Martin’s got a bite, and it looks like he’s going to need the net.”
For a brief moment, she wondered if the two men were fishing with artificial lures or worms. “See you at home later.”
Broken, but drivable.
Chapter 6
6
He’d lied to her. He hadn’t been fishing. He’d been painting the kitchen. From the looks of it, he’d started right after she left the house. If she hadn’t stayed so long at Riverside Park, staring into the water and trying unsuccessfully to oust every verse of “The Water Is Wide” and “Down to the River to Pray” from her mind, she might have walked in on him mid-project.
Instead, she found him peeling the last of the painter’s tape from the crown molding. He rolled it into a sticky ball and tossed it toward the plastic garbage can he’d positioned near the ladder. “Nothing but net,” he said.
“Charlie, what are you doing?” She adopted her reserve-judgment-until-I’ve-heard-the-whole-story voice she’d often used on her students. And the Tuttle kids.
“Welcome to your freshly painted kitchen, LucyMyLight,” he said, descending the ladder. “How do you like it? Baby, don’t cry.” He held her against his paint-speckled once-red shirt. “It wasn’t that big of a deal. I can go fishing some other time.”
She pulled back to catch her breath.
“Oh, look at that,” he said, whipping a paint rag from his back pocket and daubing at the spot of Berrington Blue on her jean jacket. “The price of a hug, I guess. You’ll want to wash that out right away, before it dries.”
As if she hadn’t done every single load of laundry in their house for the last thirty-two years. As if she didn’t realize dried paint was a whole different animal than wet paint. As if she needed the instruction.
As if she needed him to take away the one project that would have made the summer have a small nugget of meaning to it.
“I had to hurry to finish before you got home. So we might have to do a few touch ups.”
“It looks . . . nice, Charlie. I love the color.” She wetted a corner of a clean rag and scrubbed at the paint smear.
“Me, too. You have great taste.” He smiled. “Of course, we knew that already. You chose me.”
He busied himself putting away the step stool, ladder, and his painting tools while Lucy shrugged out of her jacket to get a better look at the spot and contemplated how she’d ever pay for the counseling she probably needed. What kind of woman resents a man like Charlie? What’s wrong with a woman like that?
Resent? Had she really used that word? The indictments against her character mounted like the constellations of Berrington Blue spatters on her white cabinets.
***
She worked late into the night putting the kitchen back to rights. If only blemishes on her soul flicked off as easily as the dry dots of blue paint responded to her thumbnail. Lucy replaced half the items she normally kept on the counters, along the backsplash. As infrequently as she used truffle oil, it didn’t need to occupy space on the counter, no matter how artsy the bottle.
After supper, Charlie had watched a WWII POW movie while she worked, then kissed her goodnight and headed to bed early, smelling of the pungent rub he used on aching muscles. The whole bedroom would smell like that. Another thing she should be used to by now. Not just used to. Grateful for. His muscles ached because he tried to do something nice for her.
She found another dot of paint on the granite countertop. Flick. Gone.
A wave of satisfaction worked its way to shore from far out to sea. She felt it nearing, but so much debris had washed up on the beach during the previous days’ tides, the wave diminished in intensity by the time it reached her. The room looked fresher than it had in a long time.
Charlie’s retirement health coverage meant the impact of her job loss threatened their savings plan more than their daily budget. Olivia and SamWise had weathered the unstable years and emerged as adult versions of the joy of their lives. Nobody was in the hospital, rehab, or jail. Not every family could say as much. She’d had nineteen years at a job she loved, pursuing a passion with an endless, pulsing rhythm. Her husband—who sometimes impersonated Captain Oblivious—loved her and showed it. What was wrong with her? Was she auditioning for the most ungrateful human on the planet?
For a second, a split second, she understood why a woman with leftover pain medication might take something to quiet the internal condemnation.
Instead—and because she had no leftovers—she turned out the kitchen light and went to bed.
***
“Lucy? Lucy.”
“What?”
“How long are you planning to sleep in?”
She drew the comforter over her shoulders. They could probably set the air conditioner temperature a little warmer and save electricity. “What time is it?”
“Eleven . . .”
“Eleven!” She threw the covers off with a snap like a mainsail in a stiff wind. “Why did you let me sleep so long?” Lucy sat on the edge of the bed, fighting to get her bearings.
“Eleven minutes after eight.”
“Charlie!” Lucy fell back into her nest of pillows.
“The muffler’s done. Can you drop me off at the shop so I can pick it up?”
“Now?” She scrubbed her hand through her hair.
He pulled off the work shirt he’d been wearing, sniffed it, then threw it into the hamper. “Did you have something else you needed to do?”
“Sleep?”
“Hon, you can do that anytime now that you’re . . .”
A song from the animated movie Frozen flashed through her mind. Couldn’t he let this go?
“Sorry I woke you, Lucy.” His eyebrows scrunched forward. “You used to be up by six.”
“I stayed up later than usual last night.”
“Oh.” He tugged a polo shirt over his head. “I guess I could call Martin or somebody to take me down there.”
“No, I’ll get up,” she said. It was the least she could do. “Aren’t you a little overdressed for the muffler place?”
“Once I get the car, I’m heading over to Silver Lake. A guy there has done some worm farming in the past. I’m going to pick his brain. Want to come?”
God help her, she’d reverted to her ugly self, and it wasn’t even eighty-thirty in the morning. All she could think about was how slim the pickings would be.
“Want to come along? That would be great. We can talk the whole way there and b—”
She
