“You’re out in the heat, I see,” Sheldon said.
“The North Carolina sunshine can be unforgiving. The camp bus was a little late, and I had to get to the post office. How are you this morning?”
She asked the same question every day he saw her, which was usually Monday through Friday. “I’m managing,” he answered her as he always did.
She waved then and kept walking. Sheldon watched her go. He was impressed with how she doted on her grandson. She was patient and caring. Sheldon had often seen them along the water. Audrey mentioned she was a schoolteacher and had the summer off, so she had the days to tell the boy about the sky, the clouds, the sea, sea creatures, the sand. Sheldon even heard her explaining how glass was made from sand. He was surprised to learn the process himself.
It was amazing the things he didn’t know and had never been interested in before. But what was more amazing was watching the way she treated her grandson with kindness and love. His father had never treated either him or Jason with the sort of care Audrey bestowed on her grandson. Sheldon had been cloistered in his father’s narrow-minded world. Sheldon was glad to see how other people lived and how they looked after one another.
When noon came, Sheldon knocked off for lunch and headed home. Along the beach were a series of cheap but cheerful bungalows that could barely be called houses, but that’s what they were for some of the lower-income families in the community. Sheldon lived in one of these cottages that he rented from a man in town. The summer was sweltering, but this past winter, when he’d arrived in Meadesville, and taken the cottage, the winds had blown in off the Atlantic and swirled around the estuary freezing his fingers and feet. He longed for his warm bed back in Maryland. But that was no longer his and would never be again. Sheldon didn’t want to see the place where he had been born and raised go to strangers. He wondered what it was like now. When he’d left the Kendall, the main house was no longer the pristine white color with black shutters it had been before his father died. When Sheldon was locked out the grass was overgrown, the paint was peeling and there were several leaks needing repair. The barn was empty and Sheldon owed thousands of dollars for feed, repairs and services. He had every cent he owned—$208.76—in his pocket when he was evicted.
That hadn’t taken him far and he found himself doing things only Jason would do. He hated Jason more then. Irrationally, he knew his predicament wasn’t Jason’s fault, but Jason would think nothing of hitchhiking, digging ditches, working on road crews or taking refuge at a homeless shelter. It was beneath Sheldon. He thought he would never do anything like that.
But he had.
He’d done that and more. When he couldn’t find a soup kitchen, when he was too far from anyplace, when he had no more money, he scoured trash cans, looking for anything to eat to stay alive. Now he had a job and a place to live. His pay was a little more than minimum wage. He had no savings and usually cooked and ate his own meals—simple ones, nothing fancy. His bathroom had no mirror in it, so he didn’t always know what he looked like, but the last time he saw a reflection in a store window, he seemed identical to his father if his father was a fiftysomething vagrant. He had a beard and unkempt hair. He’d lost at least forty pounds and wore thrift-store finds.
He no longer resented Jason. Jason was a survivor. He would adapt, do what was necessary to get back on his feet. Sheldon used his brother, no longer thinking of him as a half brother, as an inspiration. Every time he wanted to quit the menial job, he considered what Jason would do. Jason would stick it out. He’d perform the tasks at an exemplary level until he raised enough money to move on. Then he’d go to the next job. Sheldon was a Kendall, and while Jason was also a Kendall, his half brother had a tougher bloodline on his mother’s side. It had made him strong. Surely Sheldon could at least do half of what Jason would do.
Again, he stopped to look over the marina and speculate where Jason might be. Had leaving the farm destroyed any love he had for the Kendall? Would he ever return? Sheldon was hardly in a place to know. He didn’t ever expect to see the Kendall again himself. Knowing it was no longer in his family, yet being nearby, would be too much for him. He’d disappointed his father and the generations of Kendalls that had come before him.
He would not go back.
In his bungalow, Sheldon set a small pot in which he’d dumped a can of soup on the burner and waited for it to heat. Even though the temperature outside was nearing the century mark, he lunched on soup and bread, saving his dinner for the larger meal of the day. Tonight he was having canned chili with rice.
Sheldon ate leisurely and alone. When he finished, he cleaned his dishes, set them in the drainer for use later and took a quick shower. He changed clothes and headed back to the cabin cruiser he was working on.
“Whatcha doing?” Christian Mitchell, Audrey’s grandson asked.
Sheldon looked down to find the nine-year-old standing next to him. He wore gray shorts and a white shirt with an anchor on the breast pocket. His feet were in deck shoes and no socks. Sheldon had met the boy several times and he always came to talk to him. While Sheldon wasn’t used to small children, he thought Christian missed male company.
“Cleaning the bottom of the boat,” Sheldon told him.
“How’d it get dirty?” he asked.
“These things are in the water and they see the boat and they want to make it their home.”
“So?”
“They slow the boat down when it’s sailing and you know how much we all like speed.”
Christian smiled. He’d seen Christian on his bicycle and knew if his grandmother found him riding in places this far from their home, she’d ban any use of the two-wheeler.
“If we don’t get the barnacles off, they’ll eat right through and then the boat will leak. We can’t have that happening.”
Christian was shaking his head slowly from left to right. “Then the boat would sink. And it they couldn’t swim, they could drown,” the child said.
“That’s right.”
“Can you sail?” Christian asked.
“No,” Sheldon told him. As far as his work was concerned, he hoisted the boat out of the water and worked on it while it was either in dry dock or he’d swing it over the wharf and work on it there. He was doing that today.
“How come you work on boats then?” Christian asked.
“A man’s gotta eat,” he said.
“You eat these?” The child’s face squinched up as he peered at the barnacles on the tarp and his expression was that of horror.
“No, I don’t eat these,” Sheldon mimicked with a laugh.
The child looked relieved. “They’re ugly,” he said.
“That they are,” he agreed. He glanced farther down the marina and then by the row of houses leading away from the area. He didn’t see Audrey. “Does your grandmother know you’re here?”
Christian stared at the ground, but didn’t say anything at first. “I told her I was going to play video games.”
“Here, by the water?”
He nodded, but Sheldon could see there was little belief in the gesture.
“And what did she say?”
“She told me to be home in time to eat.”
“And that’s all she said?”
He nodded.
Sheldon stopped working and stooped down to Christian’s level. “I know you like the boats, Christian,” he said. “I know you like coming here, but your grandmother could be very worried if she can’t find you where you’re supposed to be. Do you understand?”
He nodded again, but still refused to make eye contact with Sheldon.
“Tell you what.”
The boy looked up as if he was about to get a reprieve.
“Why don’t you go tell her where you are. And if she says it’s all right, you can come back.”
Christian smiled. He ran off, calling his grandmother.
Sheldon watched him go. He smiled after the boy, his gangly legs trying to keep up with his growing body. At least there was one person who liked Sheldon for who he was. Christian didn’t mind being around him. He didn’t look at Sheldon’s clothes, his beard or where he lived and judge him as someone unworthy of his attention.
Suddenly Sheldon remembered Jason. He was about Christian’s age when he came to live with them. Had Jason been as innocent and in need of love and acceptance as Christian when he came to the Kendall?
* * *
HOW HAD ALL this happened, Jace asked himself. How could Sheldon let the house and the horses go? He knew his brother loved the Kendall. Had the years changed him? Jace needed to know. He needed to understand what motivated Sheldon to give up and walk away, leaving everything he owned behind.
Why hadn’t Sheldon tried to contact him? Of course, Jace had left angry over Laura, but when things had gotten so bad that Sheldon needed money, why didn’t he at least call him? Sheldon could have tracked him down. Yet, just as his brother ignored him when he was present, he also cut him out of what he might have been able to provide to keep the farm in the family. As distant as Sheldon thought Jace was, the two still shared a bloodline and a heritage.
Questions, Jace thought. Since he’d arrived at the Kendall that rainy night all he had were questions and no answers. He was going to have to face facts and find his brother. Sheldon held the key to whatever was going on.