Suburban Renewal (24 page)

“My father was a bad man, I admit that. I'm sorry I brought him into our home, but that's over. And Nate is going to be fine.”

“You should have known what kind of man he was,” Corrie yelled. “He murdered your mother.”

“It was an accident.”

“How many years are you going to say that?” she asked with searing sarcasm. “I don't know what your genealogy is like, Sam Braydon, but in my family we don't
murder
people.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, when you get up to heaven, you'd better ask your sainted brother why Cherry Dale had his suicide medicine and how Floyd Braydon really died.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know those suicide pills Doc put together for Mike? I found the empty bottle in Cherry Dale's trash the morning of my dad's funeral. There is no way she could have gotten hold of those pills without Mike handing them to her himself. So your family knows a little bit about murder, too.”

1997

T
hat fall alone together turned out to be the longest, most miserable time we had ever spent. Sam and I have never been one of those couples who squabble all the time. Both of us are basically nonconfrontational people, and although I believe my confidence and assertiveness has improved as I've gotten older, I am still never “up for a good fight.”

When it came to the venture capital money for EducationEnvironments.com, a good fight is not what we had. It was a down-in-the-mud, no-holds-barred, below-the-belt, emotional slugfest. The kind only married couples can manage, because they know each other's vulnerabilities so well.

I had never intended to tell Sam anything about Riv. I had been mentally unfaithful, but I hadn't been actually so. To my way of thinking, that didn't matter. Confession might be good for the soul, but I wasn't all that sure it was good for the marriage. After observing the world of couples, my impression was that the confessor felt much better after getting the truth off his or her chest. But the person confessed to, the injured party, didn't feel better. He or she felt…well…injured.

I had injured Sam. And he, in turn, lashed out at me
with that ridiculous story about my brother. As if Mike would have had anything to do with Floyd Braydon's death. It was ludicrous. Mike had been in his grave for almost a year when that horrible man died. If it hadn't been from natural causes, and I had no reason to believe it wasn't, then it was Cherry Dale or one of her boys who killed him. Mike had nothing to do with it. Why would he?

As certain as I was of that, I was also bothered by the hint of a memory that I couldn't quite shake. On the morning after our fight, I was standing out on the deck with my coffee. My eyes were drawn to the old washhouse that still stood like some rustic relic in our backyard.

I walked down the brick path to the doorway. It was locked. It was Nate's workshop now. Filled with his saws and clamps and all the accoutrements of a man who worked with his hands. Sam knew where the key was. I was not about to ask him.

Standing on the path, I vividly recalled standing in that same spot hearing Mike and Braydon arguing. The Mike I'd heard that day was not the man I knew as my brother. He'd been cold, powerful, threatening on behalf of those he loved. Could he have engineered Braydon's death? Would he have given those drugs to Cherry Dale for the purpose of getting rid of the man?

Impossible, I firmly decided. Sam might believe that, but I would not. My brother, Mike, was good, all good, up and down, inside out, every way good. Sure he had his problems, his failings. But I was not going to believe this about him—ever.

I spent the rest of the year working on my business, stalling Dan Lyle at the venture capital firm and walk
ing on eggshells with my husband whenever we were in a room together.

I missed the buffer that the children would have provided. We never heard from Nate from the time he left until the time he returned. Lauren e-mailed me regularly to let us know that everything was okay, but in early September I received an unexpected tearful phone call.

“I just can't believe it,” Lauren choked out. “I can't believe he would let this happen.”

“Who?” I asked anxiously. “Who let what happen?”

“God,” she answered. “God let this happen. Both of them dead in one week.”

The “both of them” to whom Lauren referred were her beloved fashion plate, Princess Di, and her spiritual beacon, Mother Teresa. Certainly the deaths were a loss. So many people were saddened. To Lauren, however, it provoked a crisis of faith. She left school and came home at the end of the semester.

It was hard for me to really empathize very much with her pain and doubt. People died. People we love. People we don't even know. I couldn't imagine that losing these total strangers from half a world away should mean so much. I had no idea how to snap her out of it.

“It's more than just the terrible loss of these lives,” she said. “It's…it's…I don't know what it is, Mom. I just feel so angry. I don't like feeling angry.”

I didn't know what to say to her or how to help her.

The answer came from a very unexpected source— Lauren's little brother came through for her.

It was a Sunday morning, Sam and I were up and dressed for church. Lauren just refused to go. We thought the only way she could snap out of her grief
was to get reenthused about her life. We were pressing her to make the effort when Nate intervened.

“Leave her alone,” he said. “If she doesn't want to go, nobody should make her.”

“Just because you've got no faith,” I told him, “doesn't mean your sister should abandon hers.”

“If God let her down, that's exactly what she should do,” Nate said. “I wouldn't want a God who wouldn't follow my directions.”

Lauren's head shot up. “Nate, you are such a stupid jerk!” she said. “You shouldn't even try to talk about things you don't understand. God doesn't need to take directions from anybody. I wouldn't want him to take mine. He sees a broader picture, an eternally broad picture. Humans have such a limited vision, we can't even fathom what his purposes might be.”

“Hey, don't carp at me,” Nate answering. “You're the drama queen who's pissed off at the
Divine.
”

“I'm not pissed off!” Lauren insisted. “You don't understand anything.”

Lauren got up and headed out to the family room in a huff.

“Can't stand a little sibling conflict?” Nate called out at her. “Can't deal with a little truth from your baby brother?”

“Go to hell!” she shot back. “And that
is
exactly where you are going. I'll pray for you in the service. Right now, I've got to go upstairs and get dressed.”

Once she was out of earshot, Nate turned and actually winked at us.

“You guys owe me one,” he said.

Nate had returned from Maine invigorated and outgoing. Like his runaway episode in L.A., getting out on his own had made Nate more confident, more ready to
pursue his goals. What those goals happened to be wasn't immediately apparent to Sam and myself.

“Son, you can't just live here without a job,” his father told him.

Nate just grinned at him. “Why not?”

Sam glanced at me for support. I was pretty sure that nothing that I might say would do anything but confuse the issue.

“Because people work, Nate,” he replied. “Everybody is supposed to work. You're a young, healthy guy. And personally, I'm not willing to work my butt off to pay the bills while a young, healthy guy lies around my house and does nothing.”

Nate nodded. “That's fair enough,” he said. “But, Dad, not everybody can work for somebody else. I'm a lot like Paw-Paw, you know.”

“You're not like him at all!” Sam said quickly.

Nate's eyebrows shot up. He looked surprised at his father's words.

“No, really, Dad,” he said. “I'm just like Paw-Paw, I really don't work well with other people. I don't think he would have ever been able to hold that supervisor job in the well-service company if you hadn't been the owner. I doubt anyone else would have put up with him.”

Sam didn't dispute that.

“Paw-Paw kept the janitor job at the school because everybody there was so busy with their own stuff that they never got in his way.”

It was the kind of disparaging observation I might have made myself. But the tone of Nate's phrasing made it seem as if he were speaking of a personality quirk rather than a character failing.

“I'm that same way,” Nate continued. “Just like
Paw-Paw, I hate other people telling me what to do, I hate having to go with somebody else's plan.”

“Even if that were true,” Sam said, “you have to live your life. Everybody has to work.”

“Yeah, but I think I'm going to work for myself,” he said.

“For yourself?”

Nate nodded. “I made a couple of pieces up in Maine and I sold them, pretty easy.”

“You made a piece of furniture that somebody bought?”

“Don't sound so shocked, Dad,” Nate told him, laughing. “You're living in a house I built, or mostly built, anyway.”

Sam stared at him for a long moment and then he smiled.

“You've done a lot for this house,” he said. “You repaired it, modernized it and doubled it in size. But don't forget that my grandfather was the one who built this house. In 1937 he borrowed the plans from Mr. Tatum who had a house on Poplar Street. He put it together with salvaged timbers worked with hand tools. He knew where every nail was, because he'd hammered them all in himself. Maybe you got some of your skill from him.”

Nate shrugged, but he did look pleased.

The washhouse/workshop became his place of business. He worked there at his own pace on his own time. No one could fault him for not being productive. He turned out a half dozen pieces that fall. They were beautiful. He was very taken with the mission style, which he constructed out of quarter-sawn oak and darkened by fuming with ammonia. But he also made some handsome pieces in cherry. And some artsy
small things in rosewood and ebony. Sam and I were both very impressed with the quality of his work. I honestly wanted to buy them all myself. Sam discouraged me.

Sales of his work had become a very discouraging obstacle. Nate sat his finished pieces out in the yard with price tags on them. Lots of people stopped to look, lots of people admired his work, but nobody would buy.

“The people here in Lumkee just don't want quality furniture,” he complained one night at supper. “They treat my stuff like it's some kind of garage sale find and they ought to be able to load it up in their pickup for five bucks!”

“That's because they're not used to buying their new furniture out on somebody's lawn,” Sam told him. “You're going to have to get a furniture store to carry your stuff.”

Nate shook his head. “I've tried, Dad,” he said. “All the dealers contract with big factory suppliers. They don't want to use their floor space for handmade stuff. It's too expensive and the profit margin is too low.”

Sam nodded.

“In Maine, we just set the stuff out on the grounds and people came to buy it,” Nate said. “I know there are people somewhere who'll want this furniture. I just don't know where to find them and they don't know where to find me.”

“What about the Internet?” I asked him.

He looked at me strangely.

Sam's expression I recognized. It was skepticism.

“People might buy a book over the Internet or contract for a service,” he said. “But for something like this, something like furniture, people will want to look
it over, touch it. I can't imagine that people would buy furniture sight unseen.”

“I could upload digital photos,” Nate said.

“More than that,” I said. “You can have reference letters from your teachers in Maine and the people who've bought your pieces. You can even talk about your philosophy of woodworking, the designs, how they are put together. You can educate your customers, teach them why they should buy your furniture.”

Nate was grinning ear to ear. “Rocks!” he said, in a tone that was unmistakably positive.

With Nate's computer savvy and my recent business experience on the Web, we brainstormed some great ideas for Nate's new business, Lumkee Woodcraft Industries.

“It's sounds big and stodgy and respectable,” he said.

I agreed.

“If they only knew the truth,” he teased, pretending to wax a nonexistent mustache.

The next few days were some of the best I'd spent with Nate since he was a little boy. I let my own work wait, so that we could get his project up and running. Nate's computer skills had helped me learn the Internet. He'd made it possible for me to start up my business. Now I was getting the opportunity to return the favor.

The Web page had to be designed—that was the creative part. Helping him come up with the kind of content he wanted and displaying the photos in a way that was both appealing and informative was a challenge. Especially when we didn't want any long waits for the page to load. We did the whole inventory in thumb
nails with clicks to a set of more comprehensive pictures.

The purchasing segment had to be secure and flexible. We signed the company up for online payment systems and I loaned him money to pay for the privilege of accepting credit cards.

We worked together so closely those few weeks that we began to finish each other's sentences. And we laughed. Oh, how we laughed. I couldn't remember a time when my son and I had ever had so much fun together before. I felt so close to him. This was how it was supposed to be. This was what I felt I'd been cheated out of. I was grateful to have that opportunity back.

For his part, Nate was excited, happy and carefree. For once he treated me as if I were just another person, not some resident bad news inflicted upon him. Our relationship was different than it ever had been. But the simple fact that we could manage to have a positive relationship seemed like an incredible breakthrough to me.

And I suppose I treated him differently, too. I was able to quit thinking of him as a younger version of Floyd Braydon and recognize him as the young man that he'd turned out to be.

I also noticed how much he was like Sam. He had that unflagging enthusiasm and commitment, just like his father.

Working with Nate started me thinking more about my husband and the anger and resentment I'd held against him for months now. Sam was just a regular hardworking guy, as transparent as glass. I couldn't believe that I'd accused him of trying to sabotage my business. If he'd wanted me to quit, he'd simply have asked me to. And if he were jealous of my success, he'd
confront me to my face, not work against me behind my back.

One afternoon when I left work, instead of hurrying home, I drove by Okie Tamales. The production room was already cleaned and, in the alley, Chano and his father were washing down the inside of the delivery van.