22

Dennis Asphalt & Paving

Brady was startled when a figure appeared in the fading light and leaned against the metal outbuilding. Brady had been with the company just long enough to start feeling comfortable, but he wasn’t sure he felt enough ownership yet to hop down off the forklift and ask if he could help the man.

Brady kept an eye on him as he finished loading a pallet and deftly positioned it on the delivery truck. Now his path to the finished forms in the building would take him directly past the onlooker and Brady would have to acknowledge him.

The man offered a polite salute and stepped back as the forklift rumbled near.

“Mr. Tatlock!”

Brady shut down the machine and climbed down to shake the Laundromat owner’s hand. He was reminded of the man’s beefy firmness. “What brings you here?”

“You do. I’m impressed that you’re keeping up with your payments. Shows me something. But I need a favor. I tried to get a ticket to your musical there at the high school and was told they were sold out, all six shows.”

“True. How’d you hear about it?”

“There are posters in every store window, but don’t you know it’s all over the trailer park? You’re a celebrity, Brady. Now don’t you kids in the show get some tickets for your friends and family?”

“Yep.”

“Yours already all spoken for, or would I be able to buy a couple off of you?”

“We’re not supposed to sell ’em, but I’ve got a couple to spare if you could take the value off my balance.”

“I could live with that.”

“Really?”

“I’d love to take the wife. Be able to say I knew you when you were nobody.”

“I’ve been giving mine to other cast members because I don’t have that many people who want to come. But I have a few left.”

“Any for the second Saturday show, first weekend?”

Brady nodded, thinking. “You could do me a favor too, sir, if you don’t mind.”

“Name it.”

“Think you could bring my little brother? He’s dying to see it, but I wasn’t sure how I’d get him there.”

They worked out where and when Peter should meet the Tatlocks. Brady felt giddy the rest of his shift; he found himself maneuvering the forklift like an old pro, finished ahead of time, and didn’t break a single stop. And for a time he had been able to push to the back of his mind even his impending midterms. The last one on came Friday just hours before the curtain for opening night, which would make it the toughest chore he could imagine. Even if he had studied. Which he hadn’t.

Adamsville

It still amazed Thomas that the emotional drain was as taxing as physical labor at this stage of his life. He should have learned it many times over in the pastorate. He had never been one for working out and was not an athlete, not even a weekend warrior. The most exercise he got was mowing the lawn. His job was sedentary, and except for getting in and out of the car and walking the halls for the occasional hospital call, he’d done nothing in decades that should have physically taxed him.

But when criticism came, contentious meetings or aspersions on his abilities, he had often returned home desperate to just lie down. That was how he felt now, and what had he done that day? Stood around at a short party. Walked a few hundred yards with the warden inside the prison.

He knew what was weighing on him—the stark reality of the Adamsville State Pen. That and having lost his appetite until he pulled into the driveway.

Just as he had feared, Grace had done too much. She looked the way he felt, but the cozy little house was almost entirely set up the way she wanted it. There were empty boxes all over that he would have to break down and store. And she had left a few wall hangings for him that were too high for her.

But it was clear she had busied herself all day. He felt whipped because of the assault on his sensibilities, but she had truly earned her exhaustion. She proudly led him to the tiny spare room at the back of the house, which was bright because of windows on three walls and sat next to a half bath. Grace had moved in all of Thomas’s boxes of books and his files.

“Oh, hon, you could have made this a sewing room or your own reading room.”

“You’ve always wanted a home office,” she said. “And now that you don’t really need one, you have it! We ought to be able to find a desk at a garage sale or somewhere.”

He smiled. “If you’re sure, I’d love that. I can read and pray in here. It’ll be perfect.”

Grace fixed a light supper, which Thomas devoured, even eating her leftovers. “I could have made more,” she said. “And we have dessert in the fridge.”

“I’ll get it,” he said.

“I’ll pass.”

He helped her clear the table and do the dishes. “You need to get off your feet,” he said.

Grace insisted she felt fine and said she didn’t even think she’d need to see a doctor after all. Thomas wasn’t so sure, but she had never been easy to persuade.

Finally they sat in their new living room and she quizzed him about his day.

Thomas didn’t hide that it had been as harrowing a day as he could remember, but he refused to go into any detail that might upset her. “It’s just going to be a tough, tough mission field,” he said.

“How can I help?”

“By praying. And getting others to pray.”

“That should be easy. As soon as we find a church, I’ll rally some ladies.”

He told her of all the rules and regulations that would keep her from visiting or sending in gifts of any kind, including food.

“That sounds awfully strict.”

He forced a smile. She had no idea.

“Well,” he said with a sigh, “we should call Ravinia now.”

Dirk answered the phone, which flustered Thomas. The young man was chipper and friendly, as if oblivious to the fact that his lover’s parents could not possibly be happy with their daughter’s living situation. “How’re you both doing?” he said. “Rav and I have been curious to death about where you’ve landed and whether you’re well.”

Grace was silent.

“That’s why I called, Dirk,” Thomas said. “I do have a new situation I’m excited about. Is Rav handy?”

“I’ll get her. Unfortunately this isn’t the best timing, because we have a thing we’re going to in about fifteen minutes, but—”

“Oh, we can call back.”

“No, no! Ravinia has really been quite anxious to hear. Here she is.”

“Hey,” she said, sounding rushed and distracted. “Tell me everything.”

“Hello to you, too,” Grace said flatly.

“Hi, Mom. Sorry. Like Dirk said, we’re on the run in a few minutes, but talk to me.”

“Believe it or not,” Thomas said, “your old man is no longer a pastor.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Don’t refer to yourself as her old man, Thomas.”

“Yeah, Dad. If you’re trying to be hip, Dirk would be my old man, but since we clearly don’t want to go there . . .”

Thomas told her all about his new job. She didn’t interrupt once, and when he finished, he couldn’t even hear her breathing. He wondered if the connection had been lost. But finally she spoke.

“That is really interesting,” she said, and it was clear she meant it. “I’m impressed, Dad. You know I wanted you in the private sector, but I couldn’t imagine you selling insurance or becoming a clerk of some kind. Forgive me, but are you tough enough for this? Adamsville is a supermax, right?”

Thomas told her he had the same hesitation, as did everyone else involved. “I realize I’ll have to grow into this. But otherwise it seems to play to my strengths, and I do feel for these men.”

Ravinia was silent again, but the sense that she needed to get going had faded. “I haven’t told you, have I, Dad, where my educational emphasis has turned?”

“No.”

“Criminal justice.”

“Seriously?”

“Dirk laughs at me because I’m actually considering becoming a public defender. He says altruism is one thing, but even becoming a prosecutor would pay a little more. Those are the bottom two rungs on the legal ladder, you know.”

“But it sounds like rewarding work.”

“Thankless is more like it, but I’ve shifted my coursework, and the whole area really resonates with me. Dirk is big on victims’ rights, which are hard to argue with, but many of these perpetrators are victims too, you know.”

Thomas knew how Grace would feel about that and was grateful she didn’t weigh in.

“I’m no longer so black-and-white even about capital punishment, Dad. I know where you are on that, but you’d be stunned by all the evidence and arguments against it.”

Thomas didn’t feel in the mood to pursue it just then. “At least I’m not as knee-jerk on that subject as the people I’ll be working with,” he said.

“I can imagine. ‘No liberty, but justice for all,’ right?”

“Something like that.”

“Who knows, Dad? If I become a public defender someday, the cases I lose may end up in your chapel services.”

“They don’t even have chapel services at ASP,” Grace said, but Thomas cut her off.

“All in good time, dear. We’ll let you go, Rav, but we just wanted you to be up to speed.”