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Chapter 2: Sadie Hawken’s Day

I stood back as Bark put the final screws into the short counter top. She backed out of the cabinet and brushed the sawdust from her hair.

“Well,” she said, taking a moment to look over her work, “waddya think?”

I looked over the yellow oak cabinets, made by Bark in her spare time over the past four months. They were mounted against the starboard side of the bus in what had turned into a kitchen area towards the front. She had helped me install a plywood floor, and frame a sort of wall that separated this kitchen/dining area from the rest of the bus. After that she had shown me how to build a frame for a double bed above the port side grease tank. She had insisted on it being a double bed, why I don’t know, as I would be perfectly happy with a twin or smaller. I was used to sleeping on small beds, and part of me wondered if there wasn’t some part of her thinking she wasn’t sharing. She had some unused carpeting we had lain in the bedroom and living area, and now that the counter and cabinets were in all that was left would be to install the stove, sink, toilet (she said she had an idea, but I don’t know how she was planning on putting a flushing toilet where it was without it emptying straight onto the starboard tires), and the linoleum kitchen floor. She had also mentioned something about building a dresser under the bed, but I considered that an after thought.

“I think it’s amazing. I owe you something at least for all the work you’ve put into it. I’d still be trying to frame out the floor had I been working alone. If you do much more I’ll have to call it your bus instead of ours or mine” I joked.

“Oh, I can probably think of something you can do in return.”

She had that smile that made her look like she was up to something, which usually meant she was. I was about to ask her how I could repay when she dropped to her knees in front of me, pulling out a black case from her back pocket and opening it. Inside was a full set of titanium carbide drill bits, something I’d been looking for for a while.

“What the hell is this?” I asked. She broke into a grin.

“It’s the twenty-ninth of February, the one day every four years a woman can ask a man to marry her. I figured I shouldn’t pass up the opportunity and risk you not asking me. So I ask you, will you marry me?”

I sat down, hard. I wasn’t sure if I was aiming for the bench next to the kitchen table or not, but either way I missed it by a mile and landed full force on the floor in front of her. My mind was thrown into a flat spin. What had she asked?

“But Bark, we’ve only known each other for a few months. Isn’t this a little fast? A life long commitment to travel the storming ocean of life on a small boat, including the eventual sinking of it, is a pretty big decision.”

She set the bits on the floor between us. “But think about this too, in those four months we’ve done more than most couples do in a year. While most people would be making out in a movie theater, you were showing me how to build and live out of a lean-too, trap rabbits, and hunt deer with a stupid giant arrow and stick thingy.”

“An at-latl?” I corrected. She brushed it off with a wave.

“You helped me through dad dying, visited me in the hospital both weekends I was in it myself, and then loaned me the bus, you only car, for a month and a half after my accident until I could replace Jenny. And just look what we’ve done together here! Sure, I might have showed you how to do most of the house building part, but you engineered the whole thing yourself, and laid the plumbing and electrical single handed.”

I looked down the length of the almost-complete motor home. Yes, it was something to show for our time together, and we had shared a couple of difficulties. I remembered her bailing me out of jail after I was arrested for punching out a man beating his dog. The judge actually found it funny, so I managed to only pay a large fine. But we had only known each other for four months, how much of the other did we really know?

“I ... I don’t know. This is serious, you know I don’t play the ‘if things don’t work out just get divorced’ game. Once the bond is forged that’s it, through hell and back. We’ve only seen each-other for four months, and usually only on the weekends at that. I mean, how much of the other do we really know? ”

“Oh, enough I think. Probably more than the other realizes. Besides, even married couples continuously find things out about the other. Like mom didn’t know dad collected base ball cards until they had been married about ten years. And I don’t play those games either. Everyone says forever, and next week they're apart again, but like a wolf I mate for life, one and that’s it. I know now enough about you to know I want you to be the one guarding my back and raising my kids. Now you just have to ask yourself the same question about me.”
I stared at the drill bits on the floor. She was honest, strong, intelligent, and had a free will, yet she still cared for those around her. She could be very compassionate, yet I would hate to be on her bad side. I had been saving myself for someone all my life. A person who I could get along with and enjoyed the same things I did. Now here she was, sitting in front of me. She wasn’t perfect by any means, but then again neither was I. But how much of her did I really know? This was all very fast, but then again, she seemed to be pretty confident in her judgment of personality, and I had found out over the past months that she definitely was no fool.
I sighed.

“It’s too early Bark, just too early.”

She grinned, “I know, but like I said, I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to ask. Think about it and come back to me on it, even if it takes a year.”

“I’ll definitely do that then,” I said.

Bark bounded up and started gathering her tools back together. I got to my feet to give her a hand. She was humming and had a smile.

“It’s what your mother said you’d do,” she giggled, placing her battered cordless drill back in it’s case.

“My mom said what? When on earth did you talk to her?”

Her eyes shone, the fire that usually burned behind them blazing like the forge did on a cold night.

“You left your cell phone in the bus when you loaned it to me and didn’t seem to miss it for a while. Your folks and friends kept calling wanting to talk to you, and I’ve gotten to know them quite well. Your friend Drew had a lot to say about yourself.”

I groaned, imagining the crazy-and most likely true-stories about our days in high school he’d be telling her.

She continued, “Your family wanted my number in case they couldn’t get a hold of you. About a week ago after you had backed over your own phone with a tug your mother called me, wondering why she hadn’t been able to get through. We got into talking and I asked her about the theoretical question and you. I think I heard her dancing in the background.”

I closed my eyes. That would be mom all right.