been happy.”

“How did your parents end up in Climax?” I seem to remember them being diplomats or something.

“They didn’t. When my parents were stationed in Suriname, I got kicked out of boarding school, so they sent me to live in Climax with my aunt Greta. My mother’s sister. She was an artist and was one of the founding members of the co-op in the old foundry.” Eli gets up and moves to the window. “You can just see it from here.”

I get up to stand next to him and he points at a building near the clock tower.

“It’s the one that’s made of stone instead of brick.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, he walks back into the room. “Anyway, she had a boyfriend who was a carpenter, and they worked on her house together. I learned a lot from both of them. About all kinds of stuff. And I was happy. But my parents didn’t think I’d get into a good school if I stayed for senior year, so they shipped me off to a prep school.”

“Did you ever visit after that?”

“I didn’t. But I kept in touch with my aunt. We wrote letters. And when she passed away, she left me her house.” He frowns, staring off into the middle distance. “I was planning to sell it but when I came back to see it one more time, I couldn’t. I took a walk up the river, saw the brickworks, and decided to move everything here.”

“So, not for business reasons? Not because property taxes were low or you scored incentives from the state?”

“Well, those things were true too.” He narrows his eyes at me. “Are you going to tell me why you needed to know this?”

“There was a session at the conference on the issue of workforce housing.” Grabbing my briefcase, I pull out my proposal. “I want to turn the abandoned mall into a complex that provides homes that teachers, firefighters, and small business owners can afford.” Handing him the printout, I add, “This is just an outline.”

Eli looks it over briefly before handing it back to me. “This is really outside of our scope. Trede can’t take on this big of a development project.”

I cross behind my desk, refusing to take the papers. “It would serve your interests.”

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