7

Tara stepped onto the back lawn of the house on Pike street, slamming the car door behind her. She stood for a moment, hands clenched into fists at her side.

Naturally, her whole body begged to kick over the jug of water that she had kindly provided this morning. Reluctantly, she uncurled her fingers and bided her time. She’d get her revenge. Her own crew, defy her? That just wouldn’t do.

She looked around at the scattered workers. Tara briefly got their attention when she slammed the car door, but now they were scuttling about, trying to look busy. After spotting the bucket truck with its arm fully extended, she marched over, yelling the entire time.

“Everybody come here! YOU!” She yelled at the woman in the bucket. “Get down here, NOW!”

Did she roll her eyes as me? Nonetheless, the massive arm holding the woman in the air began to lower.

One would think that with the ear splitting buzz of the chainsaws, it would take a few attempts to be heard. That wasn’t the case when Tara was calling. She watched her crew as they came running over; the power she had over these people fed her heart. Satisfaction didn’t quite explain what she felt.

“Everyone go home. We’re done for the day.”

Everyone looked back at her, stunned. No one asked ‘why?’, but she gave them an answer anyway.

“Because I can’t trust you to work without your foreman here and I’m not paying you to screw around all day. Be at the truck stop at five tomorrow morning.” She said. She turned away and walked back to her car, cell phone in hand.

“-always like this?”

Tara almost gave herself whiplash turning to catch a pair of workers walking to one of the trucks. One of them was the new one-

“Nick!”

He trotted over.

“Do you have something you’d like to say to me?” Hands on her hips, staring hard into eyes that had grown wide.

“What? Um. No. I mean- I was just saying- wondering if it was bad for business…raising your voice in a customer’s lawn-”

“Think I’m causing a scene?”

“No-”

“Don’t lie to me.” Voice laced with poison.

“I- well- maybe.”

“Go home Nick. Don’t bother coming back. I run a tree service, and I don’t have time to take care of little boys who can’t take a little bit of yelling.”

Nick’s face flushed. He opened his mouth to say something. Closed it again. Tara turned away, climbed into her car, and called Jack.

“Meet me at my house in ten minutes, if you want to keep your job.”

8

Twenty minutes later, Tara finally pulled up to her house where Jack was sitting in his car waiting. She expected- wanted him to look angry for having to wait for her, but instead he just looked beat. Face pale, eyes sunken, he looked far older than the twenty-four year old she hired last spring. Tara saw him take a breath and collect himself just before getting out of his car.

Tara was surprised to see the fatigue fade quickly as he walked over to her. He stood just on the other side of her window – is he glaring at me? Tara steeled herself. She was the one holding the cards not him. She would not be made a fool of by insubordinate workers, no matter how good looking they were. She put on a smile and climbed out of her car.

“Jack, who owns this company?” Tara’s smile faded, cheeks grew pink in the silence. “I asked you a question. Answer me.”

Jack’s jaw line tightened. “You do.”

“I do.” Tara nodded in mock consideration. “So, then, who makes the decisions?”

“You.”

“That’s right Jack. I do. And do you know what happens to new daddies who don’t listen? They get fired.” She leaned in close to him. Studied him. “Today, I’m going to cut you some slack. Chalk up your poor decision making skills to a lack of sleep. God knows I didn’t get enough when Bobby was born. But I have to do something to salvage my authority. Or you do anyway.”

“What’s that.”

“Fire Ted.”

Jack stared at her, apparently refusing to believe it. “He’s in the hospital.”

“Better off doing it there where you won’t have to see his wife.”

“He’s there because of a job he was doing- for you!”

“He’s there because he was being careless. Fire him or I’ll fire you both.” She leaned in, lowered her voice. “Then where will your son be? And with your wife not working…” she shrugged. “Your choice.”

9

Jack slouched over a sink in a hospital bathroom. The small area reeked of the vomit he released into the toilet, his stomach ached from retching.

He barely made it after delivering the news. Teddy took it well…or at least he tried to. He kept reassuring Jack that it wasn’t Jack’s fault, but then when his eyes filled with tears and he told him he wasn’t up for visitors anymore…Jack lost it.

What kind of man would do something like that? He stared at his swollen eyes in the mirror. What kind of father, husband, wouldn’t? He splashed some cool water on his face and went home to his family.

10

Tara opened the front door of her house to find her husband sitting on the living room couch. There was a piece of paper on his lap and a small duffle bag beside him. He looked like a crumpled up version of himself. Once so big and strong, ready to take on the world, now just a pathetic heap of a wasted man. Tara felt a snarl coming to her lips and didn’t do a great job of hiding it.

“What are you doing home?”

“I got a phone call. From that young man that works for you, Jack.”

Tara’s heart stopped. “Why would he call you?”

“You made Jack fire Teddy today?”

Tara pursed her lips. “He sustained an injury as a result of his carelessness. My company can’t afford to employee people like that.”

“You told Jack not to take him to the hospital. The man could have bled to death, Tara.”

“We had a job to-”

“TARA!” Her husband yelled, and he was not a yeller. Tara opened her mouth, but her husband cut her off. “How long has that man worked for you, and before you, your dad? Tree work is his life. Never mind his only source of income. Who is going to hire an old injured man like him?”

His face twisted in pain. “You are a cruel person, Tara.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking-”

“It wasn’t an accident.”

“What?”

Tara’s husband slammed the piece of paper he had been holding on his lap, onto the coffee table in front of him.

Tara put her hands on her hips, refused to step forward. She could see the piece was torn from a newspaper but that was it. Her husband got up from the couch, slung his duffel bag over his shoulder.

“I’m done. Done with you, done with us, done with building you up in my mind to be someone who you will never be.”

Tara tried not to smile as he walked toward the door. “You won’t get anything in the divorce.”

He didn’t hesitate before walking out the front door. Tara stood there, waited to hear the car start and the engine fade as it pulled out of the driveway and down the road. Then she walked over to the table and picked up the newspaper clipping. She read the headline and her blood ran cold:

FIVE YEAR OLD DIES IN TRAGIC ACCIDENT

Five year old Robert Kinks, son of Tara and Tyler Kinks passed away on Friday June 29th, in Melrose hospital after sustaining internal injuries-

Tara didn’t continue reading, she knew all about the investigations that were to follow, so, many years ago. All the questions her husband would have to answer, explaining the accident over and over again, how Bobby fell down the stairs. How he wasn’t there when it happened.

The truth never passed through Tara’s lips. She thought about that day now. How she had gotten into a fight with her husband and was wound tighter than a rubber band. How naughty Bobby had been, how he just wouldn’t be quiet. How close he had been to the stairs when she tried to make him be quiet.

As she moved quickly to the window, she thought about the hate she had toward her husband and how he had better be quiet.

Her heart beat picked up, pulsing her temper through her veins, as she looked to see her husband’s car parked next to a now empty spot, where she had had her T-bird parked moments ago.