Page 48 of Keep My Heart
‘Nick, I have to pay you, at least for the part.’ She comes over to me, holding a $20 bill. ‘Is that enough?’
‘How about you let me take some of that zucchini bread instead?’
‘Of course! Take all you want. I’ll wrap it up for you.’ She goes to the pantry and takes out a box of foil.
‘Mom, I got it,’ Lyndsay tells her. ‘You go ahead and get ready.’
Patty sets the foil down and walks up to me. ‘I can’t thank you enough. With my arthritis, it’s been such a pain, literally, having to wash dishes by hand.’
‘It’ll be fixed by tomorrow,’ I assure her.
‘And you’re sure I can’t pay you?’
‘You can try, but I won’t take it.’
‘You sound just like your father,’ she says with a smile. Her phone dings and she picks it up. ‘Oh, she’s ready for me! I need to head out.’
‘Bye, Mom,’ Lyndsay says as Patty leaves.
When she’s gone, I walk up to Lyndsay. ‘If you want to skip the hardware store, I can go by myself.’
‘I’ll go.’ She rips off some foil and starts wrapping up the bread. ‘Just let me get your payment.’ She seals the foil over the bread and hands it to me. ‘I still can’t believe you’re doing this. Chris would never do this, and he was her son-in-law.’
‘Maybe he didn’t know how to fix stuff.’
‘Yeah, I guess he didn’t, but he could’ve helped her with the yard. She asked him to cut a tree branch one time and he wouldn’t do it. He said his shoulder hurt and he didn’t want to strain it. He was such a liar, but a good one. People always believed him,including me.’ She forces out a smile. ‘Okay, I’m ready if you are.’
We go out to the car and head to the hardware store.
‘How do you know this stuff?’ Lyndsay asks as we’re driving. ‘You’re a lawyer. How do you know how to fix stuff?’
‘My dad taught me. He taught all of us. He said we shouldn’t be paying someone to fix stuff when we could just as easily do it ourselves. I remember being ten and one of the tillers broke down. The thing we use to till up the fields?’
She nods. ‘Yeah, I know what they are.’
‘My dad wasn’t around so I took it apart and fixed it. The thing was fucking sharp. I’m surprised I didn’t cut off a finger. My mom yelled at me later for doing it, but my dad just gave me a smile. I think he was proud I figured it out at that age.’
‘Thatisimpressive. You have many talents, Nick Kanfield.’
I glance at her. ‘So do you.’
She laughs. ‘Yeah, I can teach yoga. And do bookkeeping. That’s about it.’
‘You do bookkeeping?’ I ask, thinking she must be kidding. She hated math, and bookkeeping involves math.
‘I had to get another job since Chris kept spending all our money investing in businesses that never made anything.’
‘You went to school for this?’
‘Just community college. I got my associate degree in accounting.’
‘Lyndsay, that’s awesome!’ I say, pulling into the hardware store parking lot. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘It just didn’t come up. We haven’t seen each other in 15 years. There’s a lot to catch up on.’
‘I mean, why didn’t you tell me when you got the degree? I would’ve sent a card, a gift. Hell, I might’ve even flown out for your graduation.’
Shelaughs. ‘Nick, you’re making too much of this. It wasn’t a big deal.’
