Chapter 6 - The Rockford Workshop
The workshop behind our Rockford house smelled of kiln-dried white oak and old pine resin. It was sixty feet long, with two high windows that caught the afternoon sun and a workbench Ellis had bolted directly into the concrete foundation so it wouldn't shake when he ran the planer.
Three days after the wedding, while Dad was sitting in an Ottawa County holding cell waiting for his arraignment on three counts of financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult and one count of domestic battery, Ellis and I were sanding the legs of a cherry-wood dining table we were building for ourselves.
“The prosecutor called,” Ellis said, his voice carrying over the high-pitched whine of the orbital sander. He killed the motor, letting the blade wind down to a soft, rhythmic hum. “Your father’s lawyer tried to argue that the wedding checks were a ‘communal family deposit.’ Apparently, they’re claiming you agreed to it verbally three years ago.”
I blew a layer of fine sawdust off the table edge. My cheek was still a dull plum-and-yellow color under Trish’s concealer, but the swelling had gone down enough that I could chew toast without wincing. “Did I?”
“According to Vaughn’s affidavit, you agreed to finance Bridget’s down payment while you were twelve years old and standing in line at Meijer.”
I laughed, though the sound was dry. “That sounds about right. If I wasn't available to fix their problems in the present, they just rewrote the past until I was.”
“Well, the prosecutor laughed him out of the magistrate’s office,” Ellis said, picking up a tack cloth to wipe down the wood. “And your mother’s credit cards are all officially blacklisted. She tried to rent a storage unit for her antique tea sets yesterday and was told her social security number was flagged for an active state fraud investigation.”
“What about Bridget?”
“Bridget moved in with an ex-boyfriend from high school who works at a drywall company in Holland. She tried to call your office this morning to ask if Dr. Ashby had any ‘unclaimed insurance files’ she could handle for a consulting fee.”
I stopped sanding. “What did Karen say?”
“Karen told her you were on a three-week honeymoon in the Upper Peninsula with no cell service, and then she hung up on her.”
I leaned against the workbench, looking out the open double doors toward the garden where the first green shoots of garlic were poking through the damp spring mulch. For thirty-one years, my life had been governed by the frantic, invisible rhythm of other people’s emergencies. Every ring of the phone had been a summons; every holiday had been a performance review.
Now, there was only the smell of sawdust, the quiet scrape of the planer, and the steady, unhurried presence of a man who didn't want anything from me except my name next to his.
“Do you think Grandma is okay?” I asked softly.
“Ivy called about an hour ago,” Ellis said, setting down the tack cloth. “Your grandmother is currently holding court in the Bellweather activities room. She’s teaching three retired legal secretaries how to play bridge, and she told the facility administrator that if they serve her cold toast one more time, she’s going to hire my cousin Vinny—who is actually an accountant in Kalamazoo—to audit their entire dietary budget.”
I smiled, feeling a hot, tight knot in my chest finally dissolve. “She really said that?”
“Word for word. And she asked if we brought her any more McIntosh apples.”
May you like
“We’ll go see her on Sunday,” I said. “Just the two of us. No parents, no coordinators, no gift boxes.”
“Sunday is good,” Ellis said. He walked around the workbench, pulled me against his side, and kissed the top of my head, right where the grey hairs were starting to show through my brown dye. “We have to check her hearing aid anyway. I think the volume was set too low when we left her at table twelve.”
