When We Let Go, Delancey Stewart [early reader books .txt] 📗
- Author: Delancey Stewart
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“Jess died two days ago,” Cameron said.
“I’m sorry, son.” Dad had lost his wife, too, and I saw that thread of understanding float between them. Dad seemed to think about this more, and something in his eyes dimmed. He rocked back and forth slightly, and I wondered if he was comforting himself somehow, after the thought of Mom’s death had come back to him so unexpectedly.
“You okay, Dad?” I asked.
He turned his head toward me—a beat too late—and I knew he’d disappeared again. “Maddie, you’d better get going before the ship leaves port.” His voice was soft, almost like even he didn’t believe his words.
“Dad…” I wanted to say something to bring him back. I was angry at him for switching off like that, for leaving us sitting here while he went off to wherever it was he went when the world was too much. I shook my head and pulled my hand from Connor’s, balling my fists in my lap.
“We’d better get going,” Cam said, rising.
“Thanks for the visit,” Dad said, a false cheer in his voice, the kind you used with people you barely knew. “Think I’ll take a little nap till we’re underway.”
“Sure,” I said, choking on tears that were suddenly clogging my throat. “We’ll see you later.”
Connor’s arm went around my shoulders as we left him there, rocking slowly and re-embarking on his never-ending cruise. We thanked Alex on the way out and then found ourselves back in the parking lot.
“He was right there,” I said, “and then he was gone. Just like that.”
“It was the mention of Jess,” Cam said, not making eye contact, but staring off into the distance. “He didn’t survive the pain of losing Mom. He shoved it into a box and decided to never open it again. The lid popped off when I told him about Jess.”
We stood in silence for a moment. I wondered how much of my father’s condition was self-wrought. Was it possible that if something was painful enough to think about, a person might choose to turn off their entire mind to avoid it? Was my father really that weak? Or had his love for my mother really been that great? Would that happen to Cam? To me?
“I was thinking,” Cam said, breaking the difficult silence that had settled on us like a heavy cloak in the early fall warmth. “What if I came back up with you?”
I stared at him, and then found myself nodding. I didn’t know if we could share the trailer, but I was willing to try for Cam. I could sleep at Connor’s.
“Are Chance and Sam Palmer still the local crew?” Cam had worked with the brothers during the summers when he was in high school and college, building cabins, fixing decks, and doing whatever odd jobs they brought in.
I nodded.
“Think they could use some help now?”
“What about your job?” I marveled that Cam could walk away from his career in Hollywood.
“I’m in between projects. I took time off when Jess got sick.”
“Then yeah,” I said. “Come up. We’ll find out.”
“Maybe we could work on your place,” he said.
I nodded again. “They’ve been trying to get me to let them winterize it at least,” I said.
Cam nodded and we moved back toward our vehicles, ready to make the climb back to Kings Grove.
Connor and I agreed that it would make the most sense for me to stay with him while Cam got settled. I spent half my nights at his house anyway, and he had an extra laptop that he’d put photo editing software on as soon as we’d discovered the root of the picture-stealing incident.
We settled Cam in the trailer. He didn’t have any clothes, so Connor went home to get some things for him to borrow.
“Will you be okay up here by yourself?” I asked him as he walked us back to Connor’s car.
He looked around at the trees, the half-built house, and nodded. He took a deep breath and stretched his arms wide. “I think so,” he said. “In a lot of ways, this feels like coming home.”
I smiled. I knew what he meant. This place was in our blood. “It’s yours too, you know.” Jack had casually disregarded my brother’s claim on this property. And when we’d asked him about building, he’d been so angry with me that he’d accepted whatever ridiculous amount of money Jack offered him. The less he’d had to speak with me, the better, I guessed.
But the thought seemed to be growing legs now. Cam’s eyes narrowed at me, and he turned around slowly, as if seeing the sham of a mansion for the first time.
“I’ll track down the Palmer brothers in the morning,” he said. “We’ll see what we can do about this mess.”
I nodded. It made me happy to believe that someone might take action where I’d been able only to muddle around in my indecision.
I drove over to see Cam on my break from the diner the next day, and was only a little bit surprised to find the Palmer Construction truck parked at the top of the hill. Sam and Chance sat with Cam at the picnic table, a roll of drawing paper spread between them.
Cam was talking excitedly, and the brothers were nodding along.
“Hey boys,” I said, stepping out of the car. “Looks like you’re plotting something.”
“Maddie, come sit down,” Cam said. He was smiling. “I have a proposal for you.”
I had no idea what he was going to propose, but the fact that the idea made him smile had me ready to agree to just about anything.
“Let’s build the cabin that should have been here in the first place. For you and me.” His dark eyes gleamed, and I glanced at the brothers.
“I’d love to, but…” I didn’t want to talk about my financial problems in front of Sam and Chance. They knew enough based on the fact that I’d called off construction the first time. “If I could afford to do that, I would have done it,” I told him in a low voice.
“Don’t worry about that,” Chance said, chuckling. “Your brother pledged himself to us as slave labor for the next three years.”
“He did what?” I gaped at Cam.
“I don’t want to go back to LA,” he said. “I need to start again. But first, I need to do something. Something that will burn me up every day so I can sleep at night. Something that will pull every ounce of energy I have in me. I remember how tired I was, those summers that I worked up here. I need that. It’ll keep me moving forward. I just…” he looked down at the table. “That’s what I need for now,” he finished quietly.
I nodded. “But if you’re so busy working on other projects, how will you get anything done here?”
“It’s our filler project,” Sam said. “When we’re slow, we’ll work on it. When we’re slammed, we put it aside. Can’t be much worse than it is now.”
I smiled. It was a good plan. “Okay,” I said.
“One thing,” Cam said, looking at me again. “I need somewhere to live in the meantime.”
“Right.” I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. I wasn’t giving up the trailer, not yet. Things with Connor were great, but we weren’t ready to officially move in together. “And…?”
“So the first thing we do is build the guest house. Two bedrooms,” he said, pressing the roll of paper between them flat. “These guys are slow right now. We’ll have this built in three weeks—at least enough to live in.”
I couldn’t help that my jaw dropped open. “Why didn’t I think of this plan? I’ve been living in this stupid trailer forever.”
“You’re the younger sibling for a reason,” Cam quipped. “I’m the smarter, more seasoned sibling. I’m the one with the good ideas.”
“Oh, I see.”
Chance and Sam grinned at me, Chance’s blue eyes sparkling in a way that made me wonder how the hell he was still single, and understand what had Miranda speechless half the time.
“Can you stay with Connor for a little while?” Cam asked.
“I’ll need to ask him,” I said. I doubted there would be an issue. And if was indefinite, I didn’t feel like I was trapping him into anything. “Guess you guys better get to work, then,” I said, rising. “And I need to get back to the diner.”
I drove back into town, my heart lighter. Cam would be okay, and one of
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