by Meg Moseley
Jack scratched his head. “Who dumped rice everywhere?”
“Martha,” Rebekah said. “She was playing bride. Throwing her own rice. And then she played flower girl and threw petals.”
“Well, now. That’s what I call an original sin.”
“Every time I ask her to clean it up, she wanders off somewhere.”
“I do not,” Martha said indignantly. “I’m just busy.”
“You certainly are,” Jack said.
Construction-paper hearts were strewn everywhere. On the table, on the floor. Taped to cupboards, held to appliances with magnets. All the colors of the rainbow, plus black, brown, and white. A skinny orange heart escaped its moorings on the fridge and floated to the floor.
Jack walked back to the bride with rice crunching under his feet. “Miss Martha, life isn’t all skittles and beer. I’m glad you’ve had fun today, but it’s time to clean up.”
“I made one for you.” She handed him a lopsided blue heart.
I love my Unkul Jack, she’d printed laboriously on it in red marker, running the second k right off the edge. On the table lay a green heart with I love Mama in bigger letters.
He tucked the blue heart into his shirt pocket. “Thank you, but if you love your mama, you’d better tidy up your messes. Start with this one, and then I’ll help you take care of the rice.”
“Later.”
His ears must have gone bad. “Excuse me?”
“Later. ’Scuse me.” Martha climbed off her chair. As she squeezed past him, she burst into song. “Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous,” she sang, one hand clamped to her head to keep her veil in place.
“Righteous, nothin’. Get back here, you little sinner.”
“For praise is comely for the upright.…” Her happy voice trailed behind her as she sashayed through the living room, the veil swaying.
“Martha!” he roared, to no avail. She was gone, tromping up the stairs. Still singing.
He took a long, slow breath and let it out. In theory, he believed in a child’s right to test her limits, to explore independence to the very borders of rebellion. In practice, though, he leaned toward paddling the brat. Except she wasn’t his.
“She’s horrible,” Rebekah said, still slicing squash with no great regard for the safe handling of knives.
“She’s four. Careful, there. I’d rather not make a trip to the emergency room.”
The blade kept flashing. “I haven’t cut off any fingers. See?” She laid down the knife and held up her hands.
He counted automatically. Four fingers and a thumb on each hand. “Not yet.”
She picked up the knife and started in again, with even greater vigor.
“Watch it, Rebekah. You’ll slice your finger off.”
The knife clattered into the sink. “You’re worse than Miss Minchin!” She stormed past him in a swirl of denim skirts and ran for the stairs.
“Miss … who?”
No answer.
“Oh,” Jack said, with a vague memory of Ava’s young niece breathlessly reciting the plot of one of her favorite stories. Something about a noble orphan and a tyrannical headmistress or some such thing.
He walked over to the coffee table to review Rebekah’s choices from the library. Sure enough, she’d read three books in a row that featured brave young ladies who endured cruel mistreatment at the hands of hardhearted adults.
And he’d thought Martha was the drama princess.
Upstairs, Gabriel screamed, and Michael responded in kind. A thump followed; a head against a wall, perhaps. Jack decided not to interfere. Both archangels deserved a good thumping. Better in their room than in his car.
He swept the kitchen and dumped a mixture of paper scraps, paper hearts, rice, and flower petals into the trash. Furtively, he trashed the vegetables with the rest. He couldn’t abide yellow squash.
Pancakes. A foolproof recipe he knew by heart. With some luck, he’d find that Miranda allowed pancake syrup. If not, he’d settle for her strawberry jam, nuked into syrup—except there was still no microwave to nuke it.
He washed his hands, but orange mud streaked the kitchen towel that hung from the oven door. He opened the drawer for a clean one. The drawer was empty. Rebekah must have forsaken her duties as laundry maid.
He wiped his hands on his jeans. Ransacking the cupboards, he found bowls, a cast-iron griddle, measuring cups, ingredients. Within a few minutes, the batter was ready but he’d forgotten to heat the griddle.
Then Miranda was at his elbow, smiling as she peered into the bowl. “Pancakes?”
“Pancakes.” He scrutinized her, trying to understand how she could smile when her children were clearly going berserk.
“Did you have a good trip?” she asked.
“In most respects, yes. And what did you do all day?”
“I spent hours on the phone, getting recipes from some of my friends from church. Then I fell asleep, I guess. Where’s Rebekah? I thought she’d planned soup for supper.”
“She’s upstairs. I believe she’s on strike.”
“Where’s Martha?”
“Also upstairs. As of a few minutes ago, she was alive and well but in great need of a paddling.”
“Where’s Timothy?”
“Don’t know.”
“The archangels?”
“The devils? Upstairs, thumping each other.”
No negative reaction to that either. Her smile just wouldn’t quit.
Jack cocked his head to the side, trying to reconcile this vibrant, cheerful woman with his dire imaginings of soul-deep wounds and shipwrecked faith.
“Did you notice the rice?” he asked, jutting his thumb toward the living room.
She looked around blankly. “Rice?”
“The white stuff underfoot. According to Rebekah, we have a young bride in our midst.”
“Oh. That would be Martha.”
“You think?”
“I think,” Miranda said with a mischievous smile. “I certainly do.”
Even if he couldn’t explain her mood, he could take advantage of it. “Is anybody in your family allergic to cats?”
“No, but why do you ask?”
“Yvonne’s giving away a calico kitten. About eight weeks old. Is there any chance you would like to adopt her?”
Miranda’s smile fled. “I don’t know. A pet is a big commitment.”
“I can run to town and pick up all the trappings. Food and litter and such. And I can give the kids a ferocious lecture about taking care of her themselves.”
“That would last about a week. I just don’t know. Besides that, she’d have to be spayed. And she’d need her shots.”
Jack sighed. “All right, all right. I’ll pay for the spaying and the shots. The first shots, anyway. I’m not subsidizing this cat’s existence for life.”
“Why do you want me to take her, then?”
“Kids need pets.”
“Kids want pets.”
He reached for his phone. “Forget it. I’ll tell Yvonne to give the kitten to somebody who’ll appreciate it.”
Miranda gripped his forearm with surprising strength. “No. That kitten’s all mine.”
“What the—”
“I only gave you a hard time because you expected me to be a kill-joy.”
“Because you have been one.”
“Oh, all right, maybe I have, but I’m loosening up a little.”
“Excellent. I’ll call Yvonne so she’ll save the little beast for us—for you.”
Quick footfalls on the stairs heralded the approach of one of the children. Miranda sent him a warning look; he tried to ask the question with his eyes: the cat should be a surprise?
She nodded, giving him a fleeting smile—shy, winsome, flirtatious—and removed her hand from his arm.
Martha trotted into the kitchen. She’d shed her veil and was dragging the cuddle-quilt instead. “I’m bored.”
“Let’s play a new game,” Miranda said. “We’ll pret
end we’re starving prisoners searching for rice and hiding it in a bowl. Every precious grain of it.”
Jack handed her an empty bowl. “I don’t think anybody got the mail today. Before I start the pancakes, I’ll go see.” He waggled his phone at her.
“Good idea. Thank you.” She gave him a conspiratorial wink.
She’d winked? At a man? At him?
He winked back. Her cheeks reddened with gratifying speed. Her smile lingered.
Jack smiled back, picturing her with the bruises and scratches gone, hands on her hips as she argued with him. His imagination produced jeans and a T-shirt. A decent haircut. Makeup. If she would get out of prairie-princess mode, she’d be a knockout.
She turned her back on him and took Martha’s hand. “The other prisoners are starving too,” Miranda said. “Let’s hurry.”
Rice crunched under Jack’s feet as he passed mother and daughter on his way to the front door. Halfway across the porch, he remembered Yvonne’s father who believed he spoke for God. The old guy probably believed he could handle poisonous snakes without coming to harm or raise the dead if the snake theory didn’t work out. He wasn’t a real prophet. Not that such a thing existed anyway.
Still, when Jack reached the bottom of the steps, he took a slow, calming breath before he called Yvonne’s number.
A cracked and ancient voice wavered, “Hello?”
Jack wanted to hang up, but the kids needed that kitten.
“Hello,” he said. “May I speak to Yvonne, please?” He braced himself for another pronouncement from on high while mocking himself for expecting it. The preacher wouldn’t know who was calling.
“Silence is brother to lies,” the old man said. “The truth is sister to mercy. This time, say the words you’ve been given to say. Do the deeds you’ve been given to do. This time, hear Me and obey. Thus saith the Lord.”
Shaken, Jack closed his phone. He’d try again later.
twenty-one
Waiting for Yvonne to call back and set a time for picking up the kitten—preferably when her crazy daddy wouldn’t be around—Jack had grown desperate to beat the paralyzing boredom of Miranda’s quiet-Sunday rules. He’d resorted to snooping through Saturday’s mail where it lay untouched on the kitchen counter.
Right on top was an envelope with the church’s name and a PO box for the return address, and then the electric bill, addressed to Carl as if he were still alive. Only twenty-four electric bills ago, Carl had still lived under this roof. Miranda wasn’t far removed from his daily influence. And what an influence it had been.
He must have had some good qualities though or she wouldn’t have married him. Ava, lost to divorce instead of death, had some fine qualities and sometimes Jack remembered her with a pang of bittersweet regret that was close kin to the taste of new love.
Standing at the kitchen counter with the envelopes in his hand, he tried to remember Miranda as she’d looked on the day Carl came home from work and found her chatting with a visitor. Carl had waded into an innocent conversation with the verbal equivalent of a swift uppercut to the jaw, but he’d aimed his first swing at Miranda, not at Jack. She’d obeyed Carl immediately, taking the two toddlers inside while he strong-armed Jack off the porch for no good reason.
Except there must have been a reason. Whatever it was, it hadn’t kept her from naming Jack as the kids’ guardian.
Maybe the guardianship had something to do with getting even with Carl.
Jack resumed looking through the mail. Most of it was junk or catalogs hawking seeds, homeschool books, nutritional supplements, modest clothing—
Modest clothing? That earned a double take. The angelic, teenage cover model wore a bulky, bloomer-style swimsuit that could have been recycled from Edwardian days.
Fascinated, Jack propped himself up against the counter and started browsing. In disbelief, he flipped through page after page of little-girl style dresses with ruffles and lace and wide collars, modeled by little girls and by women. Then there were those ridiculous swimsuits. Aprons. Head coverings. Modest sleepwear for men and women—
“Why?” he asked.
And modesty vests.
“Modesty vests?” He skimmed the paragraph describing the garment, then read it a second time and doubled over with laughter.
Behind him, the floor creaked. “What’s so funny?”
He marshaled a solemn expression and turned around. Miranda stood beside the table, possessing a trim but womanly figure he couldn’t help but notice, no matter what she wore. The brief explanation of the necessity for a modesty vest had only ignited his imagination. He blushed like a virgin in a bawdyhouse.
One more burst of laughter escaped him.
She frowned. “What’s so funny?” she asked again.
“Ah … it’s …” He cleared his throat. “Okay, you asked for it.” He held up the catalog for her to see. “These people sell modesty vests.” He managed not to snicker, but it was a near thing.
Her face colored. “They haven’t managed to sell one to me.”
“Glad to hear it.” Jack tilted his head and imagined her in jeans and a T-shirt. Again. It was becoming a habit, and he knew why. By controlling her choice of clothing, Mason controlled her freedom to choose, period. But it wouldn’t be prudent to say so.
She nodded toward the mail. “Were there any medical bills? Or a check?”
“Just the electric bill. And something from your church.” He handed her both envelopes just as Martha trotted into the room.
Miranda made a face. “I was hoping I’d get the bigger check today, the one from Carl’s annuity. This one’s so small it’s ridiculous. The church gives me a little check, and I give a teensy tithe right back.”
Martha tugged at her mom’s skirt. “What’s a tithe?”
“It’s a certain percentage, a certain part of your money that you give back to God.”
“Uncle Jack, do you do that?”
The issue was a shibboleth in some circles, but he wouldn’t lie. “No, Miss Martha, I don’t tithe, but I give. How much I give is between me and God, but I don’t believe He would smite my flocks or curse my crops based on how much I do or don’t give.”
Her forehead furrowed. “Are you a farmer?”
“No, sweetie. Flocks and crops … that’s a figure of speech. But if I did have flocks and crops, and if they failed, I wouldn’t blame it on my decision not to tithe.”
“Your uncle is generous,” Miranda said. “He doesn’t cheat God or anyone else.” She walked out of the room, hardly limping anymore.
While he was still enjoying the novel sensation of being on Miranda’s good side, Martha sidled closer. “Mama’s still fasting,” she confided. “But she’s trying not to be grumpy.”
“Yeah, I noticed.” It worried him. Since the night he’d made pancakes, four or five days ago, she hadn’t eaten. “She’s still trying to hear God talk, eh?”
“Yes sir.”
He scooped Martha up and plunked her down on the counter so she was nearly at his eye level. “I wish we could hear that conversation. Do you think she and God ever talk about you?”
Martha grinned. “Maybe.”
“I’ll bet they say nice things about you.”
“And you.” She poked his chest with one finger.
“Maybe.”
But he didn’t tithe. He drank a little and smoked an occasional cigar. He mocked modest clothing. He snooped through Miranda’s mail, drugged her food, and teased her without mercy. And those were his minor flaws. It would be a cold day in hell before the Almighty said anything nice about him.
Martha frowned at him. “Uncle Jack, why are you sad?”
“I’m not sad.”
“Yes, you are. In your eyeballs.” She pointed at his left eye, making him flinch. “Right there.”
“No, Miss Martha, you’re imagining things.”
“No. I see it.” She squinted at him, shifting her attention from his left eye to his right and back again. “Di
d you do something bad?”
“That’s a strange question. Why do you ask?”
“I get sad when I’ve been bad. You know?”
Disarmed by her sweet honesty, he sighed. “Yes, I know.”
“Like when I dropped Mama’s new teapot. That was pretty bad.” She drummed her heels against the cabinet door. “Did you do something really, really bad?”
“Well, when I was little, I threw a rock through the neighbor’s window just to see if it would break.”
Martha’s eyes widened. “Did you get a spanking?”
“I sure did.”
She searched his face so long that he half expected her to come up with the right diagnosis of his soul sickness. “You can tell me the other stuff too,” she said at last. “Not from when you were little.”
He felt like an escaped convict with a persistent hound on his trail. “Nope. God and I belong to a mighty exclusive club, and you’re not going to horn your way into it, young lady.”
“Huh?”
“God and I are the only ones who know why I’m sad, and that’s how it has to stay.”
“If you talk to Jesus and say you’re sorry, He’ll forgive you.”
“That’s what I hear.”
He checked his watch. He might as well risk running into Yvonne’s father again, because Martha was nearly as bad.
“Tell your mother I’ll be back in a while with the surprise,” he said, swinging Martha down from the counter. “She’ll know what I mean.”
Martha needed something new to think about, and so did he.
Lost in drowsy memories as she leaned against her headboard, Miranda closed her eyes and pictured Auntie Lou’s cheerful smile. She’d been so careful to be an aunt—a great-aunt, actually—instead of a replacement mother. A child should still love her mother, she’d said. No matter what Mom did, she was still Mom.
But when Karen Ellison didn’t want to be a mom anymore, Auntie Lou stepped in. She was a rescuer from afar, like Jack, except she had volunteered for the job. She’d known what she was getting into.
“Mama?”
Startled, Miranda looked up to see Martha tiptoeing near. “Yes, sweetheart?”
“Mama,” Martha whispered. “Uncle Jack told me he’s bringing a surprise.