Saint and Scholar (22 page)

For lack of a better plan, his task of the moment was fixing the roof of the house he’d leased with the option to buy. It was practically a dump, so the homeowner was willing to shave off some of the cost in exchange for sweat equity. Grant and Dad were up on ladders nailing new shingles into place. They’d been at it every evening for a week and were nearly finished. The project had been a good distraction for his lonely father. He needed to get away from his own home for a while. Further, Grant understood his father wanted to
do
something for him. He’d missed him, though Grant knew Dad would never admit it.

On day two, Dad brought a clipping from a rose bush he tended at the golf course and planted it at Grant’s mailbox. “It’s a floribunda called
Emma
,” he said as he wiped the dirt from his hands onto his overalls. “It’s the only one I kept.”

“I’m glad you kept one. It was a perfect tribute to Mum.”

Dad sighed. “Yep. So what are we going to work on after we finish the roof?”

Grant dropped his hammer to the ground and climbed down his ladder for a drink of water. “Don’t know. The kitchen, maybe. Appliances are gross. Not that I cook much, anyway, but God only knows what’s living under ’em. I’d like to be able to fix my tea without worrying something will scurry across my bare foot. Not pressing, though. You know I’ll be in London all next week with that conference. Seth and Curt are flying in Friday night for the long weekend, so I won’t come back immediately.”

“Maybe I’ll paint while you’re gone, then.” Dad worked his way down to the ground, too. “Start in the bedrooms?”

“Yeah, just priming, though. I don’t know about colors yet. I’ll probably just leave it all white.”

Dad gave his son a knowing look but kept his mouth shut. Grant didn’t really care what colors were on the walls. He didn’t have the finesse for choosing those things, much like his father. Dad hadn’t done anything as far as decorating in his house
ever
. He’d inherited it from his grandfather shortly after he and Mum got married. She was the one to make the house a home. In her absence, it had gone back to just being a
house
. It was now just a storage facility for people and things.

“So, how’s work going?” Dad asked as they folded their ladders and carted them to the back of the house. “Every time I see ya, I hardly recognize you. If you keep changing, we won’t even be kin.”

“Damn it, I look exactly the same, just with less hair.”

“Right, and the shave so smooth I can see your bones beneath? And all the new clothes and shoes?”

Grant opened his unreliable refrigerator and swore. He removed two hot beers from the rack inside, closed the door and kicked it. “Fuckin’ thing has to come out.” He uncapped the beers and handed one to his father.

“What difference does it make?” Dad pushed. “Like you said, you don’t do much cooking. You could probably survive with a cooler and bag of ice every few days.”

Grant narrowed his eyes at his sire and stabbed a finger in his direction. “Are you
trying
to piss me off?”

“Nope.” He took a seat in one of the spindly chairs left by the former homeowners. “You’re already pissed off. I just want you to understand
why
.”

“Stay out of it.” Grant walked out into the garden and slammed the front door hard behind him. Dad followed him out in a casual stroll.

“I will not. It’s enough for
me
to be miserable for the rest of me life. No need for you to be like it, too.”

“It’s my
choice
!” Grant shouted. Using his hand to emphasize his words caused his beer to foam and explode from the top of the bottle, over his hand. “Shit!” He flung off the foam and sighed. “I’m doing the best I can. It’s not enough.”

Dad shrugged. “I’m on the outside lookin’ in. All I know is there’s this American woman who left. Don’t know why she left, but it seems to me you’re waiting around for her to come back. That doesn’t sound like my son.”

Grant stared at his father and gritted his teeth. Dad wasn’t exactly wrong, but… “Says Mr. Shut up and wait?”

Dad gave him a dismissive hand flick. “Ah, you’re too goddamned literal. Yes, shut up and wait, but doesn’t mean you have to be inactive. It also doesn’t mean you’ve got to wait until the world ends. It means everything in its own time. You’re
choosing
to be miserable, you stubborn bastard. No clue who you inherited that shit from, but the way I see it, you’ve got three choices. Find some nice girl and try to move on…”

“No.” Grant shook his head furiously. He wouldn’t cheat. As long as there was a
chance
, in his mind it’d be cheating.

“Okay, two: go get her.”

“It’s her choice. I can’t really fly to America every weekend to try to convince her to see things my way.”

“Okay, then that leads to number three: scrap your plan. Use hers.”

“That’s the problem. She doesn’t
have
one! She’s flying by seat of her pants. She has been since she was eighteen. She has no idea what she wants out of life, other than to be alive.”

Dad shrugged as if he still couldn’t see what the problem was. “If she wants to reserve the right to have some spontaneity in her life, why not let her?” He added in a mumble, “Damned academics. Should have played football. Would have been better for his brain.”

A response would be admitting to his father that he was right. Grant hated when his father was right.

* * * *

“Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you? It’s not that hard for me to clear my schedule, and I’m okay to fly now. Finally stopped barfing.”

“No, honey, I appreciate you asking, but I need to do this alone.”

“You know, your mom still thinks maybe you shouldn’t tell him at all. She thinks the custody situation will be tricky.”

Carla squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed them. “Yeah, well, I was there. I remember the argument. Thank you for backing me up. It must be hard to be on the wrong side of your mother-in-law so soon after the wedding.”

Sharon shrugged and popped the trunk when the airport security guy at the curb in front of the Delta terminal started pointing angrily for her to pull away. She flipped him the bird when he turned his back. “Well, her anger was tempered by Ashley agreeing with me. What’s she going to do, disown us? She’ll lose two grandkids at once.”

“Even she’s not that stubborn,” Carla said with a giggle.

“Exactly. I know she’ll get over it eventually. Oh, you didn’t hear it from me, but I overheard her saying something to Chet about consulting a lawyer about Irish custody laws, but I don’t think she’ll go that far.”

“Sharon, just between you and me, there aren’t going to be any custody issues.”

Sharon’s already round eyes went even wider. “You’re going to stay? Oh, God, please don’t leave me.” She pulled her friend into a tight embrace, then held her at arm’s length. “Oh, damn it, you
have
to, don’t you? True love and shit.”

Carla raised one brow while she made sense of her tightly wound friend and nodded. “He’s right for me, and now I understand just how patient he is. He would have to be in order to deal with my moods, right?”

Sharon scoffed. “You forgetting about the Gill drama king I’m married to?”

They both giggled.

“Grant said I reminded him of old saint paintings, but I think you two should get the halos. This has all crashed down on me so fast and I can hardly believe I’m pulling up stakes like this.”

“You’re doing it for the right reasons, aren’t you?”

Carla fiddled the corner of her boarding pass. “I guess so. With all the angst I’m still working through over Daddy, I’d never deprive this kid of knowing his or her dad. Problem is, I still haven’t heard from Grant. I think it’s been a week since he last emailed.”

Sharon cringed, but patted Carla’s hand. “A week’s nothing.”

“Maybe not. Still, I turned down a permanent job offer. Hope this works out.”

The security guard thumped on the hood with his fist. “Okay, fuck you very much!” Sharon said to him through the windshield.

He mumbled something into his walkie-talkie, so Carla leaned across the center console and gave her sister-in-law a kiss.

“You call me immediately as soon as you know anything,” Sharon warned.

Carla nodded and scrambled out.

The security guard glowered at her as she pulled her suitcase from Sharon’s trunk. Carla was in a mood violent enough to spawn the creation of a universe, but she had a flight to catch and didn’t want to get herself arrested. She didn’t know any of the cops who worked for the police department that serviced RDU and it would be just her luck her last-minute ticket wouldn’t be refundable. She’d spent a lot of money on that ticket–money she had been holding for her next month’s rent, but if she stayed in Ireland, it would be money well spent. She missed Grant. That had never been in question. From the moment he suggested they “have a go,” their partnering seemed natural, although she had been wary.

What she’d learned during seven weeks away from him while ignoring all those calls and emails was that she
loved
him. She understood on a much smaller scale what it must have been like for him all those years, to love a near stranger but be too afraid to act on it because everyone said people don’t fall in love that way, or that fast. She even understood a bit of what it must have been like to keep track of someone without them being aware. The night before her flight, she’d gone to his department webpage and found it updated with a photograph of him, and a fairly impressive bio. He hadn’t told her his dissertation was being published into course material. Then again, she hadn’t asked. She felt a stabbing pain of jealously looking at him spit-shined and damned near perfection on the other side of the Atlantic. She wanted to tie a sign around his neck:
Mine–do not touch
.

But he’d stopped calling.

The day after sharing her news with the family, Sharon had taken her to the mall for a bellyband to hold her pants up, and had a tough-love lecture. “You’re not afraid of having your professional ambitions squashed,” Sharon had said. “You don’t
have
any, Carla. You know it and I know it.”

Carla had gotten angry and stormed out of the store.

When Sharon found her on the bench in front of the frozen yogurt stand holding half a chocolate cone, she handed Carla her bag and continued her lecture. “You know what I think your problem is? I think you’re afraid of ending up alone like Allen and your mom. That you’ll lose him somehow and you’ll mess up something with the kids. Honey, you can’t live if you don’t try. Call me a dreamer, but you’re being offered things I’ve wished for since I was a child. I found my guy. You’re lucky to have found
yours
.”

Carla had ridden home in a funk, but Sharon remained cheerful, saw her to her door and bid her good night. She spent the next couple of days trying to convince herself Sharon was wrong, but she wasn’t. It wasn’t that Carla had a problem with being home with a bunch of kids: she
loved
kids, even the surly ones. Sharon was right. Her fear was founded on the slim probability she’d be prematurely left alone with them like her mother–that her hard choices would lead to her children resenting her.

Economy class was stifling and rank, but she didn’t even care she was jammed between two giants who couldn’t keep their elbows to themselves because she couldn’t keep her eyes open. The Promethazine her obstetrician prescribed for nausea knocked her out cold. Just like before, once her second plane in New York had reached cruising altitude, she was out like a light.

Arriving in Dublin seemed almost like a homecoming to her, although no one at the airport greeted her. With the aid of a woman who helped her convert dollars into Euros, she found a bus departing for Meath and made it into Gallow by lunchtime.

She managed to locate a cab to get her the rest of the way.

“Where’re you goin’?” the driver asked.

“Uh…”
Piss-poor planning
. “I’m sorry I don’t actually know the address or even the road, but it’s right off the golf course.”

“Close enough.”

He insisted on dragging her bags to the door. She insisted on tipping him generously.

When she knocked, no one answered. “Duh, Carla. Some people have jobs.” There seemed to be little foot traffic in front of Allen’s house, so she left her luggage barely hidden behind a bush and walked to the golf course in search of Allen. He was near the seventh hole fishing balls out of an artificial pond with a net when she snuck up on him.

He nearly fell in when he saw her. “Jaysus! Grant know you here? Thank God you are, he’s been a right git since you’ve left.”