by Arlene James
Would he remember tomorrow what he had said and done tonight? Would he admit what he felt for her? Was it what she hoped it was?
She pushed away the questions and concentrated on getting safely home. After parking in the driveway, she let herself into the house and crept down the hall to her room. Just as she reached it, the door to her father’s room opened, and Evans stepped into the hallway, belting his robe.
“You’re awfully late, Mattie. Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine, Dad,” she told him fondly. “Go back to bed.”
“I expected you earlier,” he said, yawning.
She reached around the end of the wall and flipped on the light in her room, saying, “Orren worked forty-one straight hours. He barely made it home.”
Evans blinked at the light. “That boy works too hard, and he’s imposing on you.”
“He isn’t imposing, Dad,” she said. “I love being out there with the kids. Now go back to sleep. I have to be up early to get the kids ready for Sunday school.”
“You’re taking them to church?”
“Yes.”
“He going, too?”
She shook her head, smiling at the emphasis her father could inject into a simple personal pronoun. “Orren needs to sleep. Maybe next week.”
Evans grunted at that. “Mattie, you’re getting too involved with these people.”
Sighing, she went up on tiptoe and kissed him on the chin. “You don’t really want to talk about this now, do you?”
He grumbled that she shouldn’t stay out so late, said good-night and slipped back into the room that he shared with Amy. Mattie went into her room and closed the door, stripped off her clothes, set her alarm, turned off the light, and slid between the sheets. Her last thought as she drifted into sleep was that she felt oddly out of place in her own bed, and she wondered if either Evans or Orren could understand why.
The alarm went off entirely too early. Mattie groaned and rolled over to swat it into silence. Yawning and stretching, she got out of bed and wandered into the shower. She was gone before her father or Amy so much as stirred.
She let herself into Orren’s house, tied a towel around her waist and began preparing breakfast. When it was ready, she went to check on Orren before waking the children. He was dead to the world, his chin and jaws covered with a rough growth of dark beard. She kissed him lightly, got no response and slipped away to rouse the children, shushing them as she eased them from slumber with kisses and whispers, Chaz first, then Jean Marie and the babies. While they ate breakfast, she laid out their clothes and lined up their toothbrushes, squeezing the paste onto them to save time. She ushered Chaz into the bathroom first, then quickly pried him out again, sending in Jean Marie, who proved a little more difficult to dislodge. Yancy and Candy Sue required more supervision, but she managed to have them washed and brushed and dressed in time to help Chaz tuck in his shirttail and weave Jean Marie’s hair into a French braid that lay neatly against her head. Through it all she repeatedly explained that Orren had worked two full days and almost two full nights to bring in extra money for them and that he deserved to sleep undisturbed.
“Besides,” she told Chaz, “you’ll like Sunday school. There are some nice boys in your class.”
Unconvinced, he nevertheless helped her get everyone into their shoes and headed for the car. She dashed off a note to Orren in case he woke while they were gone, propped it in the center of the kitchen table and whisked out of the house with just enough time to make it to church.
Chaz proved surprisingly shy, but Mattie left him in the capable hands of her pastor’s wife. Clarice Charles was a lovely, charming woman, very polished but very warm and the mother of two children, one of them a son. She had easily integrated Chaz into the group, gathering around the piano, by the time Mattie introduced an obviously eager Jean Marie to the class next door. Yancy took a little more cajoling. Putting her thumb into her mouth, she turned her face into Mattie’s belly and wrapped her arms around Mattie’s leg, shaking her head when asked if she would like to play with the other children.
Mattie went inside and sat down with Candy Sue on one knee and Yancy on the other. Gradually, Yancy responded to the overtures of the teachers and other children. When Mattie slipped away, Yancy was sitting on the floor in a semicircle with her contemporaries, listening intently to the story that the teacher was telling with the aid of paper dolls lightly fixed to a felt background.
Candy Sue, unfortunately, was now wise to the process, and while she showed no great reluctance to meet the teachers or children in her own class next to the nursery, she also displayed no intention of letting go of Mattie. Indeed, she seemed to have grown extra arms and legs, attaching a new one as Mattie gently pried loose another. She giggled at the teacher, who called her an angel, and grabbed hold of Mattie’s hair with both hands. The pastor, Bolton Charles, stuck his head in the door just then, raising both eyebrows when he spied Mattie there.
“What’s this, a new fashion accessory?” he teased, playfully poking Candy Sue in the ribs. She giggled and correspondingly tightened her hold on Mattie. “My goodness, she is a little beauty, isn’t she?”
“Oh, yes, she is, and she knows it, too,” Mattie told him. “This is the Reverend Charles, honey. Can you say hello?”
Candy nodded and said, “Hello.”
Bolton Charles laughed. “Hello, young lady. What’s your name?”
“Sweetums.”
“Sweetums!” Bolton teased. “Who gave you a name like that? Someone sweet on you, I’ll bet.”
“My daddy.”
“Well, no wonder,” Bolton said. “It fits!”
Mattie shook her head, smiling, and said, “Actually, it’s Candy Sue Ellis. Sweetums is a nickname.”
“Ellis,” Bolton mused, stroking his chin. “I don’t believe I know any Ellis family.”
Mattie shrugged. “I just met them this summer myself.”
Bolton nodded. “Well, I’m glad to see that you’ve brought Miss Candy Sue to church. Can we expect Mom and Dad anytime soon?”
“Dad, maybe.” She grinned coyly. “I’m working on him.”
Bolton cocked his head and said softly, “I take it Mom’s not around any longer.”
Candy Sue spoke up, exclaiming, “Mommy’s gone, gone.” She extended her little arm and flipped her hand as if to say that Mommy had disappeared into thin air.
Mattie leaned close to the handsome minister and said quietly, “She went off with another man more than two years ago.”
Bolton shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“There are four children, Reverend Charles,” she went on softly. “Candy’s the youngest at three. They’re the sweetest things. I just don’t understand.”
“Maybe we can’t understand, Mattie,” he told her gently, “but we shouldn’t judge, either.”
“I know, but I see how hard their father works to take care of them, and I can’t help wondering how she could do it. It’s obvious he was crushed when she left.”
The Reverend Charles was a wise man. He looked straight into Mattie’s exotic eyes and asked, “How old would you say he is?”
She answered nonchalantly, “Twenty-eight.”
The minister was surprised. “That’s young.”
She nodded. “But not too young. He’s totally dedicated. He loves his family.”
Candy Sue apparently decided that it was time the conversation centered on her again. She seized Mattie’s face between her two little hands and tugged her head down for a noisy kiss, declaring, “I wuv you, Mattie!”
Mattie laughed and put her forehead to Candy’s. “You aren’t going to let go, are you, Sweetums?”
Candy laughed and shook her head. “I wanna be wif you.”
Mattie shrugged at Bolton. “Guess I could take her into my class this once.” She switched her gaze to Candy again, adding, “But only if you promise to be very, very good.”
Candy nodded solemnly a
nd laid her head on Mattie’s shoulder. Bolton let them out into the hallway and followed them down the hall. Mattie could feel the care with which he chose his words. “Seems you’ve made at least one conquest.”
She smiled and turned a look over her shoulder, admitting honestly, “I’m aiming for five.”
They had reached the bottom of the stairs that led up to the second floor of what was designated as the education building. Mattie set Candy on her feet. The child was just too heavy to carry up a full flight of stairs. Besides, maybe the climb would tire her out so that she’d sit quietly once they arrived at the classroom. Meanwhile, Bolton Charles was studying Mattie with frank curiosity. Finally he said, “Mr. Ellis must be quite a gentleman.”
Mattie smiled. “Yes. Very special. In fact, he’s just like my father.”
Bolton chuckled. “That’s high praise, indeed!”
“I don’t think Dad would agree,” she told him wryly.
Bolton nodded thoughtfully. “Should I be praying about this?”
“Couldn’t hurt.”
“Never does,” he told her, a comforting hand patting her shoulder.
“Say an extra one for Orren,” she requested softly.
“That’s Mr. Ellis?”
“Yes. He worked forty-one straight hours starting Friday morning, and that was after putting in a full week.”
The reverend raised his dark brows. “You said he was dedicated.”
“That’s not all. He’s also stubborn, hardheaded, honorable to a fault, proud, independent…. Like I said—”
“Just like your father.”
“Exactly.”
“Sounds like you have your eyes wide open, Mattie.”
“I think so.”
The reverend put his hands behind his back and leaned forward, muttering conspiratorially, “Does he know how lucky he is?”
She laughed and flipped her hair off her shoulder, Candy’s little hand in hers. “I’m working on it.”
Bolton smiled. “I’ll say an extra prayer for you, too.”
“Thanks.”
Someone down at the end of the hall hailed him then, and he backed away, flipping a wave to Mattie and another to Candy. Candy Sue waved back and turned up the stairs at Mattie’s side.
She was good as gold through Bible study, sitting quietly in Mattie’s lap. It helped that everyone made a fuss over her lavishly before they began. Mattie checked before worship to make certain that the other children had settled happily into children’s Church. Yancy was holding hands with the little girl next to her. Jean Marie was whispering into the ear of her seat mate, and Chaz was giggling with his. Pleased, Mattie attempted to coax Candy Sue into joining her own age group for the service, but Candy begged to stay with her, and Mattie easily caved in, reasoning that the little girl had been quiet and polite throughout the first hour. Surely she would remain so through the second. “Next time, though,” Mattie stated firmly, “you have to promise that you’ll go in with the other girls and boys.”
Candy put a hand over her little heart and vowed, “I pwomise.”
Mattie knew she was being manipulated shamelessly, but she really didn’t mind. She slipped into the back pew with the child, spying her father and Amy near the front. Candy did become a little restless after the music ended and Bolton began to preach, but she was easily entertained with a pencil and an outline of her own hand. Mattie drew a face on one finger of the outline and gave it riotously curly hair, then handed the pencil to Candy, who scribbled industriously until she’d decorated all the other fingers and drawn an odd shape alongside them. “That’s Daddy,” she whispered, pointing to the tallest finger, “an’ Chaz an’ Jean M’rie an’ Yancy.” She pointed the pencil at the extra figure and whispered, “Tha’s you!” Obviously, she’d decided that the curly-headed one was herself. Mattie hugged her close and shushed her with a finger pressed to her lips. Candy Sue copied the gesture, drew her feet up into Mattie’s lap, and went to sleep with the pencil and paper clutched in her hands.
She seemed to weigh more than her father by the time the service ended and Mattie was able to rise and carry her from the chapel. Luckily, Candy Sue roused when they went to collect the other children, and the four entertained each other for some time, proudly showing off papers and discussing new friends and experiences as Mattie ushered them through the building and out onto the sidewalk. Evans Kincaid swooped down upon her instantly, Amy trailing in his wake.
“Mattie! We didn’t see you anywhere in church.”
“We were in the back,” Mattie said casually. “Candy decided she was going to be a leech today, so I kept her with me.”
“Brick was looking for you,” Evans said, sounding aggrieved.
“Well, he didn’t find me. Oh, let me introduce you. Children you remember my stepmother, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Hello, Mrs. Kincaid. Oh, you should see my room!” This from Jean Marie.
“I’m sure it’s lovely.”
“I have a yellow wall,” Yancy said importantly.
“Pink,” was all Candy Sue felt inclined to say.
Mattie lined them up. “Children, this is my father, Officer Evans Kincaid. He’s a policeman. Dad, this is Chaz.”
“Hello.”
They shook hands, Evans obviously ill at ease, Chaz a little shy.
“So should we call you Officer Kincaid?” Jean Marie asked, screwing up her face.
“That’s right,” Mattie told her, a hand on her shoulder. “This is Jean Marie.”
“We call her Red,” Chaz divulged with a touch of mischief.
Jean Marie took offense, sticking out her tongue. “That wasn’t necessary,” Mattie said, mildly scolding both, so that Chaz mumbled an apology and Jean Marie bowed her head, shuffling her feet in place. Mattie moved on to the next introduction, first gently pulling the little girl’s thumb from her mouth. “This is Yancy. She’s four. And Candy Sue is three.”
“That’s putting them pretty close together, isn’t it?” Evans muttered. Mattie politely ignored him.
“They’ve been perfect little ladies and gentlemen this morning. I think we’ll have to have a special dessert for dinner.”
Suddenly animated, the children clapped their hands. Evans frowned. “You aren’t going to spend the day out there again, are you?”
Mattie glanced up. “Yes, Dad, I am. Orren needs the rest. Someone has to watch the children.”
She could tell that he wanted to argue, but the place was too public. She ushered the children along the walkway until they came to stand in front of the pastor. She made the introductions all over again, smiling at Bolton Charles as he complimented the girls and shook Chaz’s hand. “I’m looking forward to meeting your father,” he told Chaz. “Mattie says he’s quite a fellow.”
Chaz puffed out his chest proudly. “He rebuilt a whole diesel engine! He fixes stuff all the time!”
“Sounds handy,” Bolton said, smiling at Mattie.
“He’s building on to the house,” Chaz went on. “I got my own room!”
“It’s not finished yet,” Mattie explained, “but it shouldn’t be long now.”
“He worked real hard and made a bunch of money!” Jean Marie said, not to be outdone.
The younger girls just stared up at him, one attached to each of Mattie’s legs. Bolton Charles chuckled and said, “Takes a strong young man to manage all that and four children, too.”
“Yeah, well, he’s had Mattie for that,” Evans said none too kindly.
“He couldn’t have found better help,” Bolton said heartily. “You handle them like they’re your very own, Mattie. You could well be their mother.”
The entire group went dead silent. Mattie could feel Evans’s shock and dismay, as well as the children’s innocent speculation. Amy stepped into the breach, saying brightly, “We’d better move on. We don’t want to monopolize the reverend. Bolton, you and Clarice must come over for dinner. Evans loves to fire up the grill.”
“We’d like that,” Bolton told her, squeezing her hand gratefully. “Mattie, I’ll remember those prayers you requested.”
“Thank you, Reverend.”
Quickly, she herded the children toward the parking lot, but her father caught her before they made the sidewalk, one hand falling heavily on her shoulder. “Oh, look,” he said much too pointedly, “there’s Brick now.”
Mattie groaned softly. “Don’t, Dad, please.”
He gave her a look of patent confusion. “Brick’s a friend,” he said lightly.
“I don’t have time for this now, Dad. I’ll see Brick later.”
He let her go, but she could hear him arguing in harsh whispers with Amy. She piled the kids into the car, buckled them up, and got behind the wheel. She fit the key into the ignition and switched on the engine.
“Mattie,” Chaz said softly from the seat next to her, “you really could be our mother.”
She reached out and squeezed his hand, whispering, “I’d like that.”
“Me, too,” he said huskily.
Blinking back tears, she put the transmission in Reverse and eased the car out into traffic. Her father was standing on the curb when she drove by. He didn’t wave, and he didn’t smile. Mattie sighed and pointed the car toward home, the Ellis home.
She parked in the drive behind Orren’s truck and got everybody out. Candy latched on to her neck and wouldn’t let go, so Mattie wagged her into the house on her hip, Yancy clinging to her dress tail, Chaz clutching one hand, while Jean Marie lightly clasped the other. It seemed she’d been adopted—or grafted, she couldn’t tell which. It was Jean Marie who asked, as Mattie helped her undress, “Would you really like to be our mother?”
Mattie sat down on the edge of her bed and nodded. “Yes, I would. Know what else? I wouldn’t mind being mommy to one or two other children, either.”
Jean Marie’s eyes went wide. “That many?”
“Why not? I like children. But, Jean, none of this talk means anything. I want you and your brother and sisters to understand that. It was just an idle comment, nothing more.”
