It was encouraging. We were still in May, but the latter half. I appreciated that he’d gotten this done ahead of schedule. I spaced out the pots. The soil looked amazing. Roger had promised, and he’d delivered. I sunk the plants into the ground but kept the rim of the pots a fraction above the soil level. Then I took a water jug I’d brought and gave each a drink. Roger had cautioned that the water wasn’t running there yet, but I liked the idea of transplanting in stages, so I’d decided to proceed regardless.
When I was done, I took off my gloves and pulled out the hand sanitizer. I grabbed my lunch bag from the cooler. It had seemed like a fun idea to have lunch out here, but I was realizing the flaw in my plan. The only restroom was a portable toilet.
Better than nothing, but if I had the option, I’d drive the two miles down the road to the gas station/convenience store.
As I walked through the house, I saw movement outside. Liam. He was standing on the ground, below the level of the porch floor, and he’d been half-hidden by the porch posts. His truck was parked near my car. I hadn’t heard a thing.
Was this a problem?
Hadn’t I handled Spencer? Only a few unseen emotional scars had resulted from that. Nothing I couldn’t live with. What about Liam? He had even less reason to be curious about Ellen. Yet he had more reason to be told.
From the open doorway, I said, “Hello there.”
“Hannah. Hi. I hope I didn’t disturb you.” He waved a hand. He was holding woodworking tools. “I’m starting the posts today.”
The porch posts were special. I didn’t know where Roger had obtained the pieces, but the wood was fine-grained and the diameter was impressive. Like showpieces-to-be. Art integrated with function.
I stepped out, over the threshold, onto the porch. “What do you have in mind, if you don’t mind my asking?”
He smiled a shy, secretive smile. “Make them distinctive. That’s my plan.”
Clearly he didn’t want to say more. It was as if he were protecting something . . . His art? I did the same when I was working my pottery and other clay projects.
“Hungry? I have two sandwiches.” I held up the bag. “I wasn’t sure which I’d want. I made two and figured there’d be someone here willing to eat the other.”
Liam averted his eyes. “I apologize.”
I frowned. “For what?”
“I don’t know,” he said, looking up at me, “but I know there’s something bothering you, and I think it has to do with me. I see it in your eyes.”
“Not at all.” I tried to shrug it off. “That’s ridiculous.”
“I might think so if I hadn’t seen you talking to others and then seen . . . that change when you see me. If I’ve done anything to offend you, I apologize.”
“Hey,” I tried to joke, “I just offered you food.” I shook the bag. “I wouldn’t do that if you’d offended me in some way.”
He nodded. “Glad to hear it.” He looked at the tool he was holding, then stared again at my face. “If it’s about my father, I understand. I know your grandparents disapproved of how I was gone so much of the time. They worried about him. Maybe some of that influenced your opinion of me? I couldn’t blame you—or them, for that matter.”
I didn’t know what to say. “You were gone by the time I was in my teens. I hardly knew you, but I did know your father. I don’t blame you, though. How could I? I have no idea what was between the two of you.” I waggled the bag again. “Look, these aren’t improving with age. Want one? How about chicken salad? Or, if you prefer roast beef, you can have that. I don’t have a strong preference.”
His face relaxed. His mouth curved up in one corner, and he shook his head. “Chicken salad sounds good.”
He stepped up onto the porch and I held the sandwich toward him.
“Homemade,” I said. “The cooler’s in the kitchen. Be right back with the drinks.”
“The cooler?” he asked. But I was already moving. I took two water bottles and closed the lid again. I returned to the porch and gave him one.
I sat in the open doorway to the porch, cross-legged, and set my water bottle beside me so I could unwrap my sandwich.
“So, where were you?” I asked.
He was sitting down himself, and he looked at me, surprised. “You mean all those years I was gone?”
“Do you mind my asking? None of my business, right?”
He held the sandwich and looked at it for a few moments before speaking. “I went off to school first. That didn’t work out. I got married. That didn’t work out well, either. I joined the service for a while but didn’t re-up. It wasn’t for me.”
He unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite.
“Somewhere in there you learned to carve wood?”
“Irony.” He shook his head. “Ready for it? I learned how to carve before I ever left home. Not with my dad but from an uncle. He was an artist, though he would have decked you if you called him that. ‘Craftsman’ is what he called himself.” He took a drink, then set the bottle back on the porch floor. “So, here I am, years later, back where I started, doing what I love, and wondering why I ever left in the first place.”
“Sometimes, I guess you don’t know until you’re gone, right? It’s good you figured it out before it was too late.” I looked at my porch posts and Liam’s tools and smiled. “I’ve seen something on TV where the guy carves with a chainsaw.”
“Not me. Although I’ve been known to do the rough cuts with a chainsaw.”
A large, long, beat-up red tool chest was on the porch.
He pointed at it. “I have what I need in there.”
“Do you make a good living at it?” I added quickly, “I’m sorry, really sorry for asking that. That’s very personal.” I laughed. “I throw pots and do some clay sculpture, and I have some regular customers, but I can’t make a living at it.”
He looked around at the growing house. “You must be doing good.”
“This? No. I couldn’t afford this if I didn’t have some money from my family.”
“I guess that’s true for me, too, though I could make better money if I was willing to travel more, but I’ve lost the taste for it. You’ve met my cousin? Up at the house?”
“I have. I met her several years ago, but I’ve seen her only a few times.”
“Mamie’s talking about leaving here and going to live with her daughter. She’s not getting any younger, as she says, and she’s got a grandchild now. I have to decide. Do I stay? And if I stay, do I stay at the house? I’m there now, but I don’t have a lot of good memories.”
I sat, chewing and sipping and thinking. George Bridger was set in his ways and could be a little odd, but I’d never seen cruelty in him. If there had been, my Grands wouldn’t have had anything to do with him.
“It sounds like you two didn’t get along. Too different, I guess.”
“Likely true.”
“If we’re lucky, we live long enough to work out our differences—that’s what Gran used to say. I remember Mr. Bridger saying shortly before he died that you were coming home to see him. I’d taken him up some cobbler. He was looking forward to the visit.”
“I didn’t make it. I tried. My wife and daughter were going there, but then she went missing. I was overseas.”