A FATHER'S FORTUNE

By Shirley Hailstock

What was he doing here? James “Digger” Clayton climbed down from the cab of his truck and stared at the building and yard. There had to be a mistake. A white picket fence, gleaming so brightly it rivaled the sunny afternoon, stood in front of him. Pushing the gate open, he clenched his teeth as he verified the number on the note in his hand against the scripted numbers on the Mexican tiles hanging above the center porch.

This was the right place, at least the place his dispatcher, Sarah, had sent him. And she knew better. Swinging his gaze up and down the street, he looked for another address. There were no other structures on this side of the street. The other side backed up against a development of contemporary cookie cutter houses, molded out of sand-colored stucco. This building at least had character. It was a big Victorian mansion with turret rooms Cornflower blue with white gingerbread trim he wouldn’t have been surprised to see Hansel and Gretel running about the front yard.

Digger looked down at his dusty work boots then across the crowded yard. Sarah had screwed up royally. She knew better than to send him to a place like this. Squeals rang out in the clear warm air, the sound wracking through his insides like a rusty knife ripping raw flesh. He froze, unable to move. Pain’s hand swelled around his heart–squeezing memory through his veins. His breath all but stopped. Sweat popped out on his neck, and his arms were suddenly leaden and heavy.

The yard was full of them--laughing, running, zigzagging in unpredictable patterns, spinning around like tops of boundless energy. Digger had to dodge as they scurried around him. He moved from side to side, trying to keep his balance as they rushed around without order or purpose.

His brain told him to run, get away from here, but his feet felt as if they were lodged in cement. He couldn’t budge. He should never have gotten out of the truck, driven away the moment he saw them. He could have Sarah call and apologize for him. There was no way he could work here. He tried to force his legs to move, but they were weighted. Digger looked down. There was a weight holding him back--about forty pounds of brown eyes, braids and small even teeth.

A child, a little girl, clasped her arms around his right leg. Both her feet stood on one of his. She held onto him like a detachable doll. She smiled up at him, her eyes bright and happy in a face that would be hard not to love.

Digger’s heart accelerated. He closed his eyes and clamped his teeth down hard, forcing back the memories that tried to seep through. Shock waves rocketed through him. He locked his knees, his hands balling into fists. He hoped the tension in his body would stem the horror inside him. He stared down at the little girl. She smiled at him. He didn’t return it, yet he was unable to take his eyes off her. If it weren’t for the child, if it weren’t for forty pounds of innocence clinging to his trouser leg, her eyes trusting him, her smile as big as the sky, he wouldn’t be able to stand on his own.

“Sam, come here.” Someone called to her. Digger shifted his gaze. The child’s teacher pulled the small hands from his dusty, jean-clad leg. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “She’s very friendly. She meant no harm.”

“I’m Sam,” the little girl said. “What’s your name?”

Digger swung his attention between the child and the teacher. He wondered if the perceptive young woman saw his discomfort. She had blond hair and light brown eyes. He guessed she was about eighteen, and she looked like the poster-child for the clean-cut American teenager.

“May I help you?” she asked lifting the girl in her arms. Her action was obviously protective. She turned slightly away as if he might be a possible criminal and she was checking her escape routes.

“I’m Digger Clayton. I have an appointment with Erin Taylor.”

“Digger?”

“James Clayton, Clayton Construction.” Most people knew him as Digger. He often forgot to use his given name.

“Oh,” she smiled, a little embarrassed. He could see relief in her eyes. She’d obviously decided he wasn’t there to do harm to her or any of the children. “That’s Ms. Taylor over there.” She pointed to a door at the far end of the building. A woman wearing navy blue Bermuda shorts and a yellow T-shirt walked toward the door. She didn’t just walk. She seemed to glide, her pace unhurried and graceful. Her hair was held in a ponytail, which she pulled free as she walked. The shirt stretched across her back as graceful arms moved right and her head moved left. Digger was reminded of a ballet. He hated ballet, but something stirred inside him. He liked what he was looking at. And that was a surprise.

“I believe she’s expecting you,” the young woman’s voice pulled him out of his dream.

“Thank you,” he said.

She brushed the little girl’s hair and walked back toward a group of kids standing inside a circle and playing with a ball.

“Bye,” the little girl said. She waved her fingers. Digger’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

He started to move toward the door where Erin Taylor had disappeared, but kids suddenly burst around him, through his legs, in front and behind him, hampering his movement. Digger jumped out of the way as they screamed with laughter. He waited a moment, more to compose himself than to allow the children to disperse. He hadn’t been here five minutes and already he wanted to leave. He should head for his truck, he told himself. He should call Sarah on his cell phone from the comfortable security of the Bronco’s cab. And after he reamed her out for sending him here, she could call the long-legged Erin Taylor and make his apologies. He wasn’t interested, not in her job and not in her. Her, he thought. He hadn’t even seen her face. How could he be interested in a body wearing shorts and a tight T-shirt? Yet he didn’t go to the Bronco. One unencumbered step followed the other on the path that led to where he didn’t want to go, shouldn’t go.

Inside, it wasn’t as bright as the yard had been. Digger stopped a moment to let his eyes adjust. The noise level inside was so different from outside that he shook his head to make sure there was nothing in his ears. He stood on a polished brown floor. Scuff marks were evidence of running, skidding children. Bins had been built into the walls. Most were closed, but a few stood open revealing red headed dolls, tubs of Lego, board games, plastic bats and toys of all varieties. Small colorful chairs and tables were grouped on carpet circles, books lay askew in movable racks near the windows.

Get out of here, a voice whispered in his head. It had been a long time since he’d been around children. They scared him. But he knew this room. He could smell the chalk and crayons, almost hear the voices--.

“Mr. Clayton?” Hearing his name stopped his train of thought. “Are you Mr. Clayton?”

“Digger,” he said without thinking. He looked in the direction of the voice. It was her, long legs and pony tail. She’d put her hair back in the rubber band. It was straight and falling down her back out of sight. In this light it looked black, but he’d seen the reddish highlights in the sun. She wore little makeup, only a soft lipstick that drew his attention to her mouth. Whatever had moved him earlier repeated itself. He took a side step to dispel it. There were no soft curls to frame her face, as they’d done just moments ago. Yet her beauty struck Digger. Her cheekbones were high. His mother had always wanted high cheekbones. She said they added stature to a woman and gave her a timeless, classic appearance as she aged. He could see that in Erin Taylor. Her eyes were brown, darkly highlighted by long lashes, the kind rain water or happy tears clung to.

Digger’s breath all but stopped. It had been years since a woman had taken his breath away. Marita, his ex-wife, had done it the day he met her. He’d been surprised to find his reaction unchanged long after Josh died, long after the divorce. But thankfully a day had come when he didn’t wake reaching for her, thinking of her and hurting for his loss.

He hadn’t expected to feel it again, would have fought it if he’d known it was a possibility. He hadn’t known. And Erin Taylor ponytail, Bermuda shorts, long legs and dark eyes, could do it to him with a look.

Digger cleared his throat and mentally shook himself. He’d been down this road before. He knew where it led, how smooth and wonderfully straight it appeared, how the trees lining the road were green and healthy and the grassy median rivaled only by the yellow brick road and the Emerald City in the distance. But appearances were deceptive. This road led places no man should have to go, through fiery rivers of pain, across lava rocks of despair, inside vats of gin and Johnny Walker Red. You either crashed and burned, drowned...or survived-–alive but scarred.

Digger survived. He had the scars to prove it. They were deep and heavy. He could not do it again. His trip through hell had been one way. He’d used his one and only ticket. There would be no doing it again. A second time would kill him.

If he hadn’t already decided to let this job go, Erin Taylor would be enough to cap his decision. Digger hadn’t thought he would ever react to a woman this way again. It surprised him that without a word spoken between them he could...want her. Want, that was the only way he could describe it. But it was a need he would not act upon.

“I didn’t expect you until six,” she said.

Her tone told him she liked to run things on schedule. “I finished another job earlier than I thought...” He stopped. He was explaining. Why was he explaining? Why did he feel like he had to? With one sentence he was back in school and she was the teacher scolding him.

“We’d better talk in my office. The kids will be coming in soon to get ready for their parents to pick them up.”

She turned and went down a hall that had classrooms on either side. Digger saw brightly colored paper flowers pasted on the windows. On the bottom of one door were photos of smiling children attached to a green felt background. Everywhere he looked there were the echoes of children.

He followed her into an office. It was child-proofed. The furniture was smooth, unadorned by carved surfaces that small hands and feet could climb on. The desk was free of such things as pencils and scissors. There were a few coloring books and along the side was a bin with more toys. These he could see were broken. Maybe she had someone who would repair them or maybe they were being stored to prevent accidents.

She took a chair behind the desk, but he remained standing.

“I’d like to add the rooms along the back side of this building,” she began.

“I can’t do it,” he said. “There’s been a mistake.”

“Excuse me, aren’t you a builder?”

“I’m a carpenter.” He never pretended to be anymore than he was. He had been a builder once. But that was before time ended.

“Your office told me you could build anything.”

“I can, but not here.”

“Here?” She stood up. He watched her go on the defensive. “What do you mean here?”

“This is a school.”

“It’s a nursery school.” She nodded.

“I don’t work around kids. They’re too unpredictable. No one can determine what they will do next. They get in the way, cause accidents.”

“I’ll make sure-–”

“You can’t do that.” He stopped her before she could say how she could keep reigns on the kids. “No one can. No one knows what they’ll do from one second to the next. I don’t work around them.”

She dropped her shoulders. “Why did you come here, Mr. Clayton? I told your secretary this was a school. I gave her the name and address.”

“She didn’t relay that information. She only gave me your name and the address. I thought this was a house that needed another room.”

“Technically it is. It used to be a house, but we changed a lot of it.”

“I know,” he said. The outside still looked like a Victorian, or the semblance of one. It was really a puzzle house having had many additions over the years.. The inside had no resemblance to the small, high-ceilinged rooms of the early nineteenth century. Walls had been removed to make a larger space, and desks and chairs took the place of humpback sofas and heavy tables. “There have been several additions put on at different times.” He looked around the room, up at the ceiling, in the corners. He’d noticed the wall joints as he looked over the building from the outside. The roofing had colored differently, forming a demarcation line that any good builder would notice. “This area,” he indicated the space where they now stood. “Wasn’t part of the original building.”

“It was added ten years ago.”

Quickly, he tried to calculate her age. She looked to be in her late twenties. Ten years ago she’d have been a teenager, probably like the blond girl he’d met earlier. It meant she was his age or younger.

“Were you here then?”

“I only bought it three years ago,” she said. “I used to help out here when I was a teenager.”

He confirmed his estimate of her age.

“Don’t you like kids, Mr. Clayton?”

Not especially. The words were so automatic he almost said them aloud. For some reason he stopped. He couldn’t tell her he didn’t like kids. Most of the people he knew believed it, but he couldn’t tell this teacher a lie.

“Liking kids has nothing to do with it. I value my business, and I don’t want it hampered by unnecessary accidents.”

“I see,” she said as if some understanding had come over her. “If insurance is a problem I wouldn’t want you to work around the children either. I thought you were fully bonded.”

“We are,” he said quickly. Digger should have left it there, but he went on, not able to allow anyone to cast a negative light on the business he’d put his sweat into. “There is nothing unethical about Clayton Construction, nothing.”

“Then I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to understand,” he said a little too harshly. He took a breath. “Just leave it. Find another firm. They’ll probably do a better job for you than I could. And I’m very busy.”

“I don’t understand your attitude.”

“Attitudes are like opinions. We’re all allowed one. Good day, Ms. Taylor.”

Click to subscribe to Shirley Hailstock's Newsletter