Adding to the Family

by Gina Wilkins

  “No, that’s okay. I’d better get home to my girls. And you have a game to finish,” he added, motioning toward the board game still set out on the coffee table.

  She wasn’t sure how much fun that game would be now, but she would do her best to keep the boys entertained and distracted for the remainder of the day. Which wasn’t going to be easy now that Mark had complicated everything, she added with another twinge of irritation.

  Call it cowardice, but she really would have preferred to break the news to her nephews at a later time.

  The boys were predictably subdued throughout the remainder of the day. Together with Miranda, they finished their game, watched an animated movie on DVD, then had dinner—which Kasey and Jamie barely touched. Jamie had gone very quiet again, and Kasey replied to Miranda’s overtures in little more than mono-syllables.

  They were breaking her heart.

  It seemed to her that every time she looked around, she found herself gazing into two pairs of sad brown eyes. She avoided those mournful gazes as much as possible, busying herself with cleaning the kitchen after dinner after sending the boys off to take their baths. Apropos of the mood inside the apartment, rain continued to fall outside, providing a gloomy soundtrack for the evening.

  The weather had kept them in all day, but Miranda wondered now if it would have been better to brave the elements and go out to a movie or a museum or something. Perhaps that would have eased the trapped, restless feeling she was coping with now.

  Glancing at the couch where she would spend yet another uncomfortable night, she tried to reassure herself again that she was doing the right thing. It wasn’t as if she was just tossing them out for her own convenience. She would insist on talking to everyone who would be involved in placing the boys, reassuring herself that they would be well cared for. And she would follow up with them regularly, to be sure they were happy and healthy.

  Maybe they could spend a weekend with her occasionally, or a holiday. Maybe Mark’s lawyer client would even find a way for them to see Lisa again sometime. Surely there was something someone could do to reunite Lisa with her boys. In the meantime, they would be safe and well-tended in the foster care system.

  A cold shiver ran down her spine even as that deliberately optimistic thought went through her mind.

  The boys were particularly quiet when she tucked them in for the night, even though she did everything she could to cheer them up. She was tempted to make extravagant promises just to make them smile again—to assure them they would go to a house with two loving parents and happy foster siblings. That they would have a big yard to enjoy and maybe a dog like Poochie to play with.

  But she refused to make promises that could prove to be false. They’d had too much of that from their mother. So, instead, she tucked them in snugly, somewhat awkwardly kissed their cheeks, and told them not to worry about anything. She would take care of everything.

  She hoped they didn’t hear the undertones of anxiety in her cheerful voice. Neither of them said anything in response to her babbling. They merely nestled into the covers and looked at her until she turned out the light.

  She could almost feel those accusing eyes focused on her even after she closed herself into the bathroom to brush her teeth. She didn’t look at the bed when she came back out, but slipped into the living room and closed the bedroom door behind her.

  She couldn’t concentrate on reading, so she turned on the TV, keeping the volume so low she could hardly hear it. She flipped channels until she came across a silly romantic comedy movie she had seen so many times she could quote most of the lines. She focused on that, hoping to lose herself in the story as she usually did.

  It didn’t work this time.

  Finally giving up, she turned off the TV and the lights, stretched out as much as possible on the short couch, and pulled the quilt to her ears. The rain had stopped, so it was very quiet now, with only an occasional passing car breaking the silence outside.

  After what seemed like hours, during which she tossed and turned and twisted and worried, she finally fell asleep, though her dreams were disjointed and troubling.

  Something—a sound? a bad dream?—woke her sometime later. She blinked groggily, noting that the apartment was still quiet and dark except for the streetlight filtering through the blinds on the sole living room window. It wasn’t raining again, so it hadn’t been the weather that had roused her.

  She rolled onto her side and glanced toward the bedroom door. She frowned when she saw that it stood open. She was sure she had closed it earlier.

  Something made her glance down at the floor beside the couch. A dark shape blended into the shadows beside the couch. She focused intently on that figure, then sighed when she realized that one of her nephews had crept into the room with his pillow. He lay as close to the couch as he could without being underneath it, and he seemed to be asleep. He made a funny little half-snoring sound, which had probably been what had awakened her. She had no idea how long he’d been there.

  She did, however, have a good guess as to his identity. It had to be Jamie.

  Mark was still eating breakfast with his daughters when the telephone rang Monday morning. He crossed the kitchen to pick up the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Mark?” There was an odd catch in Miranda’s voice.

  His pulse rate jumped in alarm. “Miranda? What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t do it, Mark. I can’t make the call. I don’t…I don’t…”

  “Sweetheart, take a deep breath,” he advised, trying to make sense of her words. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  He heard her inhale shakily. And then she began again, only somewhat more coherently this time. “I thought I could make the call, but I can’t. Jamie slept on the floor beside the couch all night just to be closer to me. He’s so scared—they both are. And, damn it, so am I. I don’t know what I’m going to do with them. I don’t know how we’re all going to live in this little apartment or how I’m supposed to raise them when I know absolutely nothing about kids or…or…”

  She ran out of air, and Mark took advantage of the opportunity to jump in. “I’m on my way over.”

  “You’re busy. You have to work.”

  “Let me worry about that. I’m on my way.”

  “Thank you.” The relief in her voice was unmistakable.

  He disconnected, then made three quick calls. One to his housekeeper, one to his assistant and the other to his friend, the lawyer. He waited only until Mrs. McSwaim arrived, and then he kissed his girls and headed for his car.

  Chapter Eight

  By the time Mark arrived at Miranda’s apartment half an hour later, she seemed to have collected herself somewhat. Still, she was pale when she opened her door to him, and her amber eyes were dark with emotion.

  It was a measure of her distress that she reached out to him, clutching his shirt in a white-knuckled grip. “Thank you for coming. I know how busy you are, but I just really need to talk to someone.”

  He covered her hand with his, gripping her fingers reassuringly. “You know you can call me anytime. Where are the boys?”

  “They’re playing with some toys on the patio. I told them not to get off the concrete, so they can’t go more than a few feet from the back door. And I can see them from the living room.”

  Mark had noticed the tiny patios, small rectangles of concrete attached to the back of each ground floor apartment, shaded by the same-size balconies opening off the upstairs apartments. A short lattice fence surrounded three sides of each patio, giving an illusion of privacy to those tenants who placed barbecue grills and outdoor furniture on their slabs. He was sure the twins would be fine on the patio while he and Miranda talked.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” he said, guiding her to the couch and then taking a seat beside her. He could see through the glass doors that the boys were busily playing with a fleet of toy trucks. “I wasn’t sure quite how to interpret your call this morning.”

  She flushed a bit,
but the faintly teasing note he deliberately injected into his voice seemed to calm her even more. “Sorry. I guess I sort of lost it this morning when I realized what I had to do.”

  “Which is…?”

  “I have to keep the boys. God help us all.”

  Hearing her say it made an odd warmth spread through him. He tried to ignore it as he focused intently on her taut face. “Why?”

  She blinked. “Why? Because…well, they’re my nephews.”

  “They’ve been your nephews for just over five years. You never had much interest in them before.”

  She frowned at him. “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to challenge my confidence in my decision.”

  “Now, why would I do that?”

  “To make sure I’m doing it for the right reasons, probably. You do stuff like that.”

  His smile felt wry. “Do I?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Must be that CPA thing. Or maybe that OCD thing.”

  “Or maybe just the concerned friend thing,” he suggested. “Why have you decided to keep them, Miranda?”

  “Because I can’t give them to strangers. Because I’m afraid Jamie would never recover from another abandonment. Maybe it’s just because I look so much like his mother, but he has grown fond of me and it would hurt him too badly if I sent him away.”

  “You’re underestimating your own appeal. Jamie is drawn to more than your resemblance to his mother.”

  She moistened her lips before continuing. “Whatever. I’m also concerned about where they would end up. I know there are some good foster homes, but what if Jamie and Kasey didn’t end up in one of the better places? What if no one wanted two boys? Can you imagine how awful it would be if anyone tried to split them up?”

  “That would be just short of criminal. But, for the record, I don’t think they would be separated—though that might make it somewhat more difficult to place them.”

  Pushing her hair away from her face, she looked at him with uncertain eyes. “The thing is, when it came time for me to make that call to DHS, I just couldn’t do it. I’m scared, and I’m worried that I’m not qualified to take this on—and, okay, I’m more than a little regretful at everything I’ll be giving up for them. But it’s the only choice I can make.”

  “You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t have regrets,” he assured her, sensing that she needed more reassurance. “Remember my fantasy about escaping to a tropical beach?”

  Her lips curved into just a faint suggestion of a smile. “I might have to borrow that fantasy a few times.”

  “Feel free.” Because she still looked stressed, he reached out to take her hand in his. “For what it’s worth, Miranda, I think you’re doing the right thing. I know you’re making a giant sacrifice, but Jamie and Kasey will always be grateful to you.”

  “Unless I really screw this up and ruin their lives,” she muttered, leaving her hand in his.

  He laced their fingers together. “You’re not going to screw up. Raising kids isn’t that hard. It just takes commitment, common sense, and patience. A whole boatload of patience.”

  The deep breath she took was a bit ragged, but it seemed to brace her. “I bet you’re wishing now that you’d never asked me out Friday night,” she said with a somewhat more genuine smile. “You wouldn’t have ended up in the middle of all this if you hadn’t been in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Actually I’m glad I asked you out,” he corrected her honestly. “Not only did I get to enjoy a very nice dinner with you that evening, but I was able to be here for you this weekend. I only hope I haven’t pressured you into a decision you’ll regret later.”

  “I’m not expecting this to be easy. And I imagine there will be times when I’ll wonder if I’d truly lost my mind when I made this choice. But you didn’t pressure me into the decision, Mark. I knew what you thought was the right thing to do, but I also knew you would support me if I decided I couldn’t keep them.”

  “I would have, you know. As I told you before, you have to make the choice that’s right for you and the boys.”

  “I think I’ve done that. The boys want to stay with me. I’m not sure I could live with myself if I sent them away and then found out later it was the wrong thing to do. Maybe this isn’t what I would have chosen for my life at this point, but the boys didn’t ask to be in this situation, either. This is where we are, and now it’s up to the three of us to make the best of it.”

  “Sounds familiar,” he said with a faint sigh, thinking of his own situation. And then he added, “You know you can count on me to help you in any way I can.”

  Her fingers tightened in his for a moment. “Thanks. I called this morning because I needed someone to tell me I was doing the right thing. I knew you would say I am.”

  “In my opinion, you are absolutely doing the right thing.”

  “Thanks. That helps a lot.” She let her hand slip from his then, and though he regretted the loss of contact, he didn’t try to hang on.

  He could almost see her self-confidence returning to her, though he suspected it took quite an effort for her to square her shoulders, hold her head high and speak with a semblance of her usual confidence. “Now that I’ve made my decision, I know I’ll be able to work everything out, so you don’t have to worry that I’ll be calling you every day as hysterically as I did this morning.”

  “I don’t expect that you will.”

  She didn’t seem to notice the slight irony in his voice. “I do need some advice to get started, if you have a little time right now.”

  He nodded. “I called my friend Steve, the lawyer I mentioned before, and he agreed to help you obtain legal guardianship. You’ll need to take care of that before you can register the boys for day care and for school in the fall. I assume they’ll be starting kindergarten then.”

  “Kindergarten.” She said the word as if she were committing it to memory. Or perhaps adding it to a mental checklist of things she had to take care of. “When did you call him?”

  “This morning, after I talked to you. I assumed from your call that you’d changed your mind about turning them over to DHS.”

  She nodded. “Okay. Thanks. I’ll make an appointment with him as soon as I can.”

  “He said he would be happy to see you anytime. It doesn’t have to be during office hours.”

  “That’s very nice of him.”

  “As I mentioned before, he owes me a few favors. I don’t mind calling one in for you and the boys.”

  She rubbed her temple. “I’m going to owe you plenty of favors after this. I don’t know what I would have done without you this weekend. Not that I couldn’t have handled it, of course,” she added quickly. “But you’ve made everything much easier for me, and I want you to know I appreciate all you’ve done.”

  She was so determined not to sound at all dependent on him, or anyone else. Remembering what she had told him about her childhood, he could understand that. Which made it all the more special that she had felt comfortable turning to him—at least for a little while. And the fact that he was so touched worried him a bit. Miranda wasn’t the only one struggling with emotions she hadn’t wanted to feel.

  “I’m going to have to find a place to live,” she said when he remained silent. “I checked my lease, and there’s a maximum of two occupants for a one-bedroom apartment. I know there aren’t any two-bedroom units available now, because a friend is on the waiting list for one. My lease runs out at the end of May. I had planned to renew for another year, but I guess I’ll be moving, instead.”

  “You’re going to try to find a bigger apartment?”

  “I’ll pretty much have to take whatever I can find right away since I don’t have much time to look around.”

  Mark frowned. He didn’t like the thought of her being rushed into a move. What if the first place she found wasn’t right for them?

  “And I’ve got to find some sort of day care arrangement for them,” she added. “I can take tomorrow off with a little
rescheduling, but I have to work Wednesday. I’ll have to have something arranged by then.”

  He was getting more concerned by the minute. It sounded as though Miranda planned to dive into this commitment headfirst. He’d hate to see her make any big mistakes at the outset of her guardianship because she didn’t have the luxury of taking her time. He, as well as anyone, understood the responsibilities of work—and she certainly couldn’t afford to risk her job now—but no good could come from being in too much of a rush.

  Maybe he was as obsessive-compulsive as she had teasingly accused, but he thought she needed a chance to examine every option before she made any decisions.

  “You and the boys can come stay with me until you find something better,” he blurted, almost the moment the idea occurred to him.

  Her eyes went almost comically round. “What?”

  Now that he’d said it, he could see where the suggestion had merit. “You can all stay at my place for a while. I have four bedrooms. The girls can share, and the twins can take Madison’s room for now. You take the final room, though I’ll have to find a bed to put in it, since it’s more of a playroom than a guest room at the moment. Or you can sleep in my room, and I’ll take the spare.”

  “There’s no way I’m taking your bed.”

  He cleared his throat—and tried to clear his mind of several unbidden images, all of which involved Miranda and his bed. “We’ll worry about the logistics later.”

  But Miranda was still shaking her head. “Thank you for that very generous offer, but I can’t accept, of course. The boys and I aren’t going to invade your household. I’ll go out this afternoon and find us someplace to live.”

  “Think about it before you say no,” he urged her. “Staying with me would give you plenty of time to find the perfect place for you and the boys to live. And Mrs. McSwaim could watch the kids while you’re at work, at least until you find a better alternative. It isn’t as if they’re any trouble. You could pay her a little something extra, but I know she won’t mind. She loves kids.”