Second Chance Father

“A piece of mahogany. I bought it for the top of the dresser, but then I got to sanding it and had my mind on—” another pause “—other things.”

Her counselor’s instinct pushed at her to ask about the “other things,” but her experience with Anthony held those words in check. She didn’t need to get too involved in Jack’s world. Didn’t want to find herself close enough to get hurt. She cleared her throat and prepared to tell him that she needed to see Cody, but his heavy sigh of discouragement forced her to continue the conversation until he found some form of comfort from his efforts to help her patient.

“You were sanding wood when he got there?” She visualized Cody happening upon Jack involved in the task and knew that he undoubtedly equated the man with some semblance of the carpenter who had raised him and loved him. But she didn’t know why that would have upset Cody. “Did it seem to bother him?”

“I wasn’t sanding when he got here. I’d gotten—” he sighed again, apparently searching for the right word “—irritated at myself for sanding the same spot too long and ruining the wood, and I was tossing it when Cody came through the woods.”

Elise pictured the scene more clearly now. Cody had gone searching for Jack, but instead of finding the quiet, rugged carpenter he’d encountered the past two days, he’d happened upon an aggravated man who, from the sound of things, took his frustration out on a piece of mahogany.

As far as Elise knew, Cody hadn’t been exposed to any form of abuse in his past, so she didn’t think he’d been scared that Jack would hurt him. However, Jack’s action triggered something, enough of a response that Cody had returned to Willow’s Haven.

“Seeing me throw the wood bothered him, but I think it was the beard that caused him to leave.” And again, he spoke more to himself than Elise.

She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then said, “The beard hasn’t bothered him before. Why do you think it did today?”

“I don’t know, but I’m pretty good at reading people, or at least I was when I was working. And he was bothered by the beard.”

When he was working. Elise wondered what the man did in the film industry, and how the guy could move to a cabin in the middle of nowhere without any apparent form of income. She started to ask, but then heard the whispers of warning in the back of her mind.

Getting too personal will make you care too much.

You have a patient with enough problems to keep you more than busy while you’re here. Don’t take on a man with issues too.

Protect your heart.

“Elise.”

The way he said her name let her know he was fully involved in the conversation now, and she found herself anxious to hear more.

Protect your heart.

“Yes?”

“We can help him.”

We? She closed her eyes, prayed for God to keep her from getting hurt...too much. Because she knew in her soul that Jack could hurt her, the same way she’d been hurt before.

A door slammed, and she opened her eyes to view Cody exiting his cabin, a big, tan canvas tote draped over his shoulder. He walked directly to her car, opened the passenger door and got in.

“I’ve got to go,” she said. She heard his frustrated, “Goodbye, Elise,” echo through the line and almost explained why she had to finish the conversation, but memories of the last man in her life gave her the courage to click the end button.

Plus, Cody sat waiting in her car.

Knowing he wouldn’t use words to let her know what he wanted, she dashed to her cabin, grabbed her keys, her purse and the flash cards she used to communicate with him, and then hurried to the driver’s side of the car.

He reached for the cards as soon as she climbed in, but Elise shook her head. “First I need to remind you that you shouldn’t have left without letting someone know.” She thumbed through the cards. “If you want to go for a hike, you show me this card.” She held up the picture of a guy wearing a dark green shirt, jeans and hiking boots. Yesterday, she’d have said the guy in the photo looked rugged and outdoorsy. But then she’d met Jack. In his sawdust-coated flannel shirt, jeans and boots, he had rugged and outdoorsy mastered.

Cody tapped his fingers together at his chest, a signal of his anxiety, and Elise shook the image of Jack away and pointed to the hiking guy on the card. “So you show me this card the next time you want to go see—The next time you want to go for a walk in the woods. Understand?”

He bobbed his head and reached again for the cards. This time, Elise released the deck.

Cody, used to this routine, flipped through the stack so rapidly that the snapping cardboard sounded like popcorn within the confines of her Honda.

In spite of her uneasiness with the way her mind kept drifting back to Jack, she kept her voice low and controlled when she spoke. “Where do you want to go, Cody?”

In the two weeks since she’d arrived, she’d taken him to a few places, but never because he’d instigated the outing. This was new, and Elise felt a sense of accomplishment at the difference, even if initiated by his awkward interaction with Jack.

Cody stopped flicking the cards and then pushed the deck toward her nose, his face full of seriousness as he awaited her response.

“The library?” They’d gone to the Claremont Public Library two days ago, and he’d checked out fifteen books, the maximum allotment. Each of them had to do with classic automobiles, rebuilding engines and carburetors and such. As far as Elise could tell, he’d reread a couple of them several times but hadn’t made his way through the entire stack.

Unless he was reading them at night instead of sleeping.

She glanced at his eyes. No dark circles underneath, and his energy level hadn’t appeared to falter during the day. Surely his cabin counselor would’ve noticed if he were staying up all hours in his room.

Or would he?

Elise pointed to the bulging canvas bag Cody had dropped at his feet. “I’m guessing those are your library books, then? You’re wanting to exchange them for new books?”

Too impatient to find the yes card in the stack, Cody jerked his head up and down in a vigorous nod. Then he looked straight ahead, his legs bouncing and fingers drumming madly against his jeans.

Elise had become close to several of her patients in the past, but there was something about Cody that nudged at her heart. His case file indicated he’d had a wonderful family, a picture-perfect life. And it’d all been taken away in the blink of an eye. Maybe that was why she was so drawn to him, and why he reminded her of the one aching desire that had been pushed aside during her marriage, because her husband wasn’t emotionally ready.

She’d wanted children.

She still wanted children.

And Cody stirred that yearning more than any other child. She cared so much for him already, and she wanted him to have a chance to be a part of another wonderful family. He deserved that, and Elise wanted to make that happen by helping him overcome the barriers he’d set in place when his world had been upended.

She prayed this trip to the library would give her some insight as to what had bothered him at Jack’s place. “Okay, then, to the library it is.”

Twenty minutes later, Cody grabbed a plastic red book basket and handed a blue one to Elise. When she’d brought him here before, she’d selected the books that she knew would interest him based on his case file. But this time, Cody pulled her through the library and showcased his knowledge of computers and books, easily searching for his topic on the laptop at one of the information kiosks. He wasted no time writing the call numbers for the books he needed on the provided slips of scrap paper. Then he took off through the stacks at a speed that astounded Elise.

His autistic symptoms might most often be manifested in his knowledge of automobiles, as stated in his file, but the boy had skill in the library too. Each book had the same subject matter, with none of those selected having anything to do with classic cars.

One by one, as the librarian checked out all thirty books—since he put the maximum in each of their baskets—Elise smiled a little broader. Every book had to do with furniture. How to build furniture. How to select the best wood for building furniture. Tools needed for building furniture. Blueprints from craft masters to build one-of-a-kind pieces.

Everything to help him learn about what Jack did at his cabin.

By the time they returned to Willow’s Haven, the sun had started dropping, and Elise wondered if he’d head to Jack’s place to show him the books. “If you’re planning another hike through the woods, you need to tell me, okay?”

Cody nodded once, then climbed out, not an easy feat, since he insisted on carrying all of the books himself, even though they hadn’t fit into his tote. Thankfully, the librarian had provided him with a plastic bag to aid in the process.

To Elise’s dismay, he turned away from the path leading to Jack’s home and instead purposefully strode toward his cabin with the bags in tow.

“I guess you’re going to read until dinner?” She attempted to mask her disappointment. “That’s fine. But if you’d like for me to read some of the books to you, I’d be happy to.”

He never looked back. Simply entered the cabin, where, Elise knew, he’d proceed to his bedroom and crack open the first book.

Sighing, she walked to her cabin and decided to spend the rest of her time this evening journaling the day’s events in her ongoing file. She consulted with her colleagues daily on Cody’s progress, or lack thereof, and they’d seen his recent wanderings as a positive response. She thought so too, and she now knew that he undoubtedly planned to visit Jack again. Which was good for Cody.

For Elise’s heart, however, she wasn’t so sure.

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