A Heart of Time (5 page)

“I am with Harold and Sons.” There are only three carpentry companies here in Sage. And only one of them is family run.

“Shut up!” she squeals. “My parents used you guys a few months ago to refinish their hardwoods.”

I think for a minute, recalling the few hardwood jobs we had. Only one of those couples were on the older side. “The Olsans?” I ask.

“Yup,” she grins. “That’s them. Such a small world.”

“Great folks you have. They were very kind.” Does my voice sound as monotone as I hear it? Why would anyone want to sit here and continue a conversation with me? I did technically invite her in, but that was before I knew she was a female praying mantis, or in this case, “preying” mantis. “What do you do?” Why did I ask that?
I don’t care what you do.
But I should
. So I ask. I should make an effort to talk to a beautiful woman, especially a forward one who almost but not quite, invited herself into my house. I should be thinking inappropriate thoughts right now, and hoping she’s sharing in those inappropriate thoughts. Instead, I’m staring at Ellie’s photo hanging on the wall behind Charlotte.

“I’m a software engineer,” she says. Her response draws my attention back to her face, but I’m guessing it would be incredibly rude to look shocked, so I do my best to restrain my reaction. She doesn’t have the look of a software engineer, but that’s sexist. I’m just not sure I’ve seen a woman of her type, involved in such an intense profession.
Wow, I am a total sexist
.

“Very cool. Do you work from home?” She’s dressed well for eight in the morning, but not exactly in corporate attire. Jeans, chucks, and a long sleeve white t-shirt wouldn’t be acceptable in any white-collar company I’ve ever seen. But times have changed, I suppose. That dress code was one of the very reasons I made the decision to take up carpentry instead of finance like I had gone to school for. Stuck in a suit, working ten hours a day, and coming home with a headache has never appealed to me. Although, now that I’m about to hit thirty, some days the body aches from carpentry make a job requiring a suit seem more appealing.

“I do. I run my own company,” she says with a bit of pride. “Ever heard of the ‘TheLWord.com’?”
The dating site
. Oh boy. Internally, I sneer at the mention. Those things are the epitome of love. Matching up strangers based on a couple of common interests doesn’t seem like the most natural form of a connection, but hey, it works for some people. Just, definitely not my thing. Of course, AJ would completely disagree since “TheLWord.com” is where he met Alexa, the female dictator of his dreams.

“I definitely have. It’s your company?”

“I have a passion for helping people fall in love. What can I say?” She looks shy or reserved while saying this, which is a bit shocking considering her previous assertiveness. “Kind of ironic that I ended up divorced, huh?” Right. That’s like being a doctor with an incurable disease, I would assume.

“We live and learn. I bet your divorce will help you grow your company in a way that helps others avoid the path you went down.” That may not have come out right. Actually, I’m hoping it didn’t so we can end this—whatever this is. It’s not unreasonable to want to be left alone right now. I mean, I just let Olive out of my sight for the first time in five years, and I’m here with a woman I met an hour ago. I don’t do this. I’ve actually avoided people and the thought of making new friends for this exact reason. Charlotte looks down at her watch and her eyes widen in suit.

“Oh wow, that hour went by quickly.” She looks back up at me. “You going to be okay until three?” Am I that pathetic?
Yes. Yes I am
.

“I’ll be fine. I have to be at a job site in an hour, and Olive was kind enough to leave me a bowl of cereal for breakfast that I must tend to.” Air is beginning to percolate in my lungs again as I feel this meet and greet coming to an end.

“I was wondering about the overfilled bowl of lucky charms, but I went on the assumption that you were either starving or still looking for that pot of gold.” With a cunning grin, she flashes a quick wink at me and stands up. “Well, Hunter, it was a pleasure finally meeting my new neighbor. If you need someone to talk to today, my doorbell is only a hundred feet away.”

“Same for you. Single parents unite, right?” Did I just say that?
I did
. And she’s looking at me with the same look I would be looking at me with if someone said that to me.

“We do. We’ll get through this,” she says quietly. “Thanks for the coffee.” We. There is no such thing as a “we” outside of Olive and me. I stand up and meet Charlotte at the front door, opening it and standing to the side as she passes by. “I’m glad we met,” she says.

I don’t respond. Nothing good would come out of my mouth if I did. It was never my intention to shut the world out after Ellie died, but it was sort of an unofficial commitment I made to myself. If Ellie couldn’t move on with her life, then why should I? I know it’s irrational, as are most of the common decisions I make, but it makes sense in my head. I think.

I watch Charlotte walk down my driveway and cross the street, but now I’m closing my eyes so I don’t stare at her ass because...why do I want to stare at her ass?
It is a nice ass, that’s probably why
. I’m trying so hard to keep my eyes closed, but with as much restraint as I thought I had, I come to the conclusion that I obviously have none. So I surrender to my weakness and take in the last couple of ass-watching seconds before she disappears inside of her house. I’m a prick—a prick whose day just got a little better, despite my effort of avoiding what could be a lucky charm in my life—one that isn’t overflowing from a cereal bowl.

CHAPTER THREE

Five minutes.
Five.
Five more long minutes, and then I’ll take off. This day is going on forever. I look back down at the nails I’m supposed to be hammering but I’m unable to concentrate as I look back up at the clock again. Four minutes and thirty seconds. What if the bus driver gets there early for some reason? Olive wouldn’t know what to do. She’d be standing there alone, crying, wondering if I forgot about her after she had been gone for so long.
Oh God
. I can’t take this. I have to go.

“Dude, what are you doing? It’s only two!” AJ shouts in from the adjacent room.

“The bus could get there early.”

“An hour early? Doesn’t school get out at three? Because if that’s that case, I’m pretty sure it’s virtually impossible for the bus to get to the bus stop before Olive is actually dismissed from school. I have a point, don’t I? Yes, I have a point.”

“There could be traffic,” I try to reason; although reasoning with AJ is like reasoning with a stubborn five-year-old. Olive and AJ go head-to-head quite often and there is never a winner. Ever.

“We’re two blocks away, so...” AJ needs to add in. Then he looks up at me and stops mid-sentence. I’m pacing the uncarpeted living room, pressing my fingers through my hair, trying to make sense of my ridiculous apprehensions but there is no clarity coming along with my irrational worries. I’m just so uneasy being away from Olive. “I’m sorry, Hunt. You’re right,” AJ says, placing his hammer down and flipping the light off. “Let’s go get our little martini garnish.”

“Really?” I punch him in the shoulder. “I told you to quit calling her that now that she’s old enough to repeat shit. She’s going to tell someone at school.”

He snorts and rubs the spot on his arm that I punched. “I said it to you, not her.”

“Just knock it off, will you?” I snap, causing him to roll his eyes at me. If I ever had to describe him to someone, I could pretty much sum him up as the kid that was always in the principal’s office for doing something stupid, like pantsing a teacher or shooting a spitball into someone’s hair. Years later, AJ hasn’t changed. His brain hasn’t matured along with his twenty-eight-year-old body.

“Why were you so late this morning?” AJ asks. “Knocking boots with the old lady who brought you a pie last week? Oh, did she bring you
her
pie this week?”

Drowning in a fit of laughter, he regains his composure when I say, “Actually, my neighbor dropped in. She came over for coffee.”

AJ stops in front of me, preventing me from walking any further. “There was a chick in your house?”

I push him to the side and continue forward. “My neighbor. Not a chick,” although that was what I mentally referred to her as just a few hours ago.

“You said she, which makes her a chick. Is
she
married?” Why is that always his first question? Why did I bring this up to him at all?

“No, she’s not.”

“And she wanted to have coffee?”

“Yes, and it was just coffee. She didn’t pin me up against a wall and have her way with me.” Those were the thoughts I was avoiding the entire time, though, but AJ doesn’t have to know that.

“But I bet you’re thinking that would have been pretty fucking sweet, huh? What does she look like? Is she hot? Big tits? Nice ass? I need details, bro.”
God, shut up.
I close my eyes and pull in a struggling breath while ignoring each of his questions. “You would have said no, if she didn’t meet some, if not all, of those criteria,” he continues, despite my lack of encouragement. I can see his shit-eating grin in my peripheral vision, and I’m now absolutely sure that telling him about having coffee with Charlotte was a horrible mistake. Though, it was not as big of a mistake as bringing him to the bus stop where Charlotte is currently standing. “Bro.” AJ grips his hand around my shoulder and forces me to stop walking. “What’s gotten into you today? You’ve been doing well lately and it’s the first time I’ve seen you with that ‘rock-bottom’ look in on your face in a good while.”

“Today’s just hard. It’s been hard,” I say, keeping my eyes set on Charlotte.

“You know she didn’t just go off to college, right?” he asks.

“Yes, I know, AJ.” But it’s all a downward slope from here. First kindergarten...then the next thing I know she’ll be driving. She’ll be dating. She’ll be sneaking into gardens at night with some dude who wants to carve her damn name into a tree.

I try to continue walking, but his hand tightens around my shoulder. “Hunt, what is this chick’s name? Give me that at least.”

“Hey!” Charlotte yells over. It is forty-five minutes before the bus is supposed to arrive, so I guess I’m not the only crazy parent here. I turn to tell AJ that, but he is too busy taking quicker steps ahead of me toward Charlotte.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” AJ says. “I’m AJ, Hunt’s brother.” He points over to me and I place my head in my hand. How were the two of us cut from the same cloth? “Are you by any chance Hunter’s neighbor? The one who joined him for coffee this morning?” Peeking through my fingers, I watch as Charlotte slips a bookmark in between the pages of the book she was reading and stands up, facing AJ.

“Nope,” she grins. “We definitely haven’t met. I
am
your brother’s neighbor, and yes, I did have coffee with him this morning. Is that a problem?” Charlotte lifts her hand to shake his, but AJ finds it necessary to first turn around and cup his hand around his mouth, shouting through a whisper, “You don’t have to answer my questions. I answered them myself.” I love how he’s pretending to whisper, like any type of volume matters right now. If I look at AJ for another second, I might go after him with a swinging fist, so instead I look up at Charlotte, noticing she is not the slightest bit embarrassed by this horrible encounter.

“I’ve been around his type, plenty,” she says, leaning to the side so she can see me around AJ. “This isn’t new to me.” Her smile is sarcastic and adorable. Adorable? I didn’t know that word was even part of my vocabulary, aside from referring to Olive.

“We’re here early because Hunter was hoping
you
would be here early, too.” You have to be fucking kidding me. I’m going to knock him out.

“AJ, maybe you could sit down and stop talking. Or better yet, go back to the site and keep working,” I suggest.

“But I’d like to get to know your new neighbor.”

She gives me a quick wink and sits down beside AJ on the bench. “What would you like to know?” Charlotte complies.

“Well, I already know you’re single. But now I know you’re a single mom—I never would have guessed that, honestly. You live across the street from Hunter, so now I’m wondering when the two of you will cut to the chase and go out for dinner now that you’ve had coffee? I can watch the kids.” Still wanting to crawl out of my skin, I keep my eyes locked on this scene, waiting to hear what comes out of Charlotte’s mouth.

Thankfully, I don’t have to wait long because she stands up and walks over to me with a blank expression. “Your brother...” she begins. I like wherever this is going. I think. “Is a nutcase, and kind of funny. Why
are
you here so early?”

“Hey now!” AJ yells over. “We were in the middle of a very serious conversation.”

Charlotte turns around and gives him a look I can’t see, but then immediately turns back to face me. “Are you okay? Did you survive the brutal six hour wait?”

“I’m good. I just wanted to make sure I was here when the bus gets here. I know I probably sound crazy, but maybe not since you’re sitting here, too.”

The corners of her lips perks up. “Yeah, for the past year, I have come down to the bus stop an hour early and read, using this time as my daily late lunch break. At least I know I’ll never be late.”

“That’s fantastic. Hunter, you won’t have to stand here alone every day,” AJ interrupts again, with a cunning smirk I still want to punch.

“Really, you should get back to work so we’re not there until six, finishing up.” AJ doesn’t like to work past five, so I’m using the only weapon I can think of right now. He looks down at his watch and squints one eye, debating what choice is better—torturing me or getting out of work on time. “Alexa will kill you if you’re late tonight.” That should do it. It’s their anniversary. And when I say, “
Kill
” I mean she will make his life a living hell for an indefinite period of time.

“Shit,” he says. “Fine. You win this time, bro.” Win. What exactly am I winning? “It was a pleasure to meet you, Charlotte.” AJ tips his invisible hat and heads back down toward the job site.

Charlotte doesn’t respond. Instead, she immediately turns her attention back to me. “You have to go back to work after you get Olive?” Charlotte asks.

“Yeah, Olive is no stranger to carpentry. She’s been with me at every single job for the past five years.”

“What a lucky little girl,” she says, slipping her hands into her pockets and rolling back onto her heels. Charlotte looks up at the sun and squints from the brightness as she exhales a soft sigh. “Boy, you seem to have this single parent thing down pat.”

“What choice do I have?” It’s not the option I would have chosen. Ever. Watching Olive grow up without a mother, or any female influence for that matter, has made this single parent task even harder. What do I know about raising a little girl, or a teenage girl? Nothing.

“Let me take Olive home with me while you finish up at work. She and Lana can play for a bit. It’ll be a great way to finish the first day of school for both of them.”

I think about it for a brief second, but then I realize I haven’t seen my little girl in six hours and there’s no way in hell I’m not keeping her by my side for the rest of the day and night. “I appreciate the offer, but—“

“What am I saying?” she says, placing her hand up against the side of her cheek. “You haven’t seen that precious little face in hours.”

“Yes, that,” I chuckle awkwardly. Was I always this awkward around women? I can hardly remember, considering Ellie and I grew up together. We promised to marry each other when we were children.

The minutes with Charlotte pass with a series of short conversations about weather and the horrible grass seed our lawns were sodded with. The awkwardness between us begins to lessen, but with each second, as my comfort level increases, guilt seeps into to my veins—guilt for enjoying the company of another woman, and guilt for talking to a beautiful woman—which is now causing me to feel like I am somehow cheating on my dead wife.
It’s okay to move on
. It’s okay to do all of this. I’ve told myself this for years and through dozens of horrible first dates, but each time, I still question if it’s wrong.

Relief sets in when the bus creeps down the road. The thought of seeing Olive fills me with relief—the only little thing in this world who makes me feel like I’m alive and not walking among the dead. My daughter is the blanket I couldn’t give up as a child, and the bed I used to hide under during a thunderstorm. She’s the calm voice always telling me everything is going to be okay. Mostly, she is the voice I’ve longed to hear for five years—the voice I know I’ll never hear again. She is Ellie. Everything about her is Ellie. It’s as if Ellie created her entirely on her own without my help. And I wouldn’t want it any other way. She, alone, makes my life worth living.

As the wheels of the bus come to a screeching halt, my heart freezes. The doors crank open and I watch each child hop off the bus one by one until I see the blonde, springy ponytail I’ve been waiting for all day. “Daddy!” she yells, running toward me at warp speed. The pride highlighting her face melts everything inside of me. Her arms wrap around my legs, squeezing me as tightly as I want to squeeze her. Her embrace tells me she missed me as much as I have missed her today and I lift her up, holding her tighter, relishing in the warmth of her cheek against mine. I feel her tiny heart beating through her back as a small shudder escapes her mouth. “I missed you so much today. I was so worried about you being all alone.”

My world stops. My mind stops spinning, and my heart…my heart hurts.
What have I done to her?
“Why were you worried? You should never have to worry about me.” The words come out, but they feel stuck in my throat, like I’m trying to convince her of something different than what she has obviously grown accustomed to.

Pulling away, she takes my face in her hands and stares me straight in the eyes, just like Ellie always did when she wanted to get her point across. “Because you don’t like to be alone. You need me.” Her words are spoken through a wisdom no five-year-old should have. Those words define a parent who has no right taking care of a small child when he can clearly not always take care of himself.