Kids on the Doorstep

by Kimberly Van Meter

  Rolling to her stomach, she tried quieting her mind with deep breathing exercises and for a while it worked. Slowly her mind emptied of everything involving John and his big, strong man-hands and what she wanted him to do with them, and she focused on the calm, serene landscape of her favorite place—a picture of a waterfall in Maui, a place she’d never been but the image always soothed her—and slowly drifted into peaceful slumber.

  She wasn’t sure why her eyelids fluttered open; the darkness told her sunrise was still hours away, but seconds later she caught the faint but undeniable sound of a child screaming inside the house.

  Kicking herself free from the tangle of blankets, she ran shoeless and fumbling in the dark, toward the sound, mindless of the rocks that bruised her heels and the bitter cold that froze her exposed skin. All that mattered was getting to her children.

  ALEXIS HELD CHLOE CLOSE, rocking her in spite of her sister’s frantic attempts to get away from the invisible hands that tried to hurt her. Alexis’s heart felt ready to jump out of her chest as tears filled her eyes but she didn’t let go. She just kept murmuring in a soft, soothing voice that everything was okay and that no one was going to get her.

  Taylor huddled against the headboard, her thumb popped in her mouth like she always did when she was scared, scrambled from the bed and catapulted herself into John’s arms the minute he appeared in the doorway, eyes bleary but searching for the cause of Chloe’s fear.

  Renee nearly crashed into him as she pounded down the hallway.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, breathless, moving toward the bed until Alexis shook her head vehemently. Hurt crossed her mother’s features but she stopped. “What’s wrong with Chloe?”

  “She gets nightmares sometimes,” Alexis answered, pulling Chloe closer even as the baby shook and shivered. “I can take care of her. You can go back to bed.”

  Taylor wrapped her arms around John’s neck all the more tightly. Her voice watery and frightened. “It’s Daddy’s fault, Mr. John. It’s all his fault Chloe is so scared at night.”

  Renee looked at Taylor, confusion and fear crossing her features. For a moment, Alexis was tempted to let Renee take over just so Renee could feel Chloe shake in her arms but instead her fingers tightened around her little sister and hoped they’d all just go away. “Just go back to bed. I’ll handle it.”

  Renee turned to John and murmured something and he nodded reluctantly, taking Taylor with him. Renee approached the bed. Alexis scowled. “I said, you can go.”

  Renee shook her head and took a seat beside them. Alexis felt tears stinging her eyes and tightened her grip on Chloe. “I can do it,” she insisted. “I’ve been the one here for her. Not you.”

  “I know,” Renee acknowledged quietly. “What do we do to help Chloe?”

  Surprised to be asked, Alexis answered haltingly, “She’s not awake when she does this and if you try to wake her up too fast she just starts screaming and kicking. I just hold her real tight and tell her it’s okay. She seems to like that.”

  Renee nodded, tears filling her eyes. “How long has this been happening?”

  “Since Daddy started locking her in the closet with the spiders and the other bugs.”

  “Your daddy…he did that?” she asked, her voice breaking.

  “That’s not all,” Alexis said. “He—”

  “I understand,” Renee cut in, her eyes filling again.

  “No, you don’t,” Alexis whispered, anger seeping inside her, hot and mean. Chloe whimpered and she loosened her hold until Chloe’s breathing returned to normal. “Because if you did…you never would’ve left us behind. Especially Chloe.”

  And then the tears she swore she’d never let her mother see, started to pour out of her eyes in a way she couldn’t control and it made her all the more angry. “Please get out. We don’t need you.”

  “Alexis—”

  “Get out,” she cried and her mother drew back. The hurt in her expression giving Alexis no joy even though she’d thought it would. She choked on her next words. “Just leave. Please.”

  RENEE FORCED HER FEET TO MOVE. This was not the time to press the issue although she yearned to take her baby in her arms and cuddle her as she should. She paused at the doorway and saw Alexis settle into the bed with Chloe lying against her small chest, her fingers clutching Alexis’s forearm.

  Swallowing a toxic mixture of grief, fear and guilt that had congealed in her throat, she started to return to the guesthouse when she saw John talking with Taylor in a low voice in the living room. Not wanting to be seen, Renee pulled into the shadows and listened intently.

  “My daddy is a bad man, isn’t he?” Taylor asked, the sadness in her tone cracking Renee’s heart for the sorrow in it. “Why was he so mean? Are we bad girls?”

  “Of course not,” John answered softly. “Why would you say that?”

  Taylor hiccupped. “Because maybe if we were better, Daddy wouldn’t have been so mad and Renee wouldn’t have left. And then, maybe Daddy wouldn’t have been so mean to Chloe. Chloe’s not a bad girl, even if Daddy said she was. I don’t believe him and neither does Alexis. Do you think Renee thinks Chloe is bad? Sometimes she pees the bed but she doesn’t mean to. She just forgets and has an accident. You would never spank Chloe for having an accident, would you?”

  “No, I wouldn’t and I don’t think your mom would, either.”

  “You don’t?”

  There was a long pause and then he answered solemnly, “No, I don’t.”

  His answer pierced Renee’s chest in an unexpected manner. She wasn’t accustomed to others being in her corner, much less a man who made it no secret of how he’d felt about her from the very beginning.

  Renee melted against the shadows, wishing she could dissolve into a spray of mist and just disappear so that she could escape the awful feeling crushing her. Tears stung her eyes. What the hell did you do to our babies, Jason? He only hurt your baby, a voice whispered. Chloe was no blood relation to him but he’d been raising her as his own. For all intents and purposes, Chloe looked at Jason as her daddy. And yet, he’d done unspeakable things to her. In essence, she’d left her baby in the hands of a monster. Biting her lip hard to keep it from trembling, she slipped out the back door unnoticed.

  THE NEXT MORNING, JOHN ROSE and went about his chores with Taylor beside him. Last night’s excitement all but forgotten, she chattered amiably to the horses as she gave them each a good scoopful of oats while he busied himself with throwing out the hay and filling the giant buckets with fresh water for the day. While Taylor may have been fresh-eyed, John’s mind was haunted by the stricken expression frozen on Renee’s face after Alexis had tossed her out of the room. He’d been tempted to help smooth things over but his hands had been full with Taylor and he figured Alexis and Renee had to start working things out on their own. To his mind, that wasn’t going too well. For too long Alexis had been acting like a surrogate mom and didn’t know how to let go of the reins, so to speak, and Renee, too riddled with guilt and whatnot, couldn’t just pull forward and assert her authority.

  It was a pickle—one he shouldn’t give a whole hill of beans about, either, but damn if he wasn’t getting a headache over the predicament.

  “You about done over there, half pint?” he called out to Taylor and she nodded, running over to return the oat pail to its peg on the wall before skipping to his side. “Did you double check the gate latches?” he asked.

  “Yep. Have you figured out how you’re gonna get Vixen to stop stomping on your helpers?” she asked, an excited gleam in her eye. “Yesterday, I thought she was going to stomp Mr. Tony to death! She was so mad that he was trying to come into her stall.”

  “Yes, she was. And, no, I haven’t figured that one out yet. She’s the toughest horse I’ve ever worked with.”

  “Someone was mean to her, huh?” Taylor asked, her eyes solemn. “That’s why she don’t like no one. What happens if she never likes no one? Will you keep her forever here at the r
anch?”

  He shook his head. “She doesn’t actually belong to me, half pint,” John said, his mouth twisting sadly. “Her owner is paying me to gentle her so that he can ride her.”

  “I don’t think Vixen would like that very much,” Taylor said, shaking her head like a miniature version of himself. He would’ve laughed except the subject matter was rather serious. Vixen’s fate was dire if he couldn’t get her on the right track. Her owner wasn’t known for his compassion. He’d bought Vixen because she was beautiful with solid lines and a proud disposition but he hadn’t listened when the seller had tried to tell him that she wasn’t no kiddie pony. Now, she was so riled and cantankerous, if John couldn’t get her under control, she was bound for the glue factory. And that was a crying shame, one that he tried not to think about. Returning his attention to Taylor he ruffled her blond mop, chuckling as he said, “Is that so? Well, we’ll do our best with Vixen. Until then, it’s school for you. Run on and go see if your sister is awake yet.”

  “Yessir, Mr. John!” Taylor saluted John with a lopsided grin and took off running for the house, her blond hair fluttering behind her like a kite tail, tugging a grin from his lips before he could stop it. If he’d ever seen fit to settle down and raise a family he knew he would’ve wanted a daughter just like that kid. He couldn’t imagine walking away from his kids, not even if his life depended on it.

  RENEE PEEKED IN ON GLADYS, anxious for something to do, and was surprised when she saw the old gal up and moving around.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?” she asked, a frown creasing her forehead. “You look pale.”

  “Takes more than a fever and some sore bones to keep me down. Besides, I promised Chloe chocolate chip cookies and there’s no sense in lying down when there’s stuff to be done. Right?”

  “I suppose,” Renee said, feeling worlds from this stout old lady. Back when she and Jason were still married they used to spend whole days doing nothing except making beer runs. The house had been a pigsty, beer cans overflowing the small plastic garbage can, and pizza boxes littering the kitchen because neither one of them could do much more than speed dial with any efficiency. Out of nowhere her cheeks started to burn for her own laziness. She’d been raised differently and so had Jason for that matter but it hadn’t mattered. They’d both acted slovenly.

  “Something on your mind?” Gladys inquired when she noted Renee had stopped folding the blanket in her hand and it was hanging limp from her fingertips. Gladys gestured and Renee snapped to attention with a flustered apology but Gladys waved it away. “No need. You know, I think we ought to get to know each other better. Seems you’re not the person I might’ve thought you were.”

  Renee startled. “What do you mean?”

  Gladys shrugged, making no excuses. “My opinion of you was pretty low until recently. I know it’s not right but the first time I met you I thought to myself, ‘Now there’s a flighty, snooty slip of a girl’ and then of course, if you were shacking up with Jason you couldn’t be worth all that much because frankly, that boy was never going to amount to much, bless my sister’s heart for never giving up on him.” Renee stared, unsure if she should be offended or not but Gladys didn’t seem to mind and kept talking. “I suspect you two have been living off the inheritance my sister left for you when she died?”

  There was no sense in denying it. The money—not that thirty-five thousand dollars was a lot in the big scheme of things—had allowed them to party unchecked, unhindered by jobs or other inconsequential things, and gloss over the major problems in their marriage. The burn in her cheeks flared bright as she nodded and her throat seemed to choke off her voice. “We were going to buy a house,” she said. “But it never worked out.”

  Gladys continued to tidy the room but the ensuing silence made Renee wish she’d bypassed the old woman’s room. “We made a lot of mistakes,” she admitted after a long moment. Gladys glanced up and seemed to nod in agreement. “But I’m trying not to live in the past. If I keep looking backward I’ll go crazy. It’s bad enough that I can hardly get near Chloe because Alexis blames me for everything that happened after I left, and the guilt and shame is enough to kill me already. I don’t need to overload myself with the stupid mistakes Jason and I made with his inheritance. I feel bad enough.”

  “You know…I believe you.”

  Renee met Gladys’s steady gaze and felt tears well in her eyes but she wasn’t willing to trust so simple a declaration. How could Gladys feel anything but disgust for her when she’d clearly been a terrible mother to her three children, abandoning them with a man who was not fit to raise a dog? “Is that so?” she said, unable to keep the mocking tone from her voice. “And why is that? I seem to recall you saying that you didn’t think much of me when we first met.”

  “True enough. But I’ve seen the heartbreak in your eyes over what your girls have been through and I don’t believe you ever meant to hurt them or put them in harm’s way. I know Jason didn’t start out a good-for-nothing. It was a process of evolution. I blame the drugs.”

  “Oh…” Renee whispered, cringing that Gladys knew. “How’d you…”

  “A person doesn’t blow through the kind of money you two were blowing without a little help. He called me a few times looking for money. I turned him down. I knew it wasn’t going to help things. I told him to get a job and earn an honest wage. He hung up on me. That was the last time I heard from him until the night he dropped off the girls. I hardly recognized him. He’d always been on the thin side but he looked no more than skin and bones. A ghost in ripped and faded jeans with hollowed out eyes. You don’t get like that unless you’re doing something terrible to your body.” Then Gladys pinned her with a hard look. “The question is…were you doing drugs, too, Renee?”

  It was an honest question and Renee tried hard not to bristle but it was difficult to allow another person to poke around in your personal business without getting at least a little defensive. She swallowed hard before answering. “No. I never did that…but I am…an alcoholic, which is no better…no worse.”

  “You go to meetings?” Gladys asked.

  “Yes. Every Tuesday evening, even when I was on the road. I’d grab a local newspaper, the listings are usually in the community events section. Although, to be honest, I don’t attend the Emmett’s Mill meetings. I’ve been going to Coldwater.”

  “Afraid people are going to judge you.” It was a statement, not a question. “Smart. It’s hard to make a fresh start with everyone knowing when you’ve fallen and skinned your knee.”

  Renee nodded, grateful for the woman’s understanding, though why she cared, she hadn’t a clue. She suspected it had something to do with her ragged emotional state but it was a relief not to have to be on guard for the moment. “I do want a fresh start,” Renee said, unshed tears filling her eyes. “I just don’t know how to go about it.”

  Gladys chuckled and patted her arm. “Well, I believe I can help in that department. But first, we bake. Chloe is getting her chocolate chip cookies today because a promise is a promise. Don’t you agree?”

  Renee thought of the string of broken promises she’d left behind in a trail of failures throughout her life but in her mind she heard Chloe’s terrified shrieks and it gave her strength. She gave a resolute nod. “Yes,” she said, making the answer a solemn vow inside her heart. No more broken promises…

  LATER THAT DAY, AS JOHN WAS picking up Alexis from school, he was thankful Taylor was released at noon rather than at the same time as Alexis. He needed to have a private talk with Alexis, but he wasn’t quite sure how to broach a certain subject. He ought to just leave well enough alone and let Renee sort out her own mess with her daughter but the fact was, he wasn’t doing it for Renee.

  Alexis was hurting, even if she didn’t want anyone to know. Clearing his throat, he rested his hand atop the steering wheel and drove at a slow clip as if he had all the time in the world when in fact he had more to do at the ranch than he possibly knew how to accom
modate within a twenty-four-hour period. Mentally assigning a few extra jobs to the “helpers” as Taylor liked to call them, he drew a deep breath to begin but Alexis must’ve sensed something for she launched enthusiastically into her day. John wasn’t fooled. Alexis was never this chatty.

  “And so this girl, I don’t really know her name, she likes this guy, I don’t really know his name, either, and they kept passing notes back and forth all day and it was so annoying. Now that I’m back in school, I can’t really remember why I wanted to return. I mean, all the kids care about are stupid things like iPods and cell phones and who has the coolest clothes…it’s all so dumb and juvenile.”

  “Juvenile?” He couldn’t stop the chuckle that followed. “That’s a pretty sophisticated word for a nine-year-old.”

  She leveled a stern look his way that nearly broke his heart for its misplaced maturity and said, “Please. Now you’re just being dumb. I may be nine but I can’t remember the last time I worried about anything so…” She searched for the right words and came up frustrated. Seems as much as she might like it otherwise, her vocabulary was still on the limited side. “Well, I don’t know…stupid.”

  He sighed. Alexis turned to glower out the window and watch the scenery pass them by. He was tempted to just let the silence continue but he knew that wasn’t the prudent thing to do, especially when they were dealing with such a sensitive subject. “I need your help, Alexis,” he started, risking a quick glance her way to gauge her reaction. He wasn’t disappointed, her head tilted subtly indicating she was listening. “I think Chloe and Taylor could benefit from talking to someone—you know like a counselor who specializes in traumatized children—after everything they’ve been through. What do you think about that?”

  At the mention of her sisters she went into protective mode. It took a long moment before she answered. “I don’t know…maybe it might be good. Especially for Chloe,” she admitted.