Broken Road (21 page)

“I promise.” She said and waved as she watched him walk down the gravel drive and get into his car. She waved again as he drove away. Standing a few feet away from the porch she looked up. A million stars twinkled above her in the dark black velvet sky. Out in the country where they were far from the blinding lights of the towns and cities that usually dimmed the skies Brenda felt at peace. She hoped someday she could bring the boys out so they could experience the beauty and tranquility that sheltered their dad during his growing years. In the meantime, she used the calm to compose herself and to allow herself the mental space to think about how she was going to face the time ahead of her with Riley Favreau. He was here in her house, in the room upstairs just feet from the room where she slept. In Shane’s old room with the gingham curtains and the name secretly carved into the walls. How ironic and how painful to think about it. But how miraculous too that she would end up here and that Riley would be here too. It wasn’t something she could explain away as much as her logical mind wanted to do it. It wasn’t a coincidence. Of that she was also deeply convinced. It was her chance to make things right between herself and Shane by finding out what really happened the night he died and what he had wanted to ask her before the line went dead. Riley Favreau held the answers to all of these questions and God, the Universe, whoever, had given her the chance to get those answers and she intended to do just that.

He woke up early to the sound of someone moving around in the kitchen and the smell of coffee and bacon wafting up the staircase and into his room. For a moment Riley thought he was back out on his grandfather’s farm before the war when his grandmother was still alive. Rising time was about 4:45 am when there was work to be done around the farm and cattle to be fed but before the day’s work began Riley’s grandmother Elsie cooked he and his grandfather a substantial breakfast. He laid in the bed for a moment and tried to remember where
 
he was. The wall paper in the room was different than he remembered and the layout of the bedroom was much smaller than he had back home. It came to him. He was in the old farmhouse outside of town bunking with the waitress from Doreen’s café. Riley took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes. He felt the stubble on his face but decided not to shave. He missed the beard despite what Louis Montgomery thought and there was too much work to be done from what he had seen last night to care about how he looked. Sitting up he swung his legs around and put both feet on the cold floor. He looked around in the dark and noticed the dark outlines of a small child’s toy chest sitting in the far corner along with a small battered book case that sat empty. Riley struggled to remember who had lived here before but he couldn’t bring up the name. All he could think was that the house had been empty even when he had been a child in Bess. If it hadn’t, the family who had lived here wasn’t one that had ever been acquainted with his own. Standing up, he stretched and yawned as he made his way to the door. He opened it and stepped out into the darkened hallway and tried to remember where Renae had told him he could find the bathroom. That’s when he ran into her and
 
knocked her down.

“Ow!”
 

“Whoa!” he called out as he heard her hit the floor. “ I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you there.”
 
As
 
his eyes adjusted to the dark, he reached out an arm for her to hold onto and pulled her up. Suddenly, the light in the hallway came on blinding him momentarily. Renae had managed to flip on the light switch so they could both see.

“I’m sorry.” She apologized. “ I should have left one of the small lamps on so you could see. I’ve gotten used to it so I didn’t even think about
 
the fact that you wouldn’t know where everything was.”

“I was looking for the bathroom.”

“It’s right behind you.” She pointed and he noticed that she was staring at something. She was staring at him. In his haste to make it to the bathroom he’d forgotten to put on a shirt and he realized he was standing shirtless in the hallway. She was staring at his scars. He remembered that look, it was the same look Misty had the first time she had seen them too. The raised ridges of scar tissue
 
had healed well over time and they weren’t as red and jagged-looking but he assumed by the look on her face that they were still something to see. He never bothered looking himself. It wasn’t something he’d ever needed to do. He knew what had happened, how he had gotten each one of those scars, he didn’t need to dwell on it. At least that’s what he told himself but it had to be different for those who did dwell on the how and the what behind the scars. It made him uncomfortable and standing in that hallway in such close proximity to a woman he barely knew made him self conscious in a way he hadn’t been before and that did bother him.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare.” She said finally turning away. He didn’t know what to say so he just nodded and turned to go into the bathroom. When he came back out she was gone and he made sure to go into his room and get fully dressed before going downstairs and into the kitchen. There, he found her by the stove scrambling some eggs and tending to the coffee pot. The bacon was already laid out in neat little rows on a plate on the counter. There was a card table and a couple of folding chairs in the middle of the kitchen. She also had a small pile of paper plates and plastic utensils and styrofoam cups for them to use.

“I’m still roughing it.” She said with a quick smile and he noticed that she was wearing an old pair of sweats and a faded college t-shirt. Her short, brown hair was a bit disheveled and she didn’t look like she had any make up on.
 

“It smells great.” He said taking a piece of bacon and biting into it after she pointed him to the plate it was on.

“I hope so. You’re my very first dinner guest-for breakfast that is.” She laughed and he was surprised at how much he enjoyed hearing it.

“You know we could have gone down to the café for breakfast.” He said and she stopped mid scramble and looked at him. She had a look of mock annoyance on her face.

“Are you saying there’s something wrong with my cooking?”

“No. I’m saying we’re about to set a ton of tongues a wagging.” He teased and she raised an eye brow.

“Why?”

“Well, we’re out here alone and your’e cooking me breakfast.”

“That’s silly. I’m not cooking
you
breakfast. I’m cooking
me
breakfast. I’m willing to share it. If you’re so worried nothing says you have to eat it.” She said turning back to the skillet.

“So you’re not worried about what folks will think?”

“No. Are you?”

“No, mam. Just checking to make sure we’re still on the same page.”

“Absolutely. I need help fixing things up around here. I’m going to be paying you and I want to get started on it right away. If we eat breakfast here we’re saving time.”
 

“Fine by me.” He said reaching for the steaming styrofoam cup of coffee she handed him.

“Good.”

“What do you want me to do first?” Riley asked taking a sip. The question seemed to confuse her. She looked around the room.

“Windows?” she said shrugging. He nodded and took a look around, walking into the living room. He saw the worn plastic sheets that had been used to cover the window glass and examined it.
 

“Have you ordered the glass?” He called back into the kitchen.

“No.” She answered and he frowned. A moment later she came into the living room carrying a paper plate with bacon and eggs speared by a plastic fork. She
 
held it out to him.
 

“Can we get it at the hardware store in town?”
 

“It’d be better if we went into Broken Bow to do that. But in the meantime we could get some plywood sheets from the lumberyard in town to board up the windows. It’s drafty in here. You’ve probably noticed that. It’s a good thing it’s not winter.” He said taking a small pile of eggs onto his fork.
 

“Okay. Do you want to drive into town and do that while I get ready?” She said padding back to the kitchen. He didn’t answer. How could he?
 
He followed her back into the kitchen where he found her making a plate for herself.
 

“I can’t.” He told her. She turned around and frowned at him.
 

“You can’t do what?” she asked and he looked down at his feet. He couldn’t help but feel the raw pain of the open wound he carried with him from the accident.
 
Riley swallowed hard. He had no way of knowing exactly how much she knew about what had happened to him. He looked up and saw her staring back at him. She seemed confused but Riley knew she had to know certain things about him and it was better if she learned them from him instead of the gossips in town- starting with this simple fact.
 

“I can’t drive.”

She stood just a few feet away from him with the paper plate in her hands and he wondered if she could feel the heat of the food burning through.

“Of course, I’m sorry.”

“So you already knew?” He felt embarrassed.

“Louis said something about it before he left. I forgot.” She said and put the plate down behind her on the counter. Riley didn’t say anything for a moment. He wanted to be angry that Louis had shared things about him with her but Riley knew that he was just looking out for the waitress. He didn’t wan’t her to see that he was upset so he gave her another smile to reassure her.

“It’s all right. I just wanted you to know.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll get dressed, we’ll take a good look around and see what other projects need doing and we’ll go into town and wherever else you think we should go. I’m just glad to have the help.”
 

“Okay.” He said and she left the kitchen to get ready to go. Riley heard her take the stairs up to her room and he decided to take another look around. He put down the plate of food she’d given him on the counter along with the coffee and looked out the back door. He could already see that new fence posts would have be put in and that the prairie grass would have to be cut down where it had overgrown. The barn was in bad disrepair and the house itself needed boards replaced and a new coat of paint. The projects were endless and he couldn’t help but wonder what ever gave this woman the idea that she could do it all by herself? It was a job for a contractor’s crew not two people living by themselves in an old run down farmhouse. She told him she wasn’t a DIY sort of person so why take on such a massive undertaking? He hoped to ask her sometime. In the meantime, he tried to make a mental list of the materials they’d be needing but found that as soon as he thought of something he was uncertain the next minute that he hadn’t already made a note of it 2-3 times over. It was frustrating how his brain refused to work properly. He was just going to have to write it all down. But despite the obstacles he could already tell were coming his way it was a small price to pay for a little peace.
 

All he wanted was to work hard and stay far away from anything that reminded him of everything he’d lost. Louis might have been right. Maybe it was impossible to leave it all behind without dealing with what had happened to him. Nevertheless,
 
he was willing to give it a try especially if it meant he could forget he’d ever loved Misty Langston or called Brandon Cole a friend.

Brenda found it easy to be with Riley Favreau, much easier than she could have imagined and it scared her. While none of the uglier things that Louis Montgomery had described, like the nightmares, had occurred, she had imagined that every second of every moment would be filled with a sad anxiety pushing her to demand answers about what happened the night Shane died. But the longer they worked together side by side on the house she found it was easier to fill their conversations with simple things that had nothing to do with war or death. Sometimes, it felt as though Riley was doing everything he could to avoid having conversations about his time away from Bess, overseas or back east in the hospital.
 
She never thought she was pushing him that hard to share things but once in a while a question would come and he would get quiet. At first, the silence that followed felt awkward and for her, it became a source of frustration. More often than not she was surprised when Riley interpreted one of her questions or comments as intrusive even when it came to his years growing up in Bess or about his grandfather. He preferred to keep their conversations to the tasks at hand and he didn’t make any effort at all to pry into her own life or background. In general, she felt relieved and the work they did became a sort of therapy for her.
 

They usually woke up early, had some breakfast and headed outdoors to cut down the grasses that had overtaken the property, to replace the posts, to loosen the rotting boards on the porch and sand others on the house. Painting, sanding, wall paper removal and a hundred other things were part of a list they were attempting to tick off one by one. Many times Brenda became so absorbed by the work they were doing that she had to remind herself that the house was secondary to the real reason for why she was there. However, it felt good to accomplish things and not have to dwell on what was happening inside of her head or heart.
 

Brenda was the one who usually went into town
 
if they needed something from the grocery store or the hardware store and Riley accompanied her if they needed something from the lumberyard. Anything else they needed that couldn’t be found in town they obtained from the big home stores in Broken Bow, Grand Island or Kearney. Sometimes she’d offer to go into those towns by herself so she could find a place with free Wi-fi. Then she would take a deep breath and connect her computer tablet and wait for her mother and her two boys to appear on the screen. Sometimes it was just her mother and Taylor. Callan was still angry and didn’t always want to talk to her.