by Gina Wilkins
He studied her face a moment, then slowly nodded. It occurred to her that she had never actually heard his voice, but this didn’t seem to be the right time to push him to speak.
It took a bit of squirming and straightening, but a few minutes later the light had been turned off and Miranda lay in the center of the bed between the boys. She had expected simply to lie on one side of the bed and tiptoe out of the room when they were asleep again, but Kasey had instructed her to get in the middle. That was what their mother always did when they had trouble sleeping and were allowed to crawl into her bed, he had added.
Resisting an impulse to point out the very obvious fact that she was not their mother, she complied with Kasey’s instructions.
Now she lay flat on her back staring at the darkened ceiling and wondering if she would be able to sleep a wink during the five hours that remained until dawn. She could already tell that Kasey was a wiggler, rooting into his pillow like a newborn puppy. Lying on his side facing her, Jamie hadn’t moved or made a sound since she had turned out the light and crawled in between the boys.
She worried about that one. He seemed so vulnerable—both the twins did, actually, but especially Jamie. She tried to remember if he had been so subdued the last time she’d seen him, but that had been almost three years ago, and it had been a very brief visit.
She had speculated recently that her nephews were probably wild little brats, since Lisa had made such a big deal out of her no-rules, no-roots, all-fun-all-the-time lifestyle. Instead the boys seemed to be even more restrained than Lisa and Miranda had been in their rigid and restrictive childhood home.
Very weird, she thought with a slight shake of her head against her pillow. And only another indication of how little she knew about children.
She was definitely out of her league here. She didn’t even know how to comfort a kid who had woken up crying for his mother. She was sure the boys would be better off in a qualified foster home with people who had been trained to deal with children in domestic crisis situations.
Just as that thought crossed her mind, Jamie moved closer to her and nestled his cheek against her upper arm. He gave a long, poignant sigh and then slipped into sleep, his breathing slow and even.
Afraid to move—and wondering why she suddenly felt as though both boys were lying directly on her chest, making it hard for her to breathe—Miranda lay motionless and tried to will herself to sleep. She was suddenly very anxious for morning to arrive.
Chapter Five
Mark half expected Miranda to look frazzled and exhausted when she arrived at his house Saturday afternoon. It was a clear day, unseasonably warm for late April. He figured that once the twins had rested, they’d have recovered the typical energy of five-year-old boys. He imagined they had been all but bouncing off the walls of Miranda’s miniscule apartment.
Instead he opened the door to find Miranda looking as fresh and pretty as ever in a yellow and green striped boat-neck T-shirt, khaki cargo pants, backless sandals and her characteristic gold hoop earrings. Her usual inch of abdomen was showing, and he had to make an effort not to glance in that direction when he greeted her.
“How’s it been going?” he asked.
She made a slightly quizzical face and motioned toward the boys who stood silently behind her, neat and clean in matching dark red T-shirts, blue jeans and sneakers. “As you can see, everything’s fine.”
“Are they here yet, Daddy?” Payton barreled down the wood-floored hallway, her sneakers skidding when she came to a stop behind him. Never one to meet a stranger, she smiled broadly in welcome to the twins. “Hi. I’m Payton. You want to see my room?”
The boys looked up at Miranda. She nodded to them. “Go ahead.”
Mark ushered the trio of visitors into the house and closed the door behind them. Payton was already motioning the boys toward the stairs. “I got a new toy and it makes animal noises when you push the buttons. It’s fun.”
The twins obligingly followed her up the stairs. One of the boys kept looking over his shoulder at Miranda, as if he were afraid she would leave while she was out of his sight. She gave him a cheery thumbs-up, and he allowed himself to be towed along in Payton’s wake.
“Would you like some iced tea? Or coffee?” Mark offered.
Miranda turned away from the staircase. “No, thanks. The boys and I had a late lunch, and I’m still full.”
He led her into the den and motioned toward a chair. “Have a seat. It’ll take a while for Payton to show the twins every toy she owns. They’ll let us know when they want to go to the park.”
She glanced around the pine-walled room filled with comfortably overstuffed furniture. This was the room Mark usually hung out in when he wasn’t working, where he sat with his newspapers and books or watched TV. It was decorated more for relaxation than style, but he liked the earthy colors and welcoming atmosphere.
Poochie lay curled on the hearthrug like the final accessory in the homey decor. He looked up when Mark and Miranda entered, then yawned and went back to sleep. He and Payton had played out in the backyard all morning, and the dog’s energy had given out before the child’s.
“Hi, pup,” Miranda said. “I didn’t know you had a dog.”
“He was a stray.”
Miranda settled into a forest-green recliner. “This is a nice room.”
Mark took a seat on the green-and-burgundy plaid couch. “Thanks. This has always been my favorite room.”
“You have a nice home. It must be very convenient to have your office attached.”
“It is. I was lucky to find this house in a neighborhood that permitted a home-based office. That room was originally a dining room, but I changed some big windows into an entrance and added a wall to make a reception area. The kitchen has a nook attached that holds a round table big enough for six, so I didn’t see any need for a formal dining room.”
“It’s great.” Miranda clasped her fingers in her lap, looking uncharacteristically self-conscious now that they had exhausted the subject of his house.
“Are you sure I can’t get you anything to drink?”
“No, I’m fine, thanks. Where’s your other daughter?”
“Madison’s upstairs with Mrs. McSwaim. She was taking a nap, but I’m sure she’s with Payton and the twins by now. Maddie’s a bit shy around strangers, but Payton has a way of drawing her into the activities.”
“When it comes to shyness, she has serious competition from Jamie.”
“He still hasn’t opened up?”
He watched a worried expression cross Miranda’s face. “No. He hasn’t said a word since he arrived at my apartment last night. Not to me, anyway.”
“It had to be an upsetting experience for him, being taken from his mother.”
“I realize that, but he seems to be unusually withdrawn and anxious. He’s never more than a half step from Kasey, who does all the talking for both of them. Maybe Jamie needs counseling or something.”
“I’m sure he just needs to feel safe and settled. Kids crave routines and boundaries, you know. From what you’ve told me, they haven’t had much of that in their lives.”
“Lisa has been their only constant—other than each other, of course.”
“Exactly. And now she’s gone, so it’s only natural Jamie would cling even more tightly to his brother. And since he isn’t sure how long you’ll be in his life, he’s probably a bit reluctant to become too attached to you.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
He noticed that she still looked concerned. No matter what she said, Miranda felt a connection to her nephews, if only a tenuous one. Mark still found it hard to believe she intended simply to hand them over to a social worker on Monday. That was why he had talked her into waiting until the weekend was over. He hoped by then she would overcome her initial panic and re-think that decision.
He certainly understood her quandary. She was content with her life the way it was, with no one to be responsible for except herself.
She was doing well in her job, happy in her little apartment, comfortable with the savings she had slowly accumulated.
Finding herself suddenly saddled with her five-year-old nephews changed everything. She now faced more responsibility than she had ever imagined, and her first instinctive response was to push that burden onto someone else.
A perfectly reasonable knee-jerk reaction, but Mark thought she would be making a mistake not to at least try to make a home for her unfortunate nephews. After all, they were family. And they needed her.
“DHS will probably arrange for counseling for the boys, don’t you think?” she asked him, still fretting about Jamie’s problems. “I assume that any child whose parent suddenly disappears from his life needs help adjusting.”
“They’ll get counseling. Maybe. Eventually. You know how the child welfare system is—always backed up. The worse cases have to be treated first, and Jamie won’t exactly be high priority, unless he suddenly starts acting out and causing problems in his foster setting.”
Her throat worked with a hard swallow. “You said you were happy in your last foster home, right?”
“I said I was relatively content there because I liked my foster family. Still, there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t miss my mother and my sister.”
Her fingers twisted more tightly in her lap. “Was your sister’s foster care experience a positive one?”
“To this day Terry refuses to talk about the year she spent in foster care. The only thing she’ll say is that she spent the entire time wanting desperately to go home.”
New lines of stress appeared around Miranda’s mouth. “Kasey and Jamie will miss their mother wherever they are. Despite Lisa’s mistakes, they love her.”
“Of course they do.”
“It will be good for them to be placed in a nice home with two parents and a steady, regular routine.”
“Yes, I suppose that would be ideal.”
“You don’t sound very confident that they’ll get an environment like that.”
“Yes, well, I’m probably a bit biased by my own experience with foster care. It took three attempts before I found a place where I would even stay without trying to run away every few days.”
Miranda thought about that for a moment, then asked, “Do you think the social workers will let me meet potential foster families and choose a place for the boys?”
“No, Miranda, that won’t happen. Once you turn them over to the state, you’ll have no further say in what becomes of them.”
She shot him a look that seemed almost angry. “You’re trying to worry me, aren’t you?”
Mark spread his hands. “I’m merely trying to answer your questions honestly. And from the perspective of my own experiences.”
“I can’t keep them, Mark. I’m no more qualified than any of the foster parents you stayed with unsuccessfully.”
“I wouldn’t say that. You’re their aunt. And you obviously care about them, or you wouldn’t be so worried about what’s going to happen to them.”
“Well, of course I care what happens to them,” she responded irritably. “I’d be pretty heartless not even to worry at all about them, wouldn’t I?”
“I never said you were heartless,” he answered gently. “Just the opposite, in fact. You want the best for your nephews, and you’re afraid you can’t provide that for them.”
She sighed deeply and looked down at her clenched hands. “Now you’re making me sound too noble. You’re fully aware that there’s a part of me that simply doesn’t want to take on the responsibilities involved with the boys. I’m selfish enough to want to keep my life the way it has been.”
“Also perfectly natural,” he assured her. “Anyone would feel the same way. What your sister did has turned a lot of lives upside down.”
Miranda gazed broodingly at the once-stray dog snoozing on the rug. “You wouldn’t hesitate to take them in if they were your sister’s kids, would you? You’d simply make room for them in your home and in your life. You wouldn’t even think twice about it.”
“Are you kidding? The thought of trying to raise four kids on my own, in addition to running my business, is enough to make me break out in hives. As it is, I hardly have a life of my own. Don’t you think there are times when I’d like to chuck everything and escape to Tahiti for a life of sand and rum and women in bikinis? Trust me, that’s a daydream I turn to fairly often when my life gets hectic and I wonder how I ended up a single-dad accountant at only thirty.”
She seemed a bit startled by his candid response. “But you would take them in, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course,” he answered simply. “It wouldn’t be a decision I would make lightly or without a few regrets, but I couldn’t give my nephews over to strangers. This isn’t a judgment against any decision you make for yourself, Miranda. I’m simply answering your question about what I would do.”
She was silent a few minutes, then said, “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”
Since he had become privy to an important aspect of her family life, he supposed it was only fair that she should ask a few questions about him. “Go ahead.”
“What happened to your wife? Did she die?”
“No. She left. Brooke is the kind of woman who is never truly satisfied with her life. She always believes the next big change will bring happiness. She wanted to get married, so we got married. She wanted a child, so we had a child—and then another. The next thing she decided was that she needed to be single and unencumbered to truly experience life. So she took off.”
“You mean she just walked away from her kids?” Miranda seemed truly shocked.
“Yes.” It still stung to have to admit that he had been so oblivious to Brooke’s true character. He had been taken in by her beautiful face, her passionate nature, and her claim to need him desperately.
By the time she had finally left, he’d understood that he had married a woman who had no ability to truly connect with anyone. She said all the right things, but she had no concept of what the words really meant. Love. Commitment. Even motherhood.
Apparently Brooke had a few things in common with Miranda’s sister. Mark couldn’t help wondering if Miranda was a bit like them, especially since she was already planning how best to rid herself of the responsibility of her sister’s twins.
Maybe he was being unfair—heck, he knew he was—but when it came to kids, he had a very prominent soft spot. He couldn’t imagine how anyone could walk away from children who depended on them, but maybe that was just him.
“How long has she been gone?”
“Two years. Madison was just a baby.”
“And she hasn’t seen them since?”
“No. She said she would come last Christmas, but she had the chance to go to Europe with a singer she met somewhere, so she chose that, instead.” And she had seemed surprised when she’d called that Mark had even questioned her choice.
Who would turn down a chance to tour Europe with a band? she had asked in genuine bewilderment. She had implied that going to Europe was a once-in-a-life-time opportunity, while she could see her children anytime. Not that she had bothered.
Miranda shook her head, her forehead creased with a scowl. “Why do people have children and then screw them up for life? My parents never should have had kids. Lisa obviously wasn’t thinking about her boys when she chose to live on the edge. And your ex left you with two little girls to raise on your own. I know you’re doing a great job, but they’ll certainly have baggage to carry as a result of her desertion.”
“I’m sure they will,” Mark muttered. He had been all too aware of that inevitability since the day Brooke had taken off, leaving her children crying for her.
“Now you know why I’ve made a point not to have kids.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Because you’re afraid of ‘screwing them up’? Or because you didn’t want to take on the responsibility?”
“Both.”
He glanced at the frame
d photographs on the mantel. His girls. When he spoke, his voice had softened. “I’ve talked about the duties, but maybe I haven’t talked enough about the rewards. My kids are the greatest thing that ever happened to me. For every sacrifice I’ve made for them, I’ve been repaid beyond measure. I wouldn’t trade my time with them for any amount of wealth or adventure or selfish pleasure. I’ve never pursued any more worthwhile goal than raising them to be productive and admirable adults.”
He felt a bit self-conscious when he finished that impassioned monologue, hoping he hadn’t sounded too self-righteous. But he had meant every word he’d said.
Before Miranda could respond, the room was invaded by children. One of the twins burst in first. Mark caught just a glimpse of tear-dampened cheeks before the boy leaped into Miranda’s lap and buried his face in her shoulder.
Startled to find her arms suddenly full with a distraught boy, Miranda patted him awkwardly and asked, “What’s wrong, Jamie?”
It didn’t take a big leap to figure out which twin she held, since she had learned early that Jamie was the one most likely to burst into tears and seek comfort.
Standing nearby, Kasey and Payton both erupted into noisy explanations that jumbled together and almost drowned each other out.
“She said our mother…”
“All I said was…”
“…was never coming…”
“…my mama didn’t come…”
“…and Jamie got upset…”
“…he started crying for no reason…”
“…and I said…”
“Just wait a minute,” Mark cut in sharply, holding up a hand. “One at a time. Kasey, you go first. What’s wrong with your brother?”
While Payton hopped in impatience to speak and Madison climbed into her father’s lap, Kasey embarked on a lengthy and roundabout explanation. Settling Madison on his knee, Mark seemed to follow the tale with less difficulty than Miranda—probably from experience.