Читать книгу Kids by Christmas - Janice Johnson Kay - Страница 9

TOM WAS SHAKING HIS HEAD in amazement when he shut the door behind Suzanne. He’d never thought he’d live to see the day when she actually sought him out. She was so scared of him, she jumped two feet every time he approached her. He’d always pretended he didn’t notice, figuring someday she’d get over it, but that hadn’t happened.

What he didn’t know was whether she was afraid of all men. She had reason to be gun-shy after being married to that son of a bitch. The fights weren’t even the worst of it; what had really galled Tom were the constant putdowns. Summer evenings, with the windows open, he’d heard plenty.

“You’re not going out, looking like that,” the guy would say, with a sneer in his voice. Or, “Can’t you even have goddamn dinner on the table when I get home? You can’t keep the house clean and you’re a lousy cook. What did you do all day? Sit around and knit?”

Tom had been out dividing perennials the day she had greeted her husband at the door to tell him that she’d sold her first original knitting pattern to a company that published them. He still remembered how her face had shone with delight.

“Big whoop-de-do,” the bastard had declared. “What’s for dinner?”

That beautiful glow had gone out, as if her husband had thrown a rock and broken the bulb.

Tom had wanted to punch the SOB, and despite his special unit training, he wasn’t a violent man.

When things had got too loud, he’d called 911. He’d been scared for her. He’d fought his every instinct to intervene, because he’d known that he would make things worse. Josh Easton wouldn’t have liked another man telling him how he could treat his wife. And he was just the kind to take his anger out on her.

What Tom had never known was whether her husband had hit her, too. Tom had heard enough crashes during their fights to be afraid he had. Once he’d seen bruises on her face when she’d left the house. He’d told himself there could be an innocent reason for them but hadn’t believed it.

Tom had never been happier than the day he’d come home to see half the household possessions piled in the driveway. A man’s clothes and shoes in a jumbled pile. The TV, VCR, stereo system, recliner… Tom didn’t know how she’d managed to haul the heavier stuff out, but she’d been more generous with the creep than he’d deserved.

Tom also didn’t know how she had held onto the house, but was glad she had. Josh Easton was nobody Tom wanted as a next-door neighbor.

Six months after the SOB was gone, she’d marched out one Saturday morning and painted over the Easton on the mailbox. A couple of hours later, the black paint dry, she’d used a stencil and white paint to put Chauvin in its place. When she’d finished and seen Tom in his yard, she’d said, “I’m divorced,” and marched back in her house, head held higher than he’d seen it since the day he’d bought his place and moved in next to her.

He hadn’t known then how to say Good for you, not without letting on that he’d heard and noticed more than she probably wanted him to have. Maybe someday, he’d figured, when they got friendlier. No reason they wouldn’t, now that she didn’t have a husband who didn’t seem to like her talking to anyone else.

But Tom had realized shortly thereafter that Suzanne was still skittish around him. When he directly addressed her, she’d gaze in his direction without ever really looking at him. He had to be careful how he approached her because she startled easily. Like the other night, when she’d banged her head on the trunk of her car just at the sound of his voice.

It seemed to him she’d loosened up just a little lately. She’d seemed really glad to have her brother reappear in her life, and she apparently had a new brother-in-law, too, who had introduced himself one day while the two women had been chatting. Kincaid. Mike…no, Mark Kincaid. Tom had seen her hug him casually a couple of times.

He knew she dated once in a while, too, although none of the men ever came around for long. So she wasn’t afraid of all men. Or else she hid it better around most of them than she did with Tom.

The why would likely remain a mystery to him. He didn’t look like her ex, who had been sandy-haired, handsome and charming. None of which applied to Tom, who had dark brown hair, didn’t know how to be charming and who had never been called handsome, even by his own mother.

But tonight Suzanne had actually come to his door and had even sat on his couch. She still hadn’t met his eyes, but she’d talked to him. He might have even been the first to hear the kids were coming over tomorrow to scope out her house. And she’d invited him to say hi to them.

Tom had intended to run errands tomorrow, but to hell with them. He’d stick around until the kids had come, find an excuse to be out in the yard so he could meet them, maybe be out in the yard again after they left in case Suzanne wanted to talk some more. Tell him how the visit had gone.

Taking his plastic-covered dinner out of the microwave, he issued himself a warning. For God’s sake, the woman was afraid of him! She wasn’t likely to go from that to wanting to share his bed.

His bed? Who was he kidding? Suzanne Chauvin was a marry-or-nothing kind of woman if he’d ever seen one.

Nope, stick to admiring from afar, he told himself.

But he was still going to be out there tomorrow, both to meet the kids and because he’d decided he liked Suzanne the day she’d hauled that son of a bitch’s stuff out to the driveway.

MRS. BURTON DROVE a rattle-trap of a car, even worse than Suzanne’s. It gasped and coughed as she pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine.

Suzanne hurried out even before the car doors had opened. After the foster mother laboriously cranked her window down a few inches to greet her, Suzanne smiled. “Thank you so much for bringing them. You take your time with your errands.”

“I’ll do that.” She fixed a stern gaze on Sophia and Jack, who had come around to Suzanne’s side of the car. “You two do what Ms. Chauvin asks you to do, hear?”

“Yes, Mrs. Burton,” they chimed, heads swiveling as they tried to see the yard and house and street all at once.

“I’ll be back around two-thirty.” She rolled up her window again and backed out of the driveway.

Glad it wasn’t raining today, Suzanne said, “Do you want to see the yard quick before we go in?”

“Sure,” Sophia agreed.

Jack nodded. His eyes were wide and he was sticking close to his sister.

Suzanne led them toward the back gate. As she did so, Tom’s garage door began to roll up.

He stepped out and glanced their way as if surprised to see them, which didn’t fool Suzanne for a minute.

“Your visitors are here, eh?”

“Yes, Sophia, Jack, this is my closest neighbor, Tom Stefanec.”

They both nodded shyly.

He smiled at them, once again startling Suzanne. Had he always looked so kind? How was it she’d never noticed?

“Good to meet you. Suzanne is excited about you coming.”

“I’ve been sitting by the window for the last hour,” Suzanne admitted.

“We could have come sooner,” Sophia offered. “But Mrs. Burton kept saying no, that we’d said one so it was going to be one.”

“She probably didn’t want to take me by surprise.” Suzanne opened the side gate. “Mr. Stefanec was nice enough to mow my lawn this fall. My mower wasn’t starting.”

He looked over the two kids. “You two ever mowed before?”

They both stared at him, their heads shaking in unison. “We never had a yard before,” Sophia told him.

“Might be a good chore for you to take on.”

“Jack never had chores,” Sophia said with a sniff. “I did everything.”

“Did not!” her little brother protested, if quietly. “I helped, too!”

“Did not,” she repeated under her breath.

He smouldered.

Laughing, Suzanne laid a hand on each of their shoulders. “It doesn’t matter. Here, you’ll both have to help, because we have the whole yard and house to keep up.”

“Well, I’m glad I met you,” Tom said again. “Suzanne, you let me know if I can help haul anything you’ll need for the kids with the pickup.”

Letting the kids go ahead into the backyard, she turned back. “Really? You’ve been so nice already about the lawn….”

“You didn’t ask. I offered.”

She smiled at him, thinking again what a nice face he had. “I can get mattresses delivered, but I’ll probably scour thrift stores for other furniture. Just in case I buy something too big for my car, I’d really appreciate it if you’d pick it up for me.”

“Glad to.” He nodded toward the excited voices that came from around the house. “You’d better catch up with those two.”

“Yes.” She bit her lip. “Thank you.”

His answering smile was friendly, his stride relaxed as he walked away.

She’d felt really comfortable with him there for a minute, as if they were old friends. Shaking her head in bemusement, Suzanne headed into the backyard.

Jack was standing under the apple tree staring up at the gnarled dark branches, bare of leaves at this season. “I could climb it.”

“Do you like to climb?” Suzanne asked.

He stole a shy glance at her. “I never had a tree. But I like the monkey bars at school.”

“When he was real little, he climbed on top of a dresser and freaked Mom,” Sophia said. “And he used to get out of his crib. I remember that.”

“In the summer, I eat out here sometimes,” Suzanne said. “The patio furniture is in the garage. But we can go in that way.”

The sliding door led directly into the dining area and kitchen. The kids crowded behind her, craning their necks again.

“It’s not very big,” she began apologetically, before seeing the expressions on their faces.

They looked as excited as if her modest house was a mansion.

“Pretty.” Sophia touched the quilted runner on the table. “You even have flowers.”

She’d bought the bouquet on impulse at the grocery store yesterday, a spray of showy blooms in yellow and lime-green and hot-pink. They weren’t fragrant the way flowers from her own garden were, but Sophia was right. They were pretty.

“And here’s the living room.” Suzanne trailed behind them.

Sophia sat briefly on the sofa and bounced. “Your TV is little.”

“I don’t watch very often.”

She received two identical, dumbfounded stares.

“Mom had it on all the time.”

“But she was bedridden, wasn’t she?”

“She didn’t ride anything.” The ten-year-old looked at her as if she were stupid.

“I mean, she was in bed most of the time. So she didn’t have much else to do.”

“I guess not.” She lost interest. “Can we see the bedrooms?”

“You may.”

She’d expected them to race down the hall. Instead they went slowly, wonderingly, Sophia touching the frames of pictures she had hung on the wall, then hesitating for a moment before turning into the first open doorway.

This bedroom was at the front of the house and was slightly the larger of the two.

“I used to store yarn in here, until I opened my own yarn shop.”

“Can it be mine?” Sophia asked. She turned in a circle, taking in the bare, off-white walls, the empty closet, the scuffed wooden floor.

“You haven’t seen the other one yet.”

“I like this one.”

“Then if everything works out, this one will be yours.” Suzanne smiled at Jack. “Let’s go look at the one right across the hall.”

She could tell he didn’t want to leave his sister, but he did follow Suzanne. “I’ve used this one for my guest room,” she told him, “so it already has a bed in here. You’d probably want a twin size instead, so there’d be more space to play in here. And for a desk and a dresser and…”

He’d gone directly to the window and looked out. “I can see the tree. It’s practically touching the glass! I like this room.”

“I’m glad. If you could pick any color for the walls, what would it be?”

He turned, thin face serious. “Green is my favorite color in the whole world.”

“I like green, too.”

Sophia jostled past Suzanne. “This room is way cool, too!” Her eager gaze turned to Suzanne. “Can we decorate our own rooms the way we want?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We still have a lot to talk about, don’t we?”

“If you decide to adopt us,” Sophia said, “can we decorate our bedrooms the way we want?”

“Within reason,” Suzanne agreed. “What’s your favorite color?”

She pursed her lips. “Um, let’s see. Some days purple is. And some days pink.”

Pink and purple. Well, that was reassuring. Suzanne had half expected her to say orange and black. At least in this way, she marched in step with all the other girls her age.

“You two would share the bathroom next to this room.” They followed and she pushed open the door.

“My bedroom.” Suzanne continued the tour, letting them wander to her dresser and look at the framed photos, stroke her coverlet and the hand-knit salmon-colored throw that lay across the foot of the bed, and rock experimentally in the maple-and-caned rocking chair that sat on a rag rug by the window. They even peeked in her bathroom.

“In the other direction,” she said, “there’s room to keep bikes or whatever in the garage. I keep meaning to have a garage sale so I can park the car in there, too.”

“I bet we could do lots of the work,” Sophia said. “We could put stickers on everything, and take money, and try to talk people into buying stuff.”

“I’ll need all the help I can get,” Suzanne said noncommittally. She glanced at her bedside clock. Her time with the kids was expiring rapidly. “Have you had lunch?”

They nodded. Jack was getting braver, because he volunteered, “Mrs. Burton made us eat before we could come.”

“Well, how about a snack? And we can talk a little.”

“Do you got cookies?” Jack asked.

“No, but I made a coffee cake.”

His face scrunched up. “Coffee is gross.”

She laughed. “It doesn’t have coffee in it. It’s a kind of cake that tends to be eaten during a coffee break. This one is lemon. I promise, it’s good.”

They came with her, both stopping to take one last, lingering look at the bedrooms that would be theirs, before bouncing along to the kitchen.

“I like your house,” Jack confided. His face was flushed, and he was increasingly animated. “Sophia does, too. Huh, Soph?”

“Of course I do, dummy!”

Unoffended, he said, “See? We both like it.”

“I’m glad,” Suzanne told him. “Why don’t you two sit down? I’ll get the cake and pour milk.”

“Can we have pop?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have any.”

Both looked incredulous again. Sophia voiced their shock. “You mean, you don’t drink pop? At all?”

Suzanne laughed, something she knew she was doing too much. But she couldn’t seem to help herself. She felt giddy. “Of course I do, sometimes. I just don’t always have it. Milk is better for you anyway.”

Their expressions of relief were comical, but also sobering. What were they accustomed to eating? Had they stayed in hotels with kitchenettes? Sophia remembered cooking with her mother, but that might have been years ago. Had they become accustomed to nothing but prepackaged and fast food?

She sat down and cut the coffee cake. As she dished it up, she said, “I do try to eat a healthy diet. Lots of fruits and vegetables and not much junk food. If you’re used to lots of potato chips and pop, you’ll find it’s a little different here.”

They exchanged a glance. If it was in code, she couldn’t break it, even though clearly they were communicating.

“What happens to us now?” Sophia asked, picking up her fork. “How long do we stay with Mrs. Burton?”

“I don’t know,” Suzanne admitted. “I think usually Ms. Stuart would want us to take weeks and even maybe months to get to know each other.”

Despite her full mouth, Sophia said, “But Mrs. Burton says she can’t keep us that long. She said only through Christmas break.”

“That’s what I understand, too,” Suzanne agreed. “I’m hoping you can come here instead of to another foster home.”

Both their faces brightened. “Really?” Sophia said. “That soon?”

“If you want to.” Suzanne set down her fork. “But I don’t want you two to feel rushed. Once you come, you’re going to be stuck with me and my rules.”

“Do you have strict rules?”

“I think they’ll be pretty normal. I’ll expect you to have chores here at home, and to make sure I always know where you are. We’ll set a bedtime, and you’ll need to do homework before you watch TV or play. Stuff like that.”

“Is that all?” the ten-year-old asked suspiciously.

“No, I’m sure it’s not. I don’t like to be lied to, for example. I’m going to ask you to be honest. That’s really important to me.”

“Mr. Sanchez says I’m too honest,” Sophia told her. “He says sometimes I shouldn’t say what I think.”

“Not telling somebody you think their new outfit is ugly isn’t quite the same thing as lying about where you went after school, or what a teacher told you, or whether you’ve done your homework.”

“But if I say the new outfit looks cool, that’s lying.”

“It’s what’s called a white lie,” Suzanne told her. “That means you’re not being honest, because being honest would hurt the other person’s feelings. But instead of telling even the white lie, you can say something like, ‘Wow! Did your mom take you shopping?’ and the person thinks the ‘wow’ was a compliment.”

“That’s sneaky,” Sophia said with apparent admiration.

“For now, I’ll have you both come to my shop after school, not home. You can do your homework there, and we can come home together after I close at five.”

She had to tell them about Knit One, Drop In, including an explanation of the name of the store. Sophia thought it would be way cool—her favorite words of enthusiasm—to learn to knit.

“Is there anything you want to ask me?” Suzanne concluded.

Jack scraped his plate in search of any last crumbs. “What would we call you?”

“Hm. What did you call your mother?”

“Mom,” said Sophia.

“Mommy,” said her little brother.

“Well, definitely not either. Because she’ll always be your mother, in your hearts.”

“Do you still think about your mother?” Sophia asked, sounding a little shy.

Suzanne nodded. “I wish she could meet you, for example. Be your grandmother.”

“Oh.” She looked down.

“I think maybe you should just call me by my name for now. What do you think? Then, later, if you want maybe we could think of some variation on Mom.”

“You mean, we should call you Ms. Chauvin, like Mrs. Burton said?”

She smiled at Jack. “No, you can call me Suzanne.”

Sophia’s forehead crinkled. “How do you spell it?”

She spelled it for them. Sophia frowned, taking it in, while Jack kicked his heels on the chair and gazed out the sliding door.

“Will we have your last name?” Sophia asked.

“Yes, once the adoption is complete. Are you okay with that?”

“Sophia Chauvin,” she tried out loud.

“That’s an elegant name,” Suzanne said. “I like Jack Chauvin, too.”

“It’s lucky Jack isn’t Van. Then he’d be Van Chauvin.” She cackled.

Her brother doubled over and pretended to laugh hysterically. His elbow caught the glass of milk and knocked it over, sending the milk in a river across the table.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he cried, scrambling up, something very close to fear on his face.

“He didn’t mean to do it!” Sophia said, leaping to her feet. “I’ll clean it up, so you don’t have to do anything.”

Taken aback by their reaction, Suzanne rose, too. “I know it was an accident. Everybody knocks things over sometimes. Don’t worry. Here.” She grabbed a roll of paper towels from the holder. “Let’s sop it up with this.”

Arms close to his body, Jack stood frozen by the table, his eyes saucer-wide.

Suzanne went to him. “Jack, don’t look so scared! It’s okay. Really.” She took a chance that she wouldn’t scare him more and bent to give him a quick hug.

He stood stiff in her embrace, but when she let him go she saw some of the tension leave his body. “I’m sorry,” he whispered again. Then, “Can I use your bathroom?”

“Of course you can.” The minute he’d left the room, she turned to his older sister. “Why was he so frightened? Mrs. Burton doesn’t, uh…”

Sophia shook her head. “She gets grumpy, but that’s all. It was the other foster mom, the first one we had. She yelled a lot and spanked Jack when he made mistakes.”

“What an awful woman!” Suzanne said with indignation. “Did you tell the social worker who supervised you?”

“After we went to Mrs. Burton’s.”

Suzanne smiled at her. “Good for you.”

Hands full of wads of soggy paper towels, Sophia said, “The quilt thing on the table is wet, too.”

“I can throw it in the washer.” Suzanne bundled it up. “Oh, shoot! I hear a car. I bet it’s Mrs. Burton.”

She put the table runner in the sink and went to the front window just as the kids’ foster mom beeped her horn.

Jack came from the bathroom, head hanging again, somehow appearing smaller than he had when he’d been excited and happy. Suzanne ignored the burning at the back of her eyes and smiled at him and then his sister.

“Shall we go shopping next weekend? Start looking for things for your bedrooms?”

“Yeah!” Sophia said.

“If it’s okay with Mrs. Burton and Ms. Stuart, we’ll plan on Saturday.” She could take a whole two days off. Rose would be glad for the hours.

“Wow! Okay. Bye.”

They raced out and tumbled into the back of Mrs. Burton’s car. Suzanne followed and spoke briefly with their foster mother, who thought Saturday would be great.

Suzanne stood in the driveway and waved as the car backed out. She didn’t want them to go, but she also realized she felt a little shaky. She’d been so nervous about what they’d think, whether they’d like her, she’d been operating on adrenaline.

The car disappeared down the street, and she sighed, giving herself a little shake.

“How’d it go?” a voice asked from so close, she jumped.

Tom, of course. He’d approached as soundlessly as always.

“Oh! You startled me.” She pressed a hand to her chest.

His forehead creased. “I’m sorry. I came out my front door. I assumed you saw me.”

“No, I was too busy trying to decide if the visit went well. I think it did.”

“You think?”

“Well, they seemed to like the house. But Jack freaked when he accidentally knocked over his milk. Sophia told me their foster mom spanked him when he made any messes.”

The lines in his face deepened. “That poor kid.”

“It worried me a little.” She didn’t know why she was confiding in him, but the words just kept coming. “I realized how many issues they probably have. Did I tell you their mom had MS? As her health deteriorated, they moved from shelters to cheap hotels where she could rent a room by the week. Sophia did the grocery shopping. I guess the mom must have gotten a disability check or something. But it sounds really grim.”

“And they watched her die slowly.”

She nodded. “After their mom got really sick, Jack started wetting his bed, and Sophia… She acts as if she doesn’t care, but she must. She says she hates the school she’s going to and doesn’t have any friends, and apparently Jack gets bullied. And I’m coward enough to think What do I know about traumatized children? What if I foul up?”

“You won’t,” he said with a certainty that surprised her. “If I’ve ever seen anyone meant to be a mother, it’s you. Anyway, if they need counseling, you can get them that, too.”

She drew a deep, ragged breath. “I can, can’t I? I don’t know if I’m meant to be a mother, but I want to be one. Wow. I really panicked. Look at me! I’m shaking.” She held out her hands, which indeed had a tremor.

He smiled at her, that amazingly kind smile transforming his blunt-featured face to one that was almost handsome. “You panicked because suddenly your fantasy kids are real, with real problems.”

Another deep breath, this one filling her lungs. “You’re right. That is why, isn’t it?” She gave a little laugh. “You aren’t a parent, either. How did you get so wise?”

“Guess I was born that way.” This grin was more mischievous. “So, when will you see them again?”

“Saturday. We’re going shopping. We’ll start with bedding and then look at paint, and I’m hoping to have time to hit a couple of thrift stores, too. They’ll both need dressers and desks.”

He nodded. “Let me know what I can do. Anything at all. Just ask.”

She gazed at him in amazement. “Thank you. Really. Thank you.”

He smiled again, and crossed their strip of lawn, disappearing a moment later into his house.

Still not having moved, Suzanne stared after him. Now she felt teary because he’d been so understanding and so nice. She’d known him for over five years, and had never known a thing about him except that he was obsessively tidy.

But today, she’d learned all kinds of things. And one, she thought in astonishment, was the color of his eyes. They were gray, with tiny flecks of green.

She’d looked into his eyes, without even realizing she’d broken years of habit.

Was it possible they could actually become friends?

Suzanne shook her head again in bemusement. Who’d have thought?