Bait: The Wake Series, Book One(112)

Then I dug out the undergrowth and weeded around everything that belonged there. It was relaxing and for the first time in the past week, I didn't feel so far away from my mom. Not that I hadn't ever been away from her, because God knows, up until she finally told me, I had been jet-setting. Chasing a girl who didn't want me. Or didn't want me enough.

This distance was different. She was no longer a phone call or text away. And that f*cking sucked.

I'm a man, but in that garden, I finally cried. I cried because a good woman was robbed of her old age. And I'd been robbed, too. I thought of things I'd never even let myself consider. She wouldn’t dance with me at my wedding. She wouldn't be there when my kids were born or teach them how to tell which strawberries were ready to be picked.

She was gone.

All the while, in the garden, I kept looking at that f*cking shed.

“Casey, honey don't you think it would look nice painted red?” she'd say every so often.

I understood the translation of her mother's speak. What she meant was, “Casey, paint the damn shed red for your mom. Wouldn't ya?” I never did.

And she was right.

Kneeling in that garden cursing God and doctors that Friday, I realized a few very important things. Sometimes you know what the answer is before you hear the question and my mom's f*cking shed needed painting red.



I didn't come into the house until it was dark that night. Then, I actually warmed up some of the casserole stuff that had moved into the refrigerator. It turned out, there's a reason people bring food like that. It was good and it would keep.

I took a shower and slept in my old bedroom. It was the first night in many that I dosed off rather than passed out.

I woke up feeling better than I had. Not great, but I'd take any improvement for what it was. It was barely after dark when I went to bed and, consequently, I was up with the sun.

I drove to the hardware store and bought red paint and other supplies that I thought I might need to get the job done.

I dragged out the old stereo from the basement to the shed and set it up. I'd need some tunes for my job. I turned on a modern-rock station and let it set my pace.

The wood was bare, but it was in pretty decent shape. I probably should have done more in terms of preparation, but I was focused solely on making the damn thing red.

The shed wasn't too far from the house, only a hundred feet or so, and I began on the side that faced it. The back side met up to the tree line, so who would care if by the time I got to the back, my handiwork was less than stellar? I relented that if I could singularly paint an entire fifteen by thirty foot shed, I didn't really care how perfect it looked.

I trimmed around the big door and decided I would get white paint the next day and do the trim, if I finished the entire structure that day.

The morning was hot, but I didn't stop. I pulled my shirt over my head and ran it across my almost bare scalp to remove some of the sweat. I tucked it into the back of my tattered cargo shorts and continued.

At about two, I went inside and grabbed some water and a handful of strawberries.

I continued to paint. My mind went where it usually did on standby.

Blake.

I hadn't spoken to her since our fight before her wedding. Before I watched her stroll down the aisle and begged God that she'd stop and leave.

Chalk that up to another unanswered prayer.

I was too far away to see her face or hear her voice as she said her half of the vows, but I couldn't tempt myself by going that close. It would have been too difficult to not make a scene or object, like in the movies.

I surrendered and let it happen. As if I’d had any control over it at all.

The thought still made me a little sick.

Then, like my wandering memory liked to do, it tortured me with flashbacks of her and me together. Random glimpses of happiness and pleasure which only felt like anguish and pain in hindsight.

The way her hair would stick to her face when we were both covered in sweat.

Her laugh and the way she hummed before she fell asleep.

Her pink nose. Her smell. Her taste. Her.

“Looks like you've been busy.”

I really was losing my mind, because I started hearing her voice. It was like she was speaking to me. My arm burned as I rolled the paint high on the last of the exterior shed walls. I'd just started the final side and the blisters I'd given my hands were raw.

I could feel the heat radiating off my shoulders from the hours in the sun. I was thirsty and thoroughly tired.