Redemption Road (Jackson Falls #5) (18 page)

Mikey

When he let himself into the apartment, his mother was sitting in
the dark, watching TV. He stood there for a time, leaning against the living room
door frame, his keys cool and hard against his hand. Funny that he’d never
noticed just how sad she looked. And how lonely. Those weren’t words he would
ever have thought to use to describe his mother. But tonight, he could see it
clearly. Maybe it was the contrast of her sadness with his own elation that brought
it home to him with such impact that it dampened his spirits a bit. She looked
up, saw him there in the doorway, and smiled. She had a lovely smile, his
mother. At thirty-five, she was still a real looker.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.”

“Whatcha watching?”

“Just an old movie I rented.
The Way We Were
. Robert
Redford and Barbra Streisand. Are you in for the night?”

“Yeah. Hey, you were quite something tonight.”

Her blue eyes widened in surprise. “You were there?”

“In the kitchen. Hiding.”

“No doubt mortified because of your mother’s brassy and juvenile
behavior.”

“Are you kidding? You and Aunt Casey rocked. I was just hiding
because I had a lot on my mind.”

“Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine.” Better than fine, he thought, and momentarily
considered telling her his news, before sanity took over and reminded him that he
wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. But for some crazy reason, tonight he wanted to
be with her. “I saw popcorn in the kitchen,” he said. “Want me to pop some?  We
can watch the movie together.”

“I’d love that. But it’s not exactly your kind of movie.”

She might be surprised. With the mood he was in tonight, anything
could happen. Tonight, he might be able to enjoy the sappiest love story ever written.
“I’ll get the popcorn. How far in are you?”

“Only about five minutes. I’ll rewind the tape.”

He headed for the kitchen, hesitated as he heard the familiar
whirring sound of the tape rewinding. “Mom?” he said. “About the other day…I’m
sorry. I was rude, and out of line.”

“You were,” she said, “but it doesn’t change how I feel about
you.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that, so he went to the kitchen
for the popcorn instead.

The movie was as sappy as he’d expected. He and his mom sat side
by side on the couch, feet propped on the coffee table, and shared the popcorn.
He tried to focus on Streisand and Redford, but his mind was awash in images of
Paige. After his proposal—and after she’d pronounced him certifiably batshit crazy—they’d
escaped from her house and taken his truck to the high school, where they parked
out back by the football field and talked for what felt like hours. He’d
pleaded his case, and she’d poked holes in it. That was Paige. She wasn’t the
kind of girl to jump into something this serious without looking at it from
every possible angle. They’d talked about feelings, about possibilities, about
practicalities:  how she would finish her schooling, what kind of life they’d
both be leading, far from home and loved ones. They talked about the hardships
they’d undoubtedly face. About her own dreams, about how to make sure she didn’t
get shortchanged if they did this crazy thing. This wasn’t just about him; it
was about both of them.

When they were done talking, they spent some time steaming up the
windows in his pick-up truck before she told him that if she didn’t get home,
her dad would be out looking for her. They’d agreed to keep everything low-key
for now. They still had a little time to work out the details.

“You’re quiet,” his mom said. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

If she only knew.
I’m getting married, Mom.
He wished he
could tell her, but if he did, Paige’s dad would know within a nano-second, and
he’d be banished forever. He couldn’t take that chance.

“Everything’s fantastic,” he said, and examined her tired face. “How
are things with you?”

“Oh, you know how it goes. Some days you’re the windshield, some
days you’re the bug. I’m a tough old broad. I get by, one way or the other.”

“Want me to make another bag of popcorn?”

“No, thanks. That stuff’ll kill you.”

“Hasn’t killed me yet.”

She leaned her head back and looked at him, a wistful half-smile
on her face. “You loved popcorn when you were a little boy.”

“Did I?”

“You did. We used to go to the movies, just the two of us, and I’d
have to sneak in a big bag of popcorn because the stuff they sold there was so
expensive. I think we saw every Disney movie that was ever made.”

“
Dumbo
. I remember insisting that we sit in the front row.”

“You were such a sweet little boy.” She reached out a hand,
brushed a strand of hair from his face. “How could I say no to you?”

“You used to buy great big coloring books,” he said. “And we’d
spend hours on the floor together, flat on our stomachs, coloring.”

“I was barely out of childhood myself. When you were born, I was
younger than you are now.”

He’d never looked at it that way, never really thought about how
young she’d been. He tried to imagine himself, at the age of eighteen, being
responsible for a kid, but it was unimaginable. “You were a good mother,” he
said, surprised to realize it was true. She had been a good mother, right up until
the day she walked out of his life and left him wondering what he’d done wrong
and why she’d stopped loving him.

“If I’d been a good mother,” she said, “I would have stayed,
instead of—” She stopped, shook her head, and turned her face away from him so
he wouldn’t see the tears. But he saw them anyway. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m
having a rough night. Too many old ghosts, I guess.” She picked up the remote
control and clicked off the VCR and the television. “I’ve seen this movie
before. I don’t much like how it ends.”

“You okay?” he said.

“I’m just tired. It’s almost midnight. We should get to bed. Get
our beauty rest.”

“As if you need beauty rest.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Why are you being so nice to me tonight?”

He felt himself flushing, hoped she wouldn’t notice in the dim
lighting. “You’re my mother,” he said. “I love you.”

“You’re the second person who’s said that to me tonight. Do you
suppose Armageddon is right around the corner?”

“What? You don’t think you’re worthy of love?”

“Not yours. Or Casey’s.”

“Oh, Mom,” he said. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

She cupped his cheek in her hand. “You’re a good kid, Mikey. No
thanks to me. Your father and I may have our differences, but I can’t fault him
for the way he raised you. I’m so proud of you.”

Guilt made him flinch. If she knew—if any of them knew—what he and
Paige were planning, her stellar opinion of him would go south faster than a
flock of robins in November.

She misinterpreted the reason he’d recoiled. He could see the hurt
in her eyes as she removed her hand. “Well,” she said, “I guess I’m going to
bed now. I’ll see you in the morning.”

And she left him there, sitting in the dark, torn between his
shame at hurting her needlessly and his desperation to keep secret his plans to
marry Paige MacKenzie.

Harley

He found the skates by accident.

Will Bradley had been a packrat, and most everything he’d packed
away was still sitting on shelves in a small storage room in the barn. Cans of
spray paint, random lengths of electrical wire, an ancient container of Vaseline,
blackened by years of smudged, greasy fingerprints. Harley almost missed them,
hanging in a dim corner, those two pairs of women’s ice skates. Both had once
been white, but two decades had turned them a dingy shade of gray. He lifted
the nearest skate, swiped away dust and cobwebs with his sheepskin-lined gloves.
And saw the name, barely legible, written in indelible ink in a teenage girl’s
flowery handwriting: 
Colleen Bradley
.

The blade was dull and rusty, but could probably be rehabilitated.
Harley turned the skate upside down to shake out any creatures that might have
set up housekeeping inside its dark interior. He estimated it to be a size
eight, which sounded about right. The Widow Berkowitz was tall, at least
five-seven, and she had feet to match. The second pair was smaller. Maybe a six.
Those had the name
CASEY BRADLEY
block printed in the same indelible ink.
He was pretty sure they would fit Annabel.

He went to the barn phone and dialed Casey’s number. “It’s
Harley,” he said when she answered. “Got a question for you.”

“Good morning, Harley!  Ask away.”

“I found your old ice skates hanging in the barn. I think they’ll fit
Annabel, but I didn’t want to just go ahead and give them to her without
asking.”

“Annabel is welcome to them. I haven’t thought of those things in
years. We used to skate on that little pond behind the barn. Coll and I would
bring a transistor radio and a box to set it on, build a bonfire in one of
Dad’s old metal trash barrels, and we’d spend hours out there, skating until
our feet went numb and our legs swelled up with chilblains.”

He grinned. “So the two of you harbor other talents besides being
cabaret singers.”

“Very funny. Actually, I wasn’t the most talented of skaters. I
enjoyed it, but I never really learned to do it well. Colleen, on the other
hand—could that girl skate! Frontward, backwards, she was skating around me in
circles while I was still trying to learn to stand up without falling. She was
absolutely fearless. We used to watch old Christmas movies on TV. People
skating at the ice rink at Rockefeller Center. That was her dream, the sum
total of what she wanted when she was Annabel’s age. She wanted to skate at
Rockefeller Center.”

The wheels began spinning in his head. “Think she can still skate?
Hers are here, too.”

“She might be a little rusty. But isn’t skating like riding a bicycle?
You never really forget how to do it once you’ve learned.”

***

He spent two or three days, in his spare time, rehabbing the
skates. Grinding the rust away. Sharpening the runners to a fine edge. Scrubbing
the leather, applying white shoe polish he found in the kitchen junk drawer. When
he was done, when both pairs looked like new, he replaced the laces with new
ones from the shoe store in town. Hot pink for Annabel, electric blue for
Colleen.

Then he took his big snow scoop and cleared the snow from the
surface of the pond. While he worked, he did some thinking. There was an old
wooden bench in the upstairs hall, and he’d seen a pile of used lumber out back
of the barn. The attic was full of stuff the Bradleys had left behind. If he
did enough digging, he could probably locate everything he needed right here,
without even having to make another trip to town.

Mid-afternoon, when Annabel stepped off the school bus, she waded
through ankle-deep snow to stand at the edge of the frozen pond, watching him solemnly.
Pushing the scoop in front of him, he skated over to where she stood, her backpack
dangling from her shoulder. “Dad?” she said. “What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like I’m doing?  I’m clearing snow off the pond. So
we can skate.”

“But I don’t have skates.”

“I know that. But I do believe I have a solution to your state of
skatelessness.”

She snorted. “You just made that word up.”

He let go of the snow scoop, took a single step off the ice, and
landed unceremoniously on his ass in the hard-packed snow. Annabel covered her
face with her mittened hands so he wouldn’t see her laughing, but merriment
danced in her eyes. “Damn snow,” he muttered as he tugged off his skates and
pulled his boots back on. “Stop giggling and help me up.”

His daughter held out a hand. Harley took it and, grunting like
some aged granny, he managed to get back on his feet. Dusting off the seat of
his pants, he said, “I found a couple pairs of skates in the storage room the
other day. They used to belong to Mrs. MacKenzie and her sister. I fixed them
up so they’re like new. I think Casey’s are about the right size for you.”

“Oh, I hope so! I miss skating.” 

When she was smaller and they were living in Manhattan, they’d
gone to Rockefeller Center every weekend to skate. Amy, of course, had never
had a smidgen of interest in joining them. Her idea of an enjoyable winter
activity was sitting in front of a crackling fire, sipping mulled cider and
reading a good book. So he and Annabel had skated without her. To offset the
cost of rentals, he’d purchased his own skates. But Annabel was growing by
leaps and bounds, and what fit her one year would be too small the next. So
she’d never owned a pair of skates. Until now.

She tried them on in the kitchen, and he pinched the toes to see
how much room she had. Just as he’d suspected, they fit perfectly. “You don’t
mind that they’re secondhand?” he said. “That they used to belong to Mrs.
MacKenzie?”

“Are you kidding? She’s one of the coolest people I know. I feel
honored to wear her skates.”

Still crouched at her feet, Harley solemnly studied his daughter’s
face, wondering if he was about to become the biggest jackass of all time. Annabel
had already lost one mother. It had taken them both some time to come to terms
with Amy’s defection. Hell, who was he kidding? They were still dealing with
it, every day of their lives. Yet here he was, about to jump off the cliff
again by getting involved with another woman who was all wrong for him. All
wrong for both of them. A woman who had “temporary” written all over her.

“Listen,” he said, “there’s something I want to talk over with
you.”

“If it’s about Mrs. Berkowitz, I already know. You like her. You
like her a lot.”

His mouth fell open. Annabel rolled her eyes. “Dad?” she said. “Are
you blushing?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Men don’t blush.”

“If you want to ask her out on a date, I have no problem with it. She’s
a nice lady. I like her. And you’ve been alone for too long.”

For once in his life, he was speechless. Somewhere along the way,
when he hadn’t been looking, his little girl, with her gap-toothed grin, had
matured into a beautiful, level-headed young lady. How the hell had he missed
that? He really needed to pay closer attention, before he woke up some morning
and found her graduating from college.

Harley cleared his throat. It took a couple of tries before he
found his voice. “I do want to ask her out,” he said, “but there’s more to it
than that. There’s something special I want to do, but I need your help. Will
you help me?”

“Of course I will. What can I do to help?”

“Take off those skates,” he said. “Put your boots back on, and
I’ll show you.”