The Carpenter's Daughter Read Free Page B

graduation, and I took a job with a local contractor. Found out that I liked the work.
    I thought maybe we’d have a future after all. Like I said, I loved her. I loved the way her eyes burned into my mind so that even when I drifted off to sleep, I could see their mesmerizing color. I loved the way she laughed at my jokes, the way she said I’d be something someday.
    Those things ended though. We moved into a shack that looked more like a toolshed than a home, and Sarah was born. Cassie didn’t even stick around for Sarah’s first birthday.
    I’ll never forget that day, much as I’d trade anything to erase the memory. I came home from work to a howling baby and a note stuck on the refrigerator.
    I can’t do this.
    Ignoring little Sarah, I hopped in my pickup and searched the town. I exhausted every possibility—her father’s basement, the bar, the train station, every store in a reasonable radius—and finally went to the police. When I got home, Mrs. Lockwood, the old lady next door, was sitting in my living room, rocking my daughter.
    “Young man, you’re a father.” She continued her rhythmic back and forth, back and forth. “Doesn’t matter if that girl’s packed up and gone. You’re a father. You take care of this baby, or give her to someone who will.”
    Weeks went by. I tried to take care of Sarah, but I couldn’t do it without looking at her. And she looked like Cassie. So I called Darcy.
    Growing up, my older sister had more responsibility than any girl ought to have. I felt guilty pressing more on her right after she’d been married and was starting out a new and better life. But what else could I do? I wasn’t a father—not a good one. I wasn’t anything.
    Darcy came. “I’m staying two weeks, Dale. Two weeks. And we’re gonna work on this. But you start thinking right now, start remembering what it felt like to be abandoned by our father. What it felt like to know our mother didn’t want us. You think about it while you work. Dream about it while you sleep. And see it from the life of your daughter.”
    I did, but not because I wanted to. I couldn’t escape it. And by the end of those two weeks, I knew I couldn’t pass that legacy on to my daughter, no matter what her mother did.
    I made arrangements with Mrs. Lockwood for babysitting, and I set out to be the father my dad wasn’t. I didn’t know how to be one, but I was pretty sure how not to.
    Then one day a little bit down the road, Sarah climbed into my lap. “I wuv you, Da-ie.”
    Took my heart right out of my chest and kept it in her miniature hands.
    Somehow the years had trickled by. Thinking about Sarah as a grown woman, I felt a heavy failure. Grown up, yes. But not on the inside. I’d crippled her.
    A deep warning surged through my chest. Life was about to change.

Chapter Three
     
    Jesse
    A train horn blared through the heavy summer air at the same moment my cell jingled. I passed through the glass doors of the small market, letting the blast of air-conditioning fully envelop me. The phone sounded again. Tugging it from my belt, I was pretty sure I knew the caller. A quick glance to the screen confirmed my guess.
    “Hey, Shane.” I moved toward the back of the store. “What’s happening?”
    “Not much. Where are you?”
    “Just pulled into North Platte.” Reaching the floral department, I turned right.
    “Thought maybe you’d be about that far.” Shane paused. I imagined him cocking his head just a bit. “How you doing?”
    “Fine.” My boots clunked against the floor until I came to the Memorial Day stock. “It’s warm here. Nebraska’s funny that way. You never know what you’re gonna walk into.”
    “Yeah?” Shane paused again. He hadn’t been asking about the weather. “Did you stop?”
    I combed my fingers through my hair. “Not yet. I’m buying a new marker.”
    Silence hung in my ear. My mind traveled back five years, landing on a sunny spring morning, which I’d always thought ironic.