For Keeps (Aggie's Inheritance)

by Havig, Chautona

  “Why not start with Wednesday? Tomorrow is Wednesday.”

  “Well, the way I’m thinking it, you won’t want to put the day that you put the food in here, but the day you want to eat it. Most people don’t like to eat the same thing two days in a row, so I’m thinking that tomorrow you put your leftovers in ‘Friday’s’ container. Then, Friday, you come in, pull out that container, and use it in some way for lunch. When lunch is over, anything left goes to the dogs.”

  “I see it now.” Aggie looked excited. “This really works well because there’s only two days’ worth of leftovers at any given time. No forgetting about them or not knowing how old they are so you leave it there forever… It’s brilliant!” Her eyes thanked him from across the island.

  “I’m just doing my bit to make myself indispensable to this family. Meanwhile, make sure you tell the dishwasher emptier that he or she has to put the days in order or it won’t work.”

  “Days in order. Got it.” A yawn punctuated her agreement.

  “I’m going home. Goodnight, Mibs.”

  “Fine then, just clean and run. See if I care.”

  Luke laughed. “I guess I failed.”

  “At what?”

  His hand covered hers for a second before he strolled from the room calling, “Making you care, of course,” over his shoulder.

  Aggie says: Hey there, just wanted to say thanks again.

  Mibs says: Oops. Didn’t change this back.

  Mibs says: I didn’t know how to tell you when you’re here, but I want you to know how much it means to me that you tell me you care about me. It’s probably hard when you know I don’t yet feel the same, but it is the highlight of my day. Please don’t stop.

  Vows

  Chapter 22

  Thursday, October 9th

  Before noon, all but Vannie had their work turned in, graded, and corrected. Vannie was sitting in the library, curled up on the loveseat, writing her report on the major themes of Captains Courageous. Tina arrived as Aggie was in the middle of a timed sandwich assembly and waited for her to finish before she pointed out the door and said, “Ok, bring ‘em in, guys, bring ‘em in. Meat in the mudroom, produce on the island, boxes on the counter. Hurry, hurry, hurry!

  As the kids raced through the dining room into the living room and out the door, Tina slid the receipt and Aggie’s debit card across the island. “I think I may have spent too much, but I got everything on the list.”

  In an unusual move, Aggie pocketed the card and tossed the receipt without looking at it. She just didn’t want to know what the tally was anymore. Each month it seemed worse and worse, but there was no hope for it. The children had to eat. At least the repairs were done. She wouldn’t be paying Luke every week. Perhaps it’d seem less extreme without those checks accumulating with the rest of the bills each month.

  In what seemed like no time, the counters, island, and the floor of the mudroom were covered with plastic bags full of groceries. The cupboards were loaded amid squeals of delight for favorite foods. Cari and Lorna dodged between everyone’s legs, peeking into bags and asking for nearly everything they found. Ian enjoyed rolling cans across the floor, until Aggie scooped him up and strapped him in his high chair with small pieces of banana fed to him between putting away bags of food.

  “Ok, ok. I can’t do this. Everyone get to the table and eat. Laird, grab those oranges and rinse them. You guys can peel them after you eat your sandwiches. I’ll put this away.”

  Lost in the mudroom deep freeze, she didn’t hear Luke come in until she felt hands close over her eyes. “Laird--” the moment her fingers found the hands, she laughed. “Luke.”

  “How’d you tell?”

  “I can feel the difference. Laird’s hands aren’t rough like yours.”

  “How do you know how my hands feel?” He reached down to pick up a bag of chicken packages.

  “Well, you’re the only one around here who should have rough hands. I bet even William’s are softer. He doesn’t work with them like you do.”

  “Somehow, that isn’t very reassuring.”

  Aggie rolled her eyes and took the chicken from him. “You sound like you assume I like soft hands in a man. What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see if you were serious about seeing the house on Highway 37.”

  “I was, but--”

  “She is, and she’s going.” Tina’s voice startled both of them as she carried Ian past the room on her way to the stairs. “Don’t argue with me; just get out of here.”

  With an exaggerated roll of her eyes, Aggie grabbed a bag of roasts. “Apparently I’m going.”

  They put the meat and frozen vegetables in the deep freeze and Luke gathered the plastic bags. “You ready?”

  “I’m going to change. Be right back.”

  She bumped into Tina on her way upstairs, and Luke tried to protest, but Tina stopped him. “Let her go.”

  “We’re just going to take measurements on a house and maybe check out some fixtures at Home Depot. She--”

  “She wants to look nice for you. Let her.”

  “She does?” Luke’s face was a study. Doubt clouded it briefly. “Nah…”

  “If she comes down with her hair out of that infernal ponytail, you’ll know I’m right. Aggie only leaves it down when she cares about how she looks.”

  “I don’t think--”

  Cari and Lorna raced past them, and Tina broke away to follow. “Girls, stop!” The twins froze on the stairs. She winked at Luke. “I am always stunned at how well that works.” To the girls, she covered her lips with her finger. “Shh. Ian is sleeping. Let’s go read a story before your naps. Let me get my book.”

  While the little girls impatiently shuffled their feet on the steps, Tina hustled back to her room to grab her book and a pillow. She gave Luke another glance as she made her way back to the stairs. “There’s room up there at the end of the hall for two narrow bookshelves on each side of that window and a window seat. It’d be a whole lot more comfortable for me or Aggie, or anyone else for that matter, to sit on a nice cushioned seat and read while waiting for the troops to fall asleep. Just sayin’.”

  “I’ll get right on that.”

  Luke started to follow them up the stairs to get a look at the spot Tina mentioned, but the sight of Aggie skipping down them stopped him. He watched as she paused, hugged her little girls, told them to dream happy dreams, and tossed her hair over her shoulders as she continued down the steps to meet him. A look from Tina above seemed to scream, “I told you so.”

  Aggie looked different--younger somehow--with her hair hanging down her back, and wearing a simple tiered skirt and sweater. Tina was right. She had changed her clothes and let down her hair, and when she reached the bottom of the stairs, he caught a faint whiff of the perfume that, in his opinion, could be renamed “Essence of Aggie.”

  “Nice sweater. You ready?”

  The brightness in her smile and spring in her step seemed to fade a little, but she nodded. “Let’s go.”

  All the way to the passenger door of his truck, Luke pondered her reaction to his compliment until he remembered something his sister once told him. “Compliment the woman, not the garment. You don’t want us to feel like we wouldn’t be anything special without that garment instead of us making the garment special. People before things. Don’t forget.”

  He opened the door, his mind whirling through the different ways he could remedy his gaffe. Even as he pulled onto the highway, Luke ran dozens of retractions past his new filter, and failed to find any way to start over again. His laughter surprised both of them.

  “Mind telling me what is so funny?” Aggie’s voice sounded as strained as the silence that had hovered between them when he didn’t respond to her attempts at conversation.

  “I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out how to take back what I said.”

  “What did you say that you want to take back?” She obviously hadn’t analyzed his comment as thoroughly as h
e had.

  “Well, when you came down stairs, you were so--” he swallowed hard. “Pretty.”

  “If it’s that hard to say it, maybe you shouldn’t bother.” Her words sounded hurt, but her face twitched with repressed laughter.

  “It is hard to say it. That’s why I made that inane comment about your sweater, as if I’d have even noticed it on anyone else.” He chanced a glance her way and saw the twinkle back in her eyes.

  “Why do guys have so much trouble complimenting girls? If I think a girl is beautiful, it’s no big deal to say so, and I obviously am not shy about telling a total stranger that he’s too good looking to be a lawyer.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe--” Even as he spoke, Luke realized why and didn’t want to admit it.

  “Come on, why?”

  The temptation to toss out a generalization that may or may not apply to him was acute. He glanced at her, marveling at how she personified the all-American “girl next door.” Luke had overheard William say that she wasn’t his idea of feminine beauty, but even William had admitted a certain charm and attractiveness. His mother said she was “fresh” and “appealing,” and he now realized that those words were perfect.

  Curiosity filled her eyes as she waited for him to work through what he wanted to say. “It’s not easy to say. I think it’s because, for me anyway, it’s putting more of me on the line. It feels like I’m risking more rejection if I open myself up like that.”

  “More rejection?” Aggie frowned. “Since when did I reject you?”

  “Ok, that came out wrong. It’s an added risk of rejection.”

  “Have you considered that showing that kind of vulnerability might open doors rather than close them?”

  “In other words, ‘faint heart ne’er won fair lady?’”

  “Yep. Exactly. Robert Burns was charming, wasn’t he?”

  “That was Cervantes.”

  “I know I’ve read it a poem by Burns. I remember because you can see his brogue even in the lines.”

  Luke shook his head. “You don’t even like poetry. It was Cervantes. I remember seeing it on one of those signs people put in their houses. It listed it as Cervantes. That’s kind of a hard name to ignore. Sounds like Scott, though, doesn’t it?”

  “I know Burns said--”

  Luke’s laughter interrupted her. “Perhaps Burns quoted Cervantes then? After all, wasn’t the guy, Michael? Mario?”

  “Miguel.”

  “Miguel, right. Didn’t he live a long time before Burns?”

  Aggie shook her head. “This is ridiculous. Neither one of us care about the guy. So someone said that. It’s true. Some girls want a guy to jump through hoops for her. I think that’s crazy. Guys aren’t trained seals.” She laughed as Luke wiped imaginary sweat from his brow. “But, even more reasonable females want to know they’re worth a little effort!”

  “Mibs--”

  “Never mind. I know how you feel about me, and that’s enough for now. What are we doing at your new place today?”

  “We’re measuring for flooring, cabinets, and planning new light fixtures.” His hand slid across the seat to give hers a quick squeeze. “It’s that ‘for now’ that keeps me awake at night.”

  ~*~*~*~

  “I think if you took that out of here, painted it white, and put it in the bathroom over the tub, you’d have one of those Paris-inspired-looking master baths.”

  “You think? I think it’s horrible.”

  “I do too. It’s not my style at all, but I’ve seen so many of those in magazines, that I have no doubt that it’d be a hit. You could always tell the agent that it could be changed out, but I bet it’d be a selling feature.”

  Luke pulled out his cell phone, snapped a picture, strolled upstairs to the master suite, snapped a picture of the tub area, and sent both to his real estate agent with a text asking if Aggie’s idea was a good one. He knew it probably was, but it felt odd to do something so style specific in a house when he usually tended toward neutrals. “Well, we’ll see what Amber says.”

  “She’ll go for it. Ok, so what next?” Aggie felt her wrist for her ever-present ponytail holder and frowned. “I don’t suppose you have a rubber band handy?”

  “What for?”

  “To get my hair out of the way.”

  Grinning, Luke dug into his pocket for a rubber band he knew wouldn’t be there. “Tina was wrong. I can’t wait to rub that one in.”

  “Wrong about what?”

  “She said you changed because you wanted to look nice for me. I disagreed. She insisted that if you came downstairs with your hair down, it was because she was right. Now look at you.”

  “What’s wrong with me?”

  He held up empty hands. “Sorry, no bands. Nothing is wrong with you. You just forgot your hair tie after you brushed your hair. I win.”

  Aggie’s face darkened. “You lost. Tina won.” Without another word, Aggie left the room and hurried downstairs and into the kitchen.

  Luke followed. He found her staring out the window. “Mibs?”

  “What?”

  “You’re angry or at least irritated with me, why?”

  “I’m more irritated with me.”

  Shaking his head, Luke contradicted her. “I don’t think so. I think you’re upset with me, and I don’t know why.”

  “Because I did try to look nice, and it didn’t do me any good. I always have to go back to practical Aggie mode. I can’t work with my hair down, and I look like a twelve-year-old tomboy with it up.”

  With a gentle brush of his thumb across her cheek, Luke gave Aggie a tender smile. “Well, if that’s true, then I guess I like women who look like twelve-year-old tomboys, because I think you look like the Aggie I love when you have your hair up like that. I love it down too, but up reminds me of hours of painting, scraping, sanding, and moving furniture. Do you know how often I wanted to tug it?”

  She giggled. “You sound like a little boy in school. They used to tell us in the third grade that if a boy kicked you it was because he liked you.”

  “It’s true. I kicked Melanie Carstairs to keep me from blurting out my undying love and affection. Of course, today I feel bad that I hurt a girl and am relieved that I did. The next day I saw her share her brownie with Jeff Garner. It broke my heart.”

  “You seem to have recovered.” She shook her head. “I thought boys were supposed to think girls were cootie-riddled species from outer space.”

  “When you have the sappy family that I do, you learn early the advantages of a good woman-- or girl.” His eyes spoke volumes of what was on his heart. Aggie circled the island, retracing her steps and drawing her hand through the dust on the counters. Luke’s forehead wrinkled, confused. “What are you doing?”

  “I think you should move a few things.”

  “Like what?”

  “The sink has to stay or it won’t be near the window, but I think you should move the stove closer to it this way and the fridge should not be on the other side of the island. It’d be a bear to walk around all the time.” She frowned again. “Actually, it’d be nice if the island could be bigger and have a cook top on it. Then a bank of ovens could go where the fridge was and the fridge where the stove was. Ovens over there wouldn’t be so odd.”

  “Or,” Luke gestured as he spoke, “I could put the ovens to the right of where the stove is now, and put the fridge here. That’d leave that whole wall over there for one huge bank of pantry cabinets.”

  “Then you could do glass doors and a few open-shelved cabinets in the uppers on this side.”

  “Or,” Luke added again, “I could pull those cabinets there and there,” he pointed to each side of the current window, “and double the window width. With that huge wall, you could lose four feet of upper cabinets without feeling the storage loss at all.”

  Excited at his description, Aggie’s face lit up. “Are you going to do a big farmhouse sink?”

  “Well, I’ll probably do one in stainless. There’s a
place in Rockland where you can get hammered stainless steel sinks that are amazing. Since I can pick them up and can take seconds, I usually get a good deal. I just have them call when they have one that someone didn’t like, and I take it.”

  “Why not porcelain? Aren’t most farmhouse sinks porcelain?”

  “Or hammered brass, but I’ll want the sink to match the appliances.” Luke shrugged at her accusing look. “I know, I know. It looks cold and sterile--too much like a restaurant and not enough like a home.”

  “You listen well.”

  “I do. However, I have to listen to what people buy, and thanks to those home improvement shows on TV, people want stainless and granite. I have to give them what they want.”

  Aggie walked around the room, taking in the planned changes and thinking. “Can you go with a dark brown stain then? You know, that brown-black color?” Even as she spoke, Aggie shook her head. “No, that won’t work. This house is too traditional to go so contemporary. White. You need white. It’ll work well with the stainless and it’ll keep the room bright. Use a lot of molding and it’ll be perfect.”

  “Architectural elements. I see where you’re going.”

  “Yep. Get a granite in the black and gray tones.” Aggie grinned. “And I have a few green bottles that’d look awesome on the window ledge for when you show the house.”

  He glanced around the house. “I don’t even know if I have enough of my furniture to pull this off. It’s so big.”

  “Furniture?”

  “I keep style and color-neutral furniture in storage for when I’m showing a house. Some rooms can be left empty and people are fine, but others-- not so much. I’ll have to use both leaves of the table and all of the chairs in that dining room. I’ll need both sections of the sofa, and both chairs.” He walked through the rooms pointing out what he’d put where. “But I don’t have anything for those other two bedrooms, and I think the office might be better without anything than with too little. I’ll have to see what Amber thinks.”