MICA WORE PROTECTIVE glasses as he stood next to Vincent Asmundi and Chip Hardesty and watched sparks fly from a flux welding torch at the Peerless Farm Manufacturing plant. Half a dozen workers wearing helmets, masks and heavy gloves barely noticed their presence.
“We’ve got the first prototype all set up in the next room, Mica,” Vincent said.
“Yes, we’re very excited about your design. We didn’t have to make a single adjustment. The wiring and the motherboard specs you sent were letter-perfect.”
“That’s great news.” Mica smiled as he followed them into a large warehouse. Here were tractors, bulldozers, large riding lawn mowers, trailers and trucks. All were being retrofitted with his voice-activated device.
Vincent began the demonstration. “Using a universal command device, as you suggested, was genius. Our code expert jumped right in as we’d hoped.”
Chip motioned to Mica to follow him. “We’ll go up to what we call the box. You can watch nearly everything in the warehouse from here.”
Vincent began the demonstrations. One after another, he “drove” each vehicle with voice commands.
After nearly an hour of taking the vehicles through their paces, Vincent suggested they retire back to his office for the rest of the meeting.
Vincent’s office was a sea of metal racks containing equipment pieces and engine parts.
“I keep my experimental jobs back here so they don’t wind up where they shouldn’t.”
Chip laughed. “That’s my fault. I’m always tinkering with things and I have a bad habit of using what I can find. Once I’m in that creative ‘zone’...”
“I understand that,” Mica said. “It’s like living in another world.”
Vincent nodded. “I think all creative types are like that, don’t you? Doesn’t matter if you’re an artist, filmmaker or designer. Once that creative switch is turned on...” He raked his hand through his hair. “I find I forget to eat.”
Mica nodded. “So true.” Odd that at that moment he would think of Grace and her drawings. She could sketch all night long, she’d said. She understood about the lengths he would go to when an idea hit him. She understood what it was like to lie awake all night making notes on whatever scratch paper was at hand. He’d been doing that a lot for the past three weeks and had come up with even more ideas to present to Vincent and Chip. He would have liked to have told Grace about them. She would have been happy for him.
But he’d sent her away.
“So, Mica, here’s the thing. You’ve got us to thinking. We’d like to delve more deeply into your ideas regarding accessible equipment. Vincent and I see several avenues we’d like to travel, but we need you on our team to accomplish this.”
Mica straightened in his chair. This had never happened to him before. These experts, entrepreneurs, were asking his advice. He’d dipped a toe into his career, his chosen field, but he’d never taken the plunge. Well, he was diving in now.
“What do you have in mind?”
Vincent beamed and opened his drawer. “You won’t believe this, but we’ve made some inquiries. Everything from motor scooters to motorcycles, quadrupeds and even airplanes.”
“Airplanes?”
“Can you imagine if we went military with this?”
Mica dropped his jaw. “But disabled veterans...”
“That’s what we were thinking. Normally, they’re discharged. But what if we offered equipment, all kinds of equipment, they could run? What if we changed the landscape for them?”
Mica wanted to jump for joy. It was all he could do to contain his enthusiasm. “This is incredible.”
“We could change the world for a lot of people, Mica,” Chip said.
Vincent shoved the list across his desk. “We believe that with you on the team, there’s no limit to what we could come up with—”
Chip interrupted. “We understand if you need time to think about it.”
Mica picked up the paperwork, perusing it quickly. “I assume you’d want me to move here to Florida.”
“That would be ideal, yes,” Chip said.
Vincent leaned across the desk. “Mica, it goes without saying that if you joined us, you’d be a partner in the company. That would also mean that we would share in the profits of your ideas. You might want to keep the patent on your designs. That’s up to you. But I can promise you this. We have contacts in the military. At all the major manufacturers you see represented in this warehouse. We have ten years of cultivating the relationships we bring to the table.”
Mica looked from Chip’s lean, scruffy face to Vincent’s intense brown eyes. “It’s a lot to think about.”
“It is, but whatever your concerns, we want to work that out with you. There’s nothing that we can’t overcome—together.”
Mica cocked his head. “Nothing?”
“I promise you. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. That’s always been my motto.”
Vincent rose and held out his hand. “You’ve been an inspiration to us, Mica.”
“Ditto,” Chip said as he shook Mica’s hand as well.
Mica left the plant with his head swimming. Had those men said those things? Had they actually offered him a partnership? Was the excitement he felt from them real? Did they really think they could change the world for disabled workers?
“Why not?”
It was time for some real changes in the world of accessibility and Mica wanted, no, craved, to be part of it all.
He’d followed in his father’s footsteps for so long, he’d had no idea that this was the kind of elation, the solid satisfaction that comes from creating something worthy. That others valued and sought out.
This must be how Grace feels when she sells one of her designs. No wonder she flew back to Paris so quickly. Who could ever live an ordinary life after tasting this kind of success?
Rather than call for a cab to take him back to his hotel, he chose to walk along the palm-tree-lined sidewalk and enjoy the mild winter weather.
People cycled along wide bike paths. Up ahead was a park, where he saw two elderly men playing checkers. A young couple read books while holding hands on a blanket spread under a river birch tree. He saw jogging mothers pushing strollers. One mother had twins.
Twins. What must that be like?
His mind flew to Jules. He missed his baby more than he’d thought possible. During sleepless nights, he’d conjured plans of seeing Jules and Grace again. He’d imagined them at his mother’s dining table for her Superbowl party. But the Superbowl had come and gone, and though Grace phoned him, he did not see Jules. Mica was amazed how much he wanted to hold his son.
He had to admit that Grace was very good about sending him pictures of Jules. Several of the photos, he’d printed and framed. He bought a new wallet for his favorites.
Mica had sent Grace plane tickets for her and Jules to visit him for Easter, but though the days moved closer to their visit, it seemed a lifetime away.
He thought Jules would like a sunny day like this under the palm trees, listening to the ocean waves crash on the beach. He wondered if Grace would ever want to come visit him in this pretty seaside town.
Then he stopped dead still.
Of course she wouldn’t. You rejected her. She put her heart on the line and you crushed it.
He looked up at the cloudless blue sky. Talk about botching up a life. He’d really done it. He hadn’t pushed Grace away, he’d thrown her across the ocean without so much as a thank-you.
Mica walked through the little park and across the wide concrete sidewalk that was filled with people on Rollerblades, skateboards and bicycles. When he got to the beach, he took off his dress shoes and socks. Feeling the warm sand slip between his toes, he realized how little of life he’d experienced.
He’d like to blame his accident for that fact, but the truth was, his accident had brought him to life. He’d shoved his dreams and possibilities for himself into a drawer along with his college diploma. It was his fault he hadn’t had the courage to live. It was his sense of duty to his father, then to his mother, that had kept him tethered to a world that didn’t serve him anymore.
Grace’s return to Indian Lake with Jules had opened his heart and shown him that he was much more than the Mica Barzonni he thought he was.
Chip and Vincent saw something in him that he’d been afraid to face. Potential. Talent. He had these things.
Grace had seen them.
Mica had to admit he’d seen them, too. But time after time, he’d blocked them out.
Mica looked out across the Atlantic.
“She’s an ocean away. She might as well be on the moon.”
He would take Vincent and Chip’s offer. He would make something of himself so he could become the kind of man worthy of a woman like Grace. Worthy of her love.
He had vowed to himself that he wouldn’t see her until he’d made that happen. He knew that if he didn’t try his wings, just like she had, he would sabotage their relationship in the future because he’d always feel inadequate. That much he knew about himself.
That’s why it had taken her leaving for him to realize how deeply he loved her.
Grace deserved all the love this world had to give. And Mica knew he would love her forever.
He hoped she would want that from him, but after he’d pushed her away, he had serious doubts.
It was going to take time to make his mark.
He stared at the blue water and the enormous waves. Grace...
He took out his cell phone. He could text her. See if she was all right. Ask about Jules.
But if she didn’t reply, his heart would break again.
He didn’t know which was worse. The constant missing her or his fear that this time, she’d throw him across the ocean and he’d never see her again.