by Janet Dailey
“Thank you.” Eve wasn’t sure why she said that. Immediately she began walking away, trying not to walk too fast. She could feel him watching her with those magnetic blue eyes. It was an unnerving sensation.
“Good night, brown mouse.” His low voice called after her, a hint of regret in its tone.
She didn’t answer him. For another ten feet, Eve wondered if he would start following her. She forced herself not to look back. A few seconds later she heard the tavern door open and close. She glanced over her shoulder, but he wasn’t in sight. Since no customer had come out, he had obviously gone back inside. She didn’t have to wonder anymore whether he would come after her. Instead Eve found herself wondering who he was.
It was after ten when she reached her home. Both her parents were in the living room when she walked in. Neither of them was particularly striking in his appearance. Her father was a tall spare man with hazel eyes and thinning brown hair, while her mother was petitely built, with graying brown hair and brown eyes. It was a toss-up from whom Eve had inherited her common looks.
“Choir practice must have run late,” her mother observed. It was a statement of conversation, not a remark about Eve’s lateness in getting home.
“A little.” She shrugged out of her brown coat and wondered if she would ever wear it again without thinking of herself as a brown mouse. “Mr. Johnson offered me a ride home, but it was such a lovely evening I decided to walk. So it took a little longer.”
She didn’t mention the stranger outside the tavern. They were still her parents. Eve didn’t want to cause them needless concern. It had been a harmless incident anyway, not worth recounting.
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT Toby McClure rolled onto his side. His long, little boy lashes fluttered, his sleep disturbed by a faint sound. He slowly let them come open, his sleepy blue eyes focusing on the door to his bedroom, which stood ajar. Listening, he heard hushed movement in another part of the house. A smile touched the corners of his mouth and deepened when he heard the person bump into a chair and curse beneath his breath.
Throwing back the covers, Toby slipped out of his single bed and walked to the hall door. His bare feet made no sound on the carpeted floor. He opened the door wide and waited until he saw the towering frame of his father separate from the darkness. He was walking unsteadily, trying so hard to be quiet.
The light from the full moon streamed through the window at the end of the hallway where Toby stood, including him in its path. The instant he saw the boy, his father, Luck McClure, stopped abruptly and swayed, bracing a hand against the wall to steady himself. A frown gathered on his forehead as he eyed the boy.
“What are you doing out of bed? You’re supposed to be asleep,” he accused in a growling voice that had a trace of a slur.
“You woke me up,” Toby replied. “You always do when you try to sneak in.”
“I wasn’t sneaking.” He emphatically denied that suggestion and glanced around. “Where’s Mrs. Jackson, the lady who is supposed to be sitting with you?”
“She was going to charge double after midnight, so I paid her off and sent her home. You owe me twelve dollars.”
“You — ” Luck McClure clamped his mouth shut on the explosion of anger and carefully raised a hand to cradle his forehead. “We’ll talk about this in the morning, Toby,” he declared in heavy warning.
“Yes, sir. I’ll remind you if you forget,” he promised. A mischievous light danced in his eyes. “You owe me twelve dollars.”
“That’s another thing we’ll discuss in the morning.” But it was a weak facsimile of his previous warning, as a wave of tiredness washed over him. “Right now, I’m going to bed.”
Luck pushed away from the wall and used that impetus to carry him to the bedroom door opposite his son’s. Toby watched him open the door to the darkened room and head in the general direction of the bed. Without a light to see the exact location of his destination, Luck stubbed his toe on an end post. He started to swear and stopped sharply when Toby crossed the hall to flip the switch, turning on the overhead light.
“Why aren’t you back in bed where you belong?” Luck hobbled around to the side of the bed and half sat, half fell onto the mattress.
“I figured you’d need help getting ready for bed.” Toby walked to the bed with all the weary patience of an adult and helped finish tugging the pullover sweater over his father’s head.
“For an eight-year-old kid, you figure a lot of things,” Luck observed with a wry sort of affection. While he unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt, Toby unfastened the buttons on his shirtfront.
“You’ve gotta admit, dad, I did you a favor tonight,” Toby said as he helped pull his arms free of the shirt. “How would it have looked if Mrs. Jackson had seen you come home drunk?”
“I’m not drunk,” Luck protested, unfastening his pants and standing long enough to slip them down his hips. Toby pulled them the rest of the way off. “I just had a few drinks, that’s all.”
“Sure, dad.” He reached over and pulled down the bedcovers. It didn’t take much persuasion to get his father under them.
“It feels so good to lie down,” Luck groaned, and started to shut his eyes when Toby tucked the covers around him. He opened them to give his son a bleary-eyed look. “Did I tell you I talked to a brown mouse?” The question was barely out before he rolled onto his side, burrowing into the pillow. “You’d better get some sleep, son,” he mumbled.
Shaking his head, Toby walked to the door and paused to look at his already snoring father. He reached up to flip off the light.
“A brown mouse,” he repeated. “That’s another thing we’ll discuss in the morning.”
Back in his moonlit room, Toby crawled into bed. He glanced at the framed photograph on the table beside his bed. The picture was a twin to the one on his father’s bureau. From it, a tawny-haired blonde with green eyes smiled back at him — his mother, and easily the most beautiful woman Toby had ever seen. Not that he remembered her. He had been a baby when she died — six years ago today. His gaze strayed in the direction of his father’s bedroom. Sighing, he closed his eyes.
SHORTLY AFTER EIGHT the next morning, Toby woke up. He lay there for several minutes before he finally yawned and climbed out of bed to stretch. Twenty minutes later he had brushed his teeth and washed, combed his hair and found a clean pair of jeans and a yellow T-shirt to wear.
Leaving his bedroom, he paused in the hallway to look in on his father. Luck McClure was sprawled across the bed, the spare pillow clutched by an encircling arm. Toby quietly closed the door, although he doubted his father would be disturbed by any noise he made.
In the kitchen, he put a fresh pot of coffee on to perk, then pushed the step stool to the counter and climbed it to reach the juice glasses and a cereal bowl in the cupboard. Positioning the stool in front of another cupboard, he mounted it to take down a box of cornflakes. With orange juice and milk from the refrigerator, Toby sat down to the kitchen table to eat his breakfast of cereal and orange juice.
By the time he’d finished, the coffee was done. He glanced from it to the pitcher of orange juice, hesitated, and walked to the refrigerator to take out a pitcher of tomato juice. Climbing back up the step stool, he took down a tall glass and filled it three-quarters full with tomato juice. When he returned the pitcher to the refrigerator, he took out an egg, cracked it, and added it to the tomato juice. He stirred that mixture hard, then added garlic and Tabasco to it. Sniffing the end result, he wrinkled his nose in distaste.
Taking the glass, he left the kitchen and walked down the hallway to his father’s room. He hadn’t changed position in bed. Toby leaned over, taking great care not to spill the contents of the glass, and shook his father’s shoulder with his free hand.
“It’s nine o’clock, dad. Time to get up.” His statement drew a groan of protest. “Come on, dad.”
With great reluctance, Luck rolled onto his back, flinging an arm across his eyes to shield them from the brightness of
the sunlight shining in his window. Toby waited in patient silence until he sat up.
“Oh, my head,” Luck mumbled, and held it in both his hands, the bedcovers falling around his waist to leave his torso bare.
Toby climbed onto the bed, balancing on his knees while he offered his father the concoction he’d made. “Drink this. It’ll make you feel better.”
Lowering his hands part way from his head, Luck looked at it skeptically.
“What is it?”
“Don’t ask,” Toby advised, and reached out to pinch his father’s nose closed while he tipped the glass to his lips. He managed to pour a mouthful down before his father choked and took the glass out of his hand.
“What is this?” Luck coughed and frowned as he studied the glass.
“It’s a hangover remedy.” And Toby became the recipient of the glowering frown and a raised eyebrow.
“And when did you become an expert on hangover remedies?” Luck challenged.
“I saw it on television once,” Toby shrugged.
Luck shook his head in quiet exasperation. “I should make you drink this, you know that, don’t you?” he sighed.
“There’s fresh coffee in the kitchen.” Toby hopped off the bed, just in case his father intended to carry out that threat.
“Go pour me a cup. And take this with you.” A smile curved slowly, forming attractive grooves on either side of his mouth — male dimples — as he handed the glass back to Toby. “I’ll be there as soon as I get some clothes on.”
“I’ll pour you some orange juice, too,” Toby volunteered.
“Just straight orange juice. Don’t put anything else in it.”
“I won’t.” A wide grin split Toby’s face before he turned to walk swiftly from the room.
With a wry shake of his head, Luck threw back the covers and climbed slowly out of bed. He paused beside the bureau to glance at the photograph. Well, pretty lady, do you see what kind of boy your son has grown into? The blue of his eyes had a pensive look as he walked to the bathroom.
Two
* * *
“Your coffee is cold,” Toby accused when his father finally appeared in the kitchen.
Dressed in worn blue jeans and a gray sweat shirt, Luck had taken the time to shower and shave. His dark brown hair gleamed almost black, combed into a careless kind of order. He smiled at the reproval from his son.
“I had to get cleaned up,” he defended himself, and sipped at the lukewarm coffee before adding some hot liquid from the coffeepot. He sat down in a chair opposite from his son and rested his forearms on the table. “Do you want to explain to me what happened to Mrs. Jackson last night?”
“She was going to charge you double for staying after midnight, so I paid her and sent her home,” Toby said, repeating his previous night’s explanation.
“And she went — just like that,” Luck replied with a wave of his hand to indicate how easy it had been. “She just went and left you here alone?”
“Well…” Toby hedged, and squirmed in his chair.
“Why did she leave?”
“She got the impression we were broke, I think. She got a little upset thinking that you’d asked her to stay when you knew all you could afford to pay was twelve dollars.”
“Why did you do it?”
“I’m too old to have a sitter, dad,” Toby protested. “I can take care of myself.”
“Maybe you can, but what about my peace of mind? I’m an adult. You’re a child, When I leave, I want to know there’s an adult with you — looking after you — yes. But mostly in case there’s an emergency — if you should get sick or hurt. I’d like to know there is someone here with you to help,” he explained firmly. “Do you understand?”
“Yes.” It was a low admission.
“From now on, when I go out for the evening, you will have a sitter and she will stay here until I come back. Is that understood?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” With the discussion concluded, Luck raised the coffee cup to his mouth.
“What about the twelve dollars?” As far as Toby was concerned, the discussion wasn’t over. “It’s from the money I’ve been saving to buy a minibike.”
“You should have considered that before you spent it.”
“But that’s what you would have had to pay her if I hadn’t,” Toby reasoned with the utmost logic. “You would have had to pay her that and more.”
“I’ll give you the twelve dollars back on one condition,” Luck replied. “You call Mrs. Jackson, tell her what you did, and apologize.”
There was a long sigh before Toby nodded his agreement. “Okay.”
“Have you had breakfast?” Luck changed the subject.
“Cornflakes.”
“Would you like some bacon and eggs?”
“Sure,” Toby agreed. “I’ll help.”
While he set the table, Luck put the bacon in the skillet and broke eggs in a bowl to scramble them. Finished with his task before his father, Toby walked over to the stove to watch.
“Dad?” He tipped his head back to look up to his tall parent. “Do you want to explain about the brown mouse?”
“The brown mouse?” Luck frowned at him, his expression blank.
“Yeah. Last night when you came home, you said you had talked to a brown mouse,” Toby explained. “I thought people only saw pink elephants when they were drinking.”
“People can have all kinds of illusions when they are drinking. Evidently mine was a brown mouse,” Luck murmured. “I must have had a few more drinks than I realized.”
“It was because of mom, wasn’t it?” Toby asked quietly.
There was a moment of silence. Then Luck gave him a smiling glance. “What do you want to do today? Do you want to go fishing? Boating? Just name it.” He deliberately avoided his son’s question, and Toby knew there was no need to repeat it.
“Let’s go fishing,” Toby decided.
“Fishing it is,” Luck agreed, and smiled as he rumpled the top of his son’s brown hair.
TWO HOURS LATER the dishes were washed and the beds were made and they were sitting in the boat, anchored in a cove of Lake Namekagon. A thick forest crowded the meandering shoreline, occasionally leaving room for a sandy stretch of beach. A mixture of hardwood and conifers, with extensive stands of pine and spruce, provided a blend of the green shades of summer. The unruffled calm of the lake reflected the edging wall of forest, home for the black bear, deer, beaver and other wildlife.
Their fishing lines were in the water, their rods resting against the sides of the boat in their stands, Toby was leaning back in his seat, his little-boy legs stretched out in front of him and his hands clasped behind his head for a pillow. He stared at the puffy cloud formations in the blue sky with a frown of concentration.
Luck was equally relaxed, yet suspicious of the long silence that was only broken by the infrequent lapping of water against the boat or the cry of a bird. His sidelong glance studied the intent expression of his son.
“You seem to be doing some pretty heavy thinking, Toby,” he observed, and let his gaze slide skyward when his son glanced at him. “What’s on your mind?”
“I’ve been trying to figure something out.” Toby turned his head in the pillow of his hands. The frowning concentration remained fixed in his expression. “What exactly does a mother do?”
The question widened Luck’s eyes slightly. The question caused him to recognize that his son had never been exposed to the life of a family unit — father, mother and children. There was only one grandparent living, and no aunts or uncles. During the school year, the weekends were the times they had to share together. Luck had often permitted his son to invite a friend over, sometimes to stay overnight, but mostly to accompany them on an afternoon outing; but Toby had never stayed overnight with any of his friends.
The question was a general one — and a serious one. He couldn’t avoid answering it. “Mothers do all sorts of things. They cook, wash dishes, clean the
house, take care of you when you’re sick, do the laundry, all sorts of things like that. Sometimes they work at a job during the day, too, Mothers remember birthdays without being reminded, make special treats for no reason, and think up games to play when you’re bored.” He knew it was an inadequate answer because he’d left out the love and the caring that he didn’t know how to describe.
When Luck finished, he glanced at his son. Toby was staring at the sky, the frown of concentration replaced with a thoughtful look. “I think we need a mother,” he announced after several seconds.
“Why?” The statement touched off a defensive mechanism that made Luck challenge it. “Since when have you and I not been able to manage on our own? I thought we had a pretty good system worked out.”
“We do, dad,” Toby assured him, then sighed. “I’m just tired of always having to wash dishes and make my bed.”
The edges of his mouth deepened in a lazy smile. “Having a mother wouldn’t mean you’d get out of doing your share of the daily chores.”
Unclasping his hands from behind his head, Toby sat upright. “How do you go about finding a mother?”
“That’s my problem.” Luck made that point very clear. “In order for you to have a mother, I would have to get married again.”
“Do you think you’d like to get married again?”
“Don’t you think your questions are getting a little bit personal?” And a little bit awkward to handle, Luck thought as he sat up, a tiny crease running across his forehead.
“I’m your son. If you can’t talk to me about it, who can you?” Toby reasoned.
“You are much too old for your age.” His blue eyes glinted with dry humor when he met the earnest gaze of his son.
“If you got married again, you could have more children,” Toby pointed out. “Have you thought about that?”
“Yes, and I don’t know if I could handle another one of you,” Luck teased.
