Building a Family

by Lyn Cote

“Good night, kids. I love you,” he said, his usual final good-night. Bountiful love for his children expanded within him as it usually did at this quiet time of the day, free of distractions.

  “Good night, daddy. We love you,” the two replied together.

  “Daddy, when can I see Miss Ellie again?” Cassie’s question stopped him at the doorway.

  The mention of Eleanor caught him around the throat. The feel of putting his arms around the lovely woman as he hoisted the swing flashed through him. He cleared his throat. “We’ll see about that. Now go to sleep.” He walked out, only half shutting the door. He headed downstairs.

  He hoped that Cassie would soon forget the pretty lady at the “Happytat” site. But what would he do if he couldn’t shake Cassie’s fascination with Miss Ellie? Cassie’s words at the Dairy Queen still repeated in his mind. Did her unexpected attachment to Eleanor have anything to do with Suzann’s complete absence from her daughter’s life? The last thought stung—worse than any yellow jacket.

  Chapter Three

  Glancing around the century-old, oak-paneled courtroom, Pete swallowed down a fresh, cold wave of gloom. Ever since his divorce, he hated courtrooms.

  “I can’t thank you enough for coming, Mr. Beck,” Mrs. Miller repeated once more. The plump, dark-haired woman in a white blouse and navy-blue slacks looked to be about a decade older than he. On the wooden, pewlike bench, she perched beside him, wringing her hands. Unusually quiet and staid, Luis and Colby sat, both hunched forward, on his other side. “I’m so worried that Danny won’t be going home with me today.”

  Not knowing what to say, Pete replied with a sympathetic sound.

  “I just hope that your brother Mike doesn’t…let Danny go because of this. Danny’s had his problems, but he wouldn’t steal anything.” Mrs. Miller wiped away a tear.

  “Mike says he knows that Danny didn’t do it.” Pete wished this whole thing would just get started, and that thought shamed him. He’d accepted that Mike couldn’t come because he had to keep the shop open. But now Pete grasped why Mike had begged him to go to court with his employee’s mom. This poor woman was beside herself. He softened his voice. “That’s why he asked me to come. He wanted to show his support for Danny.”

  Mrs. Miller nodded, trying to look brave, but her lips trembled. “It’s hard,” she said, “raising boys without a father.”

  It’s hard raising kids without a mother—the lonely thought echoed within him. He knew he was in the minority but the number of single dads in the United States was on the rise—unfortunately. He glanced sideways at the woman beside him. She looked older than her years, and from what he knew, she had worked two jobs most of her life to support her two sons.

  This centered Pete, drawing even more of his sympathy. This woman hadn’t run out on her two boys. She’d stuck with them. Not like his ex who’d left and never looked back. Mrs. Miller deserved his support. He touched her sleeve. “I’m sure Danny will be fine.”

  She smiled tremulously at him.

  Then from the corner of his eye, Pete saw Eleanor stride confidently into court. Seeing her now jolted him. He’d only seen her in casual work clothes before. Here she wore a gray, three-piece pantsuit and carried a leather briefcase, very professional.

  A flashback to divorce court, where Suzann had marched in with her colleagues and proceeded to destroy their marriage and abandon her children, set his teeth on edge. He tried to put a damper on it. Just because Eleanor and Suzann were both lawyers meant nothing.

  Eleanor paused beside Danny’s mom. “Mrs. Miller.” She offered the woman her hand. “Don’t worry, okay?”

  Mrs. Miller nodded and squeezed Eleanor’s hand with both of hers. “Thanks,” she whispered.

  Pete’s gaze and Eleanor’s connected. He saw the warm sympathy in her eyes. “And Pete, thanks for coming.”

  He nodded, uncomfortable in being thanked for doing something so small. And uncomfortable at noticing how good she looked here in a setting he so disliked.

  High heels clicking, Eleanor went forward and sat at a polished oak table gated off from the general seating, her back to them. Only a few rows separated them. Eleanor had twisted her long hair into a tight bun low on the back of her head. He tried to ignore the fact that he couldn’t take his eyes off the ivory nape of her neck.

  Mrs. Miller leaned over and said, “Danny has a job this time, so he couldn’t get a public defender. But Ms. Washburn didn’t charge me both times she defended Colby. And she told Danny that he was an adult, so she would charge him. But he could pay her in installments. She’s so kind.”

  “Yes, she seems like a nice woman,” he replied inadequately. A very nice woman.

  “All rise.” The bailiff’s sonorous voice woke up the courtroom. The sparse gathering rose. The judge entered and took the bench. The few people in court sat again.

  Pete listened to the brief preliminary hearing. Danny pleaded not guilty, and the judge set a court date a month away, and after a brief discussion, set bail. Then, after Danny was led out of the courtroom, Eleanor rose and headed toward them. That was it? All this tension generated for less than five minutes of action?

  Eleanor paused to speak reassuringly to Mrs. Miller. “Mrs. Miller, I don’t think you or Danny have a lot to worry about. You need to go to a bail bondsman, and Danny will be released.”

  “Thank you so much,” Mrs. Miller replied. “I know Danny didn’t steal anything.”

  “Pete, thanks again for providing moral support. And you, Luis and Colby.” She inclined her head toward the teens bunched behind him as if for protection. As Pete and the others proceeded up the aisle, he thought he caught just a whiff of Eleanor’s perfume. He shook this off. I have no business noticing anything. Romance is not something I’m ready for now or maybe ever. After being discarded like yesterday’s trash, how did a man get enough guts to give his everything to someone? And he couldn’t think of just himself. He couldn’t repeat the disastrous experience and by doing so, multiply the bad consequences to his children.

  Later, as Eleanor hurried through her back door, she slipped off her heels, picked them up and nearly ran to her bedroom. What she had been anticipating for over a year had become reality today. Mavis Coldwell, PhD, the woman who had really raised her, had moved to town. Eleanor couldn’t wait to see Mavis, her honorary aunt.

  When she reached the bedroom, she quickly shed her professional shell and tugged on her worn blue jeans, green Hodag Music Fest T-shirt and slid her feet into her Birkenstocks. “Ahh.”

  Pete’s kind face from their earlier courtroom meeting flickered in her mind. Why had he looked so uncomfortable? Then she recalled yesterday, how tenderly he’d looked at Cassie. He certainly loved his children.

  Brushing away a twinge of loneliness, Eleanor stopped in the kitchen and grabbed a six-pack of bottled green tea with honey and ginseng and then, off the counter, a box of vanilla sandwich cookies. She’d skipped lunch. She ran to her car and drove off east toward the best thing that had happened to her in a long time.

  Within ten minutes she pulled up and parked beside Mavis’s cute, little white Craftsman bungalow, with green shutters and roses blooming along the drive. Mavis met her at the front door. Her milk chocolate face split into a huge smile. “Ellie honey.” She folded her soft, rounded arms around Eleanor.

  Eleanor had to fight back tears of joy. She hugged Mavis tight against her, so happy to be reunited. “Aunt Mavis, I’m so glad to see you here for good.”

  “Me, too, Ellie.” She looked at the box of cookies and the bottles of tea in Eleanor’s hands. “Did you eat lunch?” she asked sternly.

  Eleanor gazed around at the familiar furniture in Mavis’s new home. “No, but I’ll just—”

  Mavis scolded her with a frown. “That ginseng won’t make up for your lack of nutrition. Come in the kitchen. I’ve got leftovers from lunch. I tried that Chinese restaurant you told me about. Boy, did they give me food.”

  Grinning so hard she felt her fac
e crinkle up, Eleanor followed Mavis through the small living and dining rooms to the kitchen in the rear. Eleanor sat at the small, round table just big enough for the two of them that Mavis had moved from her house in Madison. Like a little girl again, she’d come to Mavis’s house where she would be made to feel special.

  “I can’t believe that I’m really here,” Mavis said, spooning rice and what looked and smelled deliciously like almond chicken onto a dinner plate, “and for good, at last.”

  “It has seemed like a long process.” Many months had stretched out while Mavis sold her home in Madison and looked for a house to retire to here, near Rhinelander.

  Thoughts of Pete, flashes of his expression, suddenly bombarded Eleanor. Stop, she ordered her mind.

  Mavis set the plate in the microwave over the stove and pushed On. “Well, the movers arrived this morning and by lunchtime, they’d moved in all my furniture. I just finished unpacking my kitchen stuff, and I need to unload a few boxes and suitcases of clothing.”

  Eleanor listened but Pete Beck with his serious brown eyes and the way his hair curled up behind his ears intruded. She brushed him aside again.

  “After that, I’ll unpack all my linens,” Mavis continued. “I think I’ll take my time about deciding what art to put on what walls, but I think I’ll feel pretty moved in and settled by the end of the week.”

  Eleanor’s unruly mind brought up the set of Pete’s broad shoulders, and how it had felt when Cassie hugged her and told her she was pretty.

  The microwave bell dinged, bringing Eleanor back again, and Mavis removed the plate and delivered it to Eleanor. She sat down across from her and sighed. “So far, I love retirement.”

  Eleanor chuckled and picked up the chopsticks Mavis had put beside her plate. She dug into the fragrant almond chicken and rice. “Yum. Thanks.”

  Pete Beck popped back into her mind. Cassie, bee-stung, in his arms, he was running toward her. Why couldn’t she stop thinking about him?

  “Is that what a Hodag looks like?” Mavis asked, pointing at the bizarre creature outlined in white on the faded, green T-shirt.

  “Yes.” Eleanor spread her arms so that Mavis could see it more clearly.

  “Kind of like a cross between a dinosaur and a big croc,” Mavis mused. “Weird.”

  “True, but when you’re a little town in Wisconsin, you need something clever to use as a symbol. The Hodag’s fun.” Eleanor savored the salty and savory Chinese flavors, keeping her mind off Pete, barely.

  “Your mom and dad will arrive in a few weeks for an extended break from the Arizona heat. Quid pro quo. I intend to spend a part of this coming winter with them in sunny Arizona. And after teaching at Madison for over forty years, we know we can get along.”

  Eleanor smiled, masking her mixed emotions. She wanted to see her parents, loved her parents. She only wished her mother felt the same about her.

  “So what’s on your mind?” Mavis asked. “You keep zoning out on me.” Mavis lifted one eyebrow.

  Eleanor felt herself go pink.

  “Ah, a man.”

  Eleanor primmed her lips. “I am not dating anybody. You know how that always turns out.” Evidently she didn’t possess whatever it required to prompt a man to fall in love with her, not her resume and yearly income. “Two failed engagements are more than enough for me.”

  Mavis rested a hand on Eleanor’s arm. “Just because two couldn’t see what a gem you are doesn’t mean all men are blind.”

  Pete’s hesitant expression from last night came to mind. Maybe that explained why he intrigued her. He had probably been burned, too, and wasn’t looking for love, either. Good. “You stayed single, Auntie.”

  “Not because I wanted to,” Mavis declared, “but because I never met a man I wanted to spend my life with.” The older woman fell silent a moment as if remembering. “A few men proposed to me, but never the right one.” Mavis removed her hand and looked pensive.

  Eleanor wanted to ask, “Were you ever in love?” She decided not to. Mavis loved her, but she’d always been a private person, even with Eleanor.

  Mavis smiled. “Eat your food, honey. Then I’m dragging you outside to help me plant my kitchen garden—chives, cilantro, basil, sage, tomatoes, cukes and zucchini.”

  “Yum. I mean, only if I get to eat them, too!”

  “Of course, I’ll share.” Mavis’s expression sobered. “Enough about all this surface stuff. I want to know, have you come to a decision, then?” Mavis asked her, looking deep into Eleanor’s eyes.

  “Yes, I’m going to begin the process of adopting a child from the foster care system. I have an appointment with a social worker this week.” Just declaring this out loud made Eleanor breathless. However, the memory of Cassie’s hugs gave her courage. I can do this, love a child.

  Her aunt looked serious but said nothing more.

  Eleanor again began eating her late lunch. And when Pete Beck’s face flickered in her consciousness, she blinked it away. Even thinking of romance and Pete Beck in the same sentence would be foolhardy. She forcibly pushed the man out of her mind. But the sensation from his pulling back her swing last night shivered through her once more. What a lovely family he had. Did he know how lucky he was? But soon she’d have a family here: Mavis, herself and a little daughter.

  Noting the clouds flying in from the west, Pete drove up to the Habitat site where he and the two teens would work this morning. A few days had passed since the dedication. Later, he’d take a break and deliver the teens to Dairy Queen for training. A dozen or so people milled around the foundation that had been poured a few days ago.

  His mother’s face popped once again into his mind. When he’d looked back as he drove away this morning, she had looked thoughtful, perplexed. Had he let on that he’d been trying to get away without Cassie asking where he was going? That was more than he wanted his mom to guess.

  Turning his thoughts to the present, he easily picked out Eleanor in the crowd. She stood tall enough that the top of her blond hair was visible over the other women. He mentally scolded himself for seeking her out. He had no business thinking thoughts about a woman. He turned his attention to Kevan Paxton, who stood beside her.

  “Pete!” Eleanor called out his name and motioned for him to join her. “Pete!”

  “What can I do for you?” he asked, meeting her beside the yawning foundation. After greeting Kevan, Pete schooled his expression to polite attention. Eleanor wore another of her plaid, short-sleeve shirts and crisply pressed jeans. In spite of the warm temperature, she appeared cool.

  “Well, experience tells me that today we should be setting the sills and floor joists.” She motioned toward a stack of raw lumber and boxes of nails and several hammers. “Would you take over and do the explanations?”

  “Sure.” He realized he’d propped his hands on his hips, a gesture of impatience or irritation. He knew that from a psych course on body language, and he knew it was pointed at himself, not her. He lifted his arms instead. “Everybody, let’s get started!”

  The crowd turned toward him. Luis and Colby hung back but did focus their attention on him. Ever since the day in court with Danny, both kids had been subdued. He hoped this meant that his warnings about growing up and keeping out of trouble were hitting home.

  “Okay. How many of you have ever set a floor joist?” Pete asked, raising his hand.

  A few hands went up.

  “You with some experience, come forward, so I can hook you up with those who need guidance,” Pete said.

  The clouds overhead thickened and flew faster. He sent a worried glance upward. The crowd shifted, and three men along with Luis and Colby joined him at the front. He quickly learned their names. Then he let them help him show how to apply the sill and set the joists. “Luis and Colby here just finished building their first house with me at the high school, so if you can’t get me, ask them.”

  Both Luis and Colby looked startled by his designating them as in the know. But if he wanted them t
o act like men, treating them like men could only help.

  Work started.

  Pete roamed through the groups of workers, giving pointers and encouraging them. He did it now as second nature; it was so similar to his job. Nine months of the past two years, he’d taught teens how to perform the different construction skills. He eased right back into teaching mode.

  Except he couldn’t stop himself from tracking Eleanor, as if she were on his internal radar, and tracking the gathering storm. The local weatherman had warned of a front, but much later today. An early rain would wreck today’s work on this house.

  “Sorry I’m late, Eleanor!” A woman’s voice carried over the other voices.

  Pete turned to see a tall, formidable-looking, African-American woman with large glasses heading straight for Eleanor.

  “Aunt Mavis! That’s okay,” Eleanor said, smiling. In fact, Pete had never seen her smile so widely before. Who was this Aunt Mavis? He was curious in spite of himself.

  The two women, dressed very much alike, embraced, and then they quickly started carrying floor joists together, one at each end, showing their strength.

  “Pete!”

  The familiar female voice stopped him in his tracks. He turned to see his mom and Cassie, holding hands, approaching him. “Mom! Hi! What’s up?”

  “Miss Ellie!” Cassie dropped her grandma’s hand, racing for Eleanor.

  Pete leaped forward and intercepted Cassie. “Whoa, whoa, honey. Let Miss Ellie get that floor joist in place. Then you can talk to her. This is a building site, not a playground.”

  His mother reached him. “Cassie,” she scolded, “what did I tell you before we got out of the car?”

  Cassie looked down at her flip-flop sandals. “You told me to hold your hand and not let go. That people are working here with nail guns and stuff.”

  “Are you sorry?” Kerry Ann asked. “And promise not to forget again?”

  “Yes, Grandma.”

  “Okay, then you’re forgiven. Take my hand.” She looked at Pete. “Your cousin, Susie, took Nicky to ball practice—” she glanced up at the gray clouds “—and she’ll drive him home in case of rain.” Kerry Ann sighed. “Cassie and I won’t stay long. I just wanted to see this Habitat project up close. I missed the first two.”