Ever chivalrous, Lincoln opened the door for her, closing it after her. Sara huddled into her coat, lowering her face under the collar to try to warm it up. “Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.” Lincoln started the engine and the truck rumbled to life, cool air blowing from the vents.
“I hate surprises,” she reminded him.
“If you could go anywhere, right now, where would it be?”
“Texas,” Sara answered immediately.
“Oh yeah. I guess I knew that. Okay, I’m talking internationally. Anywhere in the world. Where would it be?”
“Texas.”
Lincoln sighed as the truth stopped at a Stop sign. “Way to be adventurous.”
“Are you taking me to Texas?”
He laughed. “No. Sorry. Not this trip.”
The cool air warmed and Sara sat up straighter, poking her face out from behind the collar of her coat. “Way to be adventurous. You won’t even take me to Texas.”
“Touché.”
“What are you working on anyway? I mean, when you actually work.” Sara laughed when Lincoln shot her a look as he turned the truck toward Fennimore.
“Shed over by Blue River. Framework and siding and roof are done, but there’s a lot to do inside yet.”
“Is that what you want to do for the rest of your life, Lincoln?”
Sara had asked her husband a similar question. He’d said it was all he knew how to do. He’d trained under a guy he knew over the summer when high school was done, somehow going to school full-time too in the fall as well as working full-time. Then he’d graduated and started up his own business, Lincoln joining him later. She’d always wondered at that; to be so happy with something so simple; to not dream and want more than an everyday life.
She’d thought it lacking; a lifestyle unable to bring one happiness, but maybe she was the one lacking to think such a thing. Clearly he had been happy as a carpenter. She’d never thought less of him; in fact, she’d envied that about him, but she’d always wondered why that was enough for him and others when it wasn’t for her. Sara had always wanted to be something more, to have her name known for creating something out of nothing, and she had found that in her artwork. But that drive; that inner voice telling her anything ordinary was unacceptable; where had it come from? Why did some people have it and others not? Maybe it was something all artists felt and maybe that was why they were artists.
“No. It’s not. For now it’s fine. I make good money. But…” He shrugged. “Do I want to be doing it for the rest of my life? No. I want to be able to walk when I’m in my fifties. I want to be able to keep my knees and hips and not have to have back surgery when I’m older. Construction work is hard on a body."
Sara knew. He’d come home with his knees bothering him and his back aching more times than he hadn’t. Construction work made young men old.
“Plus, there’s always the chance of falling off a roof.”
She glanced at him. “Yeah. I know.”
“Don’t even bring it up, Sara,” he warned, sipping from one of the cups he’d carried to the truck.
“I didn’t. You did. That was horrible. I’d never seen him so scared.”
You’d never seen him so scared except for the night of the car wreck, just before he lost consciousness. Then you never saw him look anything at all after that. Sara clamped her mouth shut, wishing there was a way to turn off her thoughts at will. Mindless, numb, unable to feel—what a reprieve that would be.
“It’s not like I meant to fall off the roof. I slipped.”
“You shouldn’t have been up there in the rain anyway. Duh you.” Sara remembered the phone call from his parents, the fear in his eyes, the dread that had filled her, and the dread that had stayed with her until they were at the hospital and she saw Lincoln was okay.
“It was leaking,” he said, like that made it all tolerable.
“Stupid man,” she said softly.
Lincoln glanced at her, the faintest of smiles on his lips. “That I am.”
“You’re lucky all you got was a sprained ankle and scraped up.”
“I don’t need luck, Sara. I got skills.”
“Clearly.” Her eyes met his again and she laughed, Lincoln laughing with her.
They reached Fennimore. It was located on top of a hill, Fennimore Hill, as it was called by locals, and had a population under three thousand. It was a pretty, scenic town with a nice library Sara liked to frequent, or used to, when she read. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d lost herself in a story.
“Coffee?” Lincoln asked as the truck went by Kwik Trip, his lips twitching.
“I’ll pass.”
The truck veered to the left by the Casey’s gas station, taking them in the direction of Dodgeville. Lincoln tapped his fingers on the steering wheel in tune to a ‘Nine Inch Nails’ song.
“You never said what you want to do later.”
“I know.”
“So…are you going to tell me?”
Lincoln grabbed a black baseball cap from the dash, repeatedly adjusting it on his head. “Nope.”
Sara crossed her arms. “I don’t understand why you’re so elusive all the time lately.”
“Especially today?”