In Your Embrace Read Free Page B

beneath him with each trip.  It’s a good thing heights have never bothered him.
    Pain ricochets up through his arm with each stroke of his hammer, though with each nail he knows that he is nearly finished.  His bungalow, situated in the heart of an older, yet tastefully kept neighborhood in Rodanthe, is not near the water.  He cannot see the waves crashing or hear the gulls that swoop low, but he knows the storm surge could easily reach him.  Nothing he can do will prepare for that.
    “There.” Timothy pounds the final nail into the frame of the attic window.  “All done.”
    He leans back on the ladder to survey the sky.  His smile of relief turns sour at the sight of dark, menacing clouds on the horizon.  “Looks like I’m in for a long night,” he mutters to himself and drops his hammer onto the ground, followed by a nearly empty pail of nails.  With two feet firmly back on the ground, Timothy begins packing in his ladder.
    He has barely laid the newly condensed ladder on the ground before he hears the screen porch door of his neighbor’s house screech open and shut.  Mrs. Iris Stevens is a bit of a busy body, a fact that she is more than happy to admit to anyone who graces the front steps of her porch. Why, those two Mormon boys who dropped by there the other day had her giddy with excitement for such a captive audience.  Timothy isn’t so sure they shared her enthusiasm by the time they left.
    “Gonna be a bad one, Timmy Boy.”
    “Yeah, I reckon you might be right,” he calls back as he stacks his sawhorses on top of each other.  Sawdust coats his yard.  He can see his boot prints mingled with trampled blades of grass.  “You need any help before I turn in?”
    Iris smiles.  Timothy is sure at one time she had a lovely, full set of teeth but that must have been several years ago.
    At nearly eighty years old, Iris is a bit on the eccentric side.  The odor of cats escaping her front door is nearly as strong as their hungry mewling each evening.  Apart from Iris’ love of gossip, she has a kind heart, at least when it comes to animals.  There are no strays in the neighborhood that she won’t take in.
    Her hair is pulled back into a tight bun.  Fine hairs fly away about her temples, creating a white halo.  There are deep creases in her forehead and about her eyes.  Some people call them laugh lines.  Timothy supposes at one time she had a good reason to laugh, but those times are few and far between now.  Iris hardly ever has company.  Her son took some big shot job with a pharmaceutical company up in Virginia Beach a couple years back. Timothy’s only seen him once since then and the man acted like he was doing his mom a favor by even being there.
    Iris had a daughter at one time.  She has never really spoken much about her.  He remembers hearing rumors when he was a kid about Samantha Stevens’ suspicious drowning, but he is not one to pry.  He likes his space, his privacy.  More so over the past few months.
    Part of it stems from the fact that she tries to sympathize with him over losing his wife and he makes a point of avoiding anyone with those specific sympathies.  They just make it harder for him.
    Iris lost her husband, Arthur, some ten years back to cancer.  It wasn’t the fast moving kind.  Nor was it a peaceful passing.  Still, Iris stood by his side those long years, refusing to let him be placed in a home. Ever since Arthur passed she hasn’t really been the same.
    “I might have a thing or two that could use a strapping young man to tend to, if you’re willing.”  She turns with a smile and shuffles her house slippers across the wooden planks of her porch and disappears into the house.
    Timothy sighs, shaking his head.  “One of these days, would it kill you to not offer to help out?”
    He places a hand to his shoulder and rolls it gingerly.  He has overdone it today.  What with trying to get in a few last minute rush jobs for clients to help them