Laying a Foundation: Bonus volume: Includes series prequel, The Groundbreaking (The Love Under Construction Series) (2 page)

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P.O. Box 3722, Paducah, KY 42002-3722

T
he city of Louisville, Kentucky, occupies four hundred square miles of riverfront property on the Ohio River. Even though the city also known as “The Ville” or “da Ville” doesn’t seem like a southern city, it is physically below the Mason-Dixon line, the imaginary line of demarcation for the southern states. Most of its residents sincerely consider themselves southerners, and they will let you know that in no uncertain terms.

With a metropolitan area of almost three quarters of a million residents, and the Louisville Combined Statistical Area boasting a population of 1.45 million, it is richly diverse in culture and lifestyle. Louisvillians are surprisingly open-minded, despite the fact that out of its nine colleges and universities, three are religious seminaries. It has micro-populations of virtually every nationality and culture, partially fed by nearby Fort Knox. The dining options are numerous, from Thai to Indian to Mediterranean, Italian galore, and everything in-between. Cultural events are plentiful, and the big event of the year, no surprise here, is the Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May.

And if you live in Kentucky, you’d better like – no, love – basketball. While the University of Kentucky Wildcats are legendary, University of Louisville’s men’s Cardinals won the NCAA Championship for the 2012-2013 season, and their women’s team was second in the nation that season. When March Madness hits, households in the Bluegrass State revolve around their local coverage of games, and as Kentucky teams are eliminated, fans of the eliminated teams rally behind other Kentucky teams and will cheer their Kentucky rivals on to the end. When it all shakes out, as long as somebody from Kentucky wins the championship, everybody’s happy; well, fairly so anyway.

Hospitals abound. University of Louisville’s hospital was the first in the nation to offer a trauma center. Residents from five states come to University of Kentucky’s medical facilities and University of Louisville’s hospital. Norton excels in spinal surgeries, and Kosair Children’s Hospital is a premiere facility drawing patients from all over the country.

Lexington’s horse farms are gorgeous, and as the second largest city in Kentucky, it has a Combined Statistical Area of almost seven hundred thousand people. The metropolitan area has a variety of laws in place to allow it to grow without destroying the horse farms that make it known as “Horse Capital of the World.” As cities in Kentucky go, it is the chic place to live and raise kids. The population tends to be wealthier and better educated, and residents of Lexington consider themselves somewhat more sophisticated than most other Kentucky residents.

Shelbyville, by contrast, is a typical Kentucky small town. With a population of barely fourteen thousand, it’s known as the “American Saddlebred Capital of the World.” Its little main street is quaint, and the county is dotted with horse farms. It lies along Interstate 64, the artery that connects Louisville, Frankfort (the state capitol), and Lexington, known by most Kentuckians as “The Golden Triangle,” and, as such, serves as a bedroom community for Louisville. Shelbyville may be small and well north of the triangle, but it carries the flavor of all three of Kentucky’s largest cities.

Family is important in Kentucky, and nationwide, Kentucky has the largest percentage of native-born residents still living inside its borders. If you’re born in Kentucky, you’re pretty likely to be buried there. And for most Kentuckians, that’s just fine with them.

Christmas 2011

T
he fire was warm and comfy, and so was everyone near it in the huge house not far outside Shelbyville, Kentucky. Drinks were sloshed around, enough food was spread out to feed a university campus, and the holiday music coming from the home theater system was just so much noise in the background.

Tony looked around at the other couples in his big family. Most were touching each other in some way, holding hands or sitting side by side with an arm around the other’s shoulder, and it took everything he had not to give in to the dull, persistent ache in his chest. If he lived to be one hundred, he’d never fully understand how someone could be in a crowd and still be so utterly alone.

While everyone else ripped at wrapping paper, he went into the kitchen for another drink. If he were being honest with himself, he did it just to get away for a minute or two, to distance himself a little from all the merriment. A hand on his back caused him to turn, and he looked down to find his baby girl. She might be a grown woman, but she’d always be his baby.

“Dad, you okay?” Her voice was rife with concern.

“Yeah, fine.” He popped the cap on another beer.
Not very convincing
, he thought with a sad smile.

“I know it’s hard. You’ll find someone eventually. I have faith in you.” Her hand rubbed small circles between his shoulder blades.

“Don’t worry about me, pumpkin. I’m fine.” He leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek.

Her walnut-dark eyes smiled. “I know. But I also know how lonely you are. It hurts to watch.” She turned and left the room, and he knew she didn’t want him to see the tear that was certain to be trailing down one cheek. He wasn’t hiding his misery well enough, and the last thing he wanted was to make someone else miserable.

Standing in the kitchen doorway and looking out into the great room, he watched the whole Walters family. All four of his brothers had beautiful wives, and their kids were something special. His own two kids were in great relationships. His son had married a lovely girl and they were hoping to have a child soon. His daughter had found someone and managed to land in a loving, committed relationship – no small feat for a lesbian in her twenties. Even his mother seemed happy in her widowhood; she’d made it plain that his father had been the love of her life and she would never need another. It would be natural to be happy for all of them, knowing that they were comfortable and loved. But looking at them, watching them, was almost too painful to bear.

After everything was cleaned up and everyone was in bed, he sat on an ottoman in front of the fire. His heart was as cold as the beer he was sucking on. Beams of light from the flood lamps on the patio reflected the snow that was falling even harder now. He thought about his ex-wife, the bitch, and watched the huge flakes fall. Wonder where she was spending Christmas? He didn’t care, as long as it was nowhere near him, and he shuddered just thinking about her. She’d ruined everything for him.

I’m fifty-seven and that part of my life, love and happiness and all of that shit, that’s all over.
The fire was starting to die down, and he contemplated putting another log on. Why bother? Let it die. He poked at the embers to get the last of the heat out of them, then sat back in his chair and glanced down at the front of his jeans – yep, limp and dead, just like it had been for twenty years. Oh, it had a revival a couple of years before, but generally it just hung there neglected, no longer waiting for someone to come along and stimulate it, knowing that wasn’t even on the table anymore.

He had his work; that kept him busy. Heading up a large, family-owned construction and contracting business wasn’t a part-time job. And he had the gym. He was there almost every day, and his body was a well-tuned instrument. Everyone who saw him thought he was in his early forties, certainly not his actual age, and his genetics helped that along. Women looked at him with longing, but after what that bitch had put him through, no one was getting near him, no way, no how.

The embers in the fireplace seemed to simply wink out of existence, just like his chances at happiness. Everyone under his roof tonight was snug and warm with someone they adored and someone who adored them nearby.

Except for him. And that wasn’t likely to change.

New Year’s Eve 2011

“Hey, what did you bring?” Tony prowled through the bags that Vic had brought in with him.

“Hmmmm, let’s see,” Vic said, pulling out a box. “Mallomars and Moon Pies.”

“Love ’em,” Tony said.

“Yeah. And big bags of m&m’s and Skittles.”

“Love ’em too,” Tony said.

“And,” Vic said, pulling out two boxes, “Goo-Goo Clusters!”

“Ah, makes me proud to be a southern boy!” Tony said, ripping a box open.

“And a huge bottle of,” Vic pulled it out with a flourish, “Maker’s Mark. Plus some cheaper stuff for when we don’t care anymore. Which I hope is soon.”

“No shit. I plan to get completely hammered.” Tony looked at the bottle and gave serious consideration to tearing into it and drinking straight from it.

“Yeah, me too. I looked around the house but I didn’t have any weed or I would’ve brought that too.”

“Ohhhh, that would’ve been sweet. Oh, well, I think we can still do enough damage with the liquor.” Tony scrounged around the kitchen and came up with bowls for all of the stuff Vic had brought.

“What else have we got?” Vic asked.

“Well, I’ve got donuts, the powdered sugar kind and some filled with Bavarian crème, and all kinds of cookies, and chips, my god, every kind of chips I could find, and that great pub mix, you know, the one with all the different little things in it?”

“Yeah, I love that shit!” Vic grabbed two bowls and headed for the great room in the big house. Tony picked up all he could carry and followed.

An hour later, they were well on their way to something much more intense than a buzz. Neither of them did any heavy-duty drinking on a regular basis, and the much larger Vic was faring a lot better. The alcohol was slamming into Tony like a freight train.

“Well, here we are. Two cousins. Alone on New Year’s Eve,” Tony mumbled.

“We’re not alone,” Vic reminded him. “We’re here together.”

“You know what I mean, smart ass,” Tony slurred back. “I don’t have a woman, and you don’t have a woman. So we’re alone.”

“Yeah. No fun. Hey, how long’s it been since you got laid?”

“Couple of years.” Tony took a pull off a bottle of bourbon.

Vic’s eyebrows knitted. “I didn’t know you dated anybody. What was up with that?”

“Didn’t date her. Long, sad story.” Tony took another hit off the bottle. “Well, the getting there was sad. The being there was awesome. She was a helluva fuck, lemme tell ya. But I’ve said enough; I really don’t want to talk about that. What about you? What happened to that little girl, Carrie? One day you’re banging her, and the next, she’s gone. Where’d she go?” Tony didn’t usually talk so coarsely, but it was just him and Vic and the liquor. Liquor always worked as a solvent on his personal filters, so they were more or less already shot.

“I pretty much ran her off; kinda scared her away. Didn’t mean to, but it happened.” Vic drained a bottle and looked for another. “I’m a bad, bad man.”

“Yeah, right; big, bad teddy bear. That’s what you are, my cousin-brother,” Tony laughed. “Big ol’ teddy bear.”

“The teddy bear has a grizzly side. Hey, didn’t I see a bottle of Evan Williams around here somewhere?” Vic asked, changing the subject and looking through the pillows on the sofa.

“I think it’s in the, the, oh, hell, what’s that room called?” Tony slurred, pointing toward the kitchen.

“Can’t remember.” Vic stuck his hand between the sofa cushions and pulled out a quarter. “Hey, your sofa’s throwing up money!”

“Don’t be talking ’bout throwing up, what with the power of suggestion and all that.” Tony got up to go to the kitchen and staggered a little. “Whoa, damn house must be on one of those tectonic plate fault line thingies ’cause the earth’s moving,” he giggled. When he came back, he tossed a bottle of Old Granddad to Vic. “Here, more fuel for the fire.”

“Thanks, cuz. Seriously, though . . .”

“No ‘seriously’ now. I can’t handle fucking seriously,” Tony admonished.

“Okay, just bullshitting you then, isn’t there a woman somewhere that you want to ask out?”

Tony thought for a minute. “Yeah, there’s this woman at my gym. She’s kinda cute. Nice tits, nice ass. Very nice hair. Looks like a sweet one. I’ve been watching her for four years. But she’d never go out with me.”

“Four years? Hell, nobody can accuse you of jumping the gun! You’d be lousy at speed dating.” Vic was shocked; why hadn’t Tony just asked her out? “Why wouldn’t she go out with you? You’re a good guy.”

“Yeah, and I’m hung, too! But I can’t just walk up to her and go, ‘Hey there, I’d like to go out with you and guess what? I’m hung!’ Probably get ar-ar-arrested, think?”

“You’d better slow down, buddy. You’re getting pretty damn polluted.” Vic reached for the bottle of Jack Daniels that Tony was sucking on.