“Then,” he teased as he zipped the rest of the bag and hung it in the closet, “it’s best that I don’t see it before I have to.”
Though she was tired, Aggie settled into the couch, grabbed a pillow, and started talking. She told about the dozens of dresses she’d tried on, some of the hideous ones Tina had described, and the dinner they’d shared. She described wedding cake, tuxedos, flowers, and frowned when she said she didn’t know what they were doing for invitations. “We mentioned that we had to find a place for the reception so we could order invites, but I don’t even know where I’m going to order.”
“Tina probably does. She seems to have a good pulse on what’s happening.”
Something in his tone concerned her. “Do you think I’m putting too much on her?”
“Not at all. It probably keeps her from going crazy while her father is laid up.”
“Whew. I suddenly saw you upset that she was doing—well, almost everything—and almost got sick. I don’t have time to leisurely plan a wedding. I have kids to raise.”
“Well, and we’re doing it kind of quickly so that also makes a difference.”
“Tina’s dad thinks I’m pregnant.”
Luke choked. “He what?”
“That’s what she said. He said no couple marries that fast unless she’s pregnant, and there you have it.”
“That’s going to be one overcooked baby then.”
“What baby?” Exhaustion was beginning to meddle with her ability to follow ambiguity.
“Even if you get pregnant immediately, it’ll be a good three months late!”
“Funny. My mom is afraid I will get pregnant immediately. Tina, on the other hand, is hopeful.”
“Hopeful?”
“She’s convinced that I’m trying to outdo Allie, therefore I’ll have to have triplets the first year. That way she can move back in without a trace of guilt.”
“I have wondered if twins are likely for you, but triplets? Can’t she just move in because she wants to help? Does it have to be a crisis pregnancy first?”
Their laughter should have awakened the children, but not a peep reached their ears. “You should go home. You’re tired.”
Though Luke nodded, in evident agreement, he didn’t budge. “Does Tina have a place she wants Chad and me to rent our tuxes?”
“Probably. Do you want me to get the number?”
“Have her email me everything—down to the stock number in the store if necessary—so I get the right one. Does she have idea for gifts? Don’t I need gifts for the guys?”
“Do you want her to get them for you, send you links, or make suggestions?”
“How about make suggestions and send links and I’ll let her know if I need her to finalize or not,” he suggested.
“Great. Now where can we do the reception?”
“The community center in Brunswick is nice. Why not there? It’s not exciting, but it has good lighting and it’s on the outskirts, so it’s really close.”
“I’ll tell Tina.” She swallowed hard. “Oh, and I told her the kind of cake I want.”
“Good. One more thing done.”
“You’re not even curious?”
“What are your flowers?”
The question seemed odd, but Aggie answered, “Red roses and maybe lilies for ‘visual interest.’” Her air quotes were weak but effective in defining whose idea visual interest was.
“Is the cake red velvet?”
“No.”
Luke kicked her foot gently and said, “Then we’re good. I’m not a red velvet fan.”
“Oh, it would be pretty though. What’s wrong with it? I’ve never had it.”
“It has a quarter cup of food coloring. Can you imagine Cari after a piece of that?”
“We’ll not be doing that,” she agreed. “Mine has red in it—raspberry filling.”
“Sounds delicious.”
“Oh, and she is disgusted because her dress looks good on her.”
“Well, I am relieved. I dreaded the idea that she might actually like liking it. It is much better that she should be miserable about a good choice.”
“She hates Music Man.”
“And this matters because…”
“Shipoopi?”
“Oh, you didn’t.”
At first, she didn’t notice the teasing in his voice and wondered if he truly hated them. “Well, it’s too late. They’re mostly done.”
“Chad is never going to let me live this down.”
Mibs says: I know you can’t be home yet, but I didn’t thank you for taking care of everything for me. I also didn’t tell you about my conversation about Laird. Tina thinks I should apologize for dumping the problem on you—to Laird that is. Apologize to Laird. What do you think? Anyway, goodnight and thanks.
Chapter Eleven
Revolt
Monday, January 12th
The school area was empty—again. It was the third time that morning that she’d gone to do something—switch a laundry load, chase down a wayward twin, or change Ian’s diaper—and returned to find the children missing. She mentally calculated the time and decided that once every twenty-eight minutes was once every twenty-eight days too often. “Get back in here!”
Tavish crept from the cubbyhole under the stairs and had the decency to look chastened. “I was studying!”
“Your assignment?” She knew better. Tavish was obsessed with punch card computers and was probably reading about them instead of the Green Mountain Boys.
“Well…”
“That’s what I thought. Where’s Ellie?”
“Probably upstairs working on your—book list.”
Whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be a book list and they both knew it. She pointed to the basement and marched up the stairs in pursuit of her missing scholars. Ellie seemed to be stuffing something under her bed as Aggie entered the room, but Aggie focused on the infraction at hand. “You’re supposed to be at the table at your desk and identifying prepositional phrases.”
“That’s so boring! You just look for an of or a with and strike through the words that follow it.”
“I don’t care if it’s boring, go do it. And if you think of and with are the only two prepositions, I see a very red workbook in your future. Where’s Vannie?”
“I don’t know.”
Vannie wasn’t in her room, but Laird was in his. “Downstairs, buddy. We’re not done correcting your work.”
“Just mark it all wrong.”
“Go, and furthermore, we’re going to have a talk after school.”
“Whatever.”
It took three attempts at silently counting to three before Aggie trusted herself to respond. “I’m going to try that again and this time you’re going to respond like the Laird I know and love instead of this impostor in his room.” She waited for him to meet her gaze and added, “Now go and we will have that talk after school.”
She saw resistance in him. It was only a matter of seconds before he came back with some kind of snarky comment, but thankfully, he yielded and nodded. “Ok.”
It wasn’t the response he once would have given, but she considered it a concession to the illusion of respect anyway. “I’ll be down in a minute. I need to find Vannie and Kenzie.”
“Try the basement for Kenzie. She’s probably down with Cari and Lorna. Where’s Ian?”
For a split second, it felt like she had her “son” back, but then he closed himself off again as she said, “He’s napping. Couldn’t keep his eyes open.”
“Convenient.”
“What?”
“I said,” Laird repeated as he dragged himself from the bed, “that it’s convenient of Ian to sleep while we’re doing school.”
She found Vannie lost in a book in the library. “Is your work done?” The girl pretended not to hear, or so it seemed to Aggie. She stepped closer and removed the book from Vannie’s hand. “Did you hear me?”
“N—yes. I was just finishing the paragraph.”
“But it’s literature isn’t it? I mean, it was written ages ago and people are still reading it.”
“That’s not exactly a good criterion for good literature, but it doesn’t matter how good the book is, your assignment was to finish your algebra.”
Something behind Aggie changed the acquiescence she’d seen on Vannie’s face into resistance. “No.” Vannie grabbed the book and marched to the door. “I’m not going to spend hours trying to understand those stupid problems. I’m tired.”
“Wha—” she began, but the girl was gone. As she turned, Aggie saw Laird’s sleeve disappear into the living room. Her temper flared higher than it had in ages and she found herself singing beneath her breath, “—ching as to war. With the cross of Jesus, going on before. Christ the royal Master…”
Her hand reached for her phone, but she hesitated. If Tina was right, calling in reinforcements had only weakened her position the last time. Children spilled from the basement, some racing outdoors and Tavish to his cubby. Her astonishment couldn’t have been greater. One pair of shoes at the top of the stairs mocked her more than anything. Somehow Laird was behind this.
Dozens of ideas and questions tangled themselves in her mind until she was certain she’d never extricate herself. Aggie’s heart pounded in her chest and her forehead grew moist with perspiration. She had to act quickly. Every moment she delayed was a moment of victory in their eyes. This wasn’t normal behavior for Allie’s children. Cari, sure. Rarely Kenzie might resist, and Ian had already proven that he’d be a nightmare if she didn’t watch and train closely, but otherwise, with the exception of poor attitudes at times while doing it, if she said something, they obeyed.
Her first inclination was to call William and have the students “arrested” for truancy. With her luck, they’d simply end up in school which, at the moment, sounded like a reward for both her and them. Not something she wanted to risk. If they went back, and now it seemed as though they must, it would be because she decided it—not the kids. The last thing she needed was them to get the idea that following house rules was optional.
Laird. She had to start with Laird. They were all following him in this; that was certain. With a prayer on her lips and dread in her heart, she climbed the stairs and knocked on his door. A lack of response at all prompted her to open the door. She found him at his desk, assembling a Lego set as though he’d heard nothing.
“I need to talk to you.”
“I’m not doing grammar. We’ve done enough today.”
“I’m not here to talk to you about today’s schoolwork.”
That got his attention. He glanced sideways at her before asking, “Then what do you want?”
“To apologize.”
This earned her a turned head and shock on his face. “For what?”
Aggie seated herself on his bed, leaning her arms on her legs, and tried to maintain eye contact. “I had no business dumping your paper into Luke’s lap. It was wrong to change up your school authority like that and it was wrong to put him in that position. I thought it was right—why I did it made sense to me, but I see that doing it was wrong. I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“Why am I sorry? Because I—”
“No, why did you do it. You’ve never shoved our problems on anyone else before.”
That proved it. He did lose respect for her over that. He’d seen it as shirking her responsibility instead of trying to be just. “Laird, I wasn’t trying to shove anything on anyone. I see it looks like that and that’s what it ended up being, but it wasn’t my intent. I was angry. Your first paper seemed to be a slap in the face to my authority as your teacher and a parent. Then I thought maybe I was overreacting, so I tried to have someone distant from the situation look at it—someone who cares about both of us and who might see it with the eyes of an adult and yet one who wasn’t affronted. I didn’t tell him anything about what happened. I left that for you.”
“Oh.” He was struggling. The muscles in Laird’s face twitched with his attempts to control them and his lip seemed to quiver. Even his voice cracked with that one simple mono-syllabic word.
“I see how it looked to you and I put you in a bad position.” She crept forward, hunkered down on her heels and looked up at him. “You know how Grandma Millie is, right? You know how we have to keep her from getting too tired or too upset.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, when she’d get upset she knew she had to calm down, so she’d table things and have Grandpa deal with them when he got home. I forgot that this isn’t normal—that I have no reason to do that. I forgot that I can be angry but talk about it and see if I’m right before I let it take hold of me like that.” To her disgust and dismay, tears choked her and flooded her eyes. “I don’t know how to do this, Laird. You know that. I’ve been a ‘mother’ for nine months. Most people get that much to prepare for one child. I have eight. I’m going to blow it.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you don’t have to agree quite that quickly,” she said, attempting a weak joke. “Look, I don’t want to use this as an emotional whip, but I’m going to say it this time because I think it’s really important for you to think about before this thing you have in your heart grows too big to conquer easily. You are Allie Stuart’s son. She taught you to love your family, to respect your elders, and to obey those in authority. She taught you to love and serve the Lord Jesus. If you can’t obey for me, you really should do it for her.”
He didn’t respond. She tried to encourage him to look at her—to see what his pain was doing to all of them, but Laird stared at a small plastic piece on the desk as if it was a lifeline to whatever he wanted to hold onto. After a minute, she stood, squeezed his shoulder, and started to leave the room.
At the door, a sniffle made her pause, but following instinct, she kept going. A sound reached her as she turned to take the first steps down the stairs, and she turned in time to feel him slam her into the wall in his rush. “I’m sorry, Aunt Aggie. I’m so sorry.”
~*~*~*~
“Tina was right,” Aggie told Luke over the phone that evening. “He lost respect for me when I dumped it on you like that. I almost called for help, but then I remembered the apology idea and tried that first. I’m glad I did.”
“You could have called for help, Aggie. I could have prayed if nothing else.”
“But see,” she protested, “Tina was right. Calling for help just makes things worse. It got better when I handled it on my own.”
“I don’t think that’s what she meant. I think she was trying to say that you can’t just turn it over to someone else and remove yourself from the picture. You’ve asked for help before, and they know it. But you did what needed to be done.”
“Oh.”
“You ok?”
“I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed, and you should know that I might be calling the school tomorrow.”
“Why?”
This was it. If she spoke it, she knew she’d feel like she must make the call. “I’m considering enrolling them. They’d only be a week or two behind at best.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?”
She wasn’t sure of anything of the kind, but Aggie did feel as if it was necessary. If the children were going to resist doing the work, it’d be better for them to be where they already had respect. She could work on it later. “I wasn’t sure… that’s why I brought it up. I might just enroll Vannie and Laird, but maybe it’s best if I just enroll them all.”
“That’ll make any kind of honeymoon impossible then. We can’t find people who can drive kids back and forth to school. I was hoping you’d consider letting Tavish and Ellie go to Willow’s. She doesn’t have a car, but she is familiar with learning at home.”
The idea of two weeks alone with Luke had kept her going through the past weeks. The idea of missing it because she had
to drive the kids to school discouraged her. Then again, was it right to keep them out just so she could have a honeymoon?
“Mibs? You there?”
“I’m here. Is it wrong to want to keep them out so I don’t have to miss it?”
“I think you should keep them out because it’s best for your entire family.”
“Really?”
“I think whatever you do, making this decision while you’re upset is probably not the best idea.”
She started to agree when William’s cruiser pulled into the drive. “Hey, Luke. William is here. I am not panicking. I am not going to run up and accuse Kenzie of calling 9-1-1 again, but if you’d like to pray that she hasn’t, I won’t complain. Meanwhile, I’d better go. I’ll get on the messenger in a bit to see if you’re still up.”
She had the door open and phone in her pocket before William made it to the steps. “Come in and tell me no one called.”
“Called? I haven’t called in days.”
“Then dispatch didn’t send you out here?”
Understanding lit William’s face as he shrugged out of his jacket. “No, no. I just came by to see how your trip went.”
“What trip?”
“To Yorktown. I thought you’d gone up there to see your folks and—”
Laughing, Aggie offered him a cup of coffee and led him to the kitchen as she made it. “I see; what you really want to ask, and won’t, is how Tina is?”
“Well…”
“Considering her obsession with my wedding, she’s bored stiff, and considering she knows the sizes of my kids’ shoes and what clothing needs they have, she misses us a bunch.” It had been her intention not to tell the rest of her observations, but the absolute torture William appeared to endure as he tried to ask about anything else was too much for her. “She also asked a dozen questions about you, sprinkled among our wedding plans and while dodging girls who would rip a dress from your hands rather than ask if you were finished.”
“Her dad?” He apparently had found his voice.
“He’s doing ok. Honestly, from what I can tell, she would leave tomorrow if it wouldn’t make him feel abandoned. He doesn’t ‘need’ her there, but if he wants her, she stays.”
Here We Come (Aggie's Inheritance) Page 16