Small-Town Moms

by Tronstad, Janet

  Maegan carefully sat down at the table as far from the Bible as she could get. She looked up at the older woman to say something, but Mrs. Hargrove had her back turned and was looking for a cup on the shelf over the stove.

  Everything seemed normal, Maegan thought, so she relaxed and forgot the mild protest she had been going to make. But still it was only natural to want to know what Mrs. Hargrove was reading so she squinted and tried to see what part of the Bible the older woman was looking at. The text was upside down and too small for her to make it out. Which she took as a sign from God to mind her own business.

  “I’m reading the Psalms,” the older woman said without turning around or giving away by so much as a twitch that she knew Maegan had tried to see that for herself. “There’s a lot about relying on God in the Psalms.”

  “Hmm,” Maegan said, hoping that was a sufficient answer. She stared out the window, figuring that would show she wasn’t really interested in the Psalms. In reality she wasn’t too sure what they were.

  “I was thinking,” Mrs. Hargrove said as she turned and walked back to the table. She set down a cup filled with hot water and laid the bag with the midnight tag beside it. She paused until Maegan grew curious enough to turn and look at her. Then the older woman continued, “King David and you have a lot in common.”

  “Huh?”

  Maegan’s open skepticism didn’t stop the older woman. She kept on talking. “He was a king back then. In fact, he was King Solomon’s father.”

  “Okay.” Now Maegan got the connection. She knew all about King Solomon. “You don’t have to worry. I don’t intend to abduct anyone. I want Lilly to be happy.”

  Maegan saw no reason to mention that she was prepared to take Lilly’s father to court and do everything she could legally to make her niece well-adjusted in the long run instead of the short.

  Mrs. Hargrove chuckled. “You’ve put everyone’s happiness first all your life. I know you’re not going to deliberately make Lilly unhappy.” The older woman’s eyes grew serious. “No, the reason you’re like King David is because you’re disappointed with God.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly say I am disappointed,” Maegan finally had to admit. “I’m just more your usual ‘it doesn’t work for me’ kind of person. No harm, no foul. I mean, I believe to a point. I know God does things—”

  “Just not for you,” Mrs. Hargrove said in a matter-of-fact voice as she sat back down in her chair by the Bible.

  “I don’t blame God for that.”

  “Well, you should. If that was what He was doing. But He’s never ignored you.”

  Maegan snorted. Really, what did a person say when they couldn’t say anything without seeming impolite to a woman old enough to be their grandmother? But Mrs. Hargrove had it wrong. God had never done anything for Maegan Shay. If she wanted something done, she had to do it herself.

  Mrs. Hargrove seemed unruffled. “It’s not even God that you’re mad at. It’s you. Until you forgive yourself, you won’t be able to see God for who He is.”

  “I don’t think—” Maegan began and then stopped. A single clear thought struck a note deep inside her. Something sounded so right and everything cascaded into place. Could it be true?

  “It wasn’t your fault you couldn’t keep your family together.” Mrs. Hargrove gently touched her hand. “You were only a child yourself. That didn’t mean He loved you and your sisters any less than anyone else. He always wanted to be your Father and for you to be part of His family.”

  The dam broke inside of Maegan. She tried to stop it, but she couldn’t. It was true. She had been angry at God to hide the fact that she blamed herself. She knew it was bad manners to sit at someone’s kitchen table and weep, but Mrs. Hargrove didn’t seem to mind. She just kept patting Maegan on the hand and murmuring sympathetic sounds.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t—” Maegan finally managed to say. “I guess I’ve just had a hard day.”

  Mrs. Hargrove didn’t say anything; she just looked at Maegan with understanding in her eyes.

  “I guess maybe I did want God to care about me,” Maegan finally said. “I didn’t know how to make Him even look at me though.”

  “He saw you every second of the day,” the older woman said. “Remember, His eye is on the sparrow? He’s wanted to be your Father all along.”

  Maegan nodded. She couldn’t say anything for the tears that were falling. She would love to have God for her Father. Mrs. Hargrove seemed to know that because she bent her head to pray. Then she showed her some verses in the Bible. And sat with her as she prayed for the first time in years.

  An hour had passed before they started to drink their tea. By that time, Maegan knew she needed to handle the situation with her niece the way God would want her to. There would be no custody battle. At least not if Lilly and her father were meant to be together. By the time she decided this, she was back in bed and sleep came easily to her that night.

  Clint was sitting at his kitchen table having a second cup of coffee when the phone rang. He’d already done the chores this morning and taken Lilly to meet the school bus. He didn’t usually sit down for another cup of coffee, but he was running slowly today. He felt like a truck had run over him yesterday and he was still picking up the pieces of his heart.

  It helped considerably that the person on the phone was Maegan. She told him she was willing to do whatever she could to help Lilly win a place in her father’s heart, if that’s what she wanted and her father was agreeable.

  “I spent the night praying and came to the same conclusion,” he said, surprised. Then he added, “I had rather counted on you talking me out of it though.”

  “Believe me, I would have if I’d talked to you last night before I had a cup of tea with Mrs. Hargrove.”

  “Oh, yes. That woman has a way of changing a person’s opinion on things.”

  “She sure does.”

  “Between you and me, I don’t like it though. I’ll worry about Lilly if she’s not here at the ranch. And I’ll watch my brother like a hawk. If he’s not nice to Lilly, I’ll go wherever I have to and bring her back.”

  “If he’s not good to her, I’ll track him down, too,” Maegan pledged.

  Maybe because he was so tired he was cross-eyed, Clint added, “We could track them down together.”

  Silence greeted his words and he felt like cold water had been thrown in his face. “Not that we’d have to do it together, of course. I just meant we would be of one mind. The important thing would be that one of us would go and bring Lilly home.”

  Clint heard what sounded like a hiccup or a sob. “You’re not crying, are you? We could handle getting Lilly back any way you want. I swear, we’ll do it all your way.”

  There was more silence and then he heard Maegan say, “I thought maybe I could come out and help you paint your house. Remember, you wanted to paint it for Lilly.”

  “I don’t think painting the house is going to make any difference to her.”

  “I have to do something.”

  Clint nodded, even though Maegan couldn’t see him. “You’re right. Maybe we’ll both feel better if we do something. I need to go into Miles City to get groceries this morning. Why don’t you come with me and we can pick up some paint.”

  “What color?” Maegan asked.

  He could hear the hope in her voice. “I’m open to suggestions,” he said.

  “Maybe we should get some color charts and let Lilly chose. I think she’s got quite an eye for color. Remember the work she did on Solomon’s crown in Sunday school? It was lovely.”

  “She’ll probably pick gold,” Clint said, but the thought didn’t bother him. He’d paint the whole house bubblegum-pink if it would make her stay. Suddenly, he wondered if she would have felt more at home with him if he’d painted her bedroom some girl color. And put up some ruffled white curtains. Instead, she’d stayed in Joe’s old room with its tan walls and burlap curtains.

  Maegan seemed to feel better by the time they
hung up from their phone conversation, Clint thought. He knew he felt more hopeful. He might even get pink paint. What little girl could resist a princess bedroom? He wasn’t going to just put up new curtains and paint. He was going to buy a new bedspread and rug and maybe even one of those sparkly rainbow makers that people put in windows. He should have realized when Lilly became so intent on beading that bridle that she liked pretty things.

  He looked around at the kitchen after he hung up the phone. There would have to be changes here, too. He’d have to get out the tape measure before he headed into Dry Creek to pick up Maegan. If he could get curtains today, he would need to know the sizes of the windows in his house.

  It wasn’t until he was measuring his second window that he realized he would be reminded of Lilly every day from now on. Every wall would remind him of her. If she chose to leave anyway, that would be a whole lot of reminders of what he was missing.

  It was too late though. Before Lilly, he had tried to protect himself by not being involved with people. But once he opened his heart to his niece, there was no going back.

  The same was true with Maegan. Even though he had feelings for her, she would likely be leaving once she met Joe and assured herself that Lilly would be well-cared for by him. Oh, she’d be polite when she left. He’d say he’d miss her. And she’d say they should keep in touch and he might even get a Christmas card from her. But his heart would never be the same. It wasn’t just his house that would be changed forever; it would be him. He wasn’t sure his solitude would be enough for him anymore.

  Chapter Seven

  It took three days for the paint to be delivered to the store in Miles City so it wasn’t until Friday that Clint and Maegan started taking the lids off the cans in the upstairs of his house and flexing their brushes. The days had been blessedly dry so they could leave the windows at half-mast without worrying about rain. Still, even with the fresh air, the smell of paint was everywhere.

  They had decided to start in Lilly’s room.

  “What’s that?” Maegan said as she wrinkled her nose and pointed to something Clint had pushed out from under the bed as he swept.

  He couldn’t believe she could smell anything with the open cans of paint around, but then he looked closer at what he’d found. Maybe she couldn’t exactly smell it, but she was anticipating the odor.

  “I think it’s one of Joe’s old socks,” Clint admitted as he squatted to take a better look. Surely he’d at least cleaned the room before he assigned it to Lilly. Although, come to think of it, he’d been calving when Joe brought the girl here and he was busy out in the barns. He knew he’d given her a set of clean sheets for the bed and he meant to go in and wash the windows and sort out the closet. He wasn’t so sure he’d found time to do either though, since he’d had to mend that section of fence and then he’d moved the cattle to the pasture closer to the barn.

  He shook his head. He had no excuse; he’d have to pay more attention to things from now on. He looked around. The only new thing Lilly had in her room was that teddy bear Maegan had given her. The girl had it propped up on a shelf beside Joe’s collection of old junk. The poor bear was missing all of its beads and sparkles, but it didn’t look any worse than some of the things Joe had left there a decade or two ago.

  Then Clint noticed that Lilly had her porcelain dolls lined up on the shelf, too, with their pastel swirling skirts held out as though they were frozen in an everlasting ballroom dance. They were delicate and, now that he thought about it, those dolls were an odd match with Lilly. She didn’t seem the frilly sort and he’d never seen her even try to dance.

  He glanced over and saw Maegan open the flaps on a box so she could fill it with the things from the shelf. They didn’t want to get paint on any of it. He saw her reach for one of the dolls. “Where’d she get these?”

  Clint shook his head. “The last I saw those dolls, she had them packed away in her suitcase. I don’t know anything about them really.”

  Maegan brushed some dust off the closest one. “It’d be nice to have a pretty shelf just for them.” Then she looked up. “Are you saying she brought these with her?”

  Clint nodded. “I thought maybe she’d won them at a fair someplace.”

  The dolls were about four inches high and he hadn’t noticed until now that they all had a bit of lavender in their dresses. It might just be on the sash or the bonnet, but the color was there on all of them. No wonder that was the color she’d chosen for her room.

  “Keeping them in one piece when she was moving around to all those foster homes would have been difficult,” Maegan muttered as she stared at them thoughtfully. “They must have been important to her.”

  “What did you lose?” Clint asked softly. The sadness on her face told him some precious things had been broken or even taken from her.

  Maegan looked at him and smiled. “I never felt I was like the other kids, not even the other ones in foster care. They didn’t have a family. But I did—my sisters. It’s just they were taken from me and no one would help me get them back.”

  “I would have helped,” he said without thinking.

  She blinked and he could see the tears in her eyes. “I know.”

  They were silent for a moment and Maegan turned her face away from him as though she didn’t want him to see her tears.

  Finally, Clint cleared his throat. He didn’t want her to be uneasy around him. “I have a bit of wood in the barn that would make a nice shelf for Lilly,” he said. “I can make it up in a few hours. Of course, the varnish will take longer, but it’ll look a lot better than that shelf Joe had when he was a kid.”

  “I think she’d like that,” Maegan said as she turned back to him.

  His heart swelled a little just seeing that she was happier now. The shadows of her past would grow less over the years, he knew, because his had faded with God’s help.

  They just stood there and smiled at each other for a bit. The two of them had been doing that a lot lately. He figured she was more comfortable with him because they were on the same side now. He didn’t want to examine his feelings too closely though. He was afraid his emotions went deeper than being allies or recognizing someone was on the same spiritual path as he was. He felt like a man on a precipice who was afraid to look over the edge for fear there was nothing but emptiness on the other side. He’d lived alone for so long, he wasn’t sure a woman like Maegan would want to live with him now.

  Still, he couldn’t help but notice how cute she was with that red bandana wrapped around her head, her blond hair peeking out. Gradually, he realized the pink T-shirt and faded blue jeans she wore didn’t look like any of the other clothes he’d seen her wear. And she’d been with him every day since Lilly announced she wanted to live with her father.

  “You were thinking ahead. Packing paint clothes when you came,” he said.

  He was secretly glad that she didn’t always look like an attorney. He was a rancher and there was nothing fancy about him.

  “The clothes—oh, they belong to Doris June, Mrs. Hargrove’s daughter,” Maegan admitted. “I’m afraid I didn’t bring much in the way of clothes so I’m borrowing some.”

  “Well, they look real good on you.”

  “Thanks.”

  Clint thought she sounded surprised so he continued. “In fact, everything looks good on you. Very good.”

  He noticed her cheeks got rosy and he grinned. She didn’t look at him though as she walked over and shook out the old blanket that had served as a bedspread. It was a khaki wool blanket left over from when his father was in the army. As family heirlooms went, this was the primary one for the Parkers. He wasn’t sure he’d ever told Lilly that though. She probably just thought it was something from the rag bag.

  “Lilly’s going to like the comforter you bought her,” Maegan said.

  “I hope so. It was the only lavender one I could find and you know how she is about that color.”

  Maegan nodded ruefully. “Who would have thought she
’d spend hours going over the color chart making sure she picked just the right shade?” Then she paused. “That’s a good sign, isn’t it? She wouldn’t take that much time if she had already made a final and forever decision and knew she was going to leave, would she?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve asked myself all those questions, too,” Clint said. “Worrying about it isn’t going to make her stay though. We just need to keep working away.”

  “And praying,” Maegan added softly.

  “Yes, and praying,” Clint agreed as he reached for his paintbrush. They all needed to talk to God about this. It was a good feeling to have someone by his side to pray with.

  By the time they had to leave and meet Lilly, the walls of the girl’s bedroom were light lavender. The door frames and the closet panels were deep lavender. White net curtains were ready to hang in the windows and Maegan had washed the new white sheets and made the bed with the pansy-flowered comforter.

  “She’s never going to leave this room,” Maegan declared as she fluffed up the pillows on the bed. She couldn’t remember when she’d felt so satisfied at the end of a job. She had already figured out that one of the reasons she was so determined to see Lilly happy was that she wanted to make up for some of the distress in her own childhood.

  Still, that didn’t make her longing wrong. She’d been meeting with Mrs. Hargrove every day to read the Bible and pray. One thing she’d learned was that God wanted her happiness. So, no, it wasn’t wrong to want to be an involved aunt in Lilly’s life. Or to ask God to bless her niece. And that niece’s uncle.

  “I’m never going to want to leave this room, either,” Clint said as he folded up the metal stool he’d brought in to hang the curtain rods. “It makes the rest of the house look worn out.”

  “Well, we’ve got more paint.” They had a can of yellow for the kitchen and an off-white one for the living room. Somewhere amidst the cans was even a peach color for the bathroom.