Dry Creek Daddy

by Janet Tronstad

  He turned the light switch on when he stepped inside the little house this time. Some boxes and suitcases were piled in a corner of the living room. There was no furniture. He hadn’t realized that Hannah didn’t have much, but she had said she moved everything in her car and there was not a lot here. Maybe she’d sold everything before she left her old place. He did notice a deflated air mattress that she must have used that first night she’d stayed here.

  He decided he would go over to his family’s house after he finished the harvesting and bring back a cattle truck loaded up with whatever he could find. There were pieces of furniture in the attic that hadn’t been used in years. He was sure there were a table and chair set up there and a double bedstead. He’d find a mattress to go with it if he had to bring the one off his own bed. In the meantime, he’d take care of that window. It looked like it hadn’t been washed in years and it made the inside of the house look gloomy.

  * * *

  When Hannah left the café at three o’clock her feet were tired, but she’d had a good day. The café was open for dinner only on the weekends so she hadn’t had to work late, but business had been brisk for lunch. She always felt better when a café had enough customers that she knew her work was required. She’d quit a job once because she found out the owner was keeping her on as an act of charity after business declined. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case in Dry Creek. She could barely keep up with the requests for pieces of lemon chiffon pie. She’d been surprised it was so popular with the ranch hands around here. But Lois said they always came in for lunch just so they could have her pie. When she’d lived here, Hannah remembered the work crews from the ranches eating out of a hot thermos and having a sandwich, but she supposed things changed even in a quiet town like Dry Creek.

  Fortunately, Hannah did not have to drive far to pick up Jeremy and her father. Mrs. Hargrove’s two-story house, surrounded by a sturdy white fence, was only a quarter of the mile down the paved road from the café. Of course, nothing was far from anything else in this town. There were no sidewalks. The whole of Dry Creek wasn’t more than a dozen clapboard houses, the café where she worked, a hardware store and a church. The gas station was past everything else on the opposite side of town and she’d heard rumors that someone had bought the old Keifer place down the road and was turning it into a cozy bed-and-breakfast.

  She remembered as a teenager that everyone in her class at school complained nothing ever happened around Dry Creek. She’d nod her head when the others said this, but secretly she was glad. She’d already had enough happenings to last a lifetime by then. She soaked up the peace.

  She parked her car along Mrs. Hargrove’s fence and got out of the vehicle. Her favorite place in this town had always been Mrs. Hargrove’s kitchen. It had a row of paned windows with white ruffled curtains. One summer she’d helped the older woman make chokecherry jelly for a whole week. Hannah had never had so much fun, squishing the juice out of the cooked berries, making labels for the sparkling jars of preserves and then tallying up the final count.

  The older woman must have been listening for her because she opened the front door of the house before Hannah even got partway up the walk. Mrs. Hargrove had a butcher’s apron covering her checked housedress and her gray hair was twisted into a serviceable bun. She’s gained some weight since Hannah had lived in this tight-knit community, but she still seemed to bustle when she moved.

  “Did you have a good day?” the older woman asked with a smile on her face. She had stepped outside and closed the door behind her.

  Hannah noticed that the smile didn’t reach the other woman’s eyes.

  “Is something wrong?” Hannah asked.

  “I’m worried about Jeremy,” Mrs. Hargrove said, her voice little more than a whisper. “But I didn’t want to say anything where he could hear me. Children are so sensitive about things like that.”

  Hannah braced herself. She knew what was coming. Worries had swirled around in her head all day while she worked. Last night, Jeremy had seemed more frail than usual.

  “Most boys his age don’t want to take a nap,” Mrs. Hargrove said. “But he not only went to sleep willingly right after an early lunch, he slept so long I thought I should wake him so he’d be ready when you came. But it wasn’t easy to do. I think something might be wrong.”

  Hannah took a ragged breath. She hadn’t told anyone except Mark, but she couldn’t keep it in any longer. “There is. The doctors think he has leukemia and also a cancerous tumor in the bone of his leg.”

  “Oh, dear,” Mrs. Hargrove pressed her hand to her mouth briefly. “The poor boy.”

  “I’m taking him to a specialist in Billings tomorrow,” Hannah said. “The local doctor where I used to live finally made the diagnosis, but he said they have experimental treatments that might make a big difference. This specialist is supposed to be the best one in the whole state. I’m counting on him to know what to do.”

  The words had spilled out of Hannah in a torrent and she didn’t realize until she finished that Mrs. Hargrove had stepped close and enfolded her in a hug. The older woman smelled of cinnamon and roses.

  “I’m going to pray for you both right now,” Mrs. Hargrove said in Hannah’s ear, and then she began to call down God’s mercy on her.

  Hannah didn’t recall having anyone ever pray for her in such low, soothing tones. She felt warm all over. The older woman talked to God like He was standing right beside them, and Hannah liked to believe He was. Mrs. Hargrove had always told her Sunday school classes that God loved them deeply and was in the room with them.

  Hannah had to blink when Mrs. Hargrove said her “Amen.”

  Then the woman stood looking at her. “Is your father going with you to the doctor?”

  Hannah shook her head. “He doesn’t know about Jeremy. And he’s not really too comforting when someone’s sick.”

  “I know.” Mrs. Hargrove pursed her lips. “He had a hard time when your mother died. But you need somebody with you. I have a doctor’s appointment myself, but I can cancel it and—”

  “No,” Hannah said. “You’ve already done so much. Jeremy and I will make out fine.”

  “But what if the doctor wants to do some tests on Jeremy?” Mrs. Hargrove asked. “The boy might need someone to hold him in the back seat while you drive home.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Hannah said. The older woman was right. Any number of things could happen. After all, the doctor had recommended she have some popsicles on hand for when Jeremy got home from the appointment. It was one of his favorite treats. “Don’t worry. I do have someone to go with us.”

  Hannah hadn’t decided until just this minute to accept Mark’s offer, and it left her feeling breathless.

  “Lois?” Mrs. Hargrove asked, still looked troubled.

  “No.” Hannah shook her head. “It’s Mark Nelson.”

  Relief flooded the other woman’s face. “That will be fine, then. He’ll see to everything.”

  It didn’t take long after that for Jeremy and her father to come out to the car and climb in. Her father had carried out the box of groceries that Lois had arranged to have her friend Randy pick up for them in Miles City.

  “That can’t all be kale and popsicles,” Hannah protested when she saw how heavy the box was.

  “It’s not,” Mrs. Hargrove said. She’d come out on the porch carrying a small ice chest. “Mark Nelson had asked Randy to add a few things to the box—which we kept refrigerated so it’s all cold. And this is for the popsicles.”

  “But I didn’t give him enough money,” Hannah protested as she automatically took the cooler. “He can’t have gotten all this.”

  She was sure she’d seen a couple of packages of meat and a carton of milk.

  The older woman shrugged. “You’ll have to talk to Mark about that. Randy said everything was paid for.”

  By that tim
e, her father had already stowed the box in her trunk, so there was nothing to do but to set the ice chest back there, too, and take it all home with them.

  The gravel roads spreading out from Dry Creek were dusty and Hannah drove slowly. These were the kind of roads not meant for speed. Besides, she was in no hurry to get back to her father’s place. He would not need her to watch over him tonight, and she hadn’t had time to fix up the small house where she and Jeremy would be staying. She didn’t want her son to be surrounded by ugliness on the night before his doctor’s appointment. She would have to think of something.

  She had a couple of comic book character sheets for his bed. Maybe she could hang them over the walls. She kept thinking her son would find new cartoon characters to enjoy, but he seemed to stick with the same old-fashioned ones. She had begun to wonder if this was good or bad. Maybe he was afraid to look for new heroes.

  Chapter Seven

  Mark stood back and admired the wall he’d just painted. He had finished harvesting the wheat around noon, and when he’d gone back to his family’s ranch to get something to eat after that, he made another trip to the barn’s tack room and found an assortment of cans of paint left over from the time his sister painted the kitchen and the downstairs bath. Between trims and accent paints, he had five or six colors. He’d come back to the Stelling place and cleaned the window in the small house. Then he scrubbed the cigarette smoke stain off the walls in the living room. By the time he finished the last wall, the first one was dry, so he went to work with the paintbrush.

  He had two coats of yellow on one wall and a partial pattern on half of the ceiling before he heard the rattle of Hannah’s car. The window he’d just washed faced west and the sun was shining through, so when he turned to look, he saw Hannah clearly. He stepped out in front of the house and waved so that everyone would know where he was. His pickup was still parked at the main house. When Hannah went to her trunk, he remembered the groceries and hurried across the weedy ground.

  “Let me carry those,” he said when he got there. By then she had the car trunk open and she was reaching for the boxes.

  “I can get it,” Hannah said as she put her hands through the hand holes in the box.

  “Of course you can,” Mark said as he stood to the side until he saw her falter. She couldn’t lift it. So he put his hands under the box, as well. “Things are always heavier than they look.”

  She let him take the whole thing. “You know, I plan to pay you back for whatever money you gave to Randy this morning.”

  He heard Jeremy and Mr. Stelling as they walked to the main house. Mark glanced up enough to see that Jeremy was dragging his feet. Mr. Stelling held out his hand and helped the boy up the steps to the porch. The cat was following them into the house.

  “Jeremy’s tired,” Mark said as he looked over at Hannah.

  She nodded, looking weary herself. “I can’t seem to manage anything these days.”

  “Of course you can,” Mark protested. “You already got him to a doctor who diagnosed him and you’re going to take him to a specialist tomorrow.”

  “I forgot my money at home today or I would have had more to give Randy for groceries,” she confessed. “I should thank you for covering for me.”

  “Did he say I gave him any money?” Mark asked Hannah. He knew very well Randy would not say anything of the sort.

  “No,” Hannah admitted.

  “Maybe they just had a sale at the store,” Mark said. “Or maybe he had some coupons. You can save a lot that way.”

  Hannah leaned over and looked into the box he held.

  “There’s a whole chicken in there,” she said. “Not to mention a package of hamburger meat and a couple of cans of tuna fish.”

  “And apples,” Mark noted when he looked down. There were also carrots, potatoes and an onion.

  Hannah must have kept looking, because she turned to him. “All of the ingredients for some chicken soup.”

  “That should build up Jeremy some,” Mark said. He’d have to thank Randy for adding a chicken to the box. “That’s what my mom always used to make when any of us were sick.”

  “Mine did, too,” Hannah said, looking more positive than she had earlier.

  “See, you’ll do fine,” Mark said as he hefted the box so it settled against his hip and started to walk to the door that Mr. Stelling had left open. Hannah picked up the small ice chest and carried it beside him.

  Mark was suddenly conscious of how much parenting Hannah had been forced to learn on her own while he had been laid up with that coma. He wished he could make up for some of it. His father told him he’d regularly sent money to Hannah to help her with Jeremy, but Mark figured it hadn’t been enough. He planned to sit down with her and set up a schedule of payments. Of course, that would be only the beginning. His childhood hadn’t been perfect, but he wanted to be a good father to Jeremy. He wasn’t sure of everything that would mean, but he planned to find out.

  * * *

  Once she was in the main house, Hannah put a blanket over the window in the back bedroom so that Jeremy would be able to take a nap. He came willingly when she called and she tucked him in. He was asleep before she left him lying there. His cat was curled up at the bottom of the bed and she expected it would doze, too.

  On the way back to the kitchen, Hannah passed the living room, where her father and Mark were discussing the wheat crop. She caught enough of the words to know that her father was pleased with the careful job Mark had done with the combine. Mark had also called someone to truck the wheat to the closest grain elevator. She thought she had smelled the wheat dust when she walked into the house minutes earlier. She remembered that from her childhood.

  Hannah told herself things were getting better as she put the chicken in the oven to roast for supper. Her father didn’t have much more than salt and pepper in the cupboard, but she coated the bird with a little olive oil and applied what seasonings she had freely. She’d hold back some of the cooked chicken from the table tonight so she could make a pot of soup for tomorrow, too. It made her feel good to cook, like she was sharing this kitchen with her mother again. She was glad Mark had reminded her that her mother had always made chicken soup, saying it would cure whatever ailed you. She knew it wouldn’t cure Jeremy’s leukemia, but she hoped it gave him some comfort and feeling of home.

  “Mommy!”

  A sharp cry came from the back bedroom. She hurried to her son, but she had to go through the living room, and by the time she got through the doorway, Mark was already heading down the hall.

  When Hannah reached the bedroom door, she saw Jeremy with his arms wrapped around Mark’s neck, looking like he’d never let go. Her son had been frightened. His breathing was still ragged. That cat of his paced the floor by the bed as though she disapproved of Jeremy seeking comfort from a stranger. Hannah couldn’t blame the animal for that; she felt the same.

  “Mommy,” Jeremy called again—his voice softer this time—and Hannah went to him, sitting on the bed next to Mark.

  She expected her son to fling himself into her arms. After all, she’d been his sole comforter since he was born. But Jeremy didn’t seem inclined to loosen his death grip on Mark. What her boy did instead was cling to Mark’s neck while he rested his head against her shoulder with what looked like extreme relief. Hannah had to reach around Mark to pat her son on the back, but that’s what she did.

  “Sorry,” Mark whispered, sounding reluctant as he started to untangle himself from Jeremy’s grip. He looked over at Hannah. “It’s you he wants. I just got here first so he figured any port in a storm.”

  “I’m glad you were here,” Hannah murmured as she held her hands out to her son.

  Jeremy did give up Mark then and came to her. She saw the flash of loss on Mark’s face. Whatever happened, she was beginning to understand that Mark did want to be a father to her son. She migh
t have to work on trusting him whether she wanted to or not. She didn’t want to cause Jeremy any distress and her son seemed to have become attached to Mark the moment he met him.

  She was still troubled by the longing she saw on his face when he looked at Jeremy curled up in her arms.

  “We’ll have to tell him soon,” she said, sharing the task with Mark the only peace offering that she could think of.

  “Not now, though,” Mark said, although he looked pleased at her words. “We can wait until things settle down. He’s had enough to deal with today.”

  Hannah nodded. Jeremy burrowed into her arms the way he used to when he was a toddler. She started to rock him and she felt him relax until he went soft.

  “Bad dream?” she asked him.

  Her son nodded. “It was dark in here. I thought I was asleep.”

  She probably shouldn’t have covered the window, Hannah thought. He was usually fine without light when he slept, but maybe that was because she was always in the room with him. She wasn’t so sure she’d sleep well without his breath on her face, either.

  “I’m sorry, baby,” Hannah murmured as she drew Jeremy closer.

  When some time had passed, Mark stood up from the bed and said he should get back to the work he had been doing in the small house. He wanted to finish more of it, he said, before the sun went down.

  Her father, who had come to stand in the doorway, frowned as he watched Mark get up. He must have forgotten how pleased he was to have his wheat harvested because he scowled at Mark and then declared he had some phone calls to make before he stomped off.

  “He’s just—” Hannah tried to think of a believable reason to excuse her father’s rude behavior, but Mark interrupted.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said.

  “I can’t help that,” Hannah said with a half smile.