The sight of her this morning did nothing but stress me out. Why hadn’t she at least called first to let us know she planned to stop by?
“Hi, Katherine,” I smiled down at her. “I wish you would have called first. My house is a mess right now.”
Her cool gaze floated over my disheveled living room and staircase piled with stacks of things that needed to be taken upstairs. “Don’t worry about that. We just wanted to stop by and see the kids.” She stood back up and moved into the house.
“Hi, Trevor,” I greeted Grady’s younger brother who clearly resembled his mother’s side of the family. His hair shone a honey brown and his eyes a somber blue. Grady was the spitting image of his late father from what I could tell from pictures. Trevor hadn’t inherited any of the red hair or freckles. But his face still reminded me of Grady. They made similar expressions and they both had this draw to them, this aura of something real and genuine. People had always been attracted to Grady. Trevor had that same charisma about him.
Only he was unforgivably less mature than Grady. He was twenty-nine now, without a serious girlfriend or kids. This apparently set him back light years from where Grady and I had been when we were that same age.
“Hey, Lizzy.” He patted my cheek as he walked by and I tried not to shatter. Grady called me Lizzy and Trevor picked the nickname up from him. It nearly killed me to hear that endearment from someone so much like Grady but I didn’t have the strength to correct him.
I closed the front door and leaned against it. Katherine and Trevor followed the kids into the kitchen, but I couldn’t find the motivation. Since these people showed up three minutes ago, my emotions hadn’t stopped picking up speed. I felt wild. Out of control. I felt the fragile threads that held my sanity together pull and tear.
There had been progress last week. I had thought maybe I was finally pulling myself together. But just a few minutes with these people had undone every bit of headway.
“Mommy, I’m thirsty!” Lucy called from the kitchen.
I closed my eyes and let a lonely tear slip. Brushing it away, I squared my shoulders and pushed the rest of my emotion back. They wouldn’t stay forever. I could survive this.
I joined the rest of the family in the kitchen and went to work getting drinks for everyone. Katherine sat at the small art table with the kids that I kept near the paneled windows. Trevor slid onto a bar stool and looked down at his hands.
His hair was tidier than usual and he wore something besides a t-shirt. The polo look was new for him. But so were the wrinkles around his eyes and the bags underneath them.
His pain hit me hard, like a punch in the gut. I loved Trevor like a brother, and he had lost someone he loved too. Unlike his mother, I could bridge the gap between us with shared grief.
Grady was my life, but he was also the sun that shone in his brother’s life. Grady had been the one to pull Trevor out of trouble and stand up for him whenever someone doubted Trevor’s worth. Grady had been Trevor’s constant champion. He had believed in his little brother like no one else could or would.
He had believed in Trevor so much, that in his will, he had left Trevor his construction company.
Despite my concerns.
Despite my objections.
I received a paycheck from Trevor as if I were a partner, but Carlson Custom Construction was now Trevor’s sole and permanent responsibility.
“How’s business?” I asked while handing him a glass of iced tea.
He took it without looking at me. “Fine,” he mumbled. “It’s fine.”
A sick nervousness fizzled through me. It wasn’t just that I depended on the business doing well to feed my kids, but this company was Grady’s baby. If Trevor allowed this business to fail, I would never forgive him.
I opened my mouth to ask him what exactly “fine” meant, but he spoke before I could get the words out. “I don’t know how he did it, Lizzy.” He finally lifted his dark blue eyes to meet mine. I sucked in a breath and forced myself not to look away. The lost look in his expression hurt my heart. My chin trembled and I started crying before I could talk myself out of it.
“Don’t know how he did what, Trev?”
Tears shone in his eyes, causing them to brighten. “I don’t know how he balanced everything. I don’t know how he knew what was the right decision to make all of the time and which projects to take or not take. It’s too much.”
Trevor had worked for Grady since he graduated from high school and Grady had always treated him like his second in command. When Grady got sick and couldn’t manage the day-to-day business or even when he got really sick and stopped being a part of the company completely, Trevor had stepped in and managed everything.
When Grady was alive, Trevor hadn’t had a problem coping with the responsibility.
But in the last few months, I had watched Trevor’s downward spiral and I knew the company suffered because of it. I hoped that this was just grief inhibiting him from being a smart businessman, but it could also be his lack of leadership abilities and his poor insight.
Grady had a natural knack for running a successful business. By now, I was fully convinced that Trevor hadn’t inherited any of it.
There was a very real possibility that Trevor was going to run my husband’s legacy into the ground.
I stepped up to the counter and wiped the tears away with the heels of my hand. I leaned on my elbows so I could look him in the eyes and he could see how serious I was.
“Yes, you do, Trev. You know exactly how he did it and what you need to do too. You worked at his side for a decade.”
“Lizzy, it’s-”
“Trevor, listen to me. Maybe the truth is, you don’t know what you should do. Could that be it?”
He broke my gaze and ran his hands over his face. “Yeah, maybe.”