AN  EYE  FOR  AN  EYE

EXCERPT

   The flowers were dead.

   Susan Trainer crouched over the bouquet of yellow roses on her back porch.  With regret, she caressed one shriveled petal.  She’d left for work at Boston General Hospital before sunrise.  To fill in for their co-workers on summer vacation, the nurses were working extra shifts that week.  It was twilight now.  The flowers must have been laying there all day.

  Susan scooped up the roses to take inside anyway.  No card,  but she didn’t need to guess who the sender was.  She knew it was Neil.  

   Neil Riley had come into her life four months earlier when he’d rented the house next door.  He was a quiet man, one her mother would have described in a bygone era as ‘the strong, silent type’.   In that short time, he’d changed her life, changed her.  Now, she couldn’t imagine living without Neil.

   On that happy thought, she’d invite him to have dinner with her and Brandon.  It thrilled her that her eight-year-old son would welcome Neil’s company and that Brandon’s affection for Neil was returned.

   The whine of a buzz saw drowned out the laughter of two women strolling on the sidewalk and the Pekingese yapping between them. Susan glanced across her yard at the garage at Neil’s place.  He spent hours fashioning small wooden tables and chairs.  She smiled.  He wasn’t much of a carpenter.  Most of what he made didn’t turn out well enough to sell.

   She opened the screen door and turned her key in the lock of the wooden door behind it.  The door opened into the kitchen.  She flicked the light switch.  A soft breeze fluttered the white gauze curtains on the window above the sink.  On the blue speckled counter, she dropped her keys and purse and set down the flowers.

   That done, she washed her hands then went to the fridge for the pizza dough she’d left there to rise and started making Brandon’s favorite meal.        

   The screen door sprang open and Brandon ran in.  His face was flushed.  His brown curls were matted to his forehead and neck.  His cheeks dimpled as he smiled.  Brandon had his father’s killer smile.

   “Guess where Dad took me?” he said.

   The T-shirt he wore with the words Top Cops across the front slid down his skinny left shoulder.  She recognized it as part of the baseball uniform for the team her ex-husband Patrick played on.  But even if she hadn’t, she’d known that Patrick had taken their son to a “cops” game.

   She kissed and hugged Brandon, then crouched in front of him and played along.  “Where did Dad take you?”

   The door opened again.  Susan glanced up at her ex-husband.  The shaggy, dark blond hair on his collar was wet.  His unshaven face was flushed.  Dirt and damp circles darkened his white uniform shirt.

   “Today the cops played the smoke-eaters,” Brandon said.  “The smoke-eaters are firemen, Mom.”

   Susan hadn’t been married to Patrick for five years and not learned that, but now  she widened her eyes and said an appropriate, “Ah.”

   Brandon grinned.  “The cops kicked the smoke-eaters butt ten to four.”

   Susan gave him a slow nod. “Impressive.”

   Brandon spun to his father and raised his hand high in fist bump which Patrick returned.  “See ya, Dad!”

   Brandon ran around Susan and through the swinging door to the living room.  She grinned as his footsteps pounded on the stairs.

   Walking away from Patrick, she said,   “You look like you could use a cold drink.”  She took a beer from the fridge and held it out to him.

   He encircled the bottle in one large hand and said quietly, “Who is Neil?”

# # #

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