by Holly Jacobs
He heard an April Fools’ in the background that could only have been Mickey, followed by a high-pitched scream from Abbey that was punctuated by Zoe’s sarcasm. “Be quiet. It’s not April Fools’ until Friday.”
“I gotta practice,” Mickey hollered.
“No you don’t need to practice, Mick. Abbey, enough screaming. And thank you, Zoe,” Mattie said, her voice muffled by what he suspected was her hand over the receiver. “That was much more polite than shut up.”
“But neither work, do they?” Zoe shouted so loudly no one could muffle it.
“Sorry,” Mattie, unmuffled, said.
“So what you’re saying is, you don’t think my nieces and nephew are conducive to a quiet conversation?”
He heard a small sound that might have been a chuckle, but he couldn’t be sure because Mattie’s voice was all business as she said, “Not conducive at all.”
“I assume you’ve seen a lawyer?” He hated forcing Mattie to hire an attorney. He knew how much it cost. Hell, he hated taking the question of the kids’ custody into a legal realm, but he didn’t have any options. He’d presented Mattie with perfectly sound arguments as to why he should have custody and that hadn’t worked.
“Yes, I saw a lawyer.” She sounded defeated. More than that, she sounded hurt.
And while that boded well for Finn’s custody fight, he felt immensely guilty that he was the one who’d hurt her.
The sooner they got this settled, the sooner Mattie could get back to her life, bumping around from one thing to the next. She could visit the kids as often as she liked. He’d make sure she understood that he didn’t want to drive her out of their lives entirely. But he was the better choice for a day-to-day guardian.
“I’m—” He started to say he was sorry, but thought better of it. “When did you want to meet?”
“The kids have a fun night at school on Friday night. I’m pretty sure I can find someone else to take them. I thought you and I could meet here and—”
“What time?”
“Six?” she asked.
“Why don’t we meet at the diner instead?” he countered. Then to sweeten the pot, he added, “I’ll spring for dinner.”
“Big spender,” she said, and rather than anger, he thought there was a hint of humor in her voice. “Fine.”
“I’ll meet you there on Friday at six then.”
“Thank you.”
“And, Mattie, as long as we’re being civil, could I possibly have the kids for a few hours on Saturday? Just me and them?” He knew it was the practical thing to do. He had to help the kids get accustomed to spending time with him.
“I’m supposed to be working on invitations and plans for Sophie’s shower, so that will be fine. How about in the afternoon? We’re establishing that Saturday-morning routine, remember? The pickup party, shopping and lunch, then fun. It seems to be working and I hate to disrupt it.”
“The afternoon is fine. I might even pitch in with the pickup. Rumor has it that I can Dyson with the best of them.” He used his sister’s term as he made the offer and he smiled at the memory.
“Okay, well, I’ll see you Friday night.”
“It’s a date,” he said.
This time there was no disguising what she felt. Mattie snorted. “As if.” There was an audible click as she hung up.
Finn placed the phone back on its dock and stared at the papers in front of him, then before he could change his mind, he pulled them forward and scrawled his signature at the bottom.
Which meant, his weekends had officially gotten easier.
He picked up his phone and punched in a Valley Ridge number. “JoAnn, it’s Finn. I’d like to book a room Friday and Saturday nights for...” He paused, wondering how long this new idea would take. “Well, for the foreseeable future. Until I give you notice.”
CHAPTER SIX
FRIDAY HAD STARTED with a bang for Mattie...literally. The shop’s cappuccino machine made a loud noise and died in a smoky blaze of glory after disgorging an entire cup of cappuccino so quickly that it splashed onto Mattie. She wasn’t burned, but her skin was red and tender.
There was a steady stream of customers for the rest of the morning, and an inordinate number of cappuccino orders despite the sign she posted that said Sorry, no cappuccinos.
She took the machine’s demise as an omen. No matter what her lawyer and mother both said, this meeting with Finn tonight was not going to go well.
She wasn’t someone who generally believed in things like omens, but she didn’t think it took a psychic connection to know how talking it out with Finn would turn out.
Feeling uncharacteristically pessimistic, she went straight home after her shift but before the kids were home from school. She still felt nervous on days they walked there and back, but Bridget had insisted it was okay.
“Hey, Aunt Mattie, guess what?” Mickey asked as he burst through the front door.
“What?” she asked obligingly.
“We don’t got no homework this weekend!” Mickey shouted.
“You don’t have any homework,” she corrected him. Then she paused, noticing his expression. There was something in it that made Mattie ask, “Really?”
“No.” He bent over laughing. “We really do got homework. April Fools’!”
“That’s a stupid April Fools’,” Zoe grumbled.
“Nu-uh, you’re stupid,” Mickey informed her.
“We don’t use words like stupid, remember?” Mattie warned. “That’s a quarter each in the jar.”
Zoe dug a handful of change out of her pocket and promptly stomped her way into the kitchen and deposited a quarter. Mickey looked hopeful. “I don’t got no quarters left, so I can’t put one in.”
“You don’t have any quarters left,” she repeated. “Then you’ll have to owe the jar a quarter on allowance day tomorrow.”
“Oh.” His face fell. “Okay.”
Feeling as if she’d averted something, Mattie turned to Abbey, who was sitting on the floor painstakingly untying her double-knotted shoe.
Mattie knew that if she helped, it would be quicker, but Bridget used to tell her that she’d rather let the kids work out what they could on their own. It was a good way for them to learn.
What would Bridget do?
This was an easy one. Mattie shoved her hands into her jeans’ pockets and asked, “How was your day, sweetie?”
“John Michael kissed me and said April Fools’.” To emphasize her thoughts on John Michael, Abbey frowned. “But I didn’t like it, so I pushed him. We both went in time-out and didn’t get no cookies for snack.”
“You didn’t get any cookies? I’m sorry. No one should kiss you if you don’t want to be kissed, but pushing people is never the way to handle things.” She wasn’t sure if she should tack on a punishment at home.
Abbey nodded her head seriously and said, “Yeah, no more pushing, I promise.”
Well, Bridget wasn’t here to ask, and she’d be darned if she’d call and ask Finn his opinion. Since the teacher hadn’t informed her about the matter, she decided to let the school punishment suffice.
It sounded as if everyone’s day had been as good as her own. “Listen, you all don’t have a lot of time. Sophie and Lily are coming to get you for Fun Night soon. And Uncle Finn has asked to take you all out tomorrow.” She tried to insert a degree of enthusiasm in her voice when she mentioned Finn, but she wasn’t sure she quite managed it.
“Where’s he taking us?” Zoe asked in a suspicious tone of voice.
Mattie pasted a smile on her face, hoping she conveyed enthusiasm at the thought of Finn. “Uh, I’m not sure, but...you’ll have a good time.”
Zoe scowled. “That’s two weeks in a row. When Mom was alive, most of the time he didn’t come twice in a whole month. So why’s he coming again?”
“I don’t know, Zoe.” Mattie tried to convince herself that it wasn’t a lie. At least not a real lie. �
��I’m guessing,” she continued, “he’s coming because he loves you and misses your mom as much as you all do. When people miss someone, they find comfort in being together.”
“Why aren’t you coming tonight, Aunt Mattie?” Abbey asked.
“I have an appointment. I’ll join you all at school as soon as I can, but Sophie and Lily both wanted to spend some time with you. And I’ll be there after,” she reminded them. Since she held out very little hope that reasoning with Finn would work, she figured they wouldn’t be missing her for long.
“Don’t worry about coming, ’cause we don’t need you,” Zoe said with vehemence.
“Yeah, we do,” Abbey staunchly maintained.
What had set Zoe off this time? “Zoe, I—”
“Don’t Zoe me. I don’t need you. We—” she swept her hand toward her siblings “—don’t need you. I heard your brother at Sophie’s party. He called you Waltzing Matilda. I asked him what it meant after you left, and he said it’s a song from Austria—”
“Australia,” Mattie corrected without thinking. “Australia has the kangaroos and the song. Austria has The Sound of Music.” She smiled, hoping comparing kangaroos to a musical family would jolly Zoe out of her funk.
Zoe’s intact scowl said she hadn’t seen the humor. “Whatever. Your brother said he used to sing that song to you ’cause you always leave. I remember. You’d come see us for a couple weeks, then you’d leave again. You’re gonna leave again now, too. You’re probably meeting with a travel agent tonight.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Mattie said in her most soothing tone. “Sweetie, I’m here until you don’t need me anymore.” And as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized they might be a lie. If Finn had his way, she would be leaving. She wouldn’t be here.
“We don’t need you now. Uncle Finn is taking us tomorrow. He says he wants us to live with him. I heard that, too.”
“I don’t wanna go to Uncle Finn’s,” Abbey cried. “He won’t let me touch nothin’ in his house, and he doesn’t have no toys.”
“Or video games,” Mickey added. “He doesn’t know nothin’ about Guitar Hero or Wii bowling.”
“Well, I want to go to his house. I bet he’d buy me a cell phone,” Zoe said, picking up on a new complaint. “Everyone else in my class has a cell phone. I need one, too.” She crossed her arms over her chest in a defiant stance. “He’d get me whatever I want ’cause he’s, like, rich.”
Mattie couldn’t argue that. Finn probably would go out and get Zoe a cell phone. Mattie understood the draw of having money for things, but she wanted the kids to appreciate their value as well, and not just expect to be handed whatever they wanted. “Zoe, even if I could afford to give you a cell phone or designer clothes and all the rest—I wouldn’t buy you anything and everything because you asked for it.”
“See,” Zoe cried, “you don’t love me. So go ahead and go.”
“You’re wrong,” Mattie assured her. “You’re very wrong. I wouldn’t buy you anything and everything because I do love you. Your mother wouldn’t have, either.”
“Yeah, she would have,” Zoe insisted.
Mattie shook her head. “When I was little, my brothers and I would ask for things like that we didn’t really need but wanted. And so my father made us work for them. Some of the stuff we wanted, we decided we didn’t want that badly. Some of the stuff we did, so we earned money by mowing lawns, shoveling driveways, babysitting... My dad was teaching us the difference between wants and needs. And that’s the same gift your mother would have given to you, and I’ll give you in her place. You’re right. I could put you on my cell phone plan for ten dollars a month. But I won’t. You need to save up and have the first three months ready to pay for, and we’ll go get a phone for you.”
“It’s only ten dollars a month, so why don’t you just give it to me now? Uncle Finn would. Mom, too,” Zoe countered.
She didn’t understand, and Mattie had to admit, she and her brothers had grumbled when they were younger. “Zoe, I spend most of my days asking myself what your mom would do if she were here. Usually, I guess. But this time, I am absolutely certain what she’d do. She wouldn’t just give you the phone, and neither will I. Not to be mean, but because I want to teach you something, like my father taught me. You want a phone...you don’t need one. And if you want it bad enough, you’ll work for it.”
Zoe remained quiet.
Mattie thought that was it. But after a few seconds, Zoe asked, “How am I supposed to get a job? Who hires an eleven-year-old?”
“Mrs. Abraham down the street is getting older. Maybe she’d like to hire someone to help around the house and yard? And I bet if you talk to Colton, he’d let you come help at the farm. In the spring there are a lot of chores, some of which I’m sure an eleven-year-old could do.”
“Whatever,” Zoe said as she stomped out of the room.
“Do you think anyone would hire me?” Mickey asked. “Me and Ab can do stuff.”
“You want a cell phone, too?” Mattie asked weakly, not sure she was up to battling the other two children, too.
“Nah,” Mickey said, “but I’d like a new video game.”
“And I want some Janey Jumble dolls.” Abbey nodded so hard her braids bounced and she shot her older brother a look that said she thought he’d hung the moon. “We’d work real good.”
“Well, you can save your allowances, and I’m sure I can find a few extra jobs for you both,” Mattie said. Needing to put an end to the conversation, she added, “But right now, you’ve got a date with Sophie and Lily, so let’s get to homework. Okay?”
Zoe was still stomping around upstairs, but the two younger children went to the counter in the kitchen and started on their limited homework as Mattie began dinner and downed two ibuprofens. The headache that was building was bound to get worse when she saw Finn.
Hopefully their meeting would be quick and she could get to the school before Fun Night ended.
But with the way her day was going, she doubted it.
* * *
FINN SAT AT A BOOTH in the back of Valley Ridge Diner, nursing a cup of coffee while waiting for Mattie. He resisted the urge to check his watch...again.
She wasn’t going to be here on time, or anywhere close to on time.
Then he spotted her, dripping wet from the rain that was thick enough to be almost snow. It was in the low forties, maybe even the upper thirties. And the wind off the lake was bitter.
She pulled the hood of her jacket down, revealing blond hair caught up in a ponytail and saved from the worst of the weather. She hugged Hank, the owner of Valley Ridge Diner and they talked quietly for a few minutes.
She looked concerned as she finally approached the booth.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Did Hank say anything to you when you came in?” She slid into the seat across from him.
“He said hello.”
“Oh.” She glanced over her shoulder at the older man—his friend Seb’s grandfather.
“What did he say to you?” Finn asked.
“He called me Juliette again. He did it on Saturday, and I thought he was being funny. But tonight, he also asked me about someone named Mark. So he wasn’t being cute about Shakespeare.” She set her wet coat next to her.
“Did you correct him?” Finn asked.
“Yes. And he didn’t laugh. He seemed embarrassed and tried to play it off like a joke, but it wasn’t.”
“It seems to me Sebastian has a cousin or relation named Juliette. I think she came out here one summer.”
“Maybe I look like her and remind Hank of her.”
“Maybe. Sebastian had hoped to be home for the engagement party, but obviously he didn’t make it. We’ll mention it to him when he does get here.” Finn took note of Hank standing behind the counter, staring into space and felt a twinge of unease. “We’ll talk to him.”
“Okay. I’ll tell Lily, too,�
�� Mattie said. “As a nurse and Hank’s tenant, she may be able to offer some insight.”
Finn sent Lily here to take care of his sister. He’d thought she’d be back in Buffalo by now, but when he talked to her at the funeral, she’d told him she was staying in Valley Ridge. She’d sat with Hank at the funeral; maybe Mattie was right and she’d know what to do.
God, he missed his sister.
Finn nodded. “Speaking of talking...”
Hank came over with a cup of coffee and set it in front of Mattie. “Here you go. You all ready to order?”
“I’m not hungry,” Mattie said.
“Why don’t you bring us both a plate of Greek fries and burgers.”
Hank wrote their order on a slip and walked back to the kitchen without saying anything more.
“You’d think as a doctor you’d eat better than that,” Mattie said primly, a hint of scolding in her voice.
Belatedly, Finn remembered Rich’s comments on Mattie and her health food and kicked himself for not choosing something more nutritional. But rather than admit that to Mattie, he said, “Once in a while it’s okay to splurge.”
“Dr. Wallace, I suspect it might be more than once in a while for you,” she countered.
“People in coffeehouses shouldn’t throw proverbial stones.”
“And doctors should keep up on the latest studies that show coffee and tea, in reasonable amounts, have health benefits.” She took a deep breath and added, “But you’re right, I asked to talk to you about the kids and not about your food choices.”
“Last week you didn’t want to talk about this. You wanted to leave it up to the courts. I’m assuming your request to talk means you saw an attorney?” he asked. Mattie nodded, and he prodded, “And?”
She smoothed out a paper napkin that her silverware had been wrapped in and set it on her lap. “He suggested we find some way to work this out and not get the court involved.”
“Are you going to give me custody?” he asked.
“No. I was thinking that we could compromise?” She spit out the word as if it would leave a bad taste in her mouth. “Maybe some kind of informal joint custody? Let the kids stay here in Valley Ridge. Let them stay at their school and with their friends, and in a community that will watch out for them and love them. They can spend weekends at your place, maybe summers, or at least part of them?”
