Page 7 of Fifty & Feral

“You know I worry,” she said.

“I know you do.” She probably got that trait from me.

“Well, I better let you go. It’s pretty early there, isn’t it?”

I checked my watch. “Yeah, I’m about ready for my morning coffee.”

“Be careful with that, too. You don’t want to spike your blood pressure.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“I’m sorry I won’t be home sooner. I’m trying to make this go as quick as possible.”

She went on a few more minutes about how work was going and some of the sights she’d been able to see while she was traveling. Maya loved to try new restaurants, so traveling was great for that. After a while, we hung up. I promised to send her some pictures of my hikes. Which meant I needed to go take some pictures of the great outdoors.

Maybe we had raised her to be too responsible. I sent out a text to my ex, letting her know that her daughter was being a mother hen. I got back a gif in response, followed by a picture of her sitting on the deck of her Florida home, drinking coffee while watching the waves. Somebody was enjoying their retirement.

Whereas I should focus on getting my house back in order and removing mud from my carpet. And also, the tufts of fur that were flying around. Also, I may need a new pack of shirts if I was going to continue shredding them each night. Or perhaps I’d embrace a nude lifestyle.

I scrubbed a hand over my face, scratching against my too-long beard. I swore I just trimmed it neatly yesterday and now it was back to shaggy.

Sooner or later I would have to face this problem head-on. But I didn’t want to. Did anyone want to know when they were going crazy, or did they just ride the train to the end and hope for the best?

Since I kept my home rather tidy to begin with, it didn’t take me long to clean up the mess from the night before. Then I was left with nothing to do but sit with that question about my sanity. I picked up the phone and, against my better judgment, pulled up Connor’s information. If anyone could make me feel normal, it was him.

Chapter 6

Connor

Once we’d exchanged numbers, Jack called regularly. Now that he had given up all pretense that these calls were related to his bank statements or pension or anything in an official capacity, we talked all the time. When we weren’t on the phone, we were texting. At least the calls weren’t recorded now, but they were definitely butting into my work time. More than once my supervisor caught me laughing at our latest text thread or taking too long of a break.

“Did you have an exciting weekend?” I asked. We had been on the phone for a few minutes now that I was on my break. I never used to take my breaks, but now I was timing them so I got the most amount of time with Jack as possible, talking about nothing and everything all at once. Jack’s voice sounded odd today. It seemed like his answers came slower, and he was a little more distracted, but he listened intently whenever I spoke and asked questions and seemed to really care, so it wasn’t like he was losing interest. Something was going on, something he didn’t feel comfortable telling me yet.

I was a patient man. One who was reluctant to come on too forcefully considering we barely knew each other, but if I had it my way, I would have invited myself over to his home and met him in person and begged him to tell me what was troubling him. Yeah, I wasn’t clingy at all. Not even a little bit.

“Yeah, I suppose it was all right. I finally got to work on some of the landscaping in front of the house, although I’m rethinking all of it. There’s no color.”

I smiled at that. Ever since we had started our conversations, he talked about changing up the landscaping again and again. It seemed like he was just trying to keep busy rather than actually caring about what it looked like.

“What other hobbies do you have?” I asked.

“Nothing really. I mean, I like to read.”

“Well, what did you do before retirement? How’d you fill your weekends then?”

“When Maya was younger, it seemed like she was always into some sport or we had some school activity, so I coached, but mostly I spent time with my colleagues. We were always having cookouts and work events, or I was helping someone move or deal with parents passing away or some other life event.”

“You must’ve been close with your co-workers then?” I envied that. I was close with a few of my co-workers, but we weren’t besties or anything like that.

“Kind of, but not really. I was the foreman on our crew, and everybody looked to me for answers and advice, and somehow that spilled outside of work hours. I helped remodel bathrooms, fix plumbing issues. I even mediated a divorce once. That one was odd, but it turned out happy in the end, and they’re still friends.”

He mediated someone’s divorce? That fell way beyond the realm of regular co-worker duties. And where we these people now?

“That’s intense,” I said.

He laughed. “It wasn’t like that. They were friends of mine, and it wasn’t like I hadn’t been through it before, right?”

Because Jack was straight, or at least not gay, or I guess I didn’t know what he was and I shouldn’t make assumptions. And how did I even ask when we were friends and we’d never actually seen each other in person?