A Family for Jason

by Virginia McCullough

  A good sign? Maybe not. A loud and rousing meltdown could be a breakthrough sometimes. She’d seen that with adults and kids coping with the aftermath of traumatic events. Keeping it all knotted up inside could have consequences. Hit with a wave of sadness that left her nearly queasy, she backed away and went into the kitchen, where Emma still sat at the table sipping coffee. Ruby shrugged helplessly, but Emma silently responded with a “what did we expect?” look.

  Ruby motioned for Peach to come to her. When the dog followed her to the edge of the living room, she pointed to Jason. “Go to Jason,” she whispered, patting the dog’s side.

  Peach ambled toward Jason, stopping to look back at Ruby. She motioned for her to keep going, which the dog dutifully did, finally plunking down next to him at the window. When Jason didn’t respond, she pushed her body against him until he relented and moved his arm so Peach could slide closer to him.

  Ruby killed a few minutes wiping down the kitchen counters, but still, no Jason.

  Finally, Emma asked, “Shouldn’t we start cracking the walnuts for the cookies?” Her raised voice filled the air.

  Ruby feigned surprise. “Right. I forgot we were going to bake those cookies tonight.”

  “You promised me, remember?”

  She gave Emma a thumbs-up, wishing she’d had the idea first. No child, even one momentarily unhappy, could resist the offer of homemade cookies. But so far, Jason seemed more interested in kneeling by the window, keeping an eye out for his dad.

  From what she’d seen of Jason, he wasn’t especially distractible. When he’d thrown sticks to Peach, he was focused like a laser beam. No flitting around from one thing to another for him. It took persistence to produce those detailed drawings Mike had taped to the refrigerator. Like dad, like son. Ruby’s stomach did a little tap dance, as her mind took a huge leap into the future and saw Jason as a teenager with his curly hair and a sturdy, lean body. He was already a little tall for his age. It was so much more than looks, though. Curious. Self-contained. Careful without being overly cautious. So much of Mike to see in his son.

  Ruby smiled to herself. As devoted as Peach was, she was no Jason. She’d be bored soon and needing to stretch her dog legs.

  “I better take Peach out before we start cracking those nuts for the oatmeal cookies.” Emphasis on Peach—Jason couldn’t miss it.

  “Okay. I could start showing Jason how to crack the walnut shells.”

  “Or, he could come outside with me. Let’s go, Peach,” Ruby said, walking halfway to the window. Jason hadn’t moved. Seeing him from the back, he looked lonesome in his vigilance. How much this boy had lost was never far from Ruby’s mind. “You can come, too, Jason. Or, you can do a special cookie project with Emma.”

  Hearing herself, Ellen Abbot came to mind again. Mike’s mom used words like project to describe stripping the linens off the beds in the guest cabins. So much more important than a chore. Mike’s mom was the reason Ruby had called the plan to finish college in three years a strategy. It had an impressive ring to it.

  Ruby went out via the patio door. It was a warmish night and through the trees she saw the new moon rising while it was still light. Noisy geese were flying overhead. Most would move on, but a few stayed behind, although she didn’t know why. She broke into a light jog toward the trees and then took a hard right through the field, making a game of it for Peach, who stayed close. Ruby ran the dog back and forth a few times before detouring along the side of the house to get a view of the front windows. If Jason had moved, all the better, but if he was there, she’d wave and then disappear in the back again.

  The wind had blown dry leaves into rows of hills in the side yard and they crunched underfoot as she walked to the front. When she got to the porch, Jason’s solemn little face was still in the window. She forced herself to smile and wave and then disappeared. Now what? She hadn’t thought that far ahead. When she reached the back, she went up the stairs and let Peach take off for the trees while she watched her from the railing.

  Finally, she called Peach back and when she went to open the patio door, Jason was dragging a chair closer to Emma.

  “We’re just getting started,” Emma said, spreading newspaper over the tabletop.

  “So I see.”

  Emma picked up the nutcracker. “Here’s the idea, Jason. Ruby is going to show you how to use this little tool.”

  “Right,” Ruby said, laughing. “We have to work really hard to get our cupful of nuts.”

  Ruby glanced at Jason, wondering what had changed his mind. She’d probably never know, which left her with a jumble of contradictory feelings and thoughts. Playing with fire came to mind. Mike’s need for a babysitter happened just as an afternoon malaise had settled over Ruby, mirroring Emma’s intensifying frustration at being mostly cooped up. She’d graduated from the walker to a cane and her three in-house walks were now ten minutes each. The physical therapist that came to the house had declared her progress impressive. But it was still too slow to satisfy Emma.

  She and Emma had been on the verge of getting on each other’s nerves. That didn’t happen often, but it signaled the need to retreat to her room to read or check her email. Or, she could argue with herself about the job search she’d barely even started.

  Ruby pulled the stepstool to the table and sat next to Jason, who kneeled in his chair and rested his arms on the table so he could lean in and watch her. She handled the first walnut and squeezed the nutcracker until the shell broke and the walnut fell out in pieces. “See? Easy as can be.” She held up one of chunks and handed Jason another. “We get to eat the first ones. It’s the rule. Your dad made it up when he was about twelve.”

  That caught Jason’s attention. He stared at her expectantly.

  Jason looked happy again when he watched Ruby toss the nut in her mouth and then copied her perfectly.

  “Your dad was always fun that way,” Ruby said, inching closer toward Jason. “He liked his routines and rules. You know he likes to turn things into games. Like eating all the crusts on a peanut butter sandwich before you bite into the middle.”

  She’d once again landed among dangerous memories. She’d seen Mike’s playful side coming out with Jason. With so little history with Mike, though, all his son knew of his dad had been recently learned and limited to the present day. No aunts or uncles or grandparents were around to tell old stories about Mike’s childhood quirks. Were there even photos of Ellen and Charlie in the house? What about signs of Zoe?

  Ruby pushed aside those questions as they fell into a comfortable silence. Ruby put her hands over Jason’s and helped him squeeze the nutcracker. They tossed the loose nuts into the bowl.

  “You try now,” Ruby said, pulling her hands back.

  Jason’s face broke into a smile when he’d cracked the first one on his own. Then he looked serious and determined as he did the next one, and the next. He put them in the measuring cup and then tapped it to call attention to it. He smiled as the level rose closer to the top.

  “You’re doing a great job,” Ruby said, taking another nut. “We’re almost done.”

  Ruby caught Emma’s eye, certain she was reading her friend’s mind correctly. The six-year-old working so hard could have been Mike concentrating on sanding the hull of one of the boats at the lake. Or shooting baskets, one after the other, until a full one hundred had swished through the net. Ruby couldn’t keep from staring at Jason, her heart aching, but not so much for this boy. Jason would be okay. With Mike as his dad, Ruby was sure of it. She was worried for herself.

  Ruby started to assemble bowls and ingredients, putting the eggs and butter in front of Emma.

  “Time to break these eggs.” Emma cracked the shells on the side of the bowl and started to beat them. “You two better get the other ingredients ready. No time to waste.”

  “Okay, Jason, you heard Emma. It’s up to us to measure the sugar
and oats...and a bunch of other things. How about that?” Ruby asked. With his eyes open wide, Jason nodded.

  She gathered the flour and sugar and correct measuring cups and brought them to the table along with two bowls.

  Offering a measuring cup to Jason, she said, “Time for you to measure the oats?”

  He didn’t hesitate to take the cup from her hand. She brought the box of oats closer and Jason dipped it in and came up with a full cup. She held out the bowl. “Great. Dump it in here.”

  He smiled shyly at her when he’d emptied the cup and looked up at her. She handed him another measuring cup and opened the canister of flour. “Now we need two scoops in the same bowl as the oats.”

  Ruby measured the spices and gave him the teaspoons so he could drop the cinnamon and nutmeg into the bowl.

  “We’re close to the grand finale.” Ruby brandished the spoon in the air. That brought a delighted smile to Jason’s face. Maybe he even came close to laughing out loud. Almost.

  Once Ruby had combined the dry ingredients with the butter, sugar, and eggs, she mixed it all up until it was just about ready. “Now you can finish it for us. Stir really hard.”

  She turned on the oven and got out Emma’s cookie sheets.

  “The nuts come last,” she said, “and then we get to plop the batter on these sheets. That’s always fun.”

  Ruby watched Jason put all his energy into stirring the cookie batter. She shook the nuts in the mixture a little at a time and he made them disappear with his spoon. Looking at him having fun as he worked so hard, warmth spread across her chest. She could no longer say her feelings for Jason were linked to him being Mike’s son. Jason kept touching her heart all on his own.

  Ruby positioned the cookie sheets and bowl and showed Jason how to load a spoon and drop it on the cookie sheet. She lowered her head to get closer to him. “We’re allowed to use our fingers to get all the batter off the spoon,” she whispered, as if sharing a secret.

  His expression surprised, Jason opened his mouth...a word, maybe an exclamation almost came out. Ruby was certain of it. Even her heart beat a little faster. But then he looked away and concentrated on filling his spoon.

  So close, Ruby thought. So close.

  “Uh oh,” Ruby said when they’d filled two cookie sheets. “I almost forgot.”

  Jason’s gaze followed her when she went into the kitchen and opened the cabinet. She glanced at Emma, who looked just as curious as Jason.

  “We almost forgot the raisins. How are we going to put faces on the cookies without raisins?”

  Emma laughed, but Jason kept his eyes on her hand as she shook some raisins in a bowl. “Want to watch me do one, Jason?”

  He opened his mouth again, but then closed it. Ruby let that moment slide right by and showed him how to make two eyes and a nose on the cookies. “And these cookies will all be smiling, just like you.”

  Jason took his job seriously and by the time they were done, his cookies had giant smiles.

  “All set then,” she said, laughing. “I’ll pop them in the oven.” Before she left the table, she leaned over and told him, “You did a great job.”

  She gave him a little wink.

  * * *

  “IT’S ODD HOW familiar everyone looks,” Mike said. He stood with Maggie, his neighbor and new client, behind a row of folding chairs facing the dais, where the town council was gathering. “Some I can easily identify, including Kristine Laughlin.”

  “Now there’s a woman with a very tough job.”

  “She was a year behind us in school and the incoming senior class president while I was the outgoing one. I remember coaching her a little before I graduated. The same way my predecessor helped me. It was kind of a tradition in those days.” Mike left out the part about Kristine being indifferent to most of what he had to say. Talk about yesterday’s news. None of that mattered now.

  “Now she’s the mayor,” Maggie said with a laugh. “See what can happen to people who stick around this town.”

  Mike chuckled. “Right. Maybe she’s got some new ideas.”

  “We can only hope.” Maggie paused and tried unsuccessfully to gather her hair at the back of her neck. “By the way, who is us?”

  Puzzled by the question, he must have looked blank.

  “You said she was a year behind us,” Maggie explained, “so I wondered who you meant.”

  Slip of the tongue. He’d meant Ruby. Maybe Neil and Emma, but Ruby had been on his mind. “I was unconsciously including the kids I hung around with back then. It’s a small high school, so we all knew each other.”

  “It’s still a tight-knit sort of place,” Maggie said. Then she pointed to the rows of empty chairs. “See? A total of two dozen chairs set up for regular folks—people like you and me. And that’s optimistic.”

  In the past, Mike would have been surprised, but no more. Elaine Cermak had opened up to him a little more and described the downward turn Bluestone River had taken after its biggest employer, a food-processing company, shut its doors. Swallowed up by a bigger firm, she’d said. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kristine move up to the podium. She chatted informally with the town-council members, an even split of three men and three women, who followed her and took their seats at the long table.

  “Plenty of room in the front row,” Maggie said, leading the way.

  Including the stragglers, Mike counted eight people—citizens—in addition to the seven officials. “So, this is a typical crowd?” Mike was jolted back to days when the room was filled with at least thirty or forty people at these meetings, sometimes many more. His mom and dad almost always showed up. They had a big stake in what went on in town. The shabby room with its institutional green walls looked worn out, a lot like his office before he’d spruced it up.

  “Sometimes as many as fifteen of us attend,” Maggie said. “Usually we have an issue we’re pressing, like getting rid of the parking meters on River Street. It took us a year to get that done.” She pointed with her chin to a couple farther down the row. “That’s Star Lenski and her husband, Mason. They own the bakery, but she runs it. Mason works in a lab over in Clayton.”

  Lenski. Not a name he recognized from years ago. But he filed it away, if for no other reason than Emma loved that bakery.

  Mike saw glimpses of the teenage Kristine when she smiled at the handful of people in the room and then opened the meeting. “I’m glad to see you all here tonight. We won’t keep you long. So let’s get started.”

  Hmm...a smile, a greeting, a reassuring remark to the audience and then a quick call to action. Right out of Principal Driscoll’s playbook. He offered all the class leaders little tricks to run meetings. Mike had opened a few meetings at the firm using the formula he learned from Ruby’s dad.

  Old business was dispensed with quickly, followed by a brief rundown on sidewalk repairs. As for substance, the only important issue involved approving the building permit allowing Sweet Comforts Bakery to add a café to their building. Yes, please, Mike thought. He wished they’d located on River Street, but even one expanding business was a good start.

  Maggie nudged him and whispered, “Watch that older councilman on the end, Jim Kellerman. He’ll vote no because he’s afraid the café will take customers away from the fast food restaurants and coffee business at the plaza out near the highway exit. That’s a popular part of town with older people now. Well, younger people, too.”

  “A little competition would be a great problem to have,” Mike whispered back. “Not to mention another factory or other company to take the place of the food processing plant. As far as shops and restaurants and businesses are concerned, it shouldn’t be a matter of either-or. Let’s have as many cafés and coffee shops as possible.” And the sanctuary and the bridge and the trails, Mike thought. Why couldn’t they have it all?

  “And more tourists,” Maggie chimed i
n. “It’s such a pretty town. I’m glad they’re adding the café.”

  Mike found Jim confusing. Something had changed. “Aren’t the Kellermans still an important local family? They used to be.” Mike left out other details, like how Jim had snubbed his mom and dad. Jim and his family acted like the Abbot’s no-frills resort wasn’t quite up to the high standards of their Bluestone River. Jim threw his weight around and publically threatened a lawsuit to block his dad from deeding over his valuable acres to a conservancy. Fortunately, he had no legal grounds, so his words had fallen on deaf ears.

  “It’s time we put this to a vote.” Kristine spoke into a microphone she didn’t need and the sound echoed unpleasantly. “Do you have anything you want to add, Star? Mason?”

  Tall and slender with short, almost white-blonde hair, Star stood and raised her hand to greet the council. Good, she’s maybe midtwenties, Mike thought. Young energy to invest in Bluestone River. Star rubbed her palms together in a show of excitement. “I just want to add that we can’t wait to get started. Before the first snow, we hope. A café off the highway will help bring more business to town in the winter.”

  Mike could see from the nods and friendly expressions on the council members’ faces that this permit was a done deal. Sure enough, when the hands went up, only Jim Kellerman voted no. The reaction was light applause rippling through the room.

  When Kristine asked if there was anything else, Maggie raised her hand and stood. She held up a flyer and announced she was looking for a part-time graphics designer. “I’m going to post this notice on the community board. Spread the word. I’d like to hire locally.”

  Kristine planted her hand on her hip and gave Mike a sidelong glance. “Is that Mike Abbot I see next to you?”