by Delia Parr
He introduced six more babysitters, one picture at a time. First, Mrs. C. Her last name was too hard to pronounce. According to Vincent, she had a lot of children to watch every day, and he had made lots of friends at her house, naming Hannah, Dillon, Kaylee, Colin and Mikey as the friends he missed most now. “Me and Mikey had bunk beds at Mrs. C.’s house,” he announced. “I wanted to sleep up top, but Mrs. C. said I was too little.” He lowered his voice as if Mrs. C. might overhear him. “One time, after Mikey fell asleep, I tried to climb up the ladder, but I got scared. I’m bigger now. I don’t think I’d get scared if I tried to climb the ladder again.”
“I don’t think you would, either,” she assured him.
“Would you like to have bunk beds for your room here?”
His eyes twinkled. “Could I sleep in the top bunk?”
“I don’t see why not. We’ll talk to Gramps when he gets back from Atlanta, how’s that? Show me who’s next in your sketch pad.”
He identified the next woman, who appeared to be in her late fifties as Mrs. Garinetti. He loved her spaghetti. Good thing. She served it every day for dinner, but he had his own room at her house, which he liked a lot. Betty, another adolescent sitter, was one of his favorites because she took him to the mall with her to hang out with her friends.
“Did she babysit you when you lived with Mrs. C.?” Ginger asked, wondering how he had survived layer upon layer of caregivers.
“Betty lived with me and my mom for a little while, but then she had a baby and we didn’t have enough room, so I went to live with Mrs. Scott.” He went on to describe how the woman, who looked rather grumpy, had a menagerie of reptiles, including snakes and lizards, which she used to threaten to turn loose to keep some of the children she cared for in line. “She made the snake eat a real mouse,” he exclaimed and proceeded to demonstrate by lying down and wriggling about on the floor like a snake and using his fist to represent the mouse.
“Why didn’t the mouse run away?” Barbara asked, trying not to laugh.
Flushed and breathless, he stood up. “’Cause she freezed the mouse first.”
“Oh! That sounds awful!”
“Nah. It didn’t hurt the mouse. She fed the snake goldfish, too, but the lizard ate crickets. Sometimes I helped her catch them in the garden. Crickets like to hide under rocks.” He plopped back up on the bed and sat down beside her again. “That’s all I drawed ’cause I don’t remember my babysitters when I was little.”
She shook her head. “No, I suppose you don’t,” she murmured.
“I like you and Gramps the most,” he whispered. “You’re the best babysitters I ever had.”
She hugged him hard. “We’re not babysitters, Vincent. We’re your grandparents. Your family.” Almost overwhelmed with guilt for not knowing how her own grandson had been raised and not intervening before now, she fought back more tears. Knowing the sheer number of caregivers during the eight years of his life certainly helped to explain how he had adapted so easily to living with his grandparents. His allegiance to his mother, however, remained strong which only served as a reminder of the strength of the bond between mother and child and the need for Vincent to maintain contact with his mother, even if he could not live with her.
Missing from his collection, oddly, was a picture of Lily’s husband. “What about your stepfather? Now that you have a new sketch pad, are you going to draw him?”
Vincent closed his sketch pad. “I think I wanna draw Officer Joe. He’s cool.”
Her eyes widened. Vincent had not said much after coming home from spending time with the young officer last Saturday, and she was pleased Vincent was willing to talk about it with her now. “Cool?”
He grinned. “He’s got a real gun and handcuffs. Me and Brian wanted to get cuffed together, but Officer Joe said we had to wait a while.”
She laughed. “Wait for what?”
“Till after we had ice cream. Then he let us take turns sitting on his bike and we forgot to ask him again. Next time I see him, I’m gonna remind him.” He tilted up his chin. “I wanna be a policeman when I grow up.”
“Like Officer Joe,” she added, grateful that the young officer had taken an interest in her grandson.
“He comes to our school sometimes and tells us stories. But when I’m a policeman, I’m gonna arrest all the bad guys and lock ’em up with handcuffs.”
“You really did like those handcuffs, didn’t you?” she teased.
He grinned. “But I like ice cream better. Do you think Gramps is gonna have ice cream on the plane tonight?”
“I doubt it. They usually don’t give the passengers ice cream. Maybe a small bag of pretzels and something to drink.”
His eyes lit with mischief. “Like soda?”
“Or coffee or tea or a glass of milk.”
“Milk and pretzels? Yuck!” He wrinkled his nose. “Ice cream and pretzels is better. Want me to show you?”
She laughed out loud. “We both brushed our teeth, remember?”
“We could brush them again.”
Still laughing, she got up from the bed and held out her hand. “Forget about being a police officer, Vincent. You’d make a fine lawyer.”
He scooted off the bed. “Do lawyers get to use handcuffs?”
“No. Now stop. Enough with the handcuffs!”
He giggled. “Wanna know something, Grams?” he asked as she took him downstairs for some ice cream and pretzels.
She held up her hand. “Only if it has absolutely nothing to do with handcuffs.”
“Nope.”
“Okay, tell me.”
“I don’t think you’re so sad anymore.”
“Not anymore.” She hugged him to her, closed her eyes, and wondered if Lily would ever understand she was missing out on a very great blessing indeed—a blessing named Vincent.
Once she was certain Vincent was finally asleep, Ginger slipped downstairs at ten o’clock. Tyler’s plane was still in the air, so she left a message for him on his cell phone to call her back tonight, making it clear that it was not an emergency.
While she waited for him to call her back, she sat at the kitchen table and leafed through yesterday’s Sunday newspaper again. She tore out several ads for furniture stores likely to carry bunk beds. Her thoughts, however, remained troubled as she recalled her conversation with Vincent, along with her conversations with Lily and Tyler. Then an idea came to her—inspired and devious—and she set the paper aside. She rushed upstairs to the attic and rooted through some old papers until she had what she needed.
Prepared, yet uncertain whether or not Tyler would share her enthusiasm for her idea, she went back down to the kitchen. While she continued waiting for his call, she clipped coupons from the newspaper circulars to donate to the coupon box at church where members could help themselves to the coupons they needed.
When the telephone rang just after two o’clock, it startled her awake. She had fallen asleep at the kitchen table with the scissors still in her hand. She tossed the scissors aside and picked up the telephone before it woke up Vincent. “Tyler?”
“I just got to my room and checked my messages. What’s wrong?”
“Lily isn’t bluffing.” She gave him a synopsis of her talk with Vincent. “That’s why we have to take her threat seriously,” she said when she finished.
“After what you’ve told me, I’m afraid I have to agree with you.”
“I don’t like being threatened, and I don’t like Vincent being used like a pawn, either. I’ve thought about what you said earlier, and I think you were right. Up to now, we’ve made it too easy for Lily, and I think we’ve let her manipulate us one time too many.”
“So what should we do?”
“We call her bluff and force her to agree to our terms,” she replied. “When you finish your meetings in Atlanta on Wednesday, is there anything at the office here that can’t wait for a day or two?”
“Probably not. Why?”
She drew in a deep breat
h. “There’s no reason to doubt what Vincent told us, but we need proof. I want you to go to Chicago,” she replied and outlined her idea which relied in no small measure on Tyler’s contacts in the security business. When he agreed, she gave him Lily’s social security number, all the old addresses for Lily she’d been able to find, the names of the babysitters Vincent had drawn, and the name of the school where Lily had said she had worked.
“That’s probably all I’ll need, but I’ll call you tomorrow night,” he promised. “I think we both need to think this through very, very carefully. If we make a single mistake, we could lose our grandson for good. Are you willing to take that risk?”
She swallowed hard. “I love him too much not to try.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Barbara arrived well ahead of time for the meeting for the first Mother’s Day Breakfast.
Finding a table or booth at The Diner at one o’clock in the afternoon was a lot like finding an open pew in church five minutes after holiday services had begun. So, Barbara had arrived at noon, before the lunch rush. She spent the hour drinking coffee and reviewing her notes. She was so engrossed in her work, she only realized someone had joined her when she heard the whoosh of the red vinyl seat cushion across from her.
She looked up, expecting to see either Judy or Ginger, but it was an old friend who returned her smile. “Madge! I haven’t seen you in ages. How are you?” She laughed. “Forget I asked. You’ve got a great tan and look totally relaxed which means you must have gone south for the holidays.”
“We took Sarah to Aruba. After all the snow we had, I told Russell if I didn’t get these old bones good and warm at Christmas, I’d never make it until spring.” Her gaze softened. “How are you doing?”
Barbara drew a deep breath. “This is a good day. Actually, most days are pretty good. I’m waiting for Judy and Ginger.” She pointed to the papers she had spread out in front of her. “We’re getting together to plan the Mother’s Day Breakfast for the PTA. I’m sure you know the drill. Do one good job for the PTA and you’re always asked to do another. Would you like to join us for lunch?”
“No, thanks. I can’t stay. I was just passing by on my way to the store when I saw you sitting here. I popped in to see how you were doing.” She glanced at the papers. “Are you sure the breakfast is something you want to work on? It’s awfully soon…”
With a sigh, Barbara leaned against the back wall of the booth. “When Pam called Ginger to ask the three of us, she had the same concern.”
Madge frowned. “Pam’s doing a great job as PTA president, but she shouldn’t have asked any of you to work on the breakfast. Sometimes I think my Sarah, who is only five, has more common sense than that woman.”
“I have to admit I was a little taken aback, at first, but now I think it might be a good thing for all of us. It’s not going to be easy, but I realized that one way I could honor Steve and his memory was to make this Mother’s Day very special instead of trying to ignore it. Working with Judy and Ginger helps me a lot because I know I’m not the only one who’s going to find the day…difficult.”
Before Madge could respond, the waitress arrived. “Sorry. It’s been busy. Can I get you something, Madge?”
“No thanks, Caroline. I’m not staying.”
“More coffee, Barbara?”
Barbara put her hand over her cup. “I’m good for now.”
“Give a wave if you change your mind,” she said and left to clear another table.
Before Madge left, she took Barbara’s hand. “Call me if you need anything. Help planning the breakfast. A sitter. Or just someone to listen. Promise?”
Smiling, Barbara nodded.
Madge’s seat was still warm when Ginger and Judy arrived together. They hung up their coats and slid across from Barbara. “Looks like you got started without us,” Judy noted.
Ginger giggled. “Good. I’m sure Barbara’s ideas are going to be a whole lot better than mine,” she teased and laid her folder on the table next to Judy’s, leaving little room for anything else.
Laughing, Barbara scooped up her papers. “I think we might need a bigger table.”
“We need lunch,” Judy countered. “I’m starving.”
Caroline immediately appeared with pen and pad in hand. “Do you want to know the specials?”
Barbara looked around the table. Judy and Ginger shook their heads. “Not today.”
They placed their orders and chatted throughout their lunch. By the time Caroline returned to clear away the dishes, the crowd of diners had thinned. “I guess I’ll go first,” Barbara suggested. “After I looked over the programs from the past few years, along with the notes made by the women who have organized the breakfast before us, I thought we might follow the same basic format, but with a few changes. Instead of Reverend Fisher starting with an invocation and a speech, I thought it would be nice if he did the invocation, but we asked his wife, Eleanor, to say a few words.”
Judy nodded enthusiastically. “She’s a mother and a grandmother and a very funny lady. She could keep the event from being too serious or too formal.”
“Do you think she’d be willing to do it?” Ginger asked.
“I think she will, but I’ll ask her,” Barbara offered and jotted down a note to call Eleanor Fisher. “The organizers, that would be the three of us this year, usually sit at the head table with Reverend Fisher, the PTA President, the school board president and the mayor, with all of their spouses, of course. I’d rather sit at a regular table with my family, especially with the twins being here now. How about you? Head table or family table?”
“Family,” they replied in unison.
Barbara wrote that down, too. “That means we’ll need a smaller head table.”
Ginger opened her folder. “Speaking of tables, we need a color scheme and flowers. The ladies who will be coming to the breakfast usually get corsages at church from the youth group, so I checked to make sure that’s still planned for this year and it is, so we don’t need to worry about it. We could save money and use the rolls of white paper tablecloths and add a little sparkle and color with fresh flower arrangements,” she began.
One by one, they discussed and settled almost every detail of the event, from tickets to the meal to organizing the cleanup until they had only two items left. They would not be able to set the final price of the tickets until they had each followed through on their assigned tasks. Expanding the event to include any woman who had nurtured a child in the past or was nurturing a child now was perhaps their biggest challenge, which was why they had left it for last.
Judy was the first to offer an idea. “I talked with Penny at the Towers.”
“You already said her daughter’s Girl Scout troop volunteered to be servers,” Barbara reminded her.
“Right, but I also asked her about the seniors, who are mostly women, by the way. Including them would be one way to expand the number of women who attend. Some of the seniors have children living in the area, but many of them don’t. A few have either outlived their own children or never had any. Penny thinks there might be thirty or forty seniors, at most, who might want to attend. She also said there’s money in the budget and she thinks the Commissioners might approve buying tickets for the seniors so they could all attend, if they wanted to, providing we could offer some sort of discount.”
“I don’t think offering a discount has ever been done before. At least I didn’t read anything like that in the notes,” Barbara responded.
“Me, either,” Ginger added. “But I don’t think that’s a problem. We’ll make up the money we lose in the discount by having more women attend.”
“Absolutely. I think you have a great idea, Judy.” Barbara cocked her head. “I’ve read a number of articles about programs in which seniors volunteer as tutors in the schools, giving them something meaningful to do and providing extra help to the children who need it. Involving the seniors at the Towers in the breakfast is a great way to introduce the idea tha
t Welleswood’s seniors might be an overlooked asset to the schools.”
Ginger smiled. “Pam is going to love the idea.”
“She’ll probably take credit for it, too, but that’s fine by me,” Judy quipped. “At least we’ve got one good idea about how to make more women feel welcome at the breakfast.” She checked her watch. “It’s almost two-thirty. I really have to go. Candy’s been working on the computer at the salon all day, and I promised her I’d stop by after our meeting so she could show me what she’s done.” She rolled her eyes. “Like I really want to spend one more minute staring at a computer after arguing with one in class all morning.”
“You’ll get the hang of it soon,” Ginger reassured her.
“That’s what I’m hoping. Anyway, if you have a minute, Barbara, maybe you could come with me. I told Candy that you’d closed Grandmother’s Kitchen and stored your stock away. She said she had an idea that you might like.”
Barbara held up her hand. “I’m not sure I can handle anything more complicated than using the computer for e-mail or surfing the Internet or typing a letter.”
“That puts you way ahead of me,” Judy countered.
Ginger giggled. “I’m not even in the game. I don’t even know how to turn one on.”
“Candy gets so frustrated when I act like she’s speaking a foreign language. Maybe you can help translate a little?”
Barbara shrugged. “I could try, but I have to be at the school at three to pick up the twins.”
Judy turned her attention back to Ginger. “You’re welcome to come along.”
“No, you two go ahead,” Ginger replied. “The less I know about computers, the happier I am. It’s my turn to pay so I’ll wait for the check and take care of it. Are we still planning to meet again next Monday? That might be too soon.”
Judy slid out of the booth and put on her coat. “How about two weeks from today?”
Barbara picked up her folder and grabbed her coat. “Same time, same place?”
Ginger nodded. “Done. Go on, you two. And have fun with the computer!” she teased as they hurried out of The Diner.
