Page 85 of Steadfast
“Yeah?” His voice roughened and his eyes got red. “I guess I lied to you. I do that sometimes.”
At that, the worst wave of pain I have ever felt sliced through me. It was worse than the awful night three years ago when I didn’t know if he was alive or dead. Because then I still had hope.
I jumped up off the edge of the couch as the first sob escaped me. Then I ran out of the room.
In the kitchen, I grabbed my coat and boots. I mumbled some kind of apology to a sympathetic May, and then stumbled out to my car.
I drove home with tears tracking down my face, my inner DJ silent for once. There was no song sad enough for the way it felt to hear him deny me.
Not REM’s “Everybody Hurts.” Not Pearl Jam’s “Black.”
Not even the Jeff Buckley version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”
I was willing to do anything for Jude. And none of it mattered if he wouldn’t let me.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jude
Cravings Meter: 1 for drugs. 9 for Sophie
Istayedat the Shipleys’ only a few more days. A doctor gave me permission to start using my arm and a more versatile cast, so I asked Griff to drop me off at home again.
“You sure, man? You can stay longer. You’re not in the way.”
That was bullshit, of course. “It will be good to get back in the garage,” I told him. And that was almost true. As usual, I needed to keep my hands busy. But this time I needed the busy work to prevent me from thinking about Sophie.
Just getting through the day was a lot of effort. With a bum arm and a sore body, it took me four times as long to do things like eat breakfast or take a shower. I did some hours in the garage, basically keeping the lights on so that people would still come to us with their problem dents and their dings.
Strangely enough my father rose to the occasion. His MO had always been to put in the bare minimum of effort. But with my right arm in a cast, the bare minimum was a little more work than it used to be. I don’t know what Father Peters said to him, but every time I knocked on the door for help with a job, he’d turn the TV off and come outside to hold a rod or the lug wrench when I couldn’t manage it myself.
“I got an offer,” he said one day into the silence between us.
“On what?”
“The property. Guy wants to pay me six hundred grand for the house and the garage together.”
“Shit.” I fumbled the wrench I was holding and it fell to the concrete floor with a clatter. “That’s a lot of money. Who wants to pay that?”
“Fella who owns the doggy daycare in Montpelier. He wants to expand. Apparently people pay a lot for that shit.”
I laughed, because it was either that or cry. If he sold the garage, I’d have literally no place to go.
“I won’t say yes until you have a plan for yourself.”
That startled me into locking eyes with my father for the first time all day. We generally avoided eye contact whenever possible. “It’s your property,” I said. “You can do what you want with it.”
He looked away, uncomfortable. “You keep the place afloat lately, though.”
True enough. “Would it be, uh, good for you to be retired?” Six hundred g’s would buy a lot of hooch. He might just go on a big bender until it killed him.
“I’ll have to think about that,” he said quietly. “Seems like I need someplace to go every morning. Maybe I’ll get a part-time job somewhere just to get me out of the house.”
That sounded like a hell of a plan. I’d get one myself if I thought anyone would have me.
The phone rang then, and I crossed the garage to answer it, because answering phones was a good job for the one-armed repairman. “Nickel Auto Body,” I said into the receiver.
Now the place would never beNickel and Son.
