Page 92 of The Leaving Kind

After answering a few more questions, Victor sat behind his desk, drew his copy of the games notes close, and opened a sketchbook. He began to draw. Not movement. Not leaves rippling in waves across the tops of trees. Not his students or his family or the face he’d woken up next to that morning.

He drew nothing at first, just lines from his imagination.

Then he sketched possibility and watched as the marks on his page pulled together into an image of a place he’d never been before.

Not the shore he’d told Jazmine they were aiming for, or the one she’d urged him to cruise alongside for a while before landing.

Somewhere new.

Somewhere completely undiscovered.

Cam’s butt hit the couch before he knew he would be sitting.

From behind her desk, Luisa rolled out a sympathetic expression. “I’m so sorry, Cam.”

“No, no. It’s your business, Luisa. Your decision. I’m just ...” He studied the floor in front of his shoes. “A little winded, I guess.” Even though he’d known this was coming and had made a contingency plan—sort of.

Zimmerman Projects was starting to feel less and less like an offshoot, though. Or what he did in his spare time. He had employees. He did paperwork.

His head snapped up. “What about the trees?”

Luisa smiled sadly. “We’ll sell what we can. Discounts start today.” She wandered over to the printer to pick up the day’s delivery slips. “Mention it to your customers. All trees fifty percent off. Including the pine and fir.”

“Are we staying open through November and December for the cut-your-own sale? What about fall? Are we doing pumpkins?”

“Yes and yes. The harvest sale is too lucrative to skip, and it will remind people that we have Christmas trees. But December twenty-fourth, we’re done.”

Cam glanced over at Jorge, who stood still and silent, gaze focused on the coffee in his mug. Could they find enough business from December twenty-fifth onward to keep themselves in beer and burgers until spring? And what about his employees? Beck would be back in school, so only part-time.

Where would he source all the materials they’d been using for the landscape jobs? The dirt and mulch? The trees?

Luisa was talking. “Whatever’s left is yours, Cam. At whatever you can afford to pay.”

“What do you mean?”

“Materials, the plant nursery, trees. I’d love to give you the land too, but the developer’s offer will mean I can retire out west with my kids and not have to worry about income.”

Cam didn’t have to force a smile. “That’s a damn good thing. You’ve worked hard, Luisa. You deserve all the breaks.” He pushed up off the couch. “So, this is it.”

“Yep. I’m not going to order any new landscaping supplies. We’ll fill the orders we can during the fall and that’s it.” Luisa leaned over her desk and tapped a few keys on her computer. “This is my list of suppliers.” The printer started whirring. “I don’t know if you’ve set yourself up with an inventory system yet. You can probably have this computer when we’re all said and done. But this list will get you started if you need additional supplies for your business.” She glanced up. “And you’re going to need a place to store it. Some land of your own. You could maybe talk to the developer about acquiring a lot?”

Cam’s head hurt. He nodded. “Okay, yeah. Thanks.” He eyed the printout but left it on top of the printer. “I’ll grab that later. Thanks, Luisa.”

“Sure.”

Shell shock was a feeling Cam knew intimately. Carrying the numbness and ringing with him, the sense of unreality, he grabbed the delivery printouts and exited the office. Jorge followed. Together, they crunched across the gravel toward the lot where the landscape supplies rested in huge, framed piles. To the shed that housed the backhoe and front-end loader. Cam supposed he’d need to ask about them too.

“I can’t afford all of this.” He waved the printouts in an arc that encompassed the back corner of the fir lot, the nursery, the tractor shed, and the front corner of the materials lot. “What the fuck was I thinking? I don’t have the money for a lot or a stock of materials or a backhoe.”

“I do.”

Cam spun around. “What?”

“I have the money.”

“Dude, you were sleeping on the office couch. How do you have any money?”

Jorge shrugged and Cam thought that was all he was going to get. Then, “Never touched my settlement. Soon after I got back, my aunt passed. Left me her house. Sold that. And I’ve been living cheap.” His brow furrowed. “You want me to pay rent?”