Summer on Kendall Farm(25)

Jace knocked lightly on her office door with Ari standing next to him. She invited them in. Jace held the list up. “I’ve done a few things. Thought you might like a status update.” He handed her the paper, which he’d added columns to. There were check marks in red indicating the tasks he’d completed, the date they were completed, what was decided on and finally his initials under the approved column.

She looked at it, then up at him. “You’re very thorough.”

“Comes with the job,” he said.

“I helped,” Ari stated.

Kelly smiled at him, a smile she’d never given Jace.

“What did you do?”

“I held the light so dad could look at the...the...” He faltered.

“Joist,” Jace provided.

“Joist,” he repeated.

“I’m sure you were a big help,” Kelly told him.

Ari beamed.

“Since it’s the end of the day, I thought I’d finish that library for you, but I see you’ve already done it.”

“I plan to put the books back in another week. The paint needs time to really cure.”

He nodded. “I’ll start on the other things on the list tomorrow. In the meantime, I promised Ari I’d take him into town. He hasn’t seen anything of Windsor Heights, except the Kendall, since we arrived.”

“You can come with us,” Ari said.

“Yeah, you can,” Jace imitated his son.

Kelly glanced at the spreadsheets on her desk. The office was full of unopened boxes. Jace noticed a brochure taped to one of them. One chair had several post office and courier boxes stacked, ready for tomorrow’s pick up.

“You have to eat sometime,” Jace prompted. He wanted to see her away from this place. She worked all the time, as if she had an impending deadline.

“Well, I suppose I can finish when I come back.” She shuffled her papers together. “Let me freshen up. I’ll meet you at the front door in five minutes.”

Twenty minutes later they were sitting at the Hamburger Palace, a fast-food place where Ari was stuffing himself with a huge hamburger and a plate of french fries.

“Chew, Ari,” Jace cautioned. The boy was shoveling food into his mouth as if he hadn’t had a meal in days. “They don’t have hamburgers where we were living,” Jace told her.

“That must have been interesting. Living in a different country, I mean.” Kelly took a bite of her burger.

“It was. I’ve lived in a few countries, actually. But, obviously, Colombia’s meant the most to me.” He used a napkin to wipe the side of Ari’s mouth. “Too much relish.”

“What did you do there exactly?”

“We put in a water treatment plant. It had just come online when Ari and I left.”

“The job was over?”

“My part in it. The plant was completed, outfitted and online. The maintenance crew was in place and it was time for me to be transferred to another project. But I opted to return here.”

He looked at Ari. Kelly followed his gaze and he knew she understood his meaning. She reached for the bottle of catsup and poured a little on the side of Ari’s plate. Then she dipped a French fry into the sauce and offered it to him. Ari bit it.

“Mmm,” he said, and picked up his own fry, repeating the procedure Kelly had shown him.

“Have you inquired about pediatricians, yet?” she asked.

“Before we left, I’d looked into some, but I haven’t visited them. Would you know of any?”

Kelly shook her head. “I’ve never been around children or anyone with children, so I can’t help you there. But I’m sure there are services you can call to inquire about specialists. You can use the computer to look up the types of doctors who are part of the insurance plan.”

Again he looked at Ari. “It’s amazing that since he’s been here, he hasn’t had a single episode.” He shrugged. “I think he’s happy.”

“Many people with asthma live without episodes,” she said.

“Ari used to have them regularly.”

Hearing his name, Ari paid attention to him. “I have my inhaler,” he said. His hand went to his pocket to prove it.

“I know you do,” he said.

“I never go anywhere without it.” Ari was shaking his head and speaking slowly, the way Jace had spoken to him when he was old enough to understand that he needed the inhaler to help him breathe.

Jace smiled and Ari tucked it in his pocket before returning to his food. Turning back to Kelly, Jace looked at her hair. It was loose and flowing down her back. He wanted to run his hands through it, but she was his employer and he couldn’t do anything to jeopardize that. He needed the job in order to keep the insurance.