The Heart's Voice

by Arlene James

  She wanted to cry. He had pulled so far back from them that at times he seemed like little more than a memory. She really hadn’t even expected him to offer them a ride to church this morning, but he was too thoughtful not to. He’d drawn some pretty firm boundaries lately, nonetheless. It seemed that he was taking back his life from the Kinder clan, and she certainly couldn’t blame him for that. God knew that he’d gone more than the extra mile for them already.

  He’d helped Jem down out of the big, four-door truck, but as they’d walked toward the church building he had fallen behind, once more separating himself from them. Jem didn’t understand. That had become obvious over the past few days, and Becca couldn’t find a way to explain it to her except to say that Dan was used to being by himself most of the time. Becca did understand, but it still made her want to cry.

  She looked at Abby and said, “Maybe he’s more comfortable in the back.”

  “I want to sit in back,” Jemmy complained.

  “You’re a Kinder,” Becca said softly but firmly. “This is where the Kinders sit. Now, hush up. Service is starting.”

  Jemmy folded her arms mutinously, but she kept quiet until after the service. “Dan’s leaving,” she pointed out stridently as they crowded into the aisle. “I wanna go with Dan.” Thankfully his back was turned and he couldn’t hear, or rather, see her.

  “Dan’s busy,” Becca told her. “He has things to do today. We’re going to Grandma and Grandpa’s and stay out of his hair.”

  Jem started a whine, but Becca didn’t scold her. She knew just how Jem felt.

  They drove home with Abby and John Odem. The Kinder house had never seemed so small and cramped to Becca before, especially in the kitchen when Abby asked if something had “gone wrong” between her and Dan.

  “Of course not,” she answered briskly. “Dan’s a good, good friend, and he has a right to his space. He’s used to being alone, you know, and this has been a really busy time for him.”

  Abby nodded her understanding at that, but Becca saw a flicker of disappointment in her eyes. She would not let Abby see her own.

  Dan knew something was wrong when he saw that Abby was still in her bathrobe. The sedan pulling up in front of the house on a Tuesday morning was not an unusual sight, really, but seeing Abby get out from behind the wheel in a bathrobe and fuzzy slippers was a definite tip-off that this was not a routine visit. Dan braked the truck to a halt short of the street and put the transmission in Park. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel for a moment, debating the wisdom of getting involved. In the end he closed his eyes and asked God what he should do. Then he killed the engine, got out of the truck and walked up to the front door.

  This time he didn’t knock; he just opened up and strode into the foyer. Becca sat on the stairs, her head in her hands. Abby stood at the bottom, one arm folded across her middle, the other hand cupping her chin.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Becca looked up, and Abby turned. She spread both hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Stella’s son came by the house early this morning to let us know that she had a stroke last night.”

  Dan couldn’t be sure of the name. Names were always difficult. “Stella?”

  Abby nodded, and her gaze traveled to Becca, whom he belatedly realized was speaking. He caught the last words.

  “Around the corner from Abby, and she’s my baby-sitter.”

  He digested that. “Stella lives around the corner from Abby.” Becca nodded. “She’s your baby-sitter.” Another nod. He looked at Abby. “How is she?”

  Abby pressed her hands together. “They think she’ll be okay, but it’s going to take time, and she’s past seventy, so even if she eventually comes home again, she probably won’t be able to see to the kids.”

  Becca rose. “I’ll just have to take them to the store with me. We were planning on it eventually, anyway.”

  Abby said something to her, remembered that she was excluding him and turned to repeat herself. “We don’t have anything ready. How are we going to corral them? John always intended to put together a play space for them, but there hasn’t been time.” She looked to Becca, saying, “You’ll just have to stay home, sugar, today at least.” Becca nodded miserably, and Abby added, “Now, don’t you worry. We’ll manage without you, and your salary will be the same.”

  “I can’t let you do that,” Becca protested. “You can’t pay me for work I don’t do.”

  “You need the salary,” Abby argued.

  Dan missed the first part of Becca’s reply. “Until I find someone else to watch over the kids,” she went on. “I’m more worried about you and John carrying the full load without me.”

  “I can do it.” Dan didn’t even realize that he’d spoken aloud until they both looked at him with something akin to shock on their faces. For an instant he desperately wished that he could take the words back, but then he realized that it was the only sensible solution. He could take care of the kids; he knew he could. “The monitors,” he said, as if that explained everything, and to his mind it did. He could clip one to each of their shirts and carry the others himself. That way he’d know if Jem was calling out to him or if the baby had awakened from a nap. He could manage, surely.

  “Don’t you have a job going somewhere?” Abby asked.

  He shrugged. “Put it off a day or two.” Becca seemed to be mulling it over. “I can, Becca,” he insisted in what he hoped was a soft, sincere tone.

  She flipped a hand dismissively. “Oh, I know that.” Her brow wrinkled. “I just hate to take advantage of you, Dan—I mean, more than I already have.” She tossed up her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Seems like no matter how hard I try to stand on my own, I just wind up leaning on you.”

  “I don’t mind,” he said, feeling something warm spread inside his chest. Becca dropped her gaze, but she was smiling wanly. He realized Abby was speaking.

  “A temporary solution, anyhow.”

  “Will you call Claude Benton?” he asked her. He looked at Becca and added, “Roof’s in the dry so it won’t leak. It’ll wait.” Becca nodded her understanding. He jerked his chin toward the door, saying, “Put away the truck.” He’d started to turn for the door when something else occurred to him. “Jessie Schumacher,” he said. Jessie would be a good baby-sitter for the summer, part-time, anyway. He’d been around her enough to know that she was responsible and caring. “Good girl,” he told Becca, “despite…” He swirled a finger around his head. Becca chuckled.

  “They all wear their hair like that now.”

  He shrugged, smiling just because she’d laughed.

  “I’ll give her a call, see if we can work something out.”

  “Here,” he said, pointing at the floor. “Not there.”

  “That would be best,” Abby agreed. “Old lady Schumacher still has everything she’s ever owned. I mean, every cereal box, and it’s all right there in her little house.”

  “Pretty much,” he agreed, smiling. The old gal was eccentric, but she was a dear. Still, he wouldn’t want to think about Jem and CJ careening around her tiny, crammed place. Here they’d have room to play. Becca was looking concerned, so he said, “Jess can’t do it, we’ll find someone else.”

  She nodded at that and he went out, feeling better than he had in a while, though it probably wasn’t acceptable for him to find pleasure in her difficulty. Still, it was nice to be needed. It was especially nice to be needed by Becca and her kids.

  Jem slipped off the edge of her chair to her feet, abandoning the peanut butter and jelly sandwich that he’d just trimmed for the second time. He brought his hands to his hips, about to ask what she thought she was doing now, but before he could form the first word she was out the door and off down the central hall. Exasperated, he started after her.

  It had been an eventful morning, with Jem spilling her cereal on her feet and him repeatedly waking the baby, first by accidentally bumping into the wall that CJ’s room shared with Jem’s while he was
helping her change her soggy shoes and socks, and then by closing the door too loudly after putting the little character down for a nap. In the interim CJ had been fussy and demanding, so much so that Jemmy had once stood in front of Dan with her hands over her ears as he’d cradled the howling baby and announced, “You’re lucky you can’t hear!”

  He watched now as she swerved toward the wall, brushing it with her sleeve, and headed on toward the door. Must have company, he mused, recalling that he’d seen her perform that particular veering maneuver before and always right about the same place. Curious. He hurried down the hall to the foyer, getting there just as Jem pulled open the door. She did a little hop, and John Odem swung her up into his arms as he stepped over the threshold.

  “What’s this here?” he asked, flicking a finger at the pink monitor clipped to the front of her shirt. It was a little heavy, but Dan was going to look into getting her a belt.

  Whatever she said in reply to John Odem’s question made John smile, but then most things did. He winked at Dan.

  “Belled the cat, eh?”

  “Sort of.”

  John nodded and said, “Thought I’d better check on y’all. Need anything?”

  Dan glanced at the blue receiver clipped to his waistband, relieved to see the tiny light on top blinking green, and shook his head. “Learning secrets of pb and j.”

  “Ah.” John Odem poked a finger into Jemmy’s ribs knowingly. “Gotta trim every speck of brown crust off and slice it diagonally so it makes two equal triangles.”

  “She measures,” Dan confirmed, lifting an eyebrow at Jemmy, who giggled and spoke to John Odem. He glanced at Dan in surprise.

  “Buddy the turtle has a rabbit?”

  Dan grinned. “Found it in his pen this morning.”

  “Eating clovers,” Jem confirmed.

  “Set it loose,” Dan said significantly, and Jemmy nodded importantly.

  “You can’t get pet rabbits from wild. You got to buy them, so we’re gonna get one from Duncan, aren’t we, Dan?”

  “If Mama says okay.”

  John Odem sent him a doubtful look about that, but Dan just shrugged. He’d had to do some fast talking at the time. Besides, he didn’t figure Becca had all the say. He could keep a pet if he wanted to, which he’d have to do if she absolutely put her foot down about it. In the meantime, Jem would be happy with a furry little bunny to nuzzle. He could see it now, soft and white, with a tiny pink nose. He was counting heavily on the cute factor to win Becca over.

  John Odem looked at Jem. “Say, aren’t you supposed to be eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”

  Dan realized then that John Odem hadn’t stopped by just to check on them. He obviously had something on his mind, something he didn’t want to say in front of his granddaughter. Dan felt a moment’s unease, but he said nothing as John set Jemmy on her feet and she ran back down the hallway toward the kitchen. When she came to that spot, she swerved again.

  “What’s that?” he asked John Odem. “A kid thing, some game?”

  “Naw, she’s just avoiding the squeak.”

  “Squeak?”

  “In the floor.”

  Dan brought his hands to his hips again. “There’s a squeak in my floor?”

  John chuckled. “Loud one.”

  “Where?”

  They walked forward, Dan going first, until they came to the place where Jem always veered close to the wall. He stepped aside, and John Odem moved past him to demonstrate. He set one foot dead center of the hardwood floor and rocked forward, putting his weight on it. Dan motioned him aside and placed his own foot right where John’s had been. As he shifted his weight onto it, he felt a pronounced give in the planking.

  “Better get under there,” he said, figuring that a foundation support had given way.

  John Odem shivered. “Better you than me. I don’t like close spaces.” He grinned when he said it, but that was John Odem Kinder’s natural expression, so Dan figured he meant what he’d said.

  “Want to sit?”

  “Good idea. Let’s try the living room.”

  Dan followed this time, and as John Odem made himself comfortable on the couch, he took a seat across from him in the recliner. “What’s on your mind?”

  John smiled. “To the point. Okay. Well, then, Becca and Abby’ve been talking up this building-on thing, and I’m wondering how you feel about that.”

  Dan looked down, flicking his fingertip against an imaginary speck of lint on his jeaned thigh. “Be a while before I could get started.”

  When he looked up again, John Odem was sitting forward, his forearms resting on his knees. “That’s not what I mean, Dan. Fact is, I figure you’re wanting to keep her.”

  “I want to marry her,” Dan corrected, not much liking the way John had phrased that.

  Only when John reared back did Dan remember that old saw about letting cats out of bags. Now, what had possessed him to blurt that out?

  For a moment John just stared at him, and Dan imagined all that could be going through his head. He wasn’t a “whole” man. He would never be a model father—the way he kept waking the baby and other things proved that. Just that morning he’d handed over a bowl of milk and cereal to a four-year-old without so much as a warning to be careful. No wonder she’d spilled it all over her feet. He couldn’t even find a squeak in his own floor without help! No, he would never be anyone’s idea of the perfect family man, not even that of an easygoing jokester like John Odem. Dan figured he was in for some straight talk—not that John could say anything to him that he hadn’t already said to himself at one time or another. Still, he owed the older man the courtesy of hearing him out. He girded himself for an unpleasant dose of reality, but the last thing he expected, though perhaps he should have, was for John Odem to slap his thigh and go off into gales of laughter just before hopping to his feet and breaking into a jig.

  “Hoo, boy!” John said, stabbing a finger at him. “I knew it! I knew it!” He lunged forward, grabbed Dan’s hand and began pumping it enthusiastically. “I told Abby. I told her, but she said Becca said you wasn’t interested.” He flapped his lips at that, making Dan blink.

  Wasn’t interested? He shifted forward in his seat. “She is the one not interested,” he enunciated carefully.

  John seemed surprised, then genuinely skeptical. “Naw, that can’t be right.” He stroked his chin thoughtfully for a moment, then he shook his head. “No, it ain’t that.” He sat back down and shook a finger at Dan, saying, “That gal, she’s had her eye on you since the day you showed up around here again, not that she was on the lookout, mind, ’cause she’s not that sort.”

  Dan disciplined a smile. “I know.”

  “She’s interested,” John assured him with a nod. “What makes you think she’s not?”

  Dan shrugged and rubbed his palms down his thighs. He glanced casually at the monitors affixed to his waistband, very aware that his heart was racing. “She doesn’t like leaning on me.”

  “She don’t like leaning on me, neither, but I tell her that’s what family’s for.”

  “Not family.”

  “But you want to be.”

  Dan looked down again, uneasy revealing so much of himself. Finally he just nodded, but then he had to face John. “Thought once…” He shrugged. “Yes.”

  “You haven’t said anything to her, have you?” John Odem surmised.

  “No.”

  “Don’t you think you oughta?”

  Dan looked him in the eye. “Do you?”

  “Sure do.”

  Dan noticed he was breathing a little more deeply. “You approve?”

  “Of course I approve.” His eyes clouded, and his customary cheer bled from his face. “I’m not saying it’s an easy thing, my boy being gone, but there’s the fact. It’s about Becca and the kids now, and that little gal shouldn’t be alone.”

  “Not alone,” Dan said softly, wanting John to understand that he knew and appreciated how much a part of he
r life he and Abby were.

  John Odem flapped a hand dismissively. “Abby and me, we’re not gonna live forever, son, not in this world. We always knew God would have someone else for her, and we been praying for you even before we knew it was you, just as we prayed for Becca from the time Cody was a little lump till the day he brought her home to us.”

  Dan smiled, truly moved. “Thank you, John.”

  “Thank you,” John said, getting to his feet again. Dan did likewise as John Odem glanced around him. “This is a good situation for her, for all of you. She’ll see that, too. Soon as you ask her, it’ll all come clear.”

  Dan gulped. “Just ask, then?”

  John shrugged, chuckling. “Course, boy—no other way I know of.”

  Dan shifted his feet. “Shouldn’t I ask her father first, maybe?”

  John shook his head. “Naw, I wouldn’t think so. Becca’s the third of eight kids, you know, and the Stoddards seem to figure she’s not much concern of theirs no more. Oh, I’m not saying they aren’t good people. You can just look at Becca and see they’ve done some things right, but there didn’t never seem to be no question of her moving back into the family fold after Cody passed. ’Sides, I doubt Becca herself would cotton to it, her being a grown woman and a mother and all. I’d just get the question past my teeth if I was you, and leave the rest to Him that knows best.” He pointed at the ceiling as he said that, and Dan nodded.

  Getting the question past his teeth, as John Odem put it, seemed a daunting endeavor just then, but he was glad to know that John approved of the match.

  “Glad you came,” he said to John, shaking the older man’s hand.

  “Me, too,” John replied, waggling his eyebrows. “Got out of cleaning the fryer.”

  Dan laughed, and John took his leave, calling a farewell to Jem, who shouted something in reply, according to the flashing red light on the monitor. An instant later CJ’s flashed red, too. Dan sighed, shook his head and called out for her to stay put while he went after the baby. He’d grab a diaper and change the caterwauler downstairs, then he’d open a jar of something to feed the little chunk and try not to doubt the wisdom of John Odem’s advice—or think too much about what Becca might say.