Black Creek Crossing Read online

  No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t escape being who she was.

  It will get better, she told herself. Someday, it will get better.

  And someday she’d have a friend—a real friend who would like her just the way she was, just like Grammy had.

  Like some kind of silent mantra, she repeated the words to herself over and over again.

  It will get better . . . I’ll find a friend . . . it will get better . . . I’ll find a friend . . .

  But no matter how many times she repeated the words, Angel Sullivan knew she didn’t quite believe them.

  Chapter 2

  ARTY SULLIVAN CAST A SIDELONG GLANCE AT THE gleaming Airstream trailer that served as an on-site office for the strip mall that was supposed to have been almost done by now. It was only last week, however, that the framework began to climb above the underground parking lot the town of Eastbury, Massachusetts, had required. Pissant regulations, as far as he was concerned—not that anybody ever listened to him. But since they’d gotten held up on the garage—one of his boss’s snafus that he’d tried to blame on him, just like always—there wasn’t a chance that they’d get the place framed and closed before the New England winter set in. Which, Marty knew, meant that he and the rest of the crew would be shivering in a couple of more months as much as they’d been sweltering during the summer, when they were stuck down in the pit of the parking garage, setting rebar and pounding forms without a breath of fresh air and the heat in the nineties, with humidity to match. If he’d been in charge . . .

  But he wasn’t in charge, and Jerry O’Donnell—the foreman who’d had it in for Marty since the day he’d signed on to the job last June—wasn’t going to listen to anything he had to say. Marty raised the middle finger of his left hand in a sour salute toward the Airstream—where he was pretty sure O’Donnell and the office girl were getting it on every day—then unscrewed the top of his thermos and took a long gulp. Though the liquid was only lukewarm, the warmth of the brandy he’d added to Myra’s crappy coffee quickly spread through his gut. When the alcohol did nothing to brighten his mood, Marty tipped the thermos to his lips again, draining it, then dropped the lid and the bottle back into his lunch bucket.

  Couple more hours and he could go home.

  Couple more hours of him working his butt off while O’Donnell cooled his in the Airstream. Maybe he should just go over there and get himself a little piece of the—

  “Hey, Marty,” Kurt Winkowski called from the far corner of the site. He and Bud Grimes were struggling with a large piece of prefab framing. “How’s about givin’ us a hand over here!”

  Glowering balefully at the trailer one last time, Marty heaved himself to his feet. “What’s the matter? That thing too heavy for you guys?” Ambling across the newly hardened concrete, he tripped over a drainpipe that hadn’t yet been trimmed, cursed under his breath, then shoved Winkowski aside. “Lemme hold it while you get a rivet in.” The piece of metal framing, ten feet tall and nearly as long, tilted as Winkowski released it. It nearly twisted out of Marty’s hands, but Bud Grimes reached out to steady it just before it fell.

  “I can do it!” Marty growled. “Just get the damned rivet gun, Winkowski.”

  For a moment Kurt Winkowski seemed about to argue, but Marty’s size and the look of half-drunken belligerence in his eyes made him think better of it. Picking up the pneumatic rivet gun, he moved to the point where the two pieces of framing met at a ninety-degree angle, and used his left hand to try to line up the matching holes in the two components. Bud Grimes’s piece held steady, but the framing Marty Sullivan was trying to steady kept wavering back and forth.

  “Jeez, Marty, how’m I s’posed to—”

  “Just shoot the damn thing,” Marty growled. “What kind of dumb mother—”

  There was a sharp explosive sound as Winkowski pulled the trigger of the rivet gun, followed by a scream of pain as Bud Grimes let go of the framing he was holding and clutched at his left bicep. As the framing crashed against the fence that stood between the foundation and the sidewalk beyond, Marty Sullivan took a step to one side, lost his balance, then tumbled to the ground, the metal framing falling on top of him. He struggled for a moment, but the prefabricated structure was too heavy. “Someone get this damn thing off me!” he yelled as the rest of the construction crew came racing over.

  “The hell with Sullivan,” Winkowski shouted. “It was his fault! Someone get the first-aid kit for Bud.”

  Bud Grimes had sunk down onto a stack of framing, his face ashen, his left sleeve crimson with blood, despite the fact that his right hand was still clamped over the wound. Someone started toward the site office when the door of the Airstream opened and Jerry O’Donnell charged out with the first-aid kit.

  “What happened?” he asked as he shouldered through the men crowded around Bud Grimes. He crouched down and opened the first-aid kit as Winkowski began to explain, then began cutting away the sleeve of Grimes’s shirt.

  “Get this goddamn crap offa me!” Marty Sullivan howled, and finally two men picked up the enormous piece of prefab steel and tossed it aside. “I coulda been killed!” Marty complained, starting to get up. But then he dropped back down to the concrete. “Jeez—I think my back’s hurt.”

  Jerry O’Donnell barely glanced at him. “Someone call an ambulance,” he said. “Grimes needs to go to the hospital.”

  “I’m okay,” Grimes complained, but his pale face was damp with a sheen of sweat. “Just put a bandage on it and—” His words abruptly died as he tried to move his injured arm and an agonizing pain shot through it.

  “You’re not okay,” O’Donnell replied. “Whatever went in there didn’t come back out.”

  “It was a rivet,” Winkowski repeated. “Just as I pulled the trigger, Sullivan—”

  “It wasn’t my fault,” Marty bawled. “An’ if anybody needs an ambulance, it’s me. My back’s—”

  O’Donnell wheeled around to face him, his eyes hard, his expression tight. “Your back’s fine, Sullivan,” he said. “But if you want, I’ll sure have you taken to the hospital. And I’ll have ’em test your blood for alcohol while you’re there.”

  Without thinking about it, Marty Sullivan was on his feet, towering over the foreman, his fists clenched, his face only inches from O’Donnell’s.

  But rather than backing away, O’Donnell was smiling at him. “Still want an ambulance?” he asked quietly. When Sullivan made no reply, he said, “The way I see it, you might just want to be quitting, Sullivan.” The other man’s brows furrowed uncertainly. “Or would you prefer me to fire you?”

  “You can’t fire me,” Sullivan began, his voice still truculent, but less belligerent than a few moments earlier. “We got a union that says—”

  Again, O’Donnell didn’t let him finish. “You got a union that says you can drink on the job?”

  “I never—” Sullivan began.

  “How dumb do you think I am, Sullivan?” O’Donnell said. “You think I can’t smell the stink on your breath?”

  Sullivan lurched back a step, and O’Donnell moved closer.

  “You think everyone on this job doesn’t know what’s in that thermos of yours?” He shook his head almost sadly. “It’s dumb enough to be drinking on the job, but it’s even dumber to think no one’s going to notice. So here’s the deal—you get your stuff and get off this site right now, and that’ll be the end of it. And don’t think anyone else in town’ll be hiring you, because I’ll see to it that they don’t. It’s way too dangerous having someone like you around.”

  “You can’t do that,” Sullivan yelped. “My union—”

  “Or we can go talk to the union about it,” O’Donnell said, his words silencing the other man, though he hadn’t raised his voice. “Both of us. In fact, we’ll take the whole crew with us.” He glanced around at the dozen men who were now watching the confrontation. “How about it, guys? Want to go down to the union and defend Brother Sullivan?”

  None of t
he men responded, and as Marty Sullivan’s eyes moved from one man to another, they either shook their heads, turned away from him, or edged closer to the foreman.

  “I’ll have Rebecca cut your check right now, Sullivan,” O’Donnell said.

  But Marty Sullivan was already walking away. “Screw off, O’Donnell,” he said, the alcohol in his blood fueling the anger boiling inside him. “You think I’m gonna hang around while that bitch tries to figure out how to do some real work?”

  Grabbing his jacket and his lunchbox, and wondering where the nearest place to get a drink, Marty Sullivan shambled away from the site.

  Chapter 3

  YRA SULLIVAN STRAIGHTENED UP, PRESSING HER left hand against the small of her own back to ease the pain. It had begun burning right after lunch, but she’d refused to give in to it until she finished the job at hand.

  As the pain had spread from her back into her hips, then down her legs into her knees, she silently repeated Father Raphaello’s adage: “Pain is the reward of work well done.” Until today, she’d never quite understood what the seemingly self-contradictory words meant; after all, how could pain be a reward for anything? But now, as she gazed at the gleaming tile floor of the rectory’s kitchen, the meaning became clear, and she nodded with satisfaction.

  There was not a smear anywhere on the bright yellow glaze of the tiles, nor the faintest stain in any of the grout between them. She’d spent the last three hours on her hands and knees cleaning those crevices between the tiles with more than a dozen solvents and bleaches. Sighing, she tossed the old toothbrush she’d used to scrub every inch of grout until every speck of mildew was gone into the wastebasket at the end of the sink. Tomorrow, she would start on the counter, but at least she could stand up for that job.

  As she admired her work, the pain in her body began to ease, and she recalled Father Raphaello’s adage again. Though her body ached, her spirit was buoyed by the work she’d accomplished. Then, glancing at the clock, her spirits sank again. It was already five-fifteen. If she didn’t hurry, she wouldn’t have Marty’s dinner ready on time, and then it wouldn’t matter what Father Raphaello might have to say—she’d feel no satisfaction in anything for the rest of the night.

  Gathering up the bottles of cleaning solvents, she packed them into the bucket and took them down to the basement. Then she left the rectory, by the outside steps, cutting across the backyard and through a gap in the hedge to the back of the duplex that faced onto the next street. Though the half of the duplex that she, Marty, and Angel lived in was cramped, at least they could afford it. Or they could afford it when Marty was working. When he wasn’t—which seemed to be most of the time lately—she was able to work off the rent by taking care of the rectory.

  As she fit her key into the back door, Myra silently chided herself for what she’d just been thinking about Marty. After all, he’d been working for Jerry O’Donnell for three months now, and it looked like the job would be good for at least a year, maybe even a little more.

  Count your blessings, she heard Father Raphaello whisper in her head.

  But as the key stuck in the lock and she heard the phone ring, words rose in her mind that had nothing to do with blessings at all. She turned away from them before they were fully formed, just as she tried to turn away from all sin, no matter how slight.

  She rattled the door, then banged on it loudly. A moment later, through the window, she saw Angel appear at the door that separated the kitchen from the living room. Her daughter hesitated, as if deciding which was more important, the phone or her mother, then picked up the phone, shrugging helplessly to her. A moment later Angel put the phone down on the kitchen counter, came to the door and opened it.

  “It’s Aunt Joni,” Angel told her as Myra worked at loosening the jammed key.

  Turning the job of getting the key out over to Angel, and glancing at the clock to see how much time she had before Marty came home, Myra picked up the receiver. “Joni? Is this important, or can I call you back?”

  “I’ve found a house for you,” Joni Fletcher replied, eliciting a heavy sigh from her younger sister. “Just listen, all right? And despite what Father Raphaello might say, I’m not Satan, sent to tempt you.”

  “He never said you were,” Myra said, opening the refrigerator to inspect its contents as she talked to Joni. “But covetousness is a sin, and how many times do I have to tell you that we can’t afford a house?” Finding nothing in the refrigerator that would please her husband, she nudged it closed with her hip. “We’ve got next to no—”

  Her eyes fell on Angel then, trying to extract the key from the lock in the back door. “Just a moment, Joni.” Covering the receiver with her hand, she said, “Get the WD-40, downstairs, in the cupboard next to the washer.”

  As Angel disappeared down the stairs to the basement, she turned her attention back to her sister. “Sorry, I just didn’t want Angel to start worrying. But we don’t have any money for a house, Joni. You keep finding houses, and I keep telling you—we’ve got next to nothing in the bank, and—”

  “But you don’t need much! Not this time! And the house is perfect! It has three bedrooms and—” She stopped abruptly as Myra uttered a brittle laugh. “What, exactly, do you think is so funny about a three-bedroom house that’s only eighty-five thousand dollars?” she asked coolly when Myra’s laughter died away.

  “I’m sorry I laughed,” Myra said. “But do you have any idea how many houses you’ve described as ‘perfect’? I think you need some new adjectives. Which, in our case, would be things like ‘cozy’—meaning ‘small’—and ‘fixer-upper’—meaning ‘falling-down wreck.’ ”

  “Eighty-five thousand,” Joni repeated as Angel came back up from the basement with the can of WD-40. “And I think they’ll come down. Way down. And we both know Marty can fix anything he sets his mind to, as long as he—” She abruptly stopped again, but the last two words—“stays sober”—hung between the two women as clearly as if Joni had spoken them aloud.

  “It’s all right, Joni,” Myra said as the silence threatened to get uncomfortable. “We both know what you were going to say. The sad part is, you’re right—not only about what you said, but what you didn’t say too. If he really wanted to, Marty could fix up the worst house you could find.”

  “Myra, I’m telling you, this is the house!”

  Myra paused as the words sank in. Joni had been calling her about houses for almost a year now, and she had actually gone to look twice. But the houses they could afford—assuming they could qualify for any kind of mortgage at all—were even worse than the duplex they were living in now. And the ones that Joni had described as “perfect” had always been so expensive that Myra hadn’t even bothered to go see them, certain they would only make her feel envious.

  “It can’t hurt to look,” Joni said, as if sensing Myra’s reluctance, and Myra wondered how many times her sister had spoken those exact words to hesitant buyers, only to sell them houses a few hours later, whether they felt they could afford them or not. It wasn’t just persistence that had made Joni the most successful agent in her office; she also had an uncanny ability to sense exactly what a customer was looking for, and then find it for them.

  “I don’t know,” she sighed. “It just seems like it’s not the right time.”

  “It is the right time,” Joni Fletcher assured her. “I always know these things. I have a sixth sense about them. And I know this is the right house, at the right price. And I’m telling you, this one’s perfect for you. It’s not huge, but—”

  “I’ll think about it, all right?” Myra broke in, knowing that once her sister got started, she could go on about a house for ten or twenty minutes. “I’ve got to get Marty’s dinner ready.”

  “Okay,” Joni agreed reluctantly. “But if you don’t call me in the morning and tell me when you’re coming, I warn you—I’ll drive you crazy!”

  “As if you don’t do that already!” Myra shot back, and hung up before her sister could get in
another word.

  She was rummaging in the pantry for something that might pass as dinner, and wishing for once she’d ignored her conscience and splurged on some steaks for Angel’s birthday, when she heard her daughter utter a frustrated yelp. “Can’t get it out?” Myra asked, not turning around.

  “I—I broke it off,” Angel stammered, her voice quavering. “Daddy’ll—”

  Abandoning the pantry, Myra hurried to her daughter and took the broken end of the key from her. “Your father won’t do anything at all,” she promised. “I’ll just call a locksmith and . . .” Her words died away as she saw that Angel’s body was shaking and tears were streaming down her face. “For heaven’s sake, Angel, don’t cry! It’s only a broken key—it’s not the end of the world.”

  “It’s not that—” Angel began, her voice catching on a choking sob. “It’s just—” Her voice caught again, then she threw herself into her mother’s arms and her words tumbled out in rushing torrent. “I can’t do anything right! And I don’t have any friends, and I’m fat, and I’m ugly, and I hate everything about my life! I just hate it!”

  “You mustn’t talk that way,” Myra told her, holding Angel away so she could look into her eyes. “You’re not fat, and a great many people love you.”

  “Who?” Angel demanded, her voice muffled as she again pressed her face to her mother’s breast.

  “I do, and your father does, and Aunt Joni and Uncle Ed, and—”

  “They’re my family,” Angel moaned. “They have to love me. But the kids—” She stopped abruptly, and Myra felt her stiffen, as if she’d suddenly decided she didn’t want to say any more.

  “What about your friends?” she asked. “Did something happen at school today?”

  Angel pulled away from her mother, shook her head, and wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater. What good would it do to try to tell her what had happened when her mother didn’t understand that she didn’t have any friends?