by Pamela Bauer
He was hungry. “Oh, all right.” He tried to make it sound as if he really didn’t care about breakfast.
Before they could cross the living room into the kitchen, the doorbell rang. Emma raced to the front window to push aside the curtains so she could see who was standing on the step.
With a screech she cried out, “Oh, my gosh! It’s Gramma!”
CHAPTER TWO
WHAT FRANNIE DIDN’T NEED today of all days was to have her former mother-in-law drop in. “This is a surprise,” she said, although it really shouldn’t have caught her off guard. After all, Arlene Harper had a way of showing up when she was least expected. If there was one word Frannie would use to describe Arlene, it was unpredictable.
“Did you take a taxi from the airport?”
“Oh, I didn’t fly,” Arlene answered. “I drove.”
“By yourself? Where’s Harry?”
Harry was Arlene’s fiancé—or at least he was the last time Frannie had seen her. She glanced at Arlene’s left hand and saw the ring finger was bare. It looked as if Harry had gone the way of the rest of the men in Arlene’s life.
“I’m afraid that didn’t work out.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Frannie said, although she really should have told Arlene how lucky she was to be rid of the moocher. From the very first time Frannie had met Harry she’d had her suspicions that he was all charm and no substance. But then, in the eleven years she’d known Arlene, that’s all there had been in her mother-in-law’s life—men with charm but little substance.
Arlene’s next words indicated that she’d finally figured out Harry, too. “It’s for the best. He wasn’t the man for me,” Arlene said without any bitterness. “He thought work was for other people. But let’s not waste our time talking about me. I want to hear what’s been happening to my beautiful grandchildren,” she said, wrapping her arms around Luke and Emma.
“As you can see, they’re fine,” Frannie answered.
“We only have one more week of school and then we’re on summer vacation,” Emma stated joyfully.
“I know. That’s why I came. I want to spend lots of time with you this summer.”
Frannie gulped. “You’re staying for the summer?”
“This is going to be so cool,” Emma gushed, giving her grandmother another hug.
“Yes, it is,” Arlene agreed with a smile. “You won’t have to have a baby-sitter while your mother’s at work.”
As much as she appreciated Arlene’s offer, the thought of her mother-in-law staying with them in a house that was already too small did not put the glee in her eyes that it did in her children’s.
“It’s very generous of you to offer, but I’ve already contracted for day care,” she said, trying not to sound ungracious.
Alex, who’d been standing in the background, stepped forward. “We hate going to day care. It’s all little kids. Why can’t Gramma take care of us?”
“Because it’ll cost me money if we back out now,” Frannie explained.
“But it’s going to cost you money anyway, right?” Arlene asked.
“Can’t we please stay home with Gramma?” Emma begged, giving her mother a look that was just as dramatic as her plea.
“What about summer camp? The bus is supposed to pick you up at the day care center,” Frannie reminded them.
“That’s not until August,” Alex answered.
“Oh, by then I’ll be gone,” Arlene told them.
Frannie hoped no one heard her sigh of relief.
Emma’s face dropped. “I thought you said you were staying the whole summer.”
“Just for part of the summer, dear. But I will be here all of June and part of July.”
“What about your job?” Frannie asked.
“Oh, I quit,” she said with a flap of her hand.
“You quit?”
“Yes. Don’t look so alarmed, Frannie. I’ll find another,” she said nonchalantly, then turned to the twins and said, “Wait until you see what I brought for you.”
“Did you bring us cards with the holes in them?” Alex asked, moving closer to the couch.
“I most certainly did,” Arlene said proudly. “Two decks for each of you.”
“And the teeny bottles of shampoo and lotion?” Emma wanted to know.
Arlene nodded. “They smell just heavenly. Wait until you see.”
Because she worked as a cashier at a hotel casino in Atlantic City, Arlene often brought playing cards as well as complimentary bottles of lotion and shampoo.
Her glance moved between Emma and Alex. “Now, what should we do today? Gramma wants to take you someplace fun.” Arlene looked at Frannie and asked, “You don’t have plans for today, do you?”
“Actually, I do.” She was assigned to cover a charity walk-a-thon. She’d planned to put Luke in the stroller and let Emma and Alex push him, as they walked with the rest of the participants and she took photos.
Alex groaned. “We don’t have to go to that, do we?”
“Go where?” Emma asked.
“Some stupid walk-a-thon,” Alex answered.
“It’s not stupid. It’s for a good cause,” Frannie chastised him.
“We can always do something tomorrow,” Arlene suggested, which provoked groans from the twins. Then she looked at Frannie and said, “Or I could take the children today and then you’d be free to concentrate on your work.”
It was a tempting offer. The children would be a distraction while she tried to work. On the other hand, Frannie knew her children could be a handful, especially Luke. The memory of her son throwing a temper tantrum the last time she’d had him at the mall made her hesitate. As much as Frannie wanted to say yes, she wasn’t sure she could do so with a clear conscience.
Finally, after much cajoling by the twins, she agreed to let them stay with their grandmother, but extracted the promise that they would help their grandmother with Luke. They also needed to complete their Saturday chores, which would give Arlene a chance to rest before their adventure.
Alex didn’t protest the later start. “That means I can go over to Josh’s and get my posters done.”
That raised his grandmother’s curiosity. “What posters are those?”
“I’ll show you,” he answered, then disappeared into his room.
Frannie thought about stopping him, but knew it would only be a matter of time until Arlene found out about his campaign to find his father. When Alex returned with the flyer, he held it up for his grand-mother’s inspection.
“I’m trying to find my dad. Me and my friend Josh made this, but I have to change the phone number. That’s why I have to go to his house. He has a computer,” he explained.
Arlene looked first at the poster, then at Frannie, her eyes filled with questions. Frannie didn’t know how to answer them, so she simply lifted her brows and shrugged.
“I’m going to put them up all over Minneapolis, and some of my friends are going to take them when they go on vacation this summer,” Alex continued. “Will you take some back to Atlantic City with you, Gramma?” He looked at his grandmother expectantly.
Arlene placed her hand on his shoulder. “If it’s important to you, of course I will, but I don’t know if it will do any good. I doubt he’s anywhere close. If your father were living near me, he’d call.”
“But there are lots of people who come to the casinos and hotels. Maybe a tourist will see the poster and recognize his picture,” Alex argued.
Frannie could see how unsettling it was for Arlene to have such a discussion with her grandson, and decided to change the subject. “Okay, kids, get your chores done.”
That got Alex to table the discussion of his missing father. Frannie knew, however, it was a subject that wouldn’t be left for long. Sooner or later she and Arlene would have to talk about Dennis’s disappearance and Alex’s quest.
That’s why she wasn’t surprised when later that evening, after the kids had gone to bed, Arlene joined her in the kitchen
. Frannie offered to make her a cup of tea, but the older woman said she just wanted to sit for a bit and talk.
Seeing her yawn Frannie said, “The kids can wear you out, can’t they.”
“It’s a nice kind of tired. Alex, Emma and Luke are good kids, Frannie. You’re doing a fine job with them,” she said, taking a seat at the table where Frannie sat folding the laundry.
Frannie smoothed the wrinkles out of a small undershirt. “Thank you, Arlene. I do my best.”
“I know you do. And it shows. Of course, Luke does have quite a temper,” she remarked.
Frannie gave her a smile. “He had a tantrum?”
“I didn’t know kids could arch their backs that way,” she reflected with a weary chuckle.
Frannie grimaced. “I’m sorry if he was a handful.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. I’m a mother, too. I know what kids are like.” She picked up one of Luke’s socks that had fallen out of Frannie’s basket. “I’d forgotten how tiny they make these things.”
Frannie smiled in understanding and continued to fold the clothes. “I appreciate your help with the kids today. They didn’t want to go to the walk-a-thon.”
“And you shouldn’t have to take them with you when you work,” Arlene said as she reached inside the laundry basket for the matching sock.
“Most of my assignments are during the week, and I can drop the kids off at day care if necessary, but on weekends I have to rely on the girl next door. When she’s busy, it means I either have to find someone to cover for me at the paper or bring the kids along.”
“That can’t be easy,” Arlene commented, adding the pair of folded socks to Frannie’s pile.
“No,” she said. “That’s why I’m grateful for what you did today.”
Arlene blew off Frannie’s gratitude with a wave of her hand. “It was nothing. Actually, I’m the one who should be thanking you. You’ve always made me feel welcome here, Frannie, despite everything that’s happened.”
“That’s because you are welcome here,” Frannie said sincerely.
“Thank you. It’s nice to hear you say that, especially when I know you wouldn’t say it if you didn’t mean it. I hope you don’t mind that I want to spend some time here with the children.”
Frannie wasn’t sure how she felt about it, but she didn’t admit her uncertainty. “You said you quit your job?”
“Yes. I wanted to see what it would be like to be footloose and fancy free.” She smiled reflectively. “I discovered I like it. Now I know why women marry money.”
“Money isn’t everything.” Frannie recited the familiar refrain she’d used hundreds—maybe thousands—of times in the past few years.
“No, but it makes life a bit less stressful,” Arlene said.
“Is that why you’re looking so relaxed? Because you’ve come into some money?”
A self-satisfied grin spread Arlene’s lips. “I’m here because I’ve had some very good luck recently and I want to share it with you and the children.”
“What kind of luck?”
“Do you remember me talking about Martha Ball?”
“That sweet little old lady who lives down the hall from you?”
Arlene nodded. “I used to pick up her groceries for her, take her to the beauty shop once a week…you know, those kinds of things. She had such bad arthritis that it was difficult for her to get around.”
“Had?”
A sadness came into Arlene’s eyes. “She passed away a couple of months ago.”
Frannie placed a hand on Arlene’s arm. “I’m so sorry. I know you were fond of her.”
“Yes, she was a dear. And a bit of a gambler. She used to look forward to me coming over so we could play penny-ante poker.” Arlene shook her head, a nostalgic twinkle in her eye. “All those years we played for pennies…I had no idea how much she was actually worth.”
“She had a lot of money?”
“Oh, yes, and no family to share it with. That’s why when she died she left everything to the people she said had been the kindest to her.”
“And you were one of them?”
Again she nodded. “There weren’t many people who took the time to visit her. Just a handful of us who stopped in to play cards. None of us expected to get anything. Heck, we all thought she was one step from poverty. We’d often let her win just to give her a few extra bucks.” She chuckled at the memory.
“Then it must have come as a surprise to learn you had an inheritance.”
“Oh, my goodness, yes! I had no idea she had money in the bank. Every month when I’d help her write out her checks to pay the bills, there barely seemed enough for her to get by. She would say she had a little bit put away for a rainy day—which I thought meant thousands, not hundreds of thousands.”
“Hundreds of thousands?” Frannie’s eyes widened.
“You can imagine my shock. I’ve lived payday to payday my entire life.”
“Most of us do,” she said soberly.
“You shouldn’t have to.”
Frannie really didn’t want to be having this conversation with her ex-mother-in-law because she knew where it was leading. And she didn’t want to talk about her ex-husband.
Arlene, however, would not be swayed. “I want to give some of this money to you and the kids…you know, to try to make up for what Dennis hasn’t done.”
“You don’t need to do that,” Frannie began, only to have the other woman cut her short.
“I know I don’t have to. I want to. What good is inheriting money if you can’t share it with the ones you love?”
It was a very generous gesture, yet Frannie couldn’t let her do it. She knew that Arlene had worked hard all her life and had very little to show for it. Forever bailing Dennis out of trouble, she’d never hesitated to spend her money to help her son. Now she wanted to give away what could be her retirement nest egg because of obligations he’d failed to meet.
“If you want to put a little money aside for college for the kids, that’s fine, but you don’t need to help us out, Arlene. We’re doing all right.” It wasn’t exactly the truth. Frannie was tired of there never being enough money, but she also knew that until she no longer had the expense of day care, she’d continue to scramble for money.
Arlene’s face fell. “You don’t want my help?”
“You shouldn’t have to sacrifice your future because of Dennis’s irresponsible behavior. That money should be used for your retirement, not for raising your grandchildren.” Frannie didn’t like the awkwardness that the subject of money had introduced into their conversation. “Look, I think it’s best that we don’t talk about Dennis.”
“No, you’re probably right,” Arlene agreed. “It’s how we’ve managed to stay friends, isn’t it? By not talking about him?”
Frannie knew there was no need for her to answer.
“I just have one question,” Arlene said.
Reluctantly, Frannie asked, “About Dennis?”
She nodded. “Do you think there’s any chance that Alex’s posters might succeed in finding him?”
Frannie shook her head. “We’ve hired private investigators who haven’t been able to come up with any leads.”
“That’s true.”
“And if Dennis was going to contact anyone, it would be you.”
“I don’t think so, not after I threatened to turn him in to the authorities.” Arlene sighed. “I’m not proud to call him my son, Frannie. You ought to know that. And it hurts me to see Alex struggling with all of this. If there was some way I could make that son of mine behave like a man, I would have done it by now.”
Frannie felt a rush of sympathy for the older woman. She could imagine how painful it would be to be estranged from one of her children. “I don’t think we should be talking about this, Arlene.”
She nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Frannie.”
“It’s all right. He’s still your son, Arlene, no matter what happens.”
; “And the father of Alex, Emma and Luke,” her ex-mother-in-law added.
As much as Frannie wanted to argue that Dennis had given up the right to be a father, she knew it would be wise to say nothing. If Arlene planned to stay for part of the summer, Frannie needed to keep a tight rein on her feelings about Dennis.
And she would. For her children’s sake.
“IT’S WORKING OUT BETTER than I thought it would,” Alex told Josh the following Monday on their way to school. “Now that my gramma’s staying with us, I won’t have to go to day care next week when school’s out. And you know what that means.”
“You’ll be home to answer the phone when someone calls with information about your dad,” Josh supplied. “Aren’t you worried your mom’s gonna get mad when she finds out you left your phone number on the flyers?”
“Only on half of them. The ones I put up around here all have my aunt’s office number on them.” He kicked a rock in his path and it went rolling across the street.
“You think your aunt will tell you if someone calls about your dad?”
“I’m not sure. She says it’s better for society if deadbeats like him drop out…at least, that’s what I heard her tell my mom one night when they didn’t know I was listening.”
“Hey, I heard Jamie Richards is going camping in the Boundary Waters as soon as school’s out. You should have him put some posters up there.”
“Good idea. And Angela Martin is going to the Wisconsin Dells.”
“You asked her?” Josh wrinkled his nose in disgust. “She’s a dork.”
“It doesn’t matter. She said she’d take my posters with her.”
“How many out-of-town ones does that make?”
“Seventeen. Before summer’s over, my posters will be all over the country.”
“Cool. I bet you’re going to find him.”
“Maybe” was all Alex said, remembering all the times he’d heard his mom and his aunt discuss his father. He knew it wasn’t easy finding a deadbeat.
TRUE TO HER WORD, Arlene did her best not to mention her son’s name during her stay. Alex, however, asked every day if his auntie Lois had called with any information. And each day Frannie would give him the same response. No, not yet.
