Hold on to My Heart (Maine Sullivans)

“My dad was supposed to take me camping for spring break,” Kevin explained in a morose voice. “But he bailed. He left Mom a message saying he didn’t have enough money to take me anywhere, so I’d have to stay home.”

To say that Ashley looked furious was a massive understatement. She looked like she could happily stab Josh in the heart, if she could only locate him.

“He had enough money,” was all she said through gritted teeth.

“What am I going to do for the next five days, Mom? Everyone else already has plans, and you have to work.”

Her expression shifted from rage to heartbreak. “I’ll figure something out,” she promised. “I’ll juggle my vacation days with someone at the café, and we’ll find something fun to do together, okay?”

“I have an idea.” Nash didn’t mean to butt in, but Ashley was looking increasingly desperate. It didn’t sound to him like it would be easy to “juggle” vacation days with a coworker at the last second. “See that van?” he said, pointing to where he’d parked it at the curb. “I just bought it.”

Both Ashley and Kevin looked at it skeptically. He didn’t blame them. It was a piece of junk in its present incarnation. But he knew what it could be transformed into with a little love and attention.

“I’m going to fix it up, inside and out, starting tomorrow morning. I just came from the hardware store.” He looked at Kevin. “You ever build anything?”

Kevin nodded. “Last month, we built birdhouses in school. We got to design them, and after they sawed the wood up for us, we put them together with hammers and nails. Then we painted them.” He pointed toward a nearby tree. “That’s the one I made. Mom said it’s better than anything she could have bought at a store. She said if I wanted to make another one, she could sell it to a tourist at the store next to the café.”

Nash admired the birdhouse. It wasn’t perfect, but it had some serious charm. Especially with the purple and green paint combination.

“She’s right. It’s awesome.” He smiled at Kevin. “I didn’t know you had all that experience. Sounds like you could be a big help for me.”

Kevin’s eyes widened. “Really?”

Nash nodded. “It’ll be a big job working to bring this classic van back to life. I’m planning to put in a bathroom with a shower, plus a kitchen and a convertible bed. I’m also going to trim out the walls and the floor with wood planks and put in a heater and air conditioner.” He was glad to see sparks of interest in Kevin’s eyes. “You wouldn’t happen to have any interest in helping me do that, would you?”

“Yeah,” Kevin said. “That’d be super cool!” He turned to Ashley. “Mom? Can I? Can I help Nash build his van?”

She looked at a loss for words. Nash understood why she would be stunned by this sudden development, but as soon as he’d seen how upset they were about Kevin’s deadbeat dad blowing Kevin off, Nash had felt compelled to step in.

After all, he knew exactly what it was like to have a deadbeat parent. It sucked. And it left you feeling unworthy and unwanted.

Even once you were in your thirties, and millions of people around the world professed to adore you, it still was hard to shake that sense that you weren’t enough. That you would never be enough.

Realizing he needed to do a better job of selling Ashley on the idea, Nash said, “Kevin would be a great help to me, Ash. Working on this van is a big job for one person. Two would be much better.”

Though she still looked conflicted, she finally nodded. “Okay. But you need to promise me,” she said to Kevin, “that you’re going to listen to everything Nash says about being smart and safe while working with the tools.” She turned to Nash next. “And you need to promise me that you won’t let Kevin work with anything dangerous where he could hurt himself.”

“Mom.” Kevin rolled his eyes. “You’ve got to let me work with the saws and the hammers and stuff. I won’t hurt myself. I’ll be really careful.”

She smiled at her son. “I know you will. But you also know I can’t help but worry about you. That’s just what moms do.”

Nash got a sense this was a conversation the two of them had a lot. Not specifically about Kevin using hammers and saws, but about her son wanting to take chances and do things that had the potential to be dangerous—and her worrying about him.

“So I can do it?” Kevin asked, practically bouncing on the tips of his toes from excitement.

“Okay, you can do it.” She turned to Nash. “In fact, I think I might know the perfect place for you to work. My brother Rory has a studio in an artist collective warehouse. I’ll call him right now to see if you can work in his parking lot for a couple of weeks. He’s got access to water and electricity, so hopefully you’d have everything you needed.”