handyman. That made sense. He’d always been good at fixing things. Breaking them, too.
“It’s okay. You and Nan play the game. I’m going to figure out what to do with this dishwasher.” Which first meant unloading it and washing the dishes by hand.
All of them.
There was actually a kind of contentment in it. Filling half the double sink with hot water and soap, setting up the drain rack. Taking the stuff from the dishwasher, biggest to smallest, and making sure each piece was cleaned and rinsed. Scrubbing at the dried-on dirt. It was the pleasure of a job done carefully and well, but there was something more to it, as well.
“C’mon, Janelle. Let’s go!” Andy pokes his head in the back door, grinning. “Gabe says he won’t wait anymore.”
They’re supposed to go out to the cabin in the woods to shoot guns. Snow day. Nan’s at work, and Janelle has chores.
“I have to finish the dishes first.”
Gabe wouldn’t put a foot inside this house, but Andy doesn’t hesitate. “I’ll help. It’ll go faster that way.”
And it does, even with the suds going all over the place, especially when Mikey’s sent inside to see what’s taking them so long. They pull him into the suds fight and the three of them make a mess and clean it up while they laugh and Gabe waits, stewing in the truck. He’s so mad he won’t talk to any of them until they get to the cabin.
She was nearly finished when Andy came into the kitchen. Without a word, he went to the drying rack and started putting things away, being sure to wipe the wet ones with a towel he pulled from the drawer. Janelle handed him a few forks she’d just rinsed, watching as he held everything carefully against his body so he didn’t drop it.
“How was the game?”
“Good. She won.” He grinned. “She’s napping on the couch.”
Andy’s phone rang from his pocket. He didn’t reach for it, though it chirped at him several times. At Janelle’s curious look he said, “It’s my brother.”
“Won’t he worry if you don’t answer it?”
Andy looked exactly the way Bennett did when she asked him if a teacher wouldn’t scold him for not turning in his homework. “I left a note on the counter. It’s not like I ran off without telling him.”
A moment later, the phone rang again. Andy dried his hands and pulled the cell from his pocket, flipping it open. “Gabe, I told you, I’m over at Mrs. Decker’s. Playing cards. Yeah. Well, yeah. Tomorrow at three, Candace said she’d give me a ride. Yes, I took them. No.” Andy sighed. “Fine, all right! I’ll get to it, I told you! Fine. Hey. Hey, Gabe?”
But apparently Gabe had already disconnected, because Andy shoved the phone back into his pocket. “I was going to ask him if he could come and take a look at the dishwasher.”
“Oh, that’s okay.”
“No, really.” Andy sounded eager, which also reminded her of Bennett and how he could be when he wanted something for some reason he didn’t feel like he could be up-front with her about. “He fixes all kinds of stuff. He’s supergood with his hands.”
She laughed at that, though she had no suspicions Andy was talking in innuendo. “Oh, I’ll bet he is.”
“He can fix a lot of things,” Andy said wistfully. His gaze went unfocused for a few seconds as he stared past her with such intent Janelle turned to see what he was looking at. Then his gaze snapped back to her face. “Not everything, though.”
“Nobody can fix everything, Andy.”
“Too bad, huh?” he said.
“Yeah,” she said. “Too bad.”
NINE
Then
“EVENTUALLY, I’M GOING to get a generator out here. Propane tank. Maybe some solar panels—I read in Popular Mechanics how it’s the wave of the future. Self-sufficient houses.” Gabe flips the light switch up and down. Nothing happens, of course, since the wires in the walls, which still aren’t covered with drywall, don’t connect to anything.
Janelle shivers. Her breath puffs out in front of her in a silver plume. “I can’t believe you built all this yourself. How long have you been working on it?”
“A long time. Years. My dad used to take me hunting with some buddies, but they stopped going when I was about twelve. And I missed it. So...” He shrugs, pretending it doesn’t mean very much. Anyone else would’ve made him feel stupid about all this, but Janelle never does.
“Is that a loft?” She’s already put her foot on the ladder and is halfway up before Gabe can think to warn her off. Janelle peeks over the edge of the railing, then twists to look down at him. Her giggle sends heat all through him, welcome in the unheated room.
“Nice,” she says. “Porn-o-rama.”
It’s just a collection of old skin mags and a beat-up mattress with a sleeping bag. A camping lantern. He’s slept out here only a few times. Eventually, he’ll make the loft into a full second floor, maybe with a couple bedrooms.
“Do you bring other girls out here?” She disappears over the edge of the loft.
He can hear her shuffling around up there, and goes to the ladder. “No.”
Janelle peers over the edge. “No? Really?”
“Really.”
She dangles her feet. He could grab her ankle if he wanted, she’s that close, but Gabe only climbs the ladder halfway.
“How come?” Janelle sounds serious, not smug.
He wonders if she’d have been jealous if he’d said yes. Sometimes a few buddies, sometimes his brothers. But no other girls. “There isn’t any girl I’d want to bring out here.”
“Seems like a great place for a party,” she says. “I can think of loads of girls who’d like to come out here with you.”
“I don’t have parties.”
“I know you don’t, Gabe.” Janelle rolls her eyes. “But if you did, you could have them here. Who owns the land?”
It’s a practical question, and he shouldn’t be surprised she asked it. She’s a practical kind of girl. “My dad. He started this place. It was really just a storage shed where he kept some hunting supplies. He always said he was going to turn it into a real camp, but he didn’t. So I did.”
“What does he think?”
Gabe climbs the rest of the ladder to sit next to her with his feet hanging over the edge. Below them is the square room without dividers, a space blocked out for a kitchen. He’s planned on a small camp stove, a propane-powered fridge. There may never be indoor plumbing—that’s beyond what he thinks he can do—but there is an outhouse in the back and he’s done some research into composting toilets. The work’s been haphazard, piecemeal, and cobbled together from scrap lumber and scrounged materials. It’s garbage, most of it, but he’s done his best and it’s not too shabby a job.
“He doesn’t know.”
She twists toward him. “What do you mean, he doesn’t know?”
Gabe shrugs. “There’s a lot the old man doesn’t know.”
“He doesn’t come out here anymore?”
“Not really. If he does, he’s never said anything. And he would, if he knew about it.” Gabe’s sure about that.
Janelle pulls up her feet and scoots backward. She stands, her hands on the railing, to look over it. From this angle, she looks so tall, but he knows she’s not. She’d fit just