A Child Of His Own, page 10
Chapter 9
An unrhythmic snapping sound, not quite a hammer, but more than a tap, came from the direction of the carousel.
The first thing Ben noticed as he approached was that the tarpaulins had been taken down. The carousel stood bared to the sunlight in the quiet hours of late morning. Inside, he could see Dory at work with a mallet in one hand, a razor-sharp chisel in the other, tap, tap, tapping on the splintered wood in an effort to make it smooth again.
Her gaze was focused as she worked, unaware of his presence. Her chin was fixed with the purpose of her work, and her hands moved with practiced precision. But it was her smile that gave her away, and it was easy to see with his own eager eyes that she loved what she was doing. He was secretly pleased that she had asked him to take part in something that obviously meant so much to her.
He stood among the maples and the oaks, watching her work in the soft yellow light of the carousel. The sunlight refracted off the gilded panels through a hole in the roof and fell like a shower of copper pennies over Dory’s bent head. Could it be that she was finally learning to trust him? Who knew? Maybe she would eventually trust him with the secret to her sadness, or, at the least, trust him enough to hear about his past and to understand.
As Dory lifted her gaze slowly to his, she felt that little catch in her throat, the one that came whenever she saw him. And the jitteriness inside, like a flock of starlings on the wing whenever their eyes met.
She had watched Ben and Martin drive off right after breakfast, Ben at the wheel of the rental truck, Martin following behind in the car, not knowing if she had done the right thing in asking Ben to help her with the carousel. He was bound to ask questions about the fire. Maybe even about Eddie. How could she explain one without the other? And who wanted to unleash those memories? Wasn’t it bad enough that she’d been dreaming about them ever since that night? Well, until lately, that is. Lately, she’d been dreaming about Ben.
She turned away lest her thoughts were written on her face, and pretended to focus her full attention on the horse, when all she could think about was the tall, dark-haired man standing on the perimeter of the trees. Caught in the act of staring at her, he appeared not to care, as he came forward with a long, slow stride.
“Back so soon?” she said, her voice level, betraying not a hint of the pandemonium inside.
“The directions you gave me were perfect,” said Ben. “And we made no stops along the way.”
Martin had wanted to stop in Roxbury on the way back, but in Ben’s eagerness to get back to the Dutch Mill and begin work on the carousel, he had shrewdly commandeered the car in Devil’s Corner after dropping off the truck. Now that he was back, he didn’t care if Dory asked him to scrub the floor. He’d have done it gladly just for a chance to be with her.
“Do you still need my help?” he asked.
There was the barest hesitation in her voice when she answered, “Sure, come on up.”
It had taken all his brawn to lift the heavy horse onto the carousel when they brought it back on Saturday, but the tarpaulins had still been up, and he didn’t get much of a look around. It wasn’t until he stepped forward and up onto the carousel that he really saw it for the first time.
It was beautiful and it was terrible at the same time. The horses on the opposite side looked in better shape than the ones close at hand. These were blackened by soot, their once colorful raiments bearing the unmistakable scars of fire.
One perfect prancer stood out among the rest. His coat was a glossy russet, his dark eyes polished to a high glow. A cascade of intricately carved and brightly painted roses fell from his ebony mane onto a crimson jeweled martingale. A bridle that looked like it was made out of gold adorned his high, proud head.
Ben whistled softly in admiration.
“Thanks,” she said. “I finished him a few days ago. I don’t have the time to restore them all like that by opening day, but they’ll be presentable enough. That prancer was always one of my favorites, so I spent a little more time on him.”
“And what about this one?” he asked of the horse from Devil’s Corner.
“I’ll do the best I can. He won’t be in perfect shape by Memorial Day but, hey, he’s almost a hundred years old, he’s entitled to a little wear and tear. It adds character.”
Ben had no doubt that by this time next year they would all be looking as wild and as beautiful as the prancer. Eager to do what he could to speed the process, he asked, “So, what do you want me to do first?”
Dory traded in the mallet and chisel for a sheet of sandpaper and began to gently smooth out the areas she’d been working on. “You mentioned the other day that you used to be an architect.”
His muscles stiffened at the reminder. There was no reason to fear her knowing that about him, he reasoned, unless it led to further questioning about his life during those years. And then he’d be forced to tell her the secret he’d been keeping about his past, the one that was sure to wreck not only whatever chance he had of making Jason a part of his life, but the slender thread that was slowly developing between him and Dory.
Forcing a nonchalance he didn’t feel, he replied, “That’s right.”
“Well, short of building me a new roof, how about repairing the old one?”
Looking up, he saw a jagged circle of blue sky beyond the charred wood. “What happened here?”
Dory answered calmly, “You’ll recall I mentioned we’d had a fire.”
“Sure, but that roof is practically gutted. It must have been one helluva fire.”
She flicked her tongue over lips that were growing suddenly drier. “Can you fix it or not?”
“I can fix it, but it’ll take more time than we have to get it looking as good as new.”
“How about just patching it up?”
He shrugged. “You want it patched, I’ll patch it.”
Ben’s mind was already at work on devising a better roof, one with a deeper pitch. Copper, maybe, to glisten in the warm spring sunshine. With an intricate network of wooden struts inside that he would pick out himself from the sawmill. When he was finished, the ceiling of the carousel would be as beautiful in its way as the horses Dory was refurbishing. What a treat it would be for the customers who chanced a look upward to find something beautiful. Why not? he thought with a little bit of arrogant pride. She wasn’t the only one who was good at what she did.
It was astonishing the way it all came back to him so easily, the planning and the detailing, the balancing of forces and the combination of materials, the eagerness to get to a piece of a paper and a pencil to sketch it all out. The enthusiasm he’d once had for his work was suddenly back. The only difference was that back then it had been for buildings. Now it was for a carousel roof.
Jamming a retractable tape measure into his back pocket, Ben climbed up on a ladder to take the measurements. “Where do you get your timber?” he called down to Dory.
To the steady little scratchings of the sandpaper, she replied, “There’s a sawmill outside of Libertyville. You can call them and tell them what you want and they’ll deliver it. My credit card is on the desk in the den. You can give them that number.”
“Won’t they question me about using your card?”
“Word travels fast around here. They know there’s a man working at the Dutch Mill. Besides, my grandfather uses it all the time. How do you think he bought the paint for the games of chance?” She shrugged. “I guess people are a little more trusting around here.”
Trusting? Or downright crazy? Ben wasn’t sure which as he climbed down with the measurements in his head. Taken back by the matter-of-fact way she offered her credit card, and the apparent trust that came with it, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to do, he announced, “I’ll be right back,” and jumped down off the carousel.
Dory watched him jog off in the direction of the house in long, graceful strides. In her mind he had already proven himself to be an honest man, to a painful fault, if their dilemma over Jason was any indication of it. It wasn’t with arrogance or belligerence or even overwhelming confidence that he had told her he thought he was Jason’s father. She had seen the tortured doubt in his eyes when he had admitted his own uncertainty, and in her heart she knew those were not the reactions of a dishonest man.
“They’ll deliver it tomorrow morning,” he said when he returned a short time later. “Meanwhile, this floor looks like it could use a good refinishing. The varnish and most of the paint have been singed right off.”
“I bought a sander and a buffer a few weeks ago at an auction,” said Dory as she switched back to the mallet and chisel. “They’re in the shed. I tried to use the sander once, but I cut myself, and I’ve been avoiding it ever since.”
“How’d it happen?” he asked.
“I was lifting the thing onto the carousel, when my hand slipped.”
“I meant the fire. How’d it happen?”
She had been talking away, not paying much attention to where the conversation was going as she focused her attention on the horse, when her movements ground to a sudden halt.
She tried to continue, but her hand was trembling. Afraid that she would make a mistake and needlessly nick the wood, she laid the mallet and the chisel down and pretended to examine the horse, while secretly she gathered her thoughts about her.
“When I work out here at night, I bring a kerosene lantern with me. One night, I don’t know, I must have knocked it over. The next thing I knew, the carousel was in flames.”
Ben’s glance around confirmed that only part of it had sustained any real damage. “I’m surprised the whole thing didn’t go up, with all this wood.”
“It started to rain. That rain was like a miracle. It’s what saved the carousel, and in turn, the Dutch Mill.” Softly, she added, “That’s why I never mind when it rains.”
“I got that impression yesterday,” he said, smiling. “You seemed to enjoy the rain on your face. Although where that rain shower came from I’ll never know. That sky was blue only minutes before.”
The rain wasn’t the only thing that had come from out of nowhere. So had his kiss, and her shameless response to it, and the flood of emotions it unleashed in her. She turned her inflamed cheeks away from him and, struggling for composure, began to work again.
“Wouldn’t it be easier if you used power tools?” he asked, shifting the topic away from the events of yesterday once he saw her flushed face.
Grateful for the change of subject, she replied, “I only use hand tools. There’s a lot of subtle stuff you can do that you just can’t do with power tools.”
Curls of wood flipped away as she worked the chisel around the arch of the eye socket. “I’ll do this side first. It’s what we call the romance side, the side that faces the crowd. That way, at least he’ll look presentable to the customers on opening day.”
“You’re very good,” he said frankly.
Dory blushed. “Thank you. I majored in art in college, and I’ve always had a love for this old carousel. I’m lucky that I was able to use one to help the other.”
“Did you ever think about doing it for a living? Restoring old horses, I mean.”
“Lately I’ve been thinking that after the carousel is finished, I might try my hand at carving my own horses.”
“Is there a market for new horses?”
“They made a comeback about fifteen years ago when collectors discovered the art value of them. People who commission carousel horses are usually looking to put them in their homes as an art piece.”
“Would you give up running the Dutch Mill?”
She looked up, her genuine surprise registered on her face, and answered without hesitating, “Of course not. The Dutch Mill is more than my livelihood. It’s my life. But we usually close down for the winter months, and I could carve the horses then. Now that we’ll be up and running again, maybe I can save enough money to have the barn heated so I can work in there.”
He envied her ability to look and plan ahead. Three years in prison had taught him not to look beyond today. But then he had stumbled across this charming place and its inhabitants, and found himself thinking about the future, and imagining what a quiet family life like Dory had might be like.
“It sounds like a good plan,” he said wistfully. “I wish there was a way I could make a living out of making model planes.”
“How’s it going on the plane? Is Jason holding you back?”
“Not at all. He’s a pleasure to have around. He seems to really like helping me with it.”
She had spoken impulsively, and was sorry for it when she experienced a little stab of jealousy knowing that Jason was having a good time with Ben.
She didn’t want to share her son with Ben, or with any man for that matter, unless that man was her husband. Wasn’t that the way it was supposed to be? And yet, the man who had been her husband had been incapable of being Jason’s father, while this man, who could very well be Jason’s father, wasn’t likely to ever be her husband.
It wasn’t because she didn’t have feelings for him because, God help her, in spite of everything, she did. It’s just that it had gone so wrong before, she could not bring herself to think that a successful marriage would ever be in her future. And then, of course, there was Ben, whose kisses revealed the same desperate longing she herself was feeling, yet who never said he loved her. She was crazy to think that he might want more than Jason. That he might want her.
It seemed that whenever they spoke about Jason, the fragile friendship that was developing between them in spite of themselves stood in danger of collapse. Yet neither wanted to be the one to cause an irreparable rift between them in the event that what Dory feared, and what Ben hoped for, was true.
Ben didn’t think there was any other subject that could fill the air so rampantly with tension, until he inadvertently touched upon another topic when he made an unwitting attempt to change the subject.
“Did your husband help you run the Dutch Mill?”
Dory’s extremities turned cold with apprehension. No, she silently begged. No questions about Eddie. She could tell him it was an accident and be done with it, but she knew that his keen eyes would detect a hidden truth, and then what would she do? Admit that where Eddie McBride was concerned, her usually sound judgment had been tragically impaired, and that she carried the pain of it with her each day of her life? Or worse, that because of it she was scared to death to ever get involved again?
“Eddie didn’t care much for amusement parks.”
Her voice sounded far away and detached to her own ears, but then, it had always been easier for her to deal with the painful memories when she held them at arm’s length. The truth was, she’d never really come to terms with them. She just sort of lived her life around them, skirting them as best she could, every now and then bumping into them like they were pieces of furniture out of place.
“What did he do for a living?”
Dory groaned inwardly as the subject deepened. “He tried his hand at a few things,” she said noncommittally.
Although Ben sensed her reluctance to talk about her marriage, there burned inside of him a need to know more.
“Do you mind if I ask you how long were you married?”
Dory’s throat grew tighter, and it was harder to keep a level tone when his questions had her bumping into memories all over the place. “Six years. And you?”
“Me?” he echoed, the sudden table-turning catching him by surprise.
“You mentioned an ex-wife.”
“Oh, right. It was brief. Only four years.” He added sardonically, “Long enough to have the experience irrevocably seared onto my memory.”
“Bad divorce?”
“You could say that. Although, it had to have been easier than what you had to deal with.”
“Wh-what do you mean?” Her movements stilled.
“I’d rather deal with a messy divorce than with the grief of losing someone I love.”
Grief? she thought weakly. Yes, there had been that. And disappointment, and blame, and the guilt of watching Jason grow up without a father. But most of all there was the recurring thought that she had made a dreadful mistake, and unlike Eddie, had lived to regret it.
It was simply too embarrassing to tell him the truth, that while she had grieved for Eddie McBride, she had felt awash with relief at his passing.
“It’s not true what they say about time healing all wounds,” she said. “The hurt never really goes away. We just learn to live with it.”
Ben’s voice answered quietly, as if he were thinking out loud as he contemplated his own private hurt. “I know what you mean. Life has a habit of going on after the thrill of living is gone. We all live with bad memories. Some are worse than others. They say that losing a spouse is right up there among the major traumatic experiences of our lives.”
When she had begun the day, Dory hadn’t expected an interrogation, no matter how gentle, into Eddie’s death. It wasn’t in Ben’s nature to bully it out of her, yet perhaps if it was, she’d have been better able to deal with it. As it was, his tendency toward kindness made her all but want to tell him. And yet she could not. There were too many unresolved issues in her past. For her to voice them would mean having to come to terms with them. And until she was able to do that, what hope was there in her future for a sound and solid relationship with any man, much less with the handsome, dark-eyed drifter who claimed to be the father of her child?
In a faintly quivering voice, she said, “Divorce must run a close third or fourth, though.”
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” said Ben. “Are you kidding? My life has been easy compared to what you must have gone through.” Even prison, that contemptible, hopeless place, with danger lurking in every corner, had to be better than losing someone you love.
Dory edged her way around to the other side of the horse. It was easier to put some distance between her and Ben than it was with the memories his probing evoked.
Tentatively, she inquired, “What makes you say something like that?”
“You didn’t say when he died, but from the looks of things around here, I’d say it’s been a while since he’s been around. Yet you obviously only recently started working on the carousel.”
