by Arlene James
Orren was extremely apologetic and even more frantic than the day before when he called at seven in the morning to ask, to beg, her to come over early. “The mechanic on the early shift has called in sick,” he explained, “and I took yesterday off to stay with the kids and interview sitters. I have to go in to cover him. Please say you’ll come. I don’t dare leave these children here alone.”
“I’ll be there,” she said sleepily. “Give me half an hour.”
“Thank you, Mattie. Oh, thank you.”
Her father was waiting for her when she stepped out of the bathroom. “That call for you?”
“Umm-hmm, Mr. Ellis has been called in early.”
“So have you, I take it.”
“Right-o.”
“Off and running, I guess.”
“So it seems. If you don’t mind, Dad, I really need to get dressed.”
Evans nodded and moved toward the door, but he stopped, pulling the belt of his bathrobe tighter. “I’ll make some coffee.”
“That’d be great, Dad. Thanks. Uh, you wouldn’t mind filling the thermos, would you?”
“Sure. No problem.”
She smiled at him as he went out the door, wondering what he’d say if she told him that the thermos of coffee was for Orren, not herself. She pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and got out her sneakers and a pair of thick socks. Something told her she was going to be on her feet a lot today. She yawned and reached for the heavy comb with which to detangle her wet hair.
Her wet hair was hanging down her back when Chaz let her in the door. Orren saw that at a glance, which was all he had time for unless he was going to work without socks. “Mattie, thank God! I’m really sorry about this.”
“I brought you something,” she said, placing the thermos on the corner of the table while he dug through the mountain of laundry he’d dumped on the couch, Sweetums clinging to his side, her grasping little hands twisting wrinkles in his pale blue uniform shirt. “It isn’t a pair of clean socks, is it?”
“Just coffee.”
He looked up at that. “Oh, you’re good. You’re very good.”
“Thanks. Need some help?”
“Could you take the baby?” he said, going back to his search. “I know I washed socks. Where are the darned socks?”
She reached for Candy Sue, but the baby was always clingy when she first woke up, and it didn’t help that the telephone had jangled her awake hours earlier than usual. She clamped on to him like a leech and shrieked in his ear when Mattie laid hands on her. A crash in the kitchen announced that Mattie’s attention was more urgently needed elsewhere.
“Uh-oh.” She turned and hurried away in that direction.
“Son,” Orren called anxiously, still pawing through the laundry. “Everything okay in there?”
Mattie stuck her head around the short partition wall and said, “A hot waffle iron is melting a hole in the floor vinyl.”
“Well, unplug it!”
“I did!”
“Blast!” Orren groaned and staggered as Jean Marie bumped into him, feeling her way along sleepily from behind a curtain of hair.
“I want doughnuts,” she said, yawning.
“Not this morning, Red,” Orren answered, giving up the search for socks. “See if you can get Sweetums to come to you.”
“Let Chaz,” Jean Marie grumbled, stumbling toward the kitchen. Yancy screamed from the back bedroom just then, offended at waking up alone, and Candy Sue promptly threw up on his shoulder.
“Aw, baby!” Orren jumped away from the mound of clean laundry and held Candy out at arm’s length. She immediately started to wail. Lord help him! “It’s okay, Sweetums. Chaz, bring the antacid! Candy Sue’s nervous stomach is acting up again.”
He placed Candy Sue in the chair and spread a towel over her in case she threw up again, then ripped his shirt off and threw it on the floor, muttering, “Only clean shirt I had!” He felt like sitting right down and bawling, but that’d make three of them, and he didn’t think he could stand it.
Mattie appeared, Chaz on one side, Jean Marie on the other. She was holding the bottle of antacid and a spoon. “Set the water glass down on the end table, Chaz,” she directed smoothly, “then take Jean Marie and go quiet Yancy.”
Chaz obediently complied. Jean Marie stuck her chin out and opened her mouth. Mattie bent down to her face level, parted the hair curtain with a fingertip and said, “Unless you don’t want me to cook breakfast.” Jean Marie whirled and stomped after her brother. Mattie straightened and thrust the bottle and spoon at Orren. “You dose the baby,” she said, “I’ll take care of the shirt. Where’s the iron and ironing board?”
He took the medicine, watching as she bent and picked up the soiled shirt, and said, “I don’t know. My bedroom, I think.”
“I’ll find it,” she said airily, carrying the shirt away from her.
Orren gratefully sat down next to the baby, spread the towel over the two of them and began the chancy process of coaxing the medication down her. Ten minutes and three attempts later, he judged that he’d gotten enough of the stuff in her to calm her stomach and began rocking her into a better mood. Shortly thereafter she dropped off in his arms. He stood, towel and all, to carry her to his own room, where she might be able to sleep undisturbed by the other children. He was surprised—and oddly disturbed—to find Matilda Kincaid bent over his bed, straightening out his sheets. She certainly looked adult from the back. She glanced over her shoulder, something very like censure on her face, but then her expression softened and she stood, turning, to smile down at the frothy-haired angel in his arms. He smiled, too, proud of the little beauty cuddled so trustingly against him.
“She’ll never be able to stay asleep in the kids’ room,” he whispered. “She sleeps most often in here.”
Mattie nodded and moved away to retrieve the clean and pressed shirt from the ironing board as he tucked the little one into his bed. She stepped out into the hallway; a second or two later, he joined her, pulling closed the bedroom door. She shook out the uniform shirt and held it up for him, her eyes roaming over his bare chest. Orren resisted the urge to turn his back, and instead dipped one hand into a sleeve hole. She carried the shirt around him and slipped the other sleeve over his arm, settling the shirt over his shoulders.
“I tried to iron it dry, but it’s still damp,” she said quietly. “At least it didn’t stain.”
Nodding, he began pushing the buttons through the buttonholes. “That’s all right. Thanks.”
“No problem,” Mattie said, presenting him a pair of matched socks from her belt. “They had dropped down between the bed and the wall.”
He clutched them gratefully. “You are a lifesaver!”
“Just part of the service.”
“Listen, I’m sorry to run off so quick. I meant to show you around, explain things, but I really don’t have the time this morning.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” she said cryptically. “I think I can find plenty to keep us busy today.”
He was already moving into the living area, only half listening, when he remembered the grocery shopping. He immediately turned back, whipping his wallet from his hip pocket. Emptying it of the last seventy bucks to his name, he thrust it at her apologetically, saying, “Uh, there really isn’t anything much here to eat. If you could do the shopping, I’d appreciate it, but this is all I have until the end of the week. We’ll, um, discuss a budget later.”
“What about your lunch?” she began, but he waved that off, snatched up the thermos and swung out the door. A glance at his watch told him that he just might make it—barely. These days, he reminded himself grimly, barely was the best he could hope for.
Mattie shook her head at the boards nailed over the door, the bare gypsum walls and the electrical wires hanging loose. While Candy Sue slept and the other girls watched an educational program on public television, she’d looked over the house in the helpful company of Chaz. It hadn’t taken long to get a full p
icture of Orren Ellis’s house, his unfinished house. Chaz had told her proudly that his daddy had built the house with his own two hands, and she could understand his pride, but the place was woefully inadequate. For one thing, the kids had been squeezed into a single small room, while this third unfinished bedroom and its badly needed second bath had accumulated debris and gathered dust. Actually, the whole house was a dustbin, not to mention a jumble of chaos. Ah, well, she’d wanted a challenge.
After a scant breakfast of buttered griddle cakes sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, which the kids wolfed down gleefully, Mattie had found a piece of paper and a pencil and made a list of the family’s favorite foods. It wasn’t a very extensive list, but it was enough from which to conceive a frugal menu for several days. She then went through the refrigerator and pantry, listing the available supplies and mechanically rearranging the shelves. Everything needed a thorough cleaning, but that would have to wait a bit. First she had a shopping list to make out, carefully estimating the cost of each item and tabulating the whole to be certain that the cost remained safely within the amount allotted.
That proved a simple task compared to getting the children properly dressed for their outing. Their clothing, both clean and dirty, was scattered over the whole house, but eventually she put together outfits for each of them and, by standing over them with an implacable expression, a bar of soap and a tube of toothpaste, saw them dressed and made presentable. It took some time to persuade Jean Marie to brush her hair, but by promising that each of them could choose a favorite food item from the grocery store, she managed even that.
The shopping excursion was a nightmare, with Jean Marie and Yancy playing hide-and-seek in the aisles, Candy Sue begging for everything she laid eyes on, and Chaz desperately badgering, pleading and threatening his sisters while trying all the while to coax Mattie into buying the same items his father always bought. To make matters worse, Candy Sue suddenly developed a pressing need to visit the rest room, while Jean Marie flatly refused to go along. What should have taken an hour at most took more than twice that time, but finally Mattie had the groceries stowed in the trunk, the kids belted in and the little red car on the road to the Ellis house.
By making a game of putting the groceries away, Mattie managed to complete that chore relatively quickly. Then she ferreted out a ragged notebook, sharpened her pencil and set about making her plans. The first order of business, she told an anxious Chaz, was the kitchen, to which he replied, “What’s wrong with it?”
So much was wrong with it, to Mattie’s mind, that a detailed explanation would take inordinate time and effort, so she settled for pointing out that it was poorly organized and not exactly “sterile.” Jean Marie took violent exception to the slightest perceived criticism. Eyes narrowed suspiciously, she declared that the kitchen was forever kept just exactly as their mother had left it. When a gaping Chaz declared aloud that Jean Marie was “cuckoo,” she summarily bit him. Luckily, the skin wasn’t broken. Mattie marched the little hoyden straight to a corner and stood over her for an entire half hour to keep her there, while Chaz comforted Yancy, who wept loudly on his behalf.
Afterward, Jean Marie disappeared into the bedroom, barricaded the door and shouted insults at Mattie. She was mean and stupid. Her hair was an ugly black color. She was too short and had “baby hands.” Chaz helpfully explained that Jean Marie thought “big girls” had long, red fingernails like their mother’s. Once the subject of Orren’s unfaithful wife had been broached, Mattie found she couldn’t quell her curiosity without first asking just a few questions.
Chaz answered each and every one most helpfully. In short order, she found out that Grace Ellis was a tall, blue-eyed beauty with a penchant for tight blue jeans and embarrassingly revealing lingerie. She wore lots of makeup and piled her long blond hair on top of her head. She worried about wrinkles and bragged about her figure. She had shouted at their daddy a lot, said that Candy Sue was “all his fault” and explained repeatedly to her children that she “needed her fun while she could get it.” He remembered especially that when she went off with “that man” she’d explained that they were going to get rich on the rodeo circuit and had promised to send them money, but she never had. Chaz divulged, without any prompting, that Orren had gone after Grace upon discovering she had left him, only to return later, all sad, to explain that Mommy was tired of “making do” but sent her love. She wouldn’t be coming back, he’d said, except to see them when she could, but she hadn’t ever done that, either.
Jean Marie heard it all, having tired of screaming insults and sneaked out of her room. She appeared out of nowhere and immediately denied everything Chaz had said. Their mommy was beautiful and smart and was off getting money. When she came back, they’d all be rich and happy, especially Daddy, who missed her most of all. Mattie carefully schooled her expression and voice, betraying none of the shock and dismay the tale and its refutation had engendered, and calmly suggested that Jean Marie cool her temper unless she wanted to spend another half hour in the corner. With that, she went to make pimento cheese sandwiches and cut up celery, carrots and apples for lunch.
The children, thankfully, were used to entertaining themselves. She had merely to keep an eye and an ear open while they played, occasionally interrupting her work in the kitchen to mediate a minor quarrel or redirect their energies. Even Jean Marie cooperated reluctantly when she promised them a special afternoon snack of cinnamon crisps, which she made from a simple, inexpensive piecrust recipe, cut into strips, and baked in the oven. Candy Sue practically keeled over after the snack, so badly in need of an afternoon nap was she. Yancy was persuaded to join her without much effort, and the two older children went outside to play in the shade of an old live oak on the edge of the front yard within easy sight of the kitchen window. Orren had hung sturdy swings from its thick branches and fashioned a sandbox in an out-of-the-way spot. Mattie dutifully oversaw their play while listening for the younger two and scrubbing down the kitchen cabinets.
All in all, she was well pleased with her day. She had the small kitchen gleaming and the cabinets strictly organized in plenty of time to tell the children a favorite story before stripping the beds and remaking them with clean linens. Then she vacuumed the living room rug, ran a dust cloth over the surface of the battered tables and single lamp and contented herself with straightening up the mess by dispatching the children to other parts of the house with various items in tow, all but Jean Marie who declared that she wasn’t “nobody’s” slave and locked herself in the bathroom. Mattie let her be until enough of the clutter was removed from the living room to identify it as such, then calmly picked the lock and opened the door.
Jean Marie was lying on the floor beside the tub, her arms flung out dramatically, mouth open, eyes rolled back in her head. An empty, uncapped vitamin bottle that Mattie had noticed in the small wastebasket earlier was clutched in one hand. Mattie smiled to herself, folded her arms, and called out in an unconcerned voice, “Chaz, dear, please bring me a clean spoon so I can poke the handle down Jean Marie’s throat and make her throw up all these vitamins the silly girl’s taken.”
Jean Marie bolted up into a sitting position, her free hand going automatically to her throat as she gagged just at the thought of that spoon handle. Mattie feigned weak relief. “Oh, good. You didn’t overdose yourself too badly, after all. Never mind, Chaz. She seems fine now.”
In the next instant Jean Marie realized she’d been outfoxed. Sputtering angrily, she threw the vitamin bottle. It bounced harmlessly off the doorjamb and rolled at Mattie’s feet. Calmly, Mattie bent and picked it up, then straightened and cocked her head. “Now, young lady,” she said, “unless you want me to describe this latest incident to your father, I suggest you improve your behavior.” It was then that Jean Marie realized how serious a mistake she’d made. Her daddy wasn’t beyond blistering her backside for such a prank. Mutinously, she stuck out her chin. Her eyes filled with tears, but she stubbornly refused to shed them. “You
know,” Mattie said gently, “we could be friends, you and I, if you’d just let us.” Then Mattie left her there and went away.
Orren dragged home utterly exhausted. What a day! A total of three mechanics had called in sick, and he’d been so busy under the hoods of several different cars that he’d hardly had time to answer the telephone. Everything was behind schedule, and he’d endured a rude dressing down from one customer because of it. Tomorrow promised to be a repeat performance, and he was so hungry he could eat lumber. He only hoped Mattie had saved him some supper. She hadn’t, but he could hardly grasp what she had done when he walked into his own house and found himself in a strange place.
The kitchen looked like a surgery ward. He’d never seen it shine so. Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the tops of the counters, let alone seen them gleam. He’d almost forgotten they were red! Moreover, the table had been properly set with napkins and everything, and the air was filled with the delicious aromas of cooking food. Most astonishing of all, however, was the sight of his children lined up to greet him, heads freshly washed, clothing neat, bodies clean. The babies were ready for bed. Chaz was beaming. Jean Marie showed no visible bruises, though he couldn’t imagine anything but brute force producing the astonishing change in her appearance. Her hair had been plaited into a braid! She was wearing shoes and socks. Her shorts matched her shirt. He hadn’t even known she possessed matching shorts and shirt! Mattie herself looked neat as a pin, even with one of his dish towels tied around her waist like an apron. She quickly whipped it off and suggested that he wash up while she put dinner on the table. Mechanically, he put the thermos he’d brought home on the clean counter and trudged off to do as he was told, marveling at the order in his living room as he did so.
