“Are they about finished upstairs?” Grace asked.
“Yeah, it’s all ship shape.”
“Are you going to tell Lisa?” Joe-B asked.
“Are you?” Grace countered.
“She wouldn’t believe me,” he said.
“Me, either,” Grace said.
“What are you talking about?” Kinlaw asked.
“Nothing—Lance Corporal Peña,” Grace said, changing the subject. “How’s the bread coming?”
Chapter Eight
THE BEDROOM DOOR flew open.
“Mom? Mom?”
“Hmmm?” Grace mumbled, still more asleep than awake.
“Mom!
“What!”
“He says we have to go along,” Lisa wailed. “On that morning exercise thing.”
“What morning exercise thing?”
“He goes for a run every morning—no, no, in the middle of the night, Mom. It’s not even daylight!”
That was a slight exaggeration. It was daylight. Sort of.
Grace looked at her other daughter, the one who didn’t seem to think a morning exercise program was the end of the world.
“Josh ordered the two of you to come run with him,” Grace said, trying to decipher the problem so she could go back to sleep.
“No,” Allison said pointedly. “He just said we couldn’t start too soon getting into good physical shape. He said we can’t just think we’re strong—we have to be strong. He said we need to start some physical training and he’ll help us while he’s here.”
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Grace said, snuggling deeper into the covers. “I’m sure you don’t get enough exercise and I’m sure it’s a good . . . healthful . . . plan . . .” She closed her eyes. She was still pleasantly drowsy and she had every intention of staying that way.
“Mom!”
“Lisa, what? If you don’t want to go, then don’t go.”
“She wants to go, Mom,” Allison said. “She just wants to whine first.”
“I’m not whining, and I do not want to go!” Lisa insisted.
“Sure you do. I know what route Josh takes, and we’ll be running right past Jason’s house,” Allison said. “You know. Jason the Jock? The one you want to go to the prom with?”
“I do not—” Lisa broke off and frowned “Okay. Forget what I just said, Mom. I’m going.”
“Great,” Grace said into the pillow, delighted to return to a few more minutes of blissful uninterrupted sleep.
But the girls had left the bedroom door ajar.
“Grace?” Josh said, rapping on it sharply. “Let’s go.”
“Hmmm?”
“You need physical training, too.”
“No, I don’t,” Grace assured him.
“Yes, you do. You’re out of shape and we’re going to fix that.”
“You get in shape. I’ll stay here with Elizabeth,” Grace said.
“Elizabeth is going, too. The pediatrician cleared her for the weekend if the weather was good. It’s good. You get to push the jogging stroller. Let’s go.”
“No, thank you . . .”
“If it’s a good idea for Lisa and Allison, it’s a good idea for you, too. You got five minutes. Get up. Find your gear.”
Her gear? She didn’t have any gear. She had . . .
“Grace!” he said sharply.
“I’m awake!” she said. “I’m also rethinking your welcome,” she assured him.
He laughed. “Look. You have to set an example for the people you’re in charge of and you need to be healthy, right? Your husband’s not here anymore. It’s all up to you now. You’ve got two daughters to think about. Besides all that, it’s a good way to get your thinking straight. You’ll be amazed by what your brain can come up with on a run. So, I’ll see you downstairs. Five minutes. I mean it.”
And what would he do if she didn’t oblige? Call the Marines?
“I don’t like physical training,” she muttered, but she forced herself to sit up. Actually, she did have “gear”. She had running shoes and sweat pants, both left over from a brief health club membership that gave her access to an indoor elevated jogging track. And she had hated every inch of it.
“Good job,” Josh said when she showed up downstairs with a good thirty seconds or so to spare.
“Well, let’s go,” Grace said. “If we’re going to train, let’s train.”
“You’re going to start out walking,” Josh said, opening the front door and wheeling Elizabeth and her jogging stroller out. Clearly, she’d done this before and she, at least, was delighted.
“I want you to go at your own pace,” he said when they were in the front yard. “Pick it up when you feel like you can, but don’t try to keep up with me. I’ve already figured out the route to get in the right distance. You’re not going to be able to go as far or as fast as I do, but you are going to do your personal best. Questions? Good,” he said, not giving them a chance to ask any.
“Wait a minute,” Grace said. “Is this why you wanted to know if I’d had a check-up lately?”
“Yes. Let’s go.”
But he didn’t mean go go. He meant warm up and stretch.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Grace whispered to Elizabeth, who grinned. More than a week had passed since Elizabeth and her father had come to stay, and there had been no mention whatsoever of boot camp.
Grace took a deep breath and looked around. The daylight was still tentative, but the air was fresh and clean. It was . . . nice. Grace had been accustomed to getting up early at intervals in her life, just not lately, and she’d forgotten how pleasant it could be once the shock wore off. The morning was soft and still at the moment, but before long, the birds would suddenly start singing and the sun would rise.
As instructed, Grace started out at her own pace, pushing Elizabeth’s jogging stroller. What else would a single parent Marine have for his baby? Josh was out in front with Allison and Lisa following close behind.
I didn’t sign on for this, she thought as she walked along, picking up the pace after a time. She had put all her focus on adjusting to having a baby in the house again. She’d totally missed that there would also be adjustments associated with an on-site Marine. He had such an air of authority, even though he never challenged hers—except for this morning—and he moved in a huge circle of military people, not the least of which was Joseph Kinlaw. She was going to have to mention the motorcycle-riding to her daughters at some point—before somebody else did. The whole thing was so unlike her. It wasn’t that she hadn’t considered appearances in the decision-making process. She had—and she’d done it anyway. She wondered idly if this was how Sandra Kay had gotten into her many predicaments.
Two blocks into the walk/run, they encountered old Mr. Strayer who lived two houses down with his daughter Beverly and his greyhounds. He was clearly startled to see the James women en masse like that, all of them hustling along in the dawn’s early light. He had questions; Grace had no doubt about that. She thought he was hoping she would stop long enough to answer them, but she didn’t. She waved and jogged on past, thinking that Mr. Strayer probably wasn’t the only neighbor who was wondering. There had been a lot of coming and going at Grace’s house in recent days, a lot of parked vehicles and activity that would cause any number of the people who lived near her to be curious. Maybe she’d get around to explaining her new situation, and maybe she wouldn’t. At the moment, everything was too ill-defined to explain. It was still what she’d told Kinlaw—a dress rehearsal.
Josh was backtracking—checking on his parade apparently. He said something to Lisa and Allison, then dropped back to her and Elizabeth.
“Let me hear you say something,” he said.
“From the—Halls of—Montez
uma,” Grace managed to say without falling over, and he tried not to grin.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” he said, still hovering.
“What?”
“About the Indian—did you go riding with Kinlaw?”
“Yes! I—rode with—Kinlaw!”
“Damn,” he said as he trotted back to the head of the line.
“People are way—too interested—in—this whole motorcycle—thing,” she said to the baby.
Elizabeth wisely made no comment. As they circled another block, Grace’s pace began to slow, and Josh began backtracking again. He said something to the girls, both of whom shook their heads in response. Then he returned to Grace.
“Good job,” he said. “You can head back now.”
Grace nodded—because she didn’t have the wind to do much else. She turned Elizabeth’s jogging stroller in a wide circle and headed home, still marveling at how much she’d underestimated the changes involved in having a Marine in the house.
“Did you see anyone?” she asked Lisa when the rest of the exercise party finally returned.
“Like who?”
“Jason the Jock,” Grace said.
“He was in his yard,” she said airily, as if it didn’t matter in the slightest.
“So you didn’t get to talk to him.”
“Josh talked to him. He ran with us for a while.”
“Ah,” Grace said.
“He . . . might run with us again.”
“Josh?”
“No, Mom. Not Josh.”
“Ah,” Grace said again, trying not to smile.
“Oh, I forgot. Josh said he wanted to have a family meeting.”
The meeting turned out to be short and sweet, held in the dining room while Elizabeth side-stepped happily around the table, holding on to whatever she could reach. Clearly she was none the worse for her dose of early morning fresh air.
Grace anticipated that Josh had something concerning the baby he wanted to address, but he didn’t. What he wanted was permission to feed the foot traffic his presence in the household seemed to generate. Apparently the spaghetti and sandwich affair Grace had put together for the people who had helped him move had been a success. In less than a week’s time, Grace had already decided that there was little difference between Joshua Caven and Joseph Kinlaw. They were both Marine versions of “Dear Abby.”
“Here’s the plan,” he said. “The group will pool their resources and bring some kind of uncooked food. We need your permission to use the galley—or the patio and grill if they decide they want a cookout. This event will occur once a week while I’m here—on Friday nights—and Grace, you absolutely will not be burdened with the clean-up or anything like that. There will be no alcohol allowed. The group will behave responsibly and it will include those individuals from the Walking Wounded who can get here.”
“Walking wounded?”
“Like Peña. The ones who want to recover in the Wounded Warriors barracks—Maxwell Hall—instead of at home. They need to get well with their buddies. They miss the family experience, though, and I want to take up the slack—with your help. Families are where you find them,” he concluded.
“Fine by me,” Allison said immediately. “I don’t want to crash the party, but can I have a plate if it’s something good?”
“Absolutely.”
“It’s fine with me, too,” Lisa said. “And I don’t have to be fed.”
All three of them looked in Grace’s direction.
“Okay,” Grace said after a moment. “On a trial basis. We’ll . . . start this Friday and see how it goes.”
The meeting adjourned, and the phone rang—as it so often did these days. It was for Josh, also in keeping with the new household routine.
“He ignored her, Mom.”
Grace looked around at Allison’s whispered comment. “Who?”
“Jason the Jock. I don’t think the prom thing is going to happen.”
Grace didn’t say anything. Instead, she reflected on the exchange she’d had earlier with Lisa. If Jason the Jock had ignored her, then she was becoming very accomplished at hiding her feelings. And who knew what else.
“I don’t think the prom thing is going to work out,” Allison repeated, and her feelings regarding the matter, Grace thought, were mixed. There was no trace of gloating in Allison’s remark, but there was no real empathy, either. That, Grace supposed, would come with maturity. Allison wasn’t quite old enough to understand the “heart’s desire” concept.
“Josh doesn’t like him,” Allison said next.
“How do you know that?”
“He told me—sort of. He said Jason was one of these baseball guys. I said Jason was a football player, but Josh said no, Jason was somebody who’d been born on third base and thought he’d hit a triple. And guys like that weren’t good for any girl. When’s breakfast?”
“Whenever you cook it?” Grace suggested.
Allison grinned. “I can do that . . . if you want oatmeal or oatmeal. Real oatmeal,” she added. “Cooked in a pot.”
“Real oatmeal cooked in a pot sounds fine—as long as I don’t have to wash the pot. I’m going to take a quick shower, before all these traumatized muscles decide to turn on me.”
“Okay. Josh and Elizabeth like real oatmeal, too. Maybe it’s in the family genes.”
“Maybe,” Grace said, though she remembered Sandra Kay as being completely indifferent to food. She headed for the stairs, trying not to think how disappointed Allison would be if the DNA test showed that Josh wasn’t Sandra Kay’s son. Though if he was, it would create yet another set of problems—like what to do about trying to find her.
“Allison’s cooking oatmeal,” she said to Josh who was coming down the stairs carrying a freshly diapered Elizabeth.
“Outstanding,” he said. “Right?” he asked Elizabeth, who bounced in his arms.
“How are you feeling?” he asked Grace.
“I’ll let you know tomorrow,” she said. But actually, she was feeling fine. Awake and alert and ready for . . . whatever.
She hesitated at Lisa’s door on her way down the hall, but then she decided against trying to talk to her. Lisa was enough like her to want to get used to an unhappy situation herself before she dragged it out for any kind of discussion.
She heard Lisa’s cell phone ring as she walked past the door and Lisa’s delighted response.
“Jason!”
Shaking her head, she continued down the hall. The life of a teenager was never dull.
Lisa was sitting at the kitchen table with the rest of the household when Grace came back downstairs. A little relieved, Grace noticed that her daughter was perhaps not as accomplished at not showing her feelings as Grace had previously feared. Lisa was all but glowing.
“Grace, I need to revise the group dinner plan,” Josh said, taking the last of the oatmeal. “I need to reschedule.”
“To when?” Grace asked, absently wiping oatmeal off Elizabeth’s forehead.
“Tonight. A couple of the guys are scheduled to have surgery Friday morning. I want to give them a good send off.”
“Okay,” Grace said. “Any problems with that?” She looked at the girls for their input.
“Fine with me,” Allison said.
“Lisa?” Grace said because clearly she wasn’t listening. “Josh wants to have his group thing tonight instead of next Friday.”
Lisa didn’t say anything. Allison rolled her eyes, but Grace squelched any impending comment with a look.
“Jason asked me,” Lisa suddenly blurted out. “To go out tonight. And to the prom,” she added as if she still couldn’t believe it. “I won’t be here, Mom, if that’s okay.”
Clearly, Jason the Jock had come through
beyond Lisa’s wildest expectations.
Surprisingly, the group dinner was well attended despite the short notice. The guest list included Kinlaw and the cynical Joe-B, who was obviously disappointed that Lisa wasn’t on hand.
“Where’s your other daughter?” he asked Grace, to-the-point as always.
“She’s out with Jason.”
“Jason,” he repeated. And despite his practiced cool, the information clearly didn’t make him happy. “The Prom King.”
“How did you know about that?”
“About what?”
“He just asked Lisa to go with him to the prom.”
“Well, she better take a number,” he said, walking off before Grace could find out what he meant.
It was soon apparent that Josh had every intention of holding up his end of the bargain. The logistics of the rescheduled meal—hot dogs on the gas grill—had clearly been well planned. Once again, there was nothing for Grace to do except stay out of the way. She had no intention of intruding because she understood that this was far more than a simple cookout on the patio. It was some kind of support group ritual where outsiders would impede the methodology. Even Allison seemed to realize it. She said hello to the ones she knew and to the ones she didn’t, then went upstairs with a sandwich and a glass of milk and plans to get started on a science project that wasn’t due for weeks.
Grace found the book she’d tried reading months ago and took it into the den. She kept rereading the page where she’d last placed the bookmark, not remembering any of it, and finally opted to start over from the beginning. But her mind kept wandering. From the sound of it, Josh’s group was having a good time and she was glad. Fellowship. Laughter. Food. It didn’t get much better than that, especially for people away from home or about to be.
Family is where you find it.
She returned to her reading again, then realized that someone had come into the room.
Kinlaw.
I’m glad to see him.
She took a quiet breath and tried to hide that unsettling occurrence. She hadn’t really spoken to him yet tonight. She was afraid he’d mention the motorcycle ride, for one thing, and Lisa or Allison might hear him and jump to the wrong conclusion before she could explain the circumstances. But that didn’t take away from the fact that she had been glad to see him when he got here, too. She looked up at him now, expecting him to say something, but he sat down on the nearest chair instead.
The Marine (Semper Fi; Marine) Page 11
