Mail Order Mommy

by Christine Johnson

  Pearl didn’t have a chance to answer, for Fiona swept into the room with the usual rustle of silk skirts.

  “Good evening, ladies. I just heard news that may be of great interest to you.”

  Pearl gave Amanda a pointed glance and would probably have rolled her eyes if Fiona hadn’t been standing near enough to notice. The redhead loved to bring news, especially if it elevated her status.

  “I’m sure it can’t be that important if we haven’t heard already,” Pearl said drily.

  “Actually, this particular bit of news pertains to Amanda.” Fiona crossed the room and stood beside her. “The nativity play costumes?”

  “Yes.” Amanda finished the next seam before looking up. Despite her intent to treat Fiona better, the woman’s constant butting into matters that didn’t concern her set Amanda on edge. Whatever gossip Fiona had to share, it wouldn’t be good. It never was. Amanda simply hoped that nothing had happened to any of the Deckers.

  “Don’t you want to know?” Fiona asked from over her shoulder.

  Amanda snipped the threads. “I suppose I must.”

  “Don’t sound so worried. It’s good news.”

  Amanda warily met Fiona’s gaze. Sure enough, the woman looked pleased, as if she did indeed have good news to impart.

  Fiona pulled a ladder-back chair to Amanda’s side and settled upon it, her back ramrod straight. She leaned slightly forward, as if sharing a confidence. “I’ve heard that the lumberjack named Jake, the one you think is your brother, has returned to the area.”

  Excitement prickled over Amanda. Could it be true? Might she soon find her long-lost brother? Even if this Jake was her brother, would she recognize him? She hadn’t seen him since she was five years old. What if Fiona was wrong? She bit back the hope. Last month she’d thought he was coming to Singapore, only to learn he had gone north instead of following the logs downstream.

  “Are you certain?” she breathed.

  “Sawyer Evans told me he saw one of the foremen on the boat back from Chicago. That’s who told him that the Jake you’re looking for returned to the crew.” Fiona squeezed her hand. “Sawyer just told me. You’ve been kind to me. I wanted you to know before anyone else.”

  Amanda swallowed the lump in her throat and thanked Fiona. If all this was true, she might at last find her brother. All prior attempts to find Jacob or Uncle Griffin had come to naught. Her letters had been returned, addressee unknown.

  Fiona left for the parlor, where she could entertain herself and the other boarders on the piano.

  Only then did Pearl lift her head. “What are you going to do?”

  It didn’t take a second to decide. “Find him.”

  “How? Fiona didn’t say he planned to come to town. They’ve probably just arrived for the winter’s logging. He’d be out at one of the camps.”

  Amanda hadn’t thought of that. “I might find passage upriver with someone. There’s that ferry that goes to Allegan on occasion.”

  Pearl looked skeptical. “And then you would need to find the camp. They’re not in town. It’s rough country.”

  “I know.” But she hadn’t really thought that through. “Maybe someone will take me.”

  Pearl moved to the chair that Fiona had abandoned and clasped Amanda’s hands. “Be careful. Some of those men aren’t quite the respectable sort.”

  Amanda shuddered at a flash of memory. Hugh had looked like a fine gentleman but ended up as disreputable as the men Pearl was warning her about. “I’ll find someone to make the journey with me.”

  Garrett. His name came first to mind. She could trust him. With the children along, there could be no rumors of indiscretion. And it would solve the problem of her duties for the family.

  Pearl still looked concerned. “Christmas will soon be here. And my wedding. I had hoped you would be my bridesmaid.”

  Amanda caught her breath. She had selfishly plowed ahead without considering the needs of her dearest friend. As Pearl had gently pointed out, the men would be cutting timber all winter. This lumberjack wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

  She squeezed Pearl’s hands. “Of course I’m going to be your bridesmaid. This excursion won’t take place until after your wedding.”

  The reassurance eased Pearl’s concerns. Amanda would plan ahead. This man—her brother, she hoped—would not escape her again. At the earliest convenience, she would ask Garrett to accompany her. Considering their improved relationship, he would surely agree.

  * * *

  Garrett whistled as he hammered together the planks of the stable for the nativity play. Since the school used the church building during the week, he was assembling each wall separately. Next Friday evening he would put it together in the church.

  “Can I hammer in a nail?” Isaac asked.

  “Next board. Hold this one steady until I get it nailed on.”

  Ever since the sledding expedition, Isaac had followed Garrett around, asking questions about everything he did. After school today, he’d left Sadie in Amanda’s care and showed Isaac the launch site and building berth for the new schooner. The boy hung on Garrett’s every word.

  It had been a long time since his son wanted to spend time with him.

  Or maybe he’d been the one too sunk in grief and regret to notice his son’s needs. At least that’s the way Amanda saw it.

  Amanda. A smile curved Garrett’s lips. She was a fine looking woman, a decent housekeeper and a tolerable cook. He wouldn’t grow fat on her offerings, but there were more important traits in a wife than her ability to cook.

  Wife! Where had that come from?

  The fact was, he’d let his thoughts drift that way this week. After all, the children liked her. Sadie had even written that school paper asking for Miss Mana, as she called her, to be her new mama for Christmas. That was pushing things a bit far, but it wasn’t looking quite as impossible as it had seemed at first. Maybe if things progressed on course through the winter, he’d consider marriage—for the sake of the children. Then again, things were fine as they were. Amanda had settled in as housekeeper. The children were happy. Yep, things were just fine.

  “How long are you gonna sit there?” Isaac asked a bit petulantly.

  “Sorry, son.” Garrett roped in his runaway thoughts and hammered the last nail in that board.

  He hefted a new board from the stack of slab wood and laid it in place.

  “My turn!” Isaac hopped from foot to foot in excitement.

  Garrett found a clear spot without a knot or blemish. “Get a nail from the tin.”

  Isaac examined the nails and chose one.

  “Now hold it against the board like this.” Garrett demonstrated how to position the nail, point down, with his thumb and index finger. “This is the tricky part. You need to hold it steady and perfectly straight. Then tap on the head with the hammer.”

  Isaac tapped, but it wasn’t strong enough to set the nail in the wood.

  “Try again.”

  This time Isaac tilted the nail and nearly hammered his fingers.

  “Want help?”

  His son screwed up his face with concentration. “I’ve got it.”

  Garrett itched to help him hold the nail. At this rate the boy was going to end up with bruised fingers, and Amanda would scold Garrett to no end. But a boy had to learn by doing, just like Garrett had learned when he was young. Not from his father, who worked at the Board of Trade, but from Mr. Sullivan, the kindly carpenter down the street. He’d gotten a few bruised fingers, but he’d learned.

  He held his breath as Isaac swung the hammer down again. This time it landed square and tapped the nail securely into the wood.

  “Well done,” Garrett exclaimed. “Better than I could have done at your age.”

  Isaac beamed.

&
nbsp; “Now, finish hammering that nail in. Take your time to make sure the hammer head lands square on the nail.”

  Every blow was an exercise in patience. Garrett had to fist his hands to stop himself from assisting. It took forever, since each blow of the hammer yielded little force, but eventually, the nail went into the board. The head was folded a bit, and the last blow made it not quite square, but those were small matters.

  “Well done, son.”

  Isaac’s grin was so wide that it made the long and painful lesson well worth the effort.

  “Can I do another?” the boy asked eagerly.

  “Maybe tomorrow. It’s getting to be suppertime. Shall we find out what Miss Amanda has cooked up for us tonight?”

  Isaac shrugged. He probably could have spent the night without a bite of supper, but Garrett’s stomach rumbled at the thought of food. It had been a long day.

  “The women will be waiting,” Garrett pointed out as he put the hammer back in his toolbox.

  Isaac tilted his face up to look at him. “Are you gonna marry Miss Amanda?”

  Count on a child to get straight to the point. Garrett didn’t have an answer. Not yet.

  Chapter Eleven

  Since the children were always around Garrett, Amanda delayed asking him to take her upriver to the lumber camps. Pearl was right. She had plenty of time. Moreover, with the nativity play and Pearl’s wedding in a little over a week, Amanda spent every spare moment on the sewing machine.

  She begged Pearl for time off from school so she could complete the costumes and the animals, but most of that time was spent sewing the wedding dress. Mrs. Calloway, Fiona and Louise had purchased the beautiful taffeta in shimmering white. Amanda was to make the dress.

  “White for winter,” Mrs. Calloway had insisted the November day they’d picked it out from Roland’s supply catalog.

  Amanda hadn’t been quite as certain. “Pearl is practical, and white has little use beyond the wedding day. She won’t be pleased. I can hear her now, calling it a needless extravagance.”

  They had laughed at that, for over the years Amanda had learned Pearl’s speech mannerisms to perfection. But the problem still remained.

  “She could dye it,” Louise had suggested.

  Amanda feared disaster if that wasn’t handled correctly. She had no idea how to dye silk. Mrs. Chatsworth had her gowns—and those for her daughter—made by a dressmaker. Amanda had worn little but muslin. Here in Singapore, only Fiona wore silk, and she had never dyed fabric.

  “Ivory would be better,” Amanda had suggested.

  Mrs. Calloway put a stop to such talk. “If ever there was a bride who deserved white, it’s Pearl.”

  Amanda’s thoughts drifted from Pearl to the wedding she one day hoped to have. Pearl did deserve white, but not Amanda.

  In the end, she was outvoted and the white taffeta was ordered. In the beginning, while Pearl was confined to bed recovering from the burns that she’d gotten during the November fire, Amanda could work on the dress without fear of discovery. Once Pearl healed enough to leave their room, Amanda sneaked in every precious moment while Pearl was with Roland. Then the costumes and animals for the nativity play were added to her load, along with the curtains for Garrett’s house. The latter had not taken long, but she was woefully behind on the wedding dress, with the ceremony just ten days away. At this rate Pearl would walk down the aisle in her Sunday best.

  So on those afternoons when Pearl gave her leave from school, Amanda sewed and sewed until her fingers stiffened and her head ached from concentrating so hard.

  “It’s beautiful,” Mrs. Calloway said as she passed through the writing room, dust rag in hand.

  “I hope it fits. I would feel a lot better about that if I could have her try it on.”

  “That’s impossible, and you know it. If Miss Pearl laid eyes on that gown before her wedding day, she would refuse to wear it.”

  Amanda sighed. “I’m afraid you’re right.”

  “But once it’s done and presented as a gift from all of us, she can’t refuse.”

  That was their hope, but when Amanda thought back to how long it took Pearl to accept the green dress from Roland after the fire, she wasn’t so certain. She wouldn’t even open the package for the longest time. It took a big nudge and a little guilt to prod her.

  “Maybe I’d better have Sadie give it to her. That’s the only thing that got her to accept the green dress.”

  Mrs. Calloway laughed. “Roland was smart to include her in that gift.”

  “Pearl knew Roland bought the dress, but she thought Sadie was upset that she hadn’t opened it.”

  “If you ask me, it couldn’t hurt to bring Sadie in on this.” Mrs. Calloway paused. “You could ask her tonight. Can she keep a secret?”

  “I’m not sure.” Now that Sadie—who four months ago had been too grief-stricken to speak—was talking, she didn’t hold back her thoughts. “She might not when Pearl is concerned.”

  “Hmm.” Mrs. Calloway wiped the writing desk and then moved on to the bookshelves, which were painfully bare, since she let anyone borrow a book and few were ever returned. “Perhaps we could include Sadie’s gift with ours. Do you know if she picked out anything?”

  Amanda didn’t. Considering the groom ran the general store, it was unlikely Garrett had ordered anything. More likely Sadie had made something for her teacher and soon-to-be aunt.

  “I’ll ask tonight.” Amanda glanced at the clock. “Oh, my. The time has gotten away from me. The children will be headed home.” She clipped the threads and carefully rolled the half-finished gown so it wouldn’t crease too badly. “Would you stow this for me?”

  Since Pearl and Amanda shared a room, the ladies had agreed early on that Mrs. Calloway would keep the dress in her bedroom. Pearl would never accidentally stumble across it there.

  With the gown safely in Mrs. Calloway’s hands, Amanda bustled off to meet the children. They were slowly meandering toward the house, stopping every few steps to look at something in the street. Isaac bent over while Sadie squatted in a most unladylike posture.

  Amanda drew near, ready to instruct Sadie on the finer points of becoming a lady, when the little girl jumped to her feet.

  “Miss Mana! Look what I found. Look!”

  All thoughts of correcting Sadie’s manners disappeared in the face of that little girl’s joy. What had Amanda been thinking? There was plenty of time to learn manners. Let Sadie enjoy the wonder of each moment.

  Amanda bent over to peer at the object nestled in Sadie’s mitten. The fuzzy brown wool made it difficult to make out at first, since the object was a similar color.

  “Look,” Sadie urged, lifting her hand a little higher.

  Amanda removed her own mitten and fingered the pebble, for that’s what it was. A mere stone. “Very nice.”

  “It’s red.”

  More like reddish-brown, but to a little girl it might indeed appear red. That was Sadie’s favorite color, after all. If the little girl had truly picked out Pearl’s dress last month, it would have been red, not green.

  “It’s pretty.” Amanda handed it back.

  “It’s got its own hole and everything.”

  Amanda hadn’t noticed that, but upon closer inspection, she saw Sadie was right.

  “Well, look at that. I wonder how a hole got in it.”

  “From the sand and the waves,” Isaac stated with the authority of a scientist. “It rubs and rubs until it makes a hole in it.”

  “That’s quite an observation,” Amanda said, even though she had her doubts. After all, sand would rub the whole thing, not just one hole. “How did it get here, so far from the waves?”

  “It’s been here all along. The wind just uncovered it,” Isaac stated.

  “Why, that�
�s a splendid deduction.”

  He frowned. “A what?”

  She laughed. “It means that you’re very smart.”

  Isaac stood a bit taller.

  She’d noticed he carried himself with a lot more confidence and less fear ever since Garrett began taking him to the shipbuilding site. Since the planning and sawing took place inside the sawmill, she was a bit nervous that an accident might happen, but he’d assured her that he brought Isaac inside only when the machines were quiet. Still, Amanda wondered how long it would take before after-hours visits turned into daytime visits.

  She would never forget how the oldest children at the orphanage would go to Miss Hornswoggle’s office and walk away with a gentleman or a lady. Not parents. Parents always came together. These children hadn’t been chosen. They’d been sent away because they were too old for anyone to want. They had to work in service or in the factories. Pearl had escaped that destiny. Maybe she’d been too outspoken for even the foremen and housekeepers to accept.

  A family chose Amanda, but it had not turned out much better.

  “What’s wrong, Miss Mana?”

  Little Sadie’s voice pierced the fog of memory and pulled Amanda back to the present.

  Amanda smiled. “I’m fine. Just thinking about something.”

  “It must be bad.”

  “A little sad.”

  “Oh. We won’t think about sad things, right?” Sadie stuffed the stone into her coat pocket.

  Oh, the simplicity of childhood! Amanda longed to hold these two tight and prevent any more pain from entering their lives. Before the age of eight they’d lost a mother and suffered a terrible fire.

  “No, we won’t,” she agreed. “Only happy thoughts from now on. That’s a royal decree.”

  “What’s a royal decree?”

  Isaac answered before Amanda could. “It means you have to do what the king tells you to do.”

  “Or the queen,” Amanda pointed out. “Queen Victoria reigns in England right now.”

  Judging from the look on Isaac’s face, he didn’t think much of taking orders from a woman, even if she was queen. “We don’t have to listen to any old queen. We live in America.”