Page 4 of Pining for You

If I gave it to Mike, John would charge regular rate, but then Mike Pogue would also probably upcharge Marilyn. But if I gave it directly to Marilyn, one of them might be pissed that I’d done them out of a bit more profit.

After a pause, John said, “Give it straight to Marilyn.”

“Marilyn’s special rate?” Which barely covered our salaries, but I wanted to cover my ass. Sometimes it was hard to read John.

John’s lips thinned and he sighed. “Yeah, give her her usual discount.” For all his grumbling, John’s kids had grown up under Marilyn’s watchful eye and he’d been protective of the old lady, too. “Word of warning if you ever run your own business—be careful about giving discounts to friends or people you feel sorry for. It’ll end up costing your business a shit ton of money that you can’t afford to give away.”

2

CHLOE

The wind eased up a bit, though the rain was still pounding hard on my windshield as I pulled into the driveway at Marilyn's house.

Marilyn’s place was a 1960’s red and black brick bungalow, with a separate two-car garage set closer to the road—less snow ploughing to do, I’d heard her explain.

As Dad had warned me, a fifty-year-old mountain ash leaned at an angle against the roofline, its branches elegant in full bloom. He’d worried about that tree for years. He’d even brought in an arborist a couple years back who’d recommended it be taken down.

Hopefully I could find a way to avoid the arborist and the costs. An arborist wouldn’t charge just for taking down a tree, but also for disposing of the wood and branches, cutting it into pieces or throwing it into a wood chipper. Who knew what Marilyn could afford out of her pension.

I kept a chain saw in the back of the truck, along with a tool chest and sheets of wood for such emergencies. If it had fallen on the lawn, I could have dealt with it myself. But I wasn’t about to attempt to cut it down the way it was leaning against the eavestrough. Or the kitchen window. All I could do at the moment was check to make sure there was no other damage.

The front door swung open. While she kept the screen door shut, Marilyn Bordon, a petite widow of at least eighty with a surprisingly thick head of white hair, held one of her pet chickens tucked beneath her arm as I parked my truck behind her ancient silver Jeep. I grabbed my phone and raced along the path and up the steps, against the rain.

Mrs. B—I always thought of her that way, since that was how I’d been introduced to her as a kid—wasn’t officially one of my dad’s clients. She was a friend of my mom’s, and it seemed to be, of everyone in the township.

She’d been one of those calm types. Chaos might swirl around her, but nothing ever seemed to faze her. She always had a smile and a kind word for anyone she met.

I paused beneath the metal awning over the main door to assess the destruction wrought by the fallen tree. Luckily, it had not taken out the rest of the eavestrough, no windows were broken, that I could see, nor blocked her front door.

“Hey, Mrs. B. How are you doing?”

Mrs. Bordon followed my gaze. “I’m lucky it didn’t break the window.”

Since she’d not answered my earlier question, I asked again as I eased passed her and into the kitchen, “Are you okay?”

“I am, dear, but Henrietta is a little anxious.”

Lightning lit up the room, and Mrs. B cringed at the crack of the thunder that immediately followed. She must have squeezed the chicken because it bawked in distress. Or sympathy? It was hard to tell with Henrietta.

Yes, the chicken was named Henrietta. She was the only one of Mrs. B’s flock allowed inside the house.

With the chicken still under her arm, Mrs. B disappeared down the hallway toward the bedrooms and returned holding a pristine fluffy white towel, which she held out to me. That was when I realized I was dripping all over her gleaming tile.

Another bolt of lightning flashed, its crackle nearby, thunder following almost immediately after.

Marilyn shivered again. “That was a close one.”

I caught her hand in mine. I didn’t squeeze it because her knuckles were swollen and deformed in arthritis, and her skin so thin the veins showed starkly beneath. “I’m here with you, okay?”

Her shoulders hunched, but she clutched my hand with a grip stronger than I thought the old woman was capable of. She took another deep shuddering breath, and squeezed my hand again. “Thank you for coming to sit with me. I know you have better things to do.”

It wasn’t until the first summer after her husband’s death that I’d learned Marilyn was terrified of storms, that having someone with her could keep her calm. I’d called on her one March afternoon, after the first storm of the season, the one that would break up the ice in the lake, to find her huddled in the hallway, her face resting against her knees, her entire body trembling.

“We’ll be fine.” I led her to the dining table and sat beside her, still holding her hand.

“What was that, dear?” She squinted at me, her head tilting to one side.

I had to stifle a laugh because the chicken sitting in her lap had adopted the exact same pose. Or Mrs. B was imitating Henrietta. It was hard to tell.

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