The House that Love Built

Eleven




Hunter leaned over the couch to make sure his grandma was still breathing. He’d been out looking for jobs all morning, and Grandma didn’t look like she’d moved from the couch since he’d left.

“I’m alive, boy. Quit hovering over me.”

Hunter jumped back when she opened her eyes and spoke. “You need anything?” He grabbed his belt loops and pulled his jeans up, knowing Grandma didn’t like them “hanging off his butt,” as she called it.

“I need you to have a job. You find one yet?” She grunted as she pushed herself to a seated position. She lit a cigarette, then glared at him long and hard.

“I’ll find one.” He slid into the recliner and leaned his head back.

“You been lookin’ all week. Ain’t nobody got nothing you can do? Groceries don’t pay for themselves ’round here.” She blew a puff of smoke in his direction.

“I’ll find something. What I really need is a car to get around, to go somewhere else besides Smithville. No one likes me around here.”

Grandma took a long drag, blew two smoke rings, and crinkled her face all up. “And whose fault is that?” She crossed her legs and pulled her pink robe around her. “Cars take money anyways. Gas ain’t free neither.”

Hunter stood up and walked to the kitchen, hoping there was some leftover meatloaf from last night.

“Meatloaf’s on the bottom shelf of the fridge,” his grandma said as he passed by her.

By the time he’d finished his lunch and walked back into the living room, she’d already passed out again. His eyes drifted to the half-empty bottle on the floor beside the couch. “Vodka ain’t free neither,” he muttered to himself as he walked out the front door. He didn’t see any point in looking for jobs around here, but he hit the streets just the same, his mind wandering all over the place.

As he kicked a loose rock at his feet, he pictured himself with a real job and a normal family. A mom who welcomed him home with a kiss and a snack after school, then wanted to know all about his day. A father who wanted to play catch and take him to ball games, who would teach him how to be a man. In Hunter’s mind, they’d all eat supper together at a big long table in a pretty house. No roaches, no one hitting each other, always plenty to eat . . . and no one drinking or smoking or shooting up.

“Hey!”

Hunter turned to his right and slowed down.

Great. It was Strong Guy. He lowered his head and kept walking. His gut told him to run, but that didn’t get him very far the last time, only in trouble for something he didn’t do.

Strong Guy yelled at him again, so he stopped. “You talkin’ to me?”

Strong Guy walked across his yard in a pair of stupid-looking blue-jean overalls with paint splattered all over him. He was old. Probably thirty or forty.

“Hunter, right?”

Hunter stood taller. “Yeah. I didn’t do nothin’, if that’s what you’re thinking. Just looking for a job.”

Strong Guy ran an arm across his forehead. He was sweating like a pig. “What kind of work are you looking for?”

“Anything that’ll make a buck.” He folded his arms across his chest. Seemed like a long shot, but . . . “Why? You got something I can do for money?”

“Plenty. You handy with a paintbrush or a hammer and nails?” Strong Guy raised an eyebrow.

Hunter tipped his head to one side, squinting from the sun’s glare coming over the top of Strong Guy’s house. “I reckon I can do both.”

Strong Guy held out his hand. “I’m Owen Saunders.”

Hunter slowly extended his own. “Hunter Lewis.”

“Well, Hunter, I got a real mess here. I’m building a closet in my bedroom, trying to overhaul a kitchen, and all the floors in this house need to be redone. I’ve got AC people coming in another week or so, but for now I have a couple of window units cooling the downstairs, so the working conditions aren’t too bad.”

Hunter wasn’t sure he’d ever had a job working inside, much less in air-conditioning. His last job had been working at the Oldhams’ farm. He’d liked taking care of the horses, and they’d seemed to like him too. He hadn’t even minded the heat or the smelly stables. To this day he didn’t know why Mr. Oldham let him go. He’d said it was for money reasons, but Hunter figured someone probably got to him, told him what a bad kid Hunter was.

“You really offering me a job?” Didn’t seem to make sense. This guy already knew about Hunter. He’s the one who ratted him out to the cops.

Mr. Saunders nodded. “If you’re interested.”

It seemed too good to be true. The guy was probably planning to pay him pennies, then work him like an old hound dog. “How much you payin’?” He knew he wasn’t in a position to be choosy, but . . .

“I can start you out at ten dollars an hour. Then if you do good work, I’ll bump it to fifteen dollars an hour after one month.”

Hunter had never made more than seven dollars an hour, so he quickly picked his jaw up off the ground, swallowed hard, and focused on playing it cool. “I guess that’d be all right.”

“When can you start?”

Hunter thought about how proud his grandma would be. “As soon as you want me to.” He paused. “Mister, why are you doing this?”

Mr. Saunders scratched his chin, then let out a heavy sigh. “Because I’m tired of busting my rear all by myself. I need the help, and some company would be nice.”

Even if it just lasted a couple of days, that would buy plenty of groceries. He knew he should keep his mouth shut, but this still seemed too good to be true. “But you know about, uh, about—”

“I don’t know anything. I’m new here.” Mr. Saunders shrugged. “So, you want the job? I’d expect you here at eight in the morning, with an hour for lunch, then stay until five.”

Hunter swallowed hard again as he calculated that to be eighty dollars per day. Four hundred dollars for the week if Mr. Saunders kept him on that long. Grandma would probably cook all his favorites, and maybe she’d look at him like a good provider for the only family he had left. “I reckon I can do that.”

Mr. Saunders reached into his pocket and pulled out two twenties. “Here. You don’t want to ruin your clothes. I picked these up at that resale shop, the one close to the post office.” He pointed to those overalls he had on, and Hunter tried not to cringe. He reminded himself how much money he’d be making and accepted the twenties.

“Just plan on being here Monday morning. Tomorrow is Saturday, and I might do some work, but I don’t expect you to work on the weekends.”

Hunter figured this must be some kind of trick. Had to be. Strong Guy had hauled him off to the police, and now he was offering him a ton of money to do a real eight-to-five job. He looked down at his cheap, worn tennis shoes and shook his head for a moment, then looked back up. “Mr. Saunders, you only gonna work me for a day or two, then say I stole something? Then the cops would take me back to jail? Is that what you’re wanting?”

Mr. Saunders laughed. “First of all, call me Owen. Mr. Saunders makes me feel like an old guy.”

You are an old guy. Hunter waited for him to go on.

“Second, there isn’t anything to steal in my house even if you were so inclined.” He paused, smiling a little. “And I don’t think you’re so inclined anyway.” He held out his hand again. “So, see you Monday morning?”

Hunter shook his hand, nodded, and went on down the street toward the resale shop. He did his best to keep a straight face, but he felt like laughing and yelling.

I got a real job. Working in the AC. And for a lot of money.



Brooke’s kids had been driving her bonkers since Tuesday, wanting to know when they could go back to Mr. Saunders’s house. So odd. Spencer seemed to really like the guy, now that Owen had assured him he had no plans to date her. Maybe her children were starved for male attention. Briefly she thought about her father, but quickly disregarded that idea. Spencer was probably just intrigued about the prospect of a hidden bunker somewhere in Owen’s house.

“Why can’t we go over there?” Spencer leaned against the store counter in front of Brooke while she totaled store receipts for the day.

“We aren’t going to invite ourselves to Mr. Saunders’s house just because you want to look for a secret bunker.” Brooke stapled the receipts and put them on the counter. She raised an eyebrow. “Because I know that’s why you want to go over there.”

Spencer shrugged. “It’s just a cool house.”

“And he’s nice.” Meghan shifted her weight on the stool where she was sitting beside Brooke but didn’t look up from her coloring book as she pressed down with a blue crayon.

Brooke had more on her mind than Owen Saunders and his house. She hadn’t spoken to her mother since Tuesday, and she missed her. She felt guilty too; they’d never had such harsh words. But try as she might, Brooke couldn’t wrap her mind around the situation with her father. She cringed. What is Mom thinking? Her mother had tried to call several times, but Brooke hadn’t answered, and her mom hadn’t left a message.

Her cell phone chirped to indicate a text message. She glanced down at the display. It was from Judy Delgado. Apparently last week’s sleepover had gone so well that Judy wanted the kids to sleep over again tonight.

Brooke had mixed feelings. As nice as it was to have some time alone, that’s exactly what it was—time alone. Too much time with her thoughts, especially when it was two weekends in a row. But she conceded, knowing the kids liked being at Judy and Rick’s. She did too, actually. She and Travis used to hang out with them all the time. But all their couple friends had continued their lives while Brooke had holed herself away just trying to survive her grief, and Brooke felt the distance.

An hour and a half later she had dropped off the kids, made it home, and was standing in the kitchen with the refrigerator open when her cell phone rang again. This time she was busy studying possibilities for dinner and didn’t check the caller ID.

“I’ve been trying to reach you, and I was going to leave a message this time if you didn’t answer.”

Brooke closed the refrigerator, then leaned against it and sighed. “How could you do this, Mom?”

“I want to tell you how it happened. I’d heard your father had moved back to town, but that’s all I knew. Then on one of the ladies’ shopping trips, I ran into him at the mall. We started talking, Brooke, and it was as if no time had gone by.”

Brooke grunted. “Mother, twenty years has gone by.” She shook her head and pinched her eyes closed as she recalled her father walking out the door with nothing but a backpack swung over his shoulder. “And exactly where has he been all this time? Does he have another family? Has he been in jail? What? I’d like to know.”

“You know he’s been in Seattle working. I told you that when I received his last letter.”

Brooke had quit opening her father’s letters a long time ago. “Whatever.”

They were quiet for a few moments before her mother said, “Due to health issues, he wanted to come home.”

“Home? Is that what he calls Smithville?” Brooke laughed as she turned around and yanked the refrigerator door open again. Spying half of a chocolate bar, she grabbed it and peeled back the wrapper. She took a huge bite, then talked with her mouth full. “Mom, he had an affair and walked out on us.”

“But he left us everything. The business and plenty of money.”

“He broke our hearts. How can you defend him, much less . . .” She choked down the rest of the candy bar.

“Brooke, he’s really very sorry. And I hate it that you’re hurting, but I want us to be a family again. I want him to get to know you and to meet his grandchildren. Can’t you open your heart? Even just a little?”

Brooke was quiet, wishing she had more chocolate.

“Don’t you think God would want—”

“Don’t throw God into this. I’ve relied on God for everything my entire life—when Daddy left, when Travis died, everything. But God would not expect me to just invite that man back into my life again after all this time.”

“Of course He would.”

Brooke ground her teeth and chose to redirect the conversation. “Mom, how did he coerce you into this? I know it’s not his looks because he’s skinny and bald. So is it . . .” Brooke gasped. “He wants money, doesn’t he? That’s why he’s back.”

“He doesn’t want money, and he has a nice apartment outside of town.”

“Then why didn’t you stay at his place instead of making a spectacle of yourselves by playing smoochy-smoochy outside of your apartment?”

“Because your father knows I don’t sleep well when I’m not in my own bed, and before we remarried, he was sleeping on the couch anyway.”

Brooke stiffened. “Stop calling him my father. He lost that right. And you’ve lost your mind for remarrying him.”

“Can he at least meet Spencer and Meghan?”

Brooke could hear the quiver in her mother’s voice, but it didn’t matter. “No, Mom. I don’t want him around my children. And if you can’t understand that, then search your memory and think about how it was for us after he left. He didn’t care anything about his family, so why should I trust him with mine?”

They were silent for a few moments before her mother spoke up. “We all make mistakes.”

“Yeah, well, his was a big one.” Brooke paced the kitchen, shaking her head.

“I’m going to let you go now, dear. Give you some time. But just know that I love you very much.”

Brooke blinked back tears. “I love you too, Mom. I really do. But time isn’t going to change the way I feel.”

She hung up feeling all the sadness and bitterness of the past two years. She wanted to kick something, hit someone, yell, or scream. She resisted the temptation to yell at God, to ask Him why all this was happening. The Lord had been her rock for her entire life, the One to see her through the tough times. She wasn’t going to turn on Him now. But she felt reckless, in need of a distraction. Picking up her cell phone, she dialed Owen’s number. He answered on the second ring. After a few pleasantries, she got to the point.

“I was just wondering if you wanted another movie night. My kids are at a sleepover again.” She paused, taking a deep breath. “The offer comes with dinner. Nothing fancy. Just a beef and noodle casserole that I’d planned to make.”

“Hmm.”

Why did I do this? She shook her head. He was going to turn her down, and she was going to feel like an idiot.

“Does it mean that I’ll have to watch another chick flick?”

Brooke smiled. “Maybe.”

“Hmm.”

“But you’ll get a home-cooked meal out of it.”

“I’ll grab my tissues and be on my way.” He chuckled.

Brooke laughed, then glanced around the house. Meghan’s dolls were piled in the middle of the floor, and there was a trail of playing cards leading from the kitchen into the living room. That was just what she could see from where she was standing. “Give me an hour. Actually, an hour and a half, if that’s okay.”

“Sounds good. Thanks.”

She hung up the phone, still feeling a bit reckless and longing for something, even though she wasn’t sure what it was. She might not be able to change her mind where her father was concerned, but other areas in her mind were working overtime.



After a shower and shave, Owen pulled on a clean pair of blue jeans, a light-green polo shirt, and his brown flip-flops. As he looked in the mirror, he recalled Virginia saying this shirt was his best color. Why does every single thought have to be attached to her?

He combed his hair, put on aftershave, and pondered why Brooke was inviting him over for dinner while her children were away. Was he reading too much into it? Maybe he hadn’t been clear about his intentions. He’d thought she was pretty up front about hers.

Deciding this was just two lonely souls watching movies and having dinner, he left for her house.

But when Brooke opened the door, she didn’t look like any lonely soul he’d ever seen. She didn’t even look like the same person he’d been hanging out with lately.