Summer Job

"So can I get you something to drink before you leave?" she asked again pulling him out of his dreamlike state.

"Oh, um, no thanks. I'm good. I appreciate the offer, though."

"Okay. In case my husband didn't offer, you're welcome to come in anytime you like and grab a drink or something to eat. I noticed you bring your lunch, but the offer still stands."

"Thank you. That's very kind," Oliver told her. "It's just that I'm pretty dirty and sweaty, and you don't need me tracking that in, so I'll just brownbag it again tomorrow. Oh, that reminds me, I should be finished a day early."

"Oh, okay. Jack left this afternoon and won't be back whether you finish tomorrow or..."

He saw the expression on her face change before she said, "Or even if it's another week."

The way she said 'another week' was a clear indication there was something deeper involved, but Oliver had no intention of asking what that might be.

Just as quickly her expression changed back, and Casey smiled at him again before saying, "He's um...he's gone a lot these days so I'll be here whenever you do finish up."

Not sure how to respond Oliver just nodded and let her know he'd be back the following morning and try and get the barn finished up and possibly get started on the silo then be done on day nine.

"Sounds good, Oliver," she told him as she flashed that gorgeous smile his way. "I'll see you then."

As he turned to leave, Casey called out, "Oh. Jack didn't tell me how much we're paying you. I feel silly having to ask, but I kind of need to know so I can write you a check."

Oliver turned around and said quietly, "Two thousand, ma'am."

He saw a look on her face that made him think she was shocked her husband had agreed to pay him so much, so Oliver said, "I know that's a lot of money. If you'd rather pay me less I'm sure we can work..."

"What? No. No, that is not a lot of money! That's...that's unconscionable," Casey said shaking her head. "My husband can be such a...tight ass."

As Casey stood there shaking her head in disbelief, Oliver quickly told her, "I think that's a very generous amount, ma'am, and it's what we agreed on so..."

"Nonsense. I really have been watching you work, and please don't take offense, but you're working like a dog out there. A machine could dig those trenches in a a few hours. No, there is no way on earth I'm letting you do that much backbreaking work for that amount of money. If Jack doesn't like it, he can...fire me."

Once again, Oliver wasn't sure if that meant perhaps she was the one he'd hired to 'run the office' or if she was being rhetorical. And again, he wasn't about to ask.

Feeling very uncomfortable, he did force himself to say one thing.

"Ma'am?"

Casey tilted her head indicating she was listening.

"I agreed to the amount so I can't take any additional money. It...it wouldn't be right."

"Well, okay. I...I respect that, Oliver. But you wouldn't mind a modest tip, would you?"

"That'd be up to you and your husband, ma'am, but even one dollar more isn't something I could agree to unless I knew he was okay with it."

Before she could speak Oliver added, "I don't mean to imply you can't make those kinds of decisions, it's just that I made the deal with your husband and..."

Casey smiled that beautiful smile at him again and said, "You're a most unusual young man, Oliver. I can't remember the last time I met someone...anyone...with that kind of integrity. It's very refreshing and somehow also very reassuring for the future of this country of ours."

"A man's word should be bond, ma'am," Oliver said modestly.

"I couldn't agree more," Casey told him. "Unfortunately, most people don't seem to feel that way anymore."

She looked away for a moment then quietly said, "Especially when it comes to loving someone until..."

Again, Oliver knew enough not to get involved after her voice trailed off leaving the sentence unfinished. He just said, "Is there anything else, ma'am?"

"Just one thing," Casey replied. "Please don't call me 'ma'am', okay?"

"Sorry. It's just force of habit."

"Well, when you're my age, you'll understand," she said politely and still smiling.

Oliver smiled back then said, "Well, it can't be that many years down the road. I won't ask your age, but my mother is 47 and you don't look to be much over 30 so I'd say it won't be..."

Casey startled him as she reacted, cutting him off in mid-sentence with a loud laugh.

"I have no way of knowing if that was just kindness on your part or flattery, but either way, you just made my day!" she said, sporting the happiest smile he'd seen yet.

"I'm not above using flattery. But in your case it was just me being honest," he said kind of sheepishly.

Her reply blew his mind.

"I just turned 40 last month," she told him. "I've been feeling dreadfully old ever since so your very sweet comment was really nice to hear. Thank you for saying that."

Oliver just smiled then said, "Forty? I'm sorry, but I'd have never guess that."

Casey kept on smiling and Oliver dropped it.

"Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow then."

"Yes. Yes, you will," she said still smiling brightly.

The following day he did finish the line along the barn and got about a third of the way through the silo before knocking on the door again that evening.

This time he wasn't taken aback when Casey answered and opened the door.

"I couldn't really see you today so I'm not sure how much you got done," she told him pleasantly.

He let her know how far he'd got and that he'd be done around noon the next day.

Oliver wasn't quite sure what she meant when her response was, "I'm still smiling, you know."

He came very close to saying, "Ma'am?" but caught himself and said, "I'm sorry. I don't understand."

"Your surprise about my um...advanced years," she reminded him.

Oliver laughed out loud and said, "Oh, right. You really did surprise me. I still can't believe you're, you know..."

Casey laughed, too, then said, "It's okay. You can say it. Saying 'forty' isn't going to kill me."

"I'll take your word on that and that you really are...forty," he said in a tone of voice that clearly indicated his disbelief. "It's very hard to believe, but you're obviously an honest person so..."

"Oh, good. I thought I was going to have show ID or something," she teased.

"No, that won't be necessary, but something tells me you probably still get carded when you go out," Oliver told her.

"Oh, now that was pure, unadulterated flattery!" she said as though it was a terrible thing.

"Maybe just a little bit," he said using his thumb and index finger to indicate a small amount.

"I don't do a lot of going out anymore so it's pretty much a moot point," she said, that change in her expression clearly there again if only momentarily.

"Okay. You better run along before I grab you and give you a hug," she said, her 'happy face' returning again. "Then again, the thought of a forty-year old married woman hugging you might make you want to throw up so perhaps I should keep my distance."

Oliver smiled then said, "It's not the age part, ma... Sorry. Mrs. Wheeler. It's the married part."

"You really are a man of integrity, aren't you?" she said in a kind but matter-of-fact kind of way.

Oliver didn't reply to her comment. Instead he told her he should be going and that he'd see her again in the morning.

"Oh, sure. That sounds good," Casey said feeling a little silly for having said the things she'd said.

Then again, it wasn't as though she got any love or affection from her husband or even kind words for that matter. Since the death of their child four years ago Jack had been as cold and distant as a husband could be. He wasn't abusive in any active, physical kind of way. He just basically ignored her. She knew he still blamed her for Amanda's death, but she also knew it hadn't been her fault. Or...had it?

She'd been in shock the first two years and was in mourning for two more and was just now beginning to come back to her old self. Dealing with husband's total lack of affection had been postponed as both of them grieved in their own way. But lately, it was becoming unbearable and perhaps it was time to finally take action.

But what action? Was there really anything there left to save? Was there anything worth even trying to save? Most importantly, did Jack feel that way at all or was he, too, just going through the motions, too numb to take action himself?

As always, she shelved the problem, promising herself she'd address it...soon.

That night, as Casey lay there alone—again—she thought back to that fateful day.

Casey had been an only child up until the age of 20 when her parents told her they were suddenly and very unexpectedly, expecting a second child at the age of 42.

Renee had been born when Casey was a junior in college and for several years, she barely knew he baby sister. But after meeting Jack, who was nearly six years older than her and so very handsome, they'd settled down and bought the farm they now lived on. Casey was finally able to get to know and love the little sister who was growing up fast.

By the time Renee was twelve, Casey was herself pregnant, and both she and her sister (as well as their mother) couldn't wait for her baby to be born. When they learned that baby would also be a girl, neither they nor Jack could have been happier.

Amanda was the love of all their lives and was doted on endlessly by her parents, her grandparents, and her Aunt Renee.

The last time Casey ever held her daughter was a little over four years ago when Renee was 16 and Amanda was four. Renee wasn't legally allowed to drive passengers and could only drive alone by herself during daylight hours, but she was so mature and so responsible for her age, that Casey agreed to let her drive her to their mother's house to spend the night. It was only a six-mile drive and the weather was unbelievably nice. It was a bright, sunny day when Casey hugged her sister and then her daughter before kissing her goodbye.

"I'll be there to pick you up tomorrow, okay, sweetie?" she'd told Amanda.

"Okay, Mommy! I love you!" her daughter said as her Aunt Renee took her hand as they headed out to her car.

t was a newer-model Subaru, one of the safest cars on the market, but not safe enough to survive a high-speed, head-on collision from a Toyota Tundra driven by a man possessed by road rage.

Neither Casey nor Renee had any way of knowing someone would intentionally prevent the tailgating Tundra driver from passing him twice for reasons known only to the driver of a smaller sedan. When that driver pulled into the passing lane a second time to keep the younger man driving the Tundra from going around him, the Tundra driver saw red.

He floored it and flew around the smaller sedan using the shoulder on the other side of the road to get around and and got close to 80mph by the time he finally noticed the Subaru in his lane. Renee had slowed down and tried to get off the road, but there was no shoulder to pull onto at that particular place in the road, and no amount of driving experience would have saved them. The Tundra driver tried to quickly pull back into his lane causing the vehicle to flip and continue in its direction of travel. The truck literally sailed airborne into the cab of the Subaru crushing in the entire front of the vehicle.

Renee was killed instantly as the driver's compartment collapsed from the force of the impact. Amanda died twenty minutes later just as the first emergency vehicle arrived. Even now, Casey couldn't bear to visualize the cause of her daughter's death which a Washington Highway Patrol officer had so gently explained to her about an hour later.

Even thinking about the way her sister died could still make her physically ill, but what happened to Amanda was something no mother should ever have to hear. A jagged piece of metal had torn lose from the Tundra and ripped through the front windshield and into the side of her little girl's head. Casey couldn't say the rest of what happened out loud and even now she couldn't even think about it.

Jack had arrived home just minutes after the sate patrol car left, finding Casey sitting in stunned silence just staring at one of the walls in their living room.

Dragging the information out of his wife one gory detail after the other, Jack had also been so stunned he couldn't speak. At some point, however, he turned to Casey and said, "You let Renee drive her?"

Unable to think and barely able to speak, Casey said, "I...I thought she'd be okay. It's only..."

"You let your SIXTEEN-YEAR OLD SISTER drive our daughter in a car? Alone? Are you out of your fucking mind?" Jack screamed.

Unable to think or feel, Casey just sat there and took it. His words may just as well have been spoken in a foreign language as nothing was making any sense. But as the weeks and months went by, she knew her husband blamed her for what had happened, and for most of the time since, she'd blamed herself.

Only now was she finally able to separate reality from the things Jack had said and they way his words had made her feel. Yes, he had every right to be upset. And even now, on some level, she couldn't blame him for blaming her. And yet, looking back, letting her sister drive their daughter wasn't unreasonable. Until the law had been changed, it was perfectly okay for a 16-year old to drive with passengers in their cars as soon as they got their drivers license. And had that one person not lost his temper at that exact moment, nothing would have happened. So while Jack was technically correct, Casey, who'd loved their daughter more than anything on earth, hadn't done anything wrong intentionally nor was their any gross negligence on her part.

Even so, it was still hard to stop hating herself for having said 'okay' to her sister because that decision had cost her and Amanda their lives. And yet it was finally high time to stop beating herself up for it and letting her husband treat her as though she was some kind of criminal. If he wanted to leave her, then fine. Jack could go. But she was at a point where taking his cold-hearted treatment had to end. If he could somehow manage to let it go, she would gladly stay with him. But if he intended to continue punishing her then one of them would have to leave.

Casey knew he'd gone back to driving in order to be away from her as much as possible, and the one time she'd asked him why he didn't just divorce her he'd only stared at her until she was forced to break eye contact.

When he returned from this trip, she was going to ask him again, but this time, she would wait for an answer no matter how long it took. If one didn't come, she'd make it clear she had no intention of spending one more day living in the mental prison she'd spent the last four years in.

All that night and the following morning, Casey had been so focused on trying to decide exactly what to say and how to say it, she'd completely forgotten their hired hand was coming back the following morning. She was sipping on a second cup of coffee when she saw him pull into their driveway.

Just as quickly, her mental anguish gave way to a pleasant feeling as she watched Oliver get out of his car and get ready to go to work. She was surprised when she realized how she was feeling and even more so when she became aware she was smiling. She set her coffee cup down and walked to the back door just as Oliver was walking by.

She opened it and said, "Morning!"

Startled, Oliver flinched before realizing what was happening.

"Oh, geez! Sorry. You really surprised me, Mrs. Wheeler!" he said with a smile.

"No! I'm the one who's sorry. I didn't realize you hadn't seen me or heard me open the door. I didn't mean to startle you."

"It's okay," he assured her. "Um...I'm just gonna head down to the barn and get started."

"Oh, okay," she said now wondering why she'd gone out to say 'hello'.

Oliver took a few steps before Casey said, "Oliver? Would you maybe like a cup of coffee?"

He stopped and turned around then said, "That sounds nice, but it's 8 o'clock and I really do need to get to work."

Casey immediately understood. Work started at 8am and it was now a minute or two after eight so...

"Oh, right. I guess I forgot you're a man of integrity," she said playfully but feeling a little silly.

"Maybe some other time?" Oliver said knowing he'd done around noon and not be coming back at a time of day when he drank coffee. One cup in the morning was his limit and he never drank the dark brew after that for any reason.

"Yeah, sure," Casey said now feeling rather foolish—again. "I guess I'll see you later on when you finish up."

"You will," Oliver replied. "I expect to be done by noon give or take an hour."

"Okay. That sounds great. I uh...I'll be right here. In the house," she said pointing behind her as though he might not know where the house she was still standing in was located.

Oliver hesitated then sort of held up the brown paper bag he was carrying before saying, "But I could maybe have a cup with lunch later on. If that's okay, of course."

For some reason Casey started laughing and before she could stop Oliver said, "Or...not."

She finally got ahold of herself then said very quickly, "No. No. I wasn't laughing because that was some kind of bad idea. I think I was just..."

It took her a second to understand what she'd been feeling before she continued.

"I think I was maybe just, I don't know, hoping you might want to have lunch. Later. When you're done. Or...whenever."

Oliver held the bag up again, smiled, then said, "I'll be up as soon as I'm done with the silo drain, Mrs. Wheeler."

"All right. That sounds...nice," Casey told him aware she was once again smiling and feeling whatever she'd felt when he drove up.

As he started to walk away again, she called out, "Oliver?"

He turned and waited for her to speak.

"Would you mind calling me 'Casey' instead of Mrs. Wheeler?"

"Or ma'am, right?" he said with a gentle laugh.

Casey laughed, too, when she remembered her earlier request.

"Yes. Both of them make me feel all forty of my years so I'd very much appreciate being called by my first name."

"Yes, ma'am," Oliver said causing both of them to laugh.

"Ha! There goes your tip, young man!" she teased playfully before letting him finally get to work.

It was nearly 2pm before Oliver knocked on the door. Casey was starving as she hadn't eaten a thing all morning and didn't want to eat until lunchtime which was normally closer to noon.

She'd seen him walking toward the house and got up to wait at the door as he threw his shirt back on and buttoned it up. She'd seen him outside with it off many times since he'd started the job, but this was the first time seeing his hard, muscled body had ever really caught her attention. Just as she opened the door, she was very aware of what she was feeling and why.

"Hey, there! Come on in," she said happily.

"Sorry I took so long. I had the worst time with that wheelbarrow. One of the bolts sheared off and I had to stop and repair it—after an entire load of stone fell out."

"You didn't get hurt, did you?" she asked as she stepped aside to let him in.

"Oh, no. It fell over sideways. I just had to shovel it all back in then pick up the rest by hand after I found a new bolt and a nut to fit it. Anyway, it's all done if you want to go take a look."

"No, that's okay. I trust you," Casey told him.

"Do you mind if I go wash up?" he asked as he set his bag down on the kitchen table.

"Of course not. It's down that hall and on your right near the end," she told him pointing the way.

"Thank you...Casey," he told her with a smile.

He was nearly out of sight before Casey realized she'd watched him all the way down the hall. Not just him, but a certain part of him she had no business watching. The realization she'd been staring at his butt, his very tight, round butt, startled her and brought her back to reality as she got out two plates along with utensils and napkins.