I’ve almost survived thirty-six hours without fighting with Winnie. It’s honestly the closest I’ve come to a miracle in my life. After I watched her hug that asshole who had his hands on her, and told her how stupid I thought she was for taking him back, she has been avoiding me. I’ve barely even seen her. She’s kept herself hidden upstairs while I’ve been in the house, and when she leaves, she walks past me, and the trailer, like we don’t even exist. But today, we’re gonna have to confront each other again. It’s demo day. Walls are coming down. She won’t be able to ignore that.
I woke up this morning early, and exhausted. I couldn’t sleep most of the night because earlier, as I puttered around the trailer, made dinner and tried to watch some Netflix on my laptop, but I could hear her. Again. Like every other night, she was crying. I could tell she was drunk because when girls drunk-cry it’s way louder than their normal cry. Guys too for that matter, although I’ve only witnessed my father drunk-cry, for weeks after my mom died, and he didn’t know I heard him. I didn’t dare talk about it. Anyway she didn’t cry long, at least not that I could hear, but it stuck with me.
I lay awake much longer than I should have thinking about whether she was okay, knowing she wasn’t. What had this girl so distraught? I thought, from what I’d seen, she’d worked things out with that boyfriend. But if so, why did he leave? Why hadn’t I seen him again and why was she still here? Was it something else that had her so wounded? If it wasn’t just the boyfriend and it was something else, that just proved this guy is a world-class piece of shit. Because if a girl I loved was this broken up over something, I would be there to help her through it, at all costs. He had left her here.
As I opened up the storage hatch in the side of my trailer and started to take out my tools, I called my own sister not just to get my mind off Winnie, who I have yet to see this morning, but because I needed to know when I might get my truck back. She answered on the first ring.
“I was going to call you after work,” she explains without so much as a hello. She sounds defensive so I try to defuse the situation immediately.
“How did Duke’s hockey tournament end?” I ask. “Thanks again for letting me stay and watch a game.”
She had been at my nephew’s hockey tournament in Boston when her car died on the way to the arena from the hotel. She had it towed to a garage and called me in a panic that night when she found out it would take a few days to get the part it needed. I know it killed her to have to call me. When I came back to Maine, I reached out to her right away. But just like she said the last time I saw her, when I was sixteen and she was almost eighteen, and she still wanted nothing to do with me. I made a point of running into her a lot this summer because this town was so damn small I knew what places she would frequent. She begrudgingly introduced me to my ten-year-old nephew, Duke, but not as his uncle. She just called me Holden, which stung but it was better than nothing. She stayed aloof and distant—until the call.
So without hesitation, I drove straight down there and insisted she take my truck until her car was fixed. Duke’s team was in the middle of a game when she met me in the arena parking lot, and she invited me to stay and watch it. They won and Duke even scored. It felt like we made progress that weekend—like maybe we were inching our way back to a family relationship again. But now, she sounds distant and aloof.
“They lost in the finals,” she explains curtly and I can hear a lot of noise in the background of wherever she is. “Anyway my car is fixed. I just have to pick it up in Boston. We were going to take a bus there after work tonight. I think if I hustle and Duke isn’t late coming home from school, I can get us on the seven o’clock one. You’re in Ocean Pines, which isn’t far from the bus station, so I can drop off your car on my way there and walk from your place.”
“You can just drive it to the bus station and I’ll pick it up there,” I offer. “If that’ll be easier.”
“I don’t want to put you out any more than I already have,” Bradie replies.
“It’s not putting me out and, if you want…” I pause, worried volunteering to do her another favor will piss her off. Everything about me kind of does. “I can swing by tonight and just drive you guys to Boston.”
“I can’t ask you do that,” she snaps.
“You’re not asking. I’m offering,” I correct her gently. “I’m working a new job, but I can wrap it up around five and head right over. It’ll be quicker than taking the bus and cheaper. I know the new alternator you had to get isn’t cheap.”
All I can hear is her breathing. It’s almost labored. Like the debate going on in her head is actually physically taxing. I try to put her at ease. “I’m not asking anything in return, Bradie. I’ll just drop you off and go.”
“I’m still not telling him who you are,” Bradie replies, her tone serious but also a little heavy with guilt. “His dad disappeared on him. He never had any grandparents and I just don’t want him to get his hopes up on you. Okay?”
“I know. I have a lot of trust to earn back,” I reply. “I’ll just be your friend Holden who is doing you a favor. That’s it.”
“Okay,” Bradie relents and I can’t help but smile. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“I’ll be there at like five thirty,” I tell her. “I’m going to walk there so it’ll take a minute. You’re still on Union right?”
“Yep,” she says, sounding embarrassed. “The dilapidated white one on the left.”
“Your brother is a contractor,” I tell her. “You should see if he can do something about that.”
“Yeah, well right now I just need my car back,” she mutters. “See you tonight.”
She hangs up. I shove my phone in my pocket and glance up at the Braddock cottage. Everything is quiet and dark. Winnie clearly isn’t up yet. I decide I’ll walk down to Hogan’s, since Cat doesn’t want me at her store, and grab a coffee. If Winnie isn’t up by the time I get back, I’ll have to wake her ass up. I have work to do.
I think about the Braddocks as I walk east to Hogan’s. I used to watch the Braddock kids with wonder. Jude and his sisters liked to pretend they hated each other, but everyone knew they didn’t. The three girls would go to all his summer games. Even on the hottest beach day, they’d be in that crappy indoor rink cheering him on…admittedly, it did sometimes sound like heckling. But I remember him getting into a fight once, some kid went after him and dropped his gloves first, and those three were at the glass threatening his life and calling him names that even made me blush.
My sister and I were nothing like that, even before my mom died. We didn’t fight all that much, but we certainly didn’t support each other. We were just two very different people coexisting in the same house. And then after our mother died, we handled it two completely opposite ways—Bradie withdrew and I lashed out. My dad and I fought every time we were near each other. She would always ignore us and lock herself in her room. She never took my side or defended me, which is what I desperately wanted. So, I started picking the lock and I would take or break her stuff. I hated her for not taking my side, not reacting, not helping me through my grief, but I realize now that I wasn’t helping her either. The day I got busted and went to juvie she told me that she never wanted to see me or hear from me ever again. She was angry I was tearing the family apart even more, which at the time I told her was bullshit because she never acted like she wanted me around in the first place. Anyway, she got her wish for over a decade until this summer.
Hogan’s is empty, so I get my coffee and am back at the house in less than half an hour. I drink half of it on a bench on the beach, watching the tide come in, but then it’s nine o’clock and I have to start work, especially now that I have to quit at a certain time to get Bradie and Duke. I head back to the cottage, up the front stairs and knock on the door to the porch. No response. So I walk across the porch, and knock on the heavier, oak door. Still nothing, so I open it with the keys Jude gave me. The whole first floor is empty and quiet.
“Winnie!” I call out, but she doesn’t answer. “I’m starting work now!”
Still nothing. Maybe she went out while I was off getting coffee? Oh well, fact is I’m here to do a job and I’m going to do it. I head back out to my trailer to grab my tools so I can get started demoing the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later, as I’m breaking up the tile, I hear stomping and she appears in the doorway looking rougher than a homeless alley cat. Her ash-blond hair is sticking out every which way, and she’s got makeup smeared around her eyes, which are puffy and red, giving her a distraught raccoon look. “What the fuck, Holden!”
I stop hammering the tile and look up at her. “I’m sorry, did I wake you?”
“Yes!” She blinks and crosses her arms. She’s wearing a gray sweater three sizes too big for her. “Why do you have to start so early?”
