“Even so, no on the drink, okay Joe?” I said. “Now, can I have my shovel back?”
Just like he’d done that night, he studied me for awhile, something happening behind those blue eyes, something I didn’t get.
Then he gave me my shovel, turned and walked away.
I gave up on the drive, it would take forever and there was a tall, strapping boy-man in my daughter’s bedroom. Therefore, I shoveled the sidewalk at the front of the house and went inside and did all sorts of things loudly, such as make dinner or call questions to Keira even when she was right in the living room so Kate and Dane couldn’t forget I was close.
When Dane left after he ate dinner at our house and I found out I kind of liked him, I watched out the window as Kate walked him to his pickup.
Then I forced myself not to watch because firstly, I didn’t want to see and secondly, I was not an un-awesome, uptight Mom who would watch her daughter and her new boyfriend out the window.
But as I was turning away, my head whipped back and my eyes narrowed on the drive.
Except for under my car, Kate’s car and Dane’s pickup, the drive had been shoveled clean of snow.
I stopped looking out the front window to look left, out the window at the side over my kitchen sink facing Joe’s house.
The house was dark and there was no shiny, black, new model Ford pickup in the drive.
There wasn’t one the next morning either.
Or the next.
Or the two weeks after that.
Chapter Two
Hunger
I drove home from the garden shop thinking a variety of things.
First, I was thinking that full-time paychecks didn’t mean much of a change to part-time ones, especially when taxes and insurance were deducted.
Second, I was thinking that I spent an awful lot of time while Kate and Keira were growing up wishing I could do things. Things like go to a movie whenever I wanted. Things like take a long, hot bubble bath when the spirit moved me. Things like reading a book without the word “Mom” shouted over and over again (as in, “Mom, where’s my backpack?” and “Mom, Keira’s bothering me,” and “Mom, I’m hungry”). Now, with Kate out with Dane all the time (or in with him at our house, which I preferred seeing as I could keep an eye on them, however I still didn’t see much of Kate during these times) and Keira, who seemed to be attempting to make an art form out of socializing, they were never home. I could go see a movie, have a bubble bath and read a whole book if I wanted to. But, of course, since life mostly sucked and not a whole helluva lot worked out for me, I didn’t want any of that anymore. All I wanted was my girls to be home.
I could have probably handled this better if Tim was at home or I knew he was coming home instead of knowing I was going to an empty house, a one-woman dinner and nothing but aloneness until weeknight curfew hit (eight o’clock) or weekend curfew hit (ten o’clock for Keira, eleven for Kate). Unfortunately, this wasn’t an option.
I turned down the street and my mind left these thoughts as I saw the lights on and the black pickup in the drive at Joe’s house.
“Great,” I muttered under my breath.
It bothered me that he was home, why, I couldn’t imagine. He’d be gone tomorrow and I didn’t care about him anyway. I doubted he’d come over and ask me to have a drink with him at J&J’s or that I’d even see him at all. And there was no snow to shovel, making me think he might be a decent guy even though I knew he was not. And I knew he shoveled my snow, I knew this because I asked Colt if he’d done it and he’d said no and I’d asked Jeremy if he’d done it and he’d said no and since my other close neighbors were either too old (Myrtle, the widow who lived across from Joe and Pearl, the spinster who lived across from me) or bitches (Tina, who lived next to me on the other side), it had to be Joe.
But him being home, seeing his truck in his drive, for whatever reason bothered me, I couldn’t deny it.
I turned into my drive and parked under the awning. The days were staying lighter longer but night was edging in, it was getting late. Bobbie had asked me to do a bit of overtime and I did it. I needed the money for one, for another, why not? There was no reason to go home when Kate and Keira were both out.