The Carpenter's Daughter (3 page)

I called it abuse.

Sure enough, that was where I’d found her. Except she hadn’t been face-to-the-floor prostrate. In her white atonement dress, she was huddled in a corner of the dark, abandoned coal room, blood staining the sleeves of the snowy material.

I remembered my stomach twisting hard, the taste of puke in my mouth as I bolted to her side. Her hands dripped red, and in between trembling fingers, she’d gripped a paring knife.

With torture in her eyes, she looked up to me and moaned. “I don’t want to go to hell.”

“God, Cassie, what are you doing?” I ripped my jacket off and knelt to wrap her wounds. Engraved in both of her forearms, cuts climbed like ladder rungs to her elbows. Sweat broke out over my forehead and neck as she fought against my help.

“I don’t want to go to hell,” she cried.

“Then why are you trying to kill yourself?”

She pulled in a shuddered breath and set her agony-soaked expression on me. “Not.” She leaned heavily back against the cold wall. “This is atonement.”

Something cold and hard snapped inside of me. Atonement. Her father’s word. The first time I’d ever heard it, Cassie had been missing for three days. We’d gone to a Friday night football game together, and I’d found the group with the goods. Cassie drank a little, but she didn’t get drunk. Didn’t matter—drinking was apparently a vile sin. Her father had her
repenting
for three days solid. I didn’t drink with her again.

“Cass.” I tried to measure the rage in my voice. “This is crazy. Why are you—”

“I’m pregnant.” Tears seeped from the corners of her eyes. She tried brushing them away, leaving a crimson streak across her face.

What kind of a father did this to his daughter? What kind of a god would require it?

My mind set right there in that nightmare of a moment. Cassie wouldn’t live like this, and neither would our child. And as for this god? Who needed that? Not me. Not Cassie. Not our kid.

We got married a week after graduation, and I took a job with a local contractor. Found out that I liked the work.

I thought maybe we’d have a future after all. Like I said, I loved her. I loved the way her eyes burned into my mind so that even when I drifted off to sleep, I could see their mesmerizing color. I loved the way she laughed at my jokes, the way she said I’d be something someday.

Those things ended though. We moved into a shack that looked more like a toolshed than a home, and Sarah was born. Cassie didn’t even stick around for Sarah’s first birthday.

I’ll never forget that day, much as I’d trade anything to erase the memory. I came home from work to a howling baby and a note stuck on the refrigerator.

I can’t do this.

Ignoring little Sarah, I hopped in my pickup and searched the town. I exhausted every possibility—her father’s basement, the bar, the train station, every store in a reasonable radius—and finally went to the police. When I got home, Mrs. Lockwood, the old lady next door, was sitting in my living room, rocking my daughter.

“Young man, you’re a father.” She continued her rhythmic back and forth, back and forth. “Doesn’t matter if that girl’s packed up and gone. You’re a father. You take care of this baby, or give her to someone who will.”

Weeks went by. I tried to take care of Sarah, but I couldn’t do it without looking at her. And she looked like Cassie. So I called Darcy.

Growing up, my older sister had more responsibility than any girl ought to have. I felt guilty pressing more on her right after she’d been married and was starting out a new and better life. But what else could I do? I wasn’t a father—not a good one. I wasn’t anything.

Darcy came. “I’m staying two weeks, Dale. Two weeks. And we’re gonna work on this. But you start thinking right now, start remembering what it felt like to be abandoned by our father. What it felt like to know our mother didn’t want us. You think about it while you work. Dream about it while you sleep. And see it from the life of your daughter.”

I did, but not because I wanted to. I couldn’t escape it. And by the end of those two weeks, I knew I couldn’t pass that legacy on to my daughter, no matter what her mother did.

I made arrangements with Mrs. Lockwood for babysitting, and I set out to be the father my dad wasn’t. I didn’t know how to be one, but I was pretty sure how
not
to.

Then one day a little bit down the road, Sarah climbed into my lap. “I wuv you, Da-ie.”

Took my heart right out of my chest and kept it in her miniature hands.

Somehow the years had trickled by. Thinking about Sarah as a grown woman, I felt a heavy failure. Grown up, yes. But not on the inside. I’d crippled her.

A deep warning surged through my chest. Life was about to change.

Jesse

A train horn blared through the heavy summer air at the same moment my cell jingled. I passed through the glass doors of the small market, letting the blast of air-conditioning fully envelop me. The phone sounded again. Tugging it from my belt, I was pretty sure I knew the caller. A quick glance to the screen confirmed my guess.

“Hey, Shane.” I moved toward the back of the store. “What’s happening?”

“Not much. Where are you?”

“Just pulled into North Platte.” Reaching the floral department, I turned right.

“Thought maybe you’d be about that far.” Shane paused. I imagined him cocking his head just a bit. “How you doing?”

“Fine.” My boots clunked against the floor until I came to the Memorial Day stock. “It’s warm here. Nebraska’s funny that way. You never know what you’re gonna walk into.”

“Yeah?” Shane paused again. He hadn’t been asking about the weather. “Did you stop?”

I combed my fingers through my hair. “Not yet. I’m buying a new marker.”

Silence hung in my ear. My mind traveled back five years, landing on a sunny spring morning, which I’d always thought ironic. Rain had been predicted that day. Would’ve been more appropriate. God was quirky like that.

“Just wanted to check on you,” came Shane’s voice over the phone again. “Call us tonight, after you stop.”

“I will.” I reached for a yellow wreath, followed by a red one. “Thanks, Shane. Tell Mia and the girls hey for me.”

“Will do.” Shane always remembered, always called. While awkward, it made me feel like God was still watching and that my parents hadn’t been forgotten.

The wreaths were my only purchase, so I paid with cash. Sultry heat slapped my face again as I left the store, making me grateful for an air-conditioned truck.

Another tug from a diesel train ripped through the humidity, this time closer. Must be a challenge, living and sleeping in this rail town. Engines constantly chugging, rails always rumbling, horns forever splitting the sky. But people adjusted to lots of things. Some by choice, others by circumstances.

Pulling back onto the highway, I continued north over the viaduct spanning more rail tracks than I could count, and past the industrial part of town until I reached the North Platte River. The banks were high, water from the spring melt in Wyoming pushing through the artery of Nebraska. They would recede in a month, and sometime in July I’d pass over the comparative trickle splotched with sandbars and water reeds.

Two miles past the bridge, I pulled onto the highway shoulder and eased to a stop. Twenty feet off the road, two wreaths rustled in the breeze, faded and wind torn from a year of exposure. I cut the engine and pushed back against the bench seat. Glancing to the fake memorial flowers I’d purchased, I swallowed, wrapped a fist around both circles, and pushed out of the vehicle.

Stopping at the toolbox anchored in my truck bed, I grabbed my hammer. This was the only place on earth I hated the feel of its smooth, wooden handle.

A Blazer passed, heading south. I raised the hand with the hammer in it—waving was pretty standard around here. Grief didn’t excuse rudeness. I walked over the new blades of springtime grass, avoiding the happy daisies that bounced with blissful ignorance. Mom wouldn’t want me crushing their snowy petals.

I reached the faded markers and dropped to my knees. Cool moisture seeped through my jeans. It must have rained in the near past—the sandy dirt didn’t hold water long. With the claw of the hammer, I tugged on the anchor holding the worn wreaths steady in the ground, releasing them from their yearlong vigil. It took only minutes to replace them, but I remained on the ground long after I’d pounded the new anchors deep into the grainy soil.

“Another year.” I settled back against the heels of my boots. “Five now. Sometimes it feels like so much longer.” I shook my head and tossed a glance toward the blue sky. It was probably crazy to talk to myself. I was twenty-six, after all. But I couldn’t help it. They were not there, and this was the closest I felt to them. “Bet you thought I’d have a new life plan by now, a future all set to get started on.”

Rubbing my hand against my leg, I watched as the grains of dirt released from my skin and dropped back to the ground. “Me too.” A tiny chuckle vibrated my chest. Strange how one laughed like that when sad. “I sure didn’t think I’d be an orphan already.”

I pulled my legs forward and dropped to my backside. “Not that things are bad. Just fuzzy. Shane is doing well, but you probably already know that. He’s keeping the business up—is always saying how grateful he is to you, Dad. And says I can jump in anytime. I’m just not feelin’ it though.”

Sighing, I rubbed the back of my neck. “I don’t know if this is what you intended. Probably not, you weren’t expecting to die—” My voice broke. I was glad I was alone. “But I want to honor your legacy. I hope I’m doing it well. And don’t worry, Mom. I know God is still good.”

I pushed to my feet, brushing at my damp jeans. “Miss you both.”

Bending just enough to reach the tops, I brushed both wreaths with the tips of my fingers. It always felt like a fresh good-bye. Good thing I had a three-hour drive to work through it. I’d call Shane back when I got to Valentine. Should feel normal by then.

Sarah

The quilt spread over the basement guest bed felt heavy and warm. I snuggled under it, pushing deeper into the mattress. This plan Darcy had hatched up made me nervous. No, let’s be honest. I was terrified, and a little mad at my dad for telling Darcy about the Subway incident. Like I didn’t feel dumb enough.

But up to that point, all was okay. Jeff and Adam, my cousins, stayed in that Friday night, and we hung out. A round of pool and an outdoor barbecue set the background for a good night. Maybe a break from the norm was what I needed. I could pack up Sunday morning, go home, and move on with life.

The day gone, I lay clean and tired and soaking in the feeling of family. Right there my contentment turned sour. I had my dad and Uncle Dan, who was around more often than not. But somehow it wasn’t the same. A deep hunger moaned inside me—the ache of something missing.

Great. First I was worried about my looks, and now I was thinking I might be lonely? I needed to get out of the fairy-tale mode. There was nothing wrong with my life.

No more nonsense. Go to sleep and dream of—

Of what?

I loved Aunt Darcy’s house. She and Uncle Rick were happy. Content. Jeff and Adam, both a bit younger than me, were fun.

It wasn’t their house I loved. It was their home. It felt like home. That was weird. Home felt like home, but a different kind. Maybe the kind I’d like to grow out of, and into something more. Something deeper, richer. Like Darcy and Rick’s home.

I hoped that was what I would dream of.

Waiting for sleep to claim me, the phone call between Darcy and me replayed in my mind. She’d called me the day after the incident and tried to play it off as coincidence.

I wasn’t dumb—too much.

“Dad told you, didn’t he?” I said.

She hesitated, then sighed. “Yeah, he called me. Why don’t you come here for the weekend? We can talk.”

I didn’t want to. But… maybe I did, because I started in on it right there on the phone.

She listened until my story was done.

“Some people are just mean. Or self-righteous. Or maybe scared,” she’d said. “You live a different kind of life than most women. Some don’t know what to do with that.”

But they called me butch.

I wanted to say it out loud, but I thought she’d ask me why that bothered me so much. Girls used to be snippy to me back in high school. Called me
carpenter girl
and
gym rat
. The thing was, those things were true. I’d been a carpenter girl since Daddy taught me how to swing a hammer, way back almost before I could walk. And back in those school days, when I wasn’t working in the shop, I was throwing a ball up at a hoop in the gym, so that was true too.

Did that mean I was butch? Were those women, looking put-together and intelligent, right?

I couldn’t answer. Not on the phone, not in that bed.

Sleep crept over me, and I dreamed of mirrors. All around me—they surrounded me, mocking me as I stood like a rabbit trapped in a circle of coyotes. My reflection bounced a million times—me in every direction for all eternity. A pink frilly dress hung over my awkward body, the skirt reminding me of the kind you’d see on a ballerina. The top was satiny and cut close to my small, not-very-womanly curves. Black dirt smudged the shiny material covering my body, and there were brown sweat stains under my arms. I wore my ball cap and steel-toed boots. The mirrors laughed as they closed in on me. Closer. Louder. Their chorus of ridicule crashed over me.

I woke up with sinister laughter sickening my stomach. It sounded like the Joker from the old Batman movies.

While I showered, I tried to think of something to hum. Anything to drown out the awful chuckles. The alphabet song was all I could summon. I hoped Jeff and Adam couldn’t hear through the closed door.

What kind of simple-minded woman was creeped out by a stupid dream? The kind who couldn’t figure out who she was in life.

We went shopping, Darcy and I. I never liked the activity. Always made me feel like a dirty pig at a tea party. I tried harder this time though. It didn’t start off so well, because I asked to get my hair cut first.

“Who has butchered you, girl?” asked a woman with painted eyes and a pair of scissors in her hand.

Maybe the stylist meant to give me an opportunity to gain her sympathy. Certainly she expected me to say that some yahoo at a podunk beauty school had taken a dull knife to my locks of black hair.

I met her eyes for the tiniest breath. “I cut my own hair.”

Seemed like that kind of moment a person ought to feel a bit sorry for smacking your face with her tongue. The girl stared at me in the mirror’s reflection, then raised her eyebrow with all of the condescension of an unsympathetic teacher looking at a kid who’d wet his pants.

I squirmed in the purple-cushioned twirly chair.

“Don’t
ever
do that again.” She sighed and shook her fashionable but nonfunctional bangs out of her eyes.

Why did people wear their hair draped over their line of sight like that?

“Okay,” I mumbled.

“Huh.” The girl’s frowned deepened. “Let’s see what I can make out of this.” She ran her fingers through my hacked-up hair, tugging it this way and that. Parting it to one side and then the other. She sectioned off some in the front and lifted her scissors.

I sat up straighter. “No bangs.”

She lowered her scissors but kept them in her fingers. “You need some kind of style. Since I don’t have much to work with, bangs make sense.”

“No.” I met her eyes again. “I’m in construction. I wear a hat almost all the time. Bangs won’t work.”

“Oh!” She grinned, taking on the persona of a friendly adviser. “Bangs look so cute with a hat! And we have such adorable options over by the front counter. You simply must take a look. Buy a couple. You’ll be the fashionista of construction.”

Fashionista. Yep, that was exactly what I was going for. I glanced over to the “hat” section of the feminine boutique. Plaid prints, twisted rosettes, and bows embellished the useless headgear.

“I wear real hats. The kind with a useful bill to keep the sun off my face.”

Her eyebrows pulled together.

“Skip the bangs,” Darcy intervened. “They’re really not going to work. What about an asymmetrical bob?”

“The
Kate-do
?” The snippy snipper looked horrified. “That’s so tired. Gone. Nobody does their hair like that anymore.”

The Kate-do? What the heck were they talking about?

“Look.” Darcy sighed and came to my side. “We need something that’s functional. Don’t make it as drastic as Kate Gosselin’s was. Try something more like, umm…Kelly Ripa.”

If only I knew who these people were.

The scissor snob propped her hands on her hips. “Kelly Ripa’s hair is longer.”

Darcy’s mouth drew a tight line. Oh, I knew that look. She gave it to Jeff when he argued about doing something he didn’t want to do. She gave it to Dad when he was being stubborn about eating raw vegetables or going to the doctor. Snippity-Sue was about to be put in her place.

“So do a shorter version. Every minute we’ve stood here in debate has cut your tip.” Darcy gave her a stern eyebrow raise. “Do keep in mind that Charlotte is a friend of mine. I’m sure there’s a waiting list for your chair, so let’s not continue with this any further.”

Charlotte? The boutique owner, I presumed. Huh. The moments when Darcy showed her Sharpe side always left me a bit in wonder. She was as pleasant as a monarch on a late summer day unless you set her crisscross. Then she left no doubt—she and my dad were definitely related.

My hair turned out…uh, wow. She cut it so it didn’t lay like a clump of soggy weeds against the back of my head. The back puffed up a bit, and the front framed my face. I liked it. Seemed our outing was taking a turn for the better.