Anna Meets Her Match

by Arlene James

  He hadn’t exactly been amiable and personable with her. Most of the time he’d been downright rude. He was going to have to mend his ways, make friends with her, if that was possible. At the very least, he was going to have to be polite.

  Okay, Lord, if that’s what You want, then You’re going to have to help me. Big time.

  Pleased with the new fuel contract that he had just successfully negotiated, Reeves stepped up into the charming little bistro with the Director of Operations at his side. Their hard work had been rewarded with nice bonuses, and they’d decided to celebrate at Buffalo Creek’s most popular café. Considering that the morning had started with a telephone call from his ex, the day had definitely improved; yet, he couldn’t quite get that call off his mind.

  Marissa had taken up residence in San Antonio and wanted, she’d said, to give him her new address. She had complained that she wasn’t earning enough to make ends meet and insisted that they needed to “rethink their divorce agreement.” Otherwise, she had said, she’d have to find another way to “make an adequate home for Gilli.” He had pointed out that she’d never stated any intention of making any sort of home for Gilli before, to which she had retorted, “Things change.”

  He knew a threat when he heard one, but his ready cash was tied up in house repairs and would be until the last of the insurance came through. If he’d had the bonus money then, he might have given that to her, though it was just as well she did not have the means to hire an attorney or open court proceedings, not that he seriously thought she would do so. Every time she reached out, though, he was forcibly reminded of his inadequacies and failures. But not today, he decided. Today he was going to hold this one small triumph close and forget about all the rest.

  That proved easier than he’d expected when he spied Anna at a table with an older couple across the way. The man looked vaguely familiar, but he knew that he’d never seen the woman before. She said something, and Anna laughed, putting her head back to let the sound roll up out of her throat in a rich, musical flow. The instant that she saw him, the laughter stopped. Reminded forcefully of his conversation with God on Sunday past, he put on a smile and was rewarded with a look of genuine welcome. He found that welcoming expression compelling, so as the waitress showed him and his companion to their table, he excused himself to briefly detour in Anna’s direction.

  The vibrant yellow-orange walls, painted with trailing vines and birds nesting in tree branches, provided a fetching backdrop for Anna’s golden beauty, Reeves mused as he walked across the black-and-white checkerboard floor. Once he arrived at the table, however, he found himself appallingly bereft of conversation beyond, “Hello.”

  Anna, fortunately, had no such problem. “Come here often?”

  It sounded like the worst of pickup lines, and he almost laughed, as she no doubt intended. Instead, he cleared his throat. “Not really, no.”

  “Special occasion then?”

  “Business thing,” he said, nodding.

  Both of Anna’s eyebrows lifted. “The negotiations must have gone well.”

  “You knew about that?”

  “Your aunts mentioned something about it.” Effectively changing the subject, she looked to the couple with her. “You may not remember Howard from the print shop.”

  “But I do,” Reeves said, shaking hands with the older man.

  “And this is his wife Lois.”

  “Ma’am.”

  “They have a special occasion, too,” Anna announced.

  Lois, whose slate brown, shoulder-length hair was sprinkled with silver, hunched her plump shoulders and cast a loving gaze on her husband. “Twenty-eight years.”

  “Your wedding anniversary?” Reeves surmised.

  Leaning sideways, she linked her arm with her husband’s. “Yes. Anna’s treating us to lunch in celebration.”

  “Congratulations. That’s quite an accomplishment.”

  Harold smiled and patted his wife’s hand. “Sadly, these days it is, but then there aren’t many like my Lois.”

  “Oh, you shameless old flirt,” Lois teased. She winked at Anna and quipped, “He just keeps me around because I make him laugh.”

  “Hey, a man with a sense of humor is a rare find,” Anna returned. “Take it from me. I would know. Right, Stick?”

  He didn’t know what to say to that, so he just smiled. “Well, I don’t want to keep my friend waiting.” He nodded to Howard and Lois. “Nice to meet you folks. Anna.”

  “Enjoy your lunch.”

  “Thanks. You, too.” He started to turn away, but then he stopped, remembering that he had a mission where Anna was concerned. For a moment, he was unsure what to do. He didn’t think it wise to say that he wanted to talk to her about church. Then he remembered something. “Actually,” he said, “I meant to tell you that Gilli’s been asking about you.”

  Anna brightened. “Oh?”

  Relieved in a way that he couldn’t quite identify, Reeves smiled and nodded. Gilli had asked when Anna would come and skate with her again, prompting Reeves to walk out onto the back patio with her to watch her demonstrate her newly acquired skating skills. She hadn’t asked after Anna since. Indeed, that simple gesture on his part had seemed to have pleased his little girl mightily, which had, in turn, humbled him. He was beginning to realize how much he’d left to the nanny, more than he should have. Much more. In some ways, he was only now getting to know his daughter.

  “She’d like it if you stopped by to say hello sometime,” he went on carefully.

  “I’ll make a point of it,” Anna said. “I have to call on your aunts soon, anyway.”

  “We’ll look forward to it.” The seed of a future conversation planted, Reeves seemed to have run out of words for this one again. He flipped a wave and walked away, leaving Anna smiling as if he’d given her something precious, something more than just a friendly word. It made him feel small to think that he might have given her that at any point in the past.

  He could not remember when he’d taken an early weekend, Reeves thought, turning the sedan into the drive of Chatam House that following Friday a good three hours before his usual quitting time. The gate, featuring a large copperplate C at its center, stood open in welcome as usual. He could count on one hand the number occasions, in his memory, that it had been closed. Perhaps that perpetual welcome was one reason why he so looked forward to coming home. God knew that Chatam House felt more like home to him now than the house that he had shared with Marissa ever had.

  He pushed away thoughts of her and her increasingly shrill demands, steering the sedan around to the west side of the house. Strangely unsurprised to find Anna’s battered old coupe parked beneath the porte cochere there, he parked next to it and got out. He was surprised to find Anna and Gilli sitting cross-legged on the ground at the edge of the drive tossing pebbles at the massive magnolia tree on the west lawn. The waxy, palm-sized, evergreen leaves had turned brown around the edges due to the cold, but Reeves knew that they would not fall from the stems until new foliage appeared in the spring, unless they were knocked free by, for example, flying gravel.

  He walked toward them, pleased when Gilli smiled and waved at him. Anna glanced his way, then picked a small stone from the edge of the drive and tossed it into the tree. What fell to the dirt was not a large, leathery leaf, as expected, but a scrawny gray cat, yowling in surprised protest. Gilli gasped, and for a second the entire tableau froze. Then, suddenly, both Anna and Gilli burst out laughing. An instant later, the cat streaked around the converted carriage house, where the staff lived, and out of sight.

  “It was a cat!” Gilli exclaimed needlessly. “We got a cat, Daddy!”

  He didn’t bother correcting her. The cat was long gone, after all.

  Sobered, Anna said, “I hope I didn’t hurt it.”

  “It looked okay to me, just surprised.”

  “No more surprised than us,” she replied with a chuckle.

  “Anna knocked off a cat!” Gilli exclaimed, laughing
. Suddenly she looked up at him. “I can knock off leaves, Daddy. Watch!”

  Anna sent him a telling glance, even as she too reached for a pebble—from behind Gilli. “Slow and easy,” she counseled, glancing up at him again, this time with a conspiratorial look in her eyes.

  Gilli took aim, holding her pebble no higher than her nose. Then suddenly her arm shot up, and she threw it. At the same time, Anna flung her stone up from the ground and over Gilli’s head. Gilli’s pebble traveled about ten feet, plopping silently and unseen, by her at least, to the right. Anna’s sailed into the tree about midway up, and a pair of leaves rattled slowly to the ground beneath.

  “I got two! I got two!” Gilli crowed.

  “Beans!” Anna complained. “That makes you the winner.”

  Gilli radiated delight even as she comforted Anna with a pat on her knee. “Uh-uh. You knocked off the cat. “Member?”

  Anna snorted. It sounded suspiciously like a strangled laugh.

  Abruptly, Reeves wanted to reach down and scoop them both into his arms. He wanted to savor the whole moment, including the mute byplay with Anna. He had known, somehow, what she was planning, what she had been doing, for Gilli all along, and it warmed his heart, especially when Gilli seemed so pleased with her supposed pebble-tossing prowess. Rattled by these unexpected emotions, he nevertheless wanted Anna to know how grateful he was, despite his doubts sometimes about her methods and the sudden envy that he felt because Gilli never laughed so easily with him. That, he knew, was his own fault, and he meant, somehow, to remedy the situation.

  Anna pushed up from the ground, her long, slender legs straightening to show off the snug, easy fit of her nut-brown corduroy jeans, which she wore with a quilted tan jacket and long, colorful striped wool scarf.

  “I better get a move on,” she said, and the sound of her voice made him realize that he’d been staring. Quickly, he dropped his gaze, nodding.

  “Don’t go, Anna,” Gilli pleaded. “Stay and knock off leaves with us.”

  “I can’t, sweetie,” Anna said. “I still haven’t seen your aunts, and I need to get back to work soon. Unfortunately.”

  Reeves seized on that. “Don’t you like your job?”

  She grimaced. “I like the work, at least.”

  “You should. You’re quite good at it.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. A moment later, she bowed her head as if trying to hide the smile that curled her lips. “Yeah, well, to tell you the truth, my boss is a bit of a bear. Kind of takes the fun out of things, you know, but I like working with Howard.”

  “He seems very nice.”

  “He is, and that makes dealing with Dennis easier.”

  Reeves found himself reaching for some way to help her. “Maybe you ought to consider changing jobs anyway. There are bound to be opportunities in Dallas.”

  She shook her head, already moving away. “I wouldn’t know how to even begin looking.”

  He didn’t want her to leave. That nonsensical, rather alarming thought took him by surprise. He immediately rationalized it. How was he supposed to talk to her about getting back into the habit of attending worship service if they never spent any time together? Before he could think of a way to make that happen, she called out, “Gotta go. See you guys later.”

  Gilli folded her arms, pout in full force, but then she turned a beseeching face up at him. “Wanna play? Wanna knock off leaves with me, Daddy? Please? Pleeease.”

  Gilli had never asked him to play before. Maybe she hadn’t realized that adults could play, or maybe that was just one more essential that he’d left to the nanny. He looked back over his shoulder, watching Anna disappear around the corner of the house, then he carefully lowered himself to the ground. Gilli’s happy laughter curled around him like tendrils of incense. Was this how God felt about the happiness of His children? Reeves hoped so.

  “I wonder if I can knock off a dog,” he teased, reaching back to pick up a handful of pebbles.

  Gilli giggled. “Daaady! Dogs don’t go in trees!”

  “No? Hmm. We’ll see.” He let loose with the pebble in his hand. It sailed high into the tree, but the leaf that he knocked free failed to make it to the ground, caught somewhere in the jumble of limbs.

  Gilli couldn’t believe it. Her elbows braced on her knees, she turned up her palms. Then she gasped and wonder lit her face as she whispered, “Maybe the dog gots it!”

  Grinning, Reeves looked back to the tree, calling, “Hey, pooch! Fetch me my leaf.” Without Gilli realizing it, he threw another pebble, aiming for the middle limbs this time, and a single leaf fell straight to the ground. Gilli’s eyes popped big as saucers. “Good, pooch,” Reeves said, winking.

  “Daaady!”

  She fell against him, laughing, and when he put his arm around her, joy suffused him. He almost felt sorry for Marissa. Despite all of her declarations about making a home for Gilli, she hadn’t even asked how their daughter was or said anything about arranging a visit. All she’d talked about was needing money. She had no idea what she was really missing.

  It occurred to him that Anna was nothing like Marissa. She obviously didn’t have much, and she just as obviously didn’t expect much. For another thing, she was good with Gilli, better than any nanny he had ever hired. She actually seemed to like his daughter and spending time with her. The aunties were right. Not only did she seem to understand Gilli better than her own mother did, Anna seemed to understand Gilli better than her father. That was the saddest thing of all. Anna Miranda was a better parent than him or Marissa.

  But he was trying, and maybe someday he could change that, once God was through with him, had fixed him somehow, made him a better man, a better Christian. Maybe, with the right woman…He dared not ask himself if Anna could be that woman. Yet, she had indisputably given him insight into his daughter, and he thought that perhaps he was a bit better as a father because of it.

  The thought occurred to him that he ought to do something for Anna in gratitude. An idea began to form in the back of his mind. But first things first.

  “Your turn,” he told Gilli, surreptitiously picking up another pebble from the edge of the drive.

  Once more, she took careful aim, and a tiny rock plopped into the grass, but she saw only the rusty green leaf that tumbled to the ground as she crowed in celebration.

  They spent a good quarter-hour tossing pebbles at the magnolia tree. Later, while she napped, he slipped off on a long run. When he returned to the mansion, she complained about having awakened and found him gone, so he consented to watch a video with her after dinner. As it was Friday, he even allowed her to stay up later than usual. Eventually, she drifted off to sleep, cuddled up next to him on the comfy cream white leather sofa before the fireplace in their suite.

  Carrying her to bed, he felt that lately they had made progress. Being at Chatam House helped. His aunties and their faith permeated the place with peace and comfort. Not having the nanny around to take care of things like getting Gilli dressed and bathed had made a big difference, too, more than he could have guessed, but he knew that the lion’s share of the credit went to Anna.

  She had shown him that Gilli was more than a fussy, irrational baby. Anna had shown him how important it was to pay attention to Gilli and have a little fun with her. As a result, Gilli laughed more, shone more and behaved better. Reeves realized that he’d secretly feared that his daughter hated him, but that was not the case. She needed him; she might even love him. Life wasn’t without its frustrations where Gilli was concerned, but he certainly enjoyed her more.

  “Thank You, Lord,” he whispered, lowering her onto her pillow. He brushed her curls from her forehead and pulled up the downy blanket to tuck it around her. He spent a long time in prayer that night, just being thankful, and he asked for something that had never occurred to him before. He asked to forget the pain of his failed marriage, realizing that it had caused him to ignore in so many ways the one good thing to have come from that catastrophe, his daughter.

>   They slept in on Saturday then enjoyed a light, simple breakfast together in their suite. Reeves went downstairs and put it together himself, Hilda having moved on to other chores. Gilli was thrilled to discover that he’d sent it up in the old dumbwaiter that opened onto the landing. Later, when he had errands to run, she begged to go along. Despite fearing that she would tire before he had accomplished what he must, he gave in.

  Their first stop was the dry cleaners, where he picked up a week’s worth of shirts and his tuxedo. He’d dropped off his tux as soon as the aunties had made it clear that this year’s fund-raiser was to be a gala affair. He had worn the thing exactly twice in his life, once at his sister’s wedding and again at his own. Might as well get some good out of it when he could.

  After that, he drove over to the pharmacy to replenish their supply of vitamins. There Gilli demanded a candy bar, but he deflected a confrontation by offering lunch at her favorite pizza place instead, a small concession since he’d planned to eat out anyway. Taking Gilli into the local home improvement store next probably wasn’t the smartest move he could have made, which was why he gave up trying to pick out a new light fixture for the kitchen midway through the project. He still had time, he told the beleaguered salesman, who was undoubtedly relieved that he’d gotten rid of them before something ended up broken. Lunch became a rather long, drawn out, fractious affair, but Reeves was pleased that he managed to keep his cool, even though Gilli couldn’t seem to sit still in the booth for three minutes running.

  Their final stop was their own house, where he inspected the new rafters. While he was up in the attic, Gilli went to her bedroom where she pulled out half a dozen more toys that she wanted to take back to the mansion with her.

  “Please, Daddy, please.”

  Reeves shook his head. “You have plenty of toys at the aunties’ house now. Besides we’ll be moving back here soon.”

  She looked positively stricken for a moment, then she did something he hadn’t expected. She pitched a crying, screaming fit. “I don’t want to! I want my toys! I want my toys!”