Chapter Seven

 

CHAPTER SEVEN

Oregon City, OR

October 25, 2006

 

           

Life had been going reasonably well for Rosita and her sons since the untimely death of Daniel.  Nicholas was now nineteen and Matthew was fourteen.  Nicholas was becoming fairly accomplished as a deejay and small-time music producer, or at least it seemed so from the money he was making.  He had graduated from high school in the spring.  Rosita was certain that the high school teachers were thrilled to have him out of their hair.  He graduated with a solid C- average, and had spent no time endearing himself to any of the adults at the school.

Interestingly enough, though, since his father had died, Nick seemed to have taken on a new and more sociable personality with people his age.  People started to drop by his studio at all times of the day and night.  Maybe it had been his father’s cruel oversight that had hampered his social senses during his first fifteen years.  Maybe it was just his hormones readjusting themselves at this time in his life.  Rosita was relieved that Nick now had a few friends to keep him company. 

Unfortunately, Nick still wanted little or nothing to do with his family.  They saw him at breakfast occasionally, and late in the evening when he came in from his studio or came home from a “job” at a club.  He wasn’t old enough to drink, much less work at the clubs, but he still went there to learn from the other deejays in downtown Portland clubs.  Some of the deejays paid him cash ‘under the table’ for helping.   He stashed it away in a hiding place that he kept to himself.

Meanwhile, Matthew was continuing to do well in school.  He played sports, got good grades and spent time at the church with Father Olson whenever he could.  None of the other parishioners questioned the relationship between the two.  Matthew was a nice, young man whose father had died suddenly and he needed a male influence in his life.  Father Olson fit the bill perfectly.  People thought that the friendship suited both of them well.

Matthew still liked to tinker.  The church usually had something that needed to be fixed, and Matthew enjoyed helping out, especially if it involved carpentry.  It had started a year earlier when a leg on Father Olson’s favorite chair broke.  He asked Matthew to try and fix it for him, figuring there was no way for a thirteen-year-old to figure it out, but that it would be good for him to try.  He was surprised when Matthew brought the chair back to him in better shape than it had been when it was new.  Matthew had even sanded it down and refinished it to make it match the priest’s other furniture.  To Matthew, it was a combination of mechanics and art, both of which he loved.

Even Nick noticed Matthew’s talent with carpentry.  Nick had a specific piece of furniture that he wanted to have built.  He’d designed it himself, and used his brother’s talent to get the job done.  It was a massive wooden cabinet that could hold a large amount of stereo equipment.  Plus, it had a false back on the inside of the cabinet, so Nick could keep the most precious of his belongings safe from prying eyes.  The cabinet was approximately ten feet wide, 8 feet high and 4 feet deep.  Matthew built it out of cherry wood, knowing that it would suit Nick’s expensive tastes at the same time that it would be extremely durable.  Because the wood itself was so expensive, Matthew charged Nick nothing for his labor.  He was just pleased to have a project that seemed to make Nick happy.  Nick even thanked his brother, the first time that Matthew could remember him ever having done that.

Their mother, too, was keeping herself busy raising her young men.  Now that Rosita was able to access the Benson family fortune, she decided that it was finally time for her and Nick to both have vehicles of their own.  She was growing weary of not having one to use when he drove her only vehicle to work in Portland.  While she would’ve liked to research the vehicles together with Nick, he had no interest in working with her on this particular, or any other, subject.  He knew what he wanted, and expected her to buy it for him.  Unfortunately, what he wanted was a new Mercedes sports car.  She didn’t want to get him something that expensive.  She wasn’t used to spending large sums of money at that point.  Thinking it through, though, she finally caved in and bought him what he wanted.  She even ordered the white one with the gold colored trim that he liked so well.   Nick was almost beside himself with glee.  Rosita was happy to see Nick so appreciative of something that she’d done for him.  What she didn’t understand was that his appreciation was for himself and the methodical way he had manipulated her into doing what he wanted.  He laughed to himself.  Someday, the fortune would all be his, but until then, he’d be able to maneuver things so he had everything that he wanted.  A wonderful life for such a young and malicious young man, indeed!

Rosita and Matthew worked together to choose the vehicle that the two of them would use.  They settled on a medium-sized, four-wheel drive truck with a removable canopy on the back.  This gave Rosita the comfort of knowing that she’d be able to make the long trek down the Benson driveway during the winter when there was snow and ice. Plus, it allowed her to transport the lumber that Matthew needed for his growing number of carpentry projects.  There was nothing showy about the vehicle, but it did everything that Rosita and Matthew needed it to do.  They were both proud of the decision that they’d made together on the truck purchase.  Nick was just glad that they hadn’t spent too much money on themselves.

 

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