by Gina Wilkins
For some reason she had to swallow a lump in her throat before she could answer, “Good night, Jamie.”
Though Mark had told Miranda he would call her on Sunday, he found himself driving into her apartment complex parking lot, instead. He had left the girls with his housekeeper on this rainy afternoon, Madison taking a nap and Payton helping Mrs. McSwaim make cookies.
He probably should have just called, but for some reason he wanted to watch Miranda’s face when she told him she was still planning to send her nephews away.
He could still see her sitting on that park bench with the April sun gleaming in her highlighted hair, his dog curled against her left side and Jamie’s head resting on her right knee. A soft smile had played on her lips as she’d glanced down at the sleeping boy, and she had looked more relaxed than he had ever seen her.
He didn’t try to delude himself that Miranda was secretly harboring a desire for maternal domesticity. He knew she enjoyed her carefree, spur-of-the-moment life, having her evenings open for whatever spontaneous diversion arose. He doubted that a couple of hours at the playground or the pizza parlor had convinced her to swap that freedom for baby-sitters and PTA meetings.
Her car was parked in its space, so she hadn’t taken the boys anywhere. He wondered how the three of them were getting along in that tiny apartment.
The smell of popcorn wafted through the doorway when Miranda answered his knock. She was dressed for a casual afternoon in a skimpy peach-colored T-shirt and low-slung faded jeans. Her feet were bare. Her toenails were painted a mango color just a couple of shades darker than her shirt.
He tried to convince himself it was the smell of the popcorn that had him suddenly salivating.
Swallowing hard, he shoved his hands into the pockets of the khaki pants he wore with a dark blue polo shirt. “Sorry for the unannounced visit. It was an impulse.”
Her eyebrows rose as a teasing smile curved her lips and brought out the dimple that always drove him crazy. “You did something on impulse? Should I mark this on my calendar?”
“Make a note in your diary tonight. ‘Mark Wallace graced me with his presence today.’”
Her grin broadened. “Should I draw a heart around your name?”
“That’s a given, of course.” He hadn’t flirted with a woman like this in a long time. He was well aware that the light tone was a cover for much stronger emotions, at least on his part.
Miranda stepped aside. “Come in.”
He smiled at the boys sitting on the floor around the coffee table with a board game obviously in progress in front of them. “What are you playing?”
“Trouble,” one of the twins replied. Mark assumed it was Kasey. “Aunt ’Randa keeps landing on our pieces and making us go back to start.”
Mark chuckled. “She’s vicious, huh?”
The other boy nodded. “She said if you’re gonna play with her, you better be ready to lose.”
“Did she now? She sounds—” Mark faltered as he realized what had just happened, but he recovered quickly to finish “—pretty tough.”
He glanced quizzically at Miranda while both boys nodded fervently. When had Jamie started talking? What magic had she performed on him to have the boy looking so confident and content that now Mark couldn’t tell one twin from the other?
She gave a barely perceptible shrug before saying, “That’s right. When it comes to playing with me, sissies and crybabies need not apply.”
“Don’t let me keep you from finishing your game.”
“That’s okay. We’ll play some more later.” Miranda glanced at the twins. “Why don’t you guys go watch the cartoon channel on the TV in my bedroom while I talk to Mr. Wallace?”
After Jamie and Kasey moved obediently into the other room, Miranda turned back to Mark. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Soda?”
“Coffee sounds good,” he replied, running a hand through his rain-dampened hair. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
“Of course not.” She moved around the bar that separated the eat-in kitchen from the living room. “Make yourself comfortable.”
He straddled one of the two tall bar stools and leaned his elbows on the wood-grain bar top to watch her make the coffee. “Looks like things are running smoothly here.”
“For the most part,” she agreed. “It’s pretty tight quarters for three, so getting everyone ready in the morning is a challenge.”
“When did Jamie start talking?”
“Last night. Kasey was sick, and Jamie came to get me.”
Mark frowned. “Kasey was sick?”
“Apparently, pepperoni pizza always does that to him.”
“Why didn’t he tell us?”
“He didn’t want to be difficult.”
Mark took a moment to think about that explanation. “That sounds a little sad—that he would rather risk being sick than to make any waves.”
Miranda’s expression was somber as she pulled two mugs from a cabinet. “I know.”
He wondered how to phrase his next remark so as not to sound too judgmental. “As well-behaved and undemanding as your nephews are, it makes me wonder why they feel so compelled to please everyone.”
Miranda looked at him from across the bar. “It isn’t because Lisa mistreated them in any way. Remember, she and I were subjected to harsh discipline. She would never treat her boys that way—in fact, she probably carried her parenting to the other extreme.”
“Probably.”
Miranda hesitated, and then sighed. “I’ve been a bit concerned about the twins’ behavior, too. I tried to ask a few questions this morning about their relationship with Lisa. Talking about her made them both sad, but I got the impression the parent-child dynamics were sort of reversed for them. They seemed to feel a responsibility to take care of their mother, to keep her happy. Whenever they misbehaved, she cried and said she was a terrible mother, making them feel miserable and guilty. They both seem to believe it was their fault that she’s in trouble now—that they should have been able to stop it somehow.”
Mark grimaced.
Taking the expression as an unspoken comment, Miranda nodded. “I’m more convinced than ever that they need counseling to help them deal with this. Even though Jamie’s talking again, that doesn’t mean he’s completely okay emotionally.”
“No. He—they both need reassurance. Unconditional love. Security.” He paused, then added, “A sense of family.”
She almost overfilled a coffee mug. She ripped a paper towel from its holder to wipe up the few drops that had spilled. “Don’t start with me again, Wallace.”
He continued to watch her steadily. “They’re growing very fond of you, Miranda. It’s obvious from the way they’ve responded to you. Maybe because they know you’re their aunt, or maybe you just have a way with them, but they’re becoming attached to you. It’s going to be very difficult for them to be uprooted again.”
She was shaking her head before he finished speaking. “You’re trying to make me feel guilty now—and trust me, it’s working. If things were different—if I had a bigger place and someone to depend on when I’m working or traveling with my job—maybe I would try to take them in, even though I’m hardly qualified to do so. But as it is, it just wouldn’t work.”
“Maybe if you—”
“Mark, I can’t keep them,” she snapped, her facial muscles tensed with emotion. “First thing tomorrow I’m calling the Department of Human Services and asking someone to find a foster home for them.”
A small, choked sound from the direction of the bedroom made both of them whirl around. Mark was chagrined to see the twins standing there staring at them with huge, stricken eyes.
He should never have started this conversation, he berated himself angrily.
Now look what he had done.
Chapter Seven
“We can’t stay with you, Aunt ’Randa?” one of the boys asked in a small voice. Miranda couldn’t identify which one had spoken, since they looked equally up
set.
Darn Mark for this. Sure, she would have had to talk to the boys soon, but she had hoped to do so at her own pace, after she had decided what to say.
She drew a deep breath. “Sit down, boys. We need to talk.”
Looking apologetic, Mark started to rise. “Maybe I should go.”
She pointed a finger at him. “You sit, too.”
He had started this, so he could darned well stay around and help her deal with it, she thought.
Wisely, Mark didn’t attempt to argue with her. He sat.
Okay, how to begin? She ran her hands down the sides of her jeans as she turned to the couch, where Jamie and Kasey sat watching her anxiously. “You guys know I wasn’t expecting you to come here, right? Your mom didn’t have a chance to call and discuss the situation with me before she had to go away.”
The boys bobbed their heads in acknowledgment of their surprise arrival. “Mama said there were some bad people looking for her and she had to go hide,” one of the boys explained. “She said we would be safe here, and she would be safe where she was going.”
Moistening her lips, Miranda waved a hand to indicate the small space around them. “You know how small my apartment is. One bedroom, one bath. One closet.”
The boys nodded again, and one of them said, “We don’t take up much room.”
Miranda swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. “Oh, sweetie, I know that. You’re just little boys right now, but you’re growing fast. This apartment really isn’t big enough for three.”
“We stayed in places littler than this with Mama,” the other boy asserted. “Jamie and me slept on the floor sometimes. We don’t mind, do we, Jamie?”
Jamie—the one on the left, Miranda noted—shook his head vigorously. “I like sleeping on the floor.”
The earnestness of his expression made her chest ache even more. “It isn’t just that, Jamie. I have a job. I have to go to my office every day. I can’t stay here and take care of you.”
“We can take care of ourselves,” Kasey assured her. “We can make our own cereal for breakfast and our own sandwiches for lunch. We do it all the time.”
Miranda sank slowly into an armchair, her gaze focused on the boys. “Are you telling me your mother left you alone when she went out?”
“Only sometimes,” Kasey replied. “Sometimes we stayed with other people. But we always had food and a TV.”
“And we know not to turn on the stove, and not to open the door, and not to make too much noise,” Jamie said, ticking the rules off on one little hand. “And we know how to call 9-1-1.”
Unable to look in Mark’s direction, Miranda bit her lip. She didn’t want to see Mark’s reaction to the news that Lisa had been in the habit of leaving her five-year-old sons to fend for themselves, even if it was “only sometimes.” She knew exactly how deeply he would disapprove—and of course, she felt the same way.
What had Lisa been thinking? Though Miranda had never imagined her sister would be nominated for mother of the year, she had assumed Lisa was at least providing basic care for the kids.
She and Lisa had agreed very early that the institution of marriage, from what they had observed, had very little to offer a modern, independent woman. They had vowed to support themselves, make their own decisions, please no one but themselves, and to remain absolutely free and unfettered at all times.
It still seemed like a good plan to Miranda—but then, she didn’t have children. As far as Miranda was concerned, the plan had changed for Lisa the day her twins were born.
Lisa should have realized, and accepted, the changes that became necessary when kids entered the picture—a woman couldn’t be completely free and unrestricted when she had children who were totally dependent on her. Hence, Miranda’s decision to avoid them at all costs. But Lisa had chosen to keep her kids—and then continued to behave as selfishly and recklessly as she had before, leading to this situation that was a disaster for everyone involved. Not even their own dismal childhood could excuse that.
Mark, with his overly developed sense of responsibility and commitment, must be thinking terrible things about Miranda’s sister. And, considering the disapproval she felt from him every time she mentioned turning the boys over to a foster home, he probably didn’t think much more of her now.
Squirming a bit under the unblinking gazes of her nephews, she wasn’t sure she thought much of herself at the moment. But then she tried to bolster her morale with the reminder that she had always been very careful not to hurt anyone with her dedication to staying free and footloose. She’d never made promises she couldn’t keep, never led anyone to expect more than she was willing to give—and most importantly, she had never allowed anyone to rely on her to the extent that Lisa’s children had depended on the mother who had let them down.
Miranda wasn’t prepared to change that policy now.
“Look,” she said, keeping her voice gentle, “I’m just going to talk to someone about finding a better place for you guys to stay, okay? Somewhere with more room, and maybe other kids to play with. I promise, I won’t do anything until I’m sure you’ll be well taken care of.”
Both boys were shaking their heads before she even finished speaking. Tears streamed down Jamie’s face. “Don’t send us away, Aunt ’Randa. We want to stay with you. We’ll be good. We won’t make any more trouble.”
“Jamie!” Miranda was honestly appalled. “You haven’t been any trouble to me at all. Why would you think that?”
“Because I cried the first night and you had to sleep with us,” the boy mumbled, hanging his head. “And Kasey threw up last night.”
“I won’t throw up anymore, Aunt ’Randa,” Kasey promised. “Ever.”
“We’ll be really, really good,” Jamie said, slipping off the couch to stand beside her chair. “We won’t make noise and we’ll pick up our things and we’ll sleep on the floor so you can have the bed.”
“We will,” Kasey agreed, standing on her other side. “Just let us stay with you.”
She looked helplessly at Mark. Seeming to understand that she was becoming overwhelmed, he spoke up. “Boys, your aunt loves you very much and only wants the best for you. Isn’t that right, Miranda?”
She knew Mark was trying to reassure the twins. To make them understand that she wasn’t sending them away through any fault of their own. Still, his words took her aback for a moment. Did she love her nephews? Certainly she wanted a good home for them, as she would for any innocent children, but love? She hardly knew them.
She looked from one tear-streaked little face to the other. She saw her sister’s eyes. Her own dimpled chin. A deep longing for acceptance and security that she recognized all too well from her own childhood. Apparently she knew them better than she had realized. And despite that she had often told herself family ties meant nothing to her, there was still a tug of kinship when she looked at her nephews.
Love? She hadn’t had a great deal of experience with the emotion. She had loved her grandmother, and she loved her sister. She couldn’t honestly say she had ever allowed herself to love anyone else. Love had always seemed to be tied up with too many strings.
“Of course I want the best for you,” she assured the boys, deciding to focus on the one part of Mark’s statement she agreed with wholeheartedly. “And I won’t agree to anything until I’m sure that’s what you’ll have.”
She wished there was more confidence in Mark’s expression when she glanced at him then. He seemed so certain she was making a mistake. His pessimism was beginning to affect her own certainty that she was making the right choice.
“Look,” she said when the boys continued to sniffle and look miserable. “I haven’t made any firm decisions, okay? I’m just exploring the options. So, Jamie, you and Kasey go back in and watch TV for a little longer while Mr. Wallace and I drink our coffee, okay? Don’t worry about it any more right now.”
As she had come to expect from them, the twins complied with her request without argument, movin
g into the bedroom with dragging steps and slumped shoulders, leaving her feeling like a heel.
She whirled toward Mark as soon as the bedroom door closed behind the boys. “See what you did?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Were you not planning to tell them at all?”
“Of course I knew I had to talk to them. I was hoping to wait until later, after we’d had a nice day together.”
“After they had grown even more attached to you?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Nothing about this situation is fair,” Mark replied evenly. “Especially for them.”
“You don’t think I know that?” she snapped. “I’m doing my best here, Mark.”
“And it’s absolutely none of my business what decision you make,” he said with a self-deprecating expression as he rose to his feet. “I keep saying that, and then I butt in again, don’t I? I don’t know why you haven’t told me to get lost.”
She felt herself soften. “Because I know you’re genuinely concerned about the boys, of course. And because I asked for your advice.”
“My advice, maybe. Not my badgering.” He moved closer to her and took her hands in his. “You’re going to have to do what you think best. No one else can tell you what that is. It wouldn’t do you or the boys any good if you were forced into a decision that isn’t right for you.”
As much as she valued her independence and self-sufficiency, Miranda was oddly tempted just then to burrow into his arms and hide her face in his shoulder. Just for a little while. She was entirely confident when making decisions that affected only herself, but being responsible for two helpless children was simply terrifying.
Drawing on the reserves of strength she had depended on for so long, she squared her shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes. “Thank you for your encouragement, but you should know by now that I don’t allow anyone to pressure me into doing anything.”
He squeezed her hands briefly, then released her. “Yes, I’m well aware of that.”
Rubbing her suddenly tingling palms together, she nodded toward the bar. “Your coffee is getting cold. Let me warm it up for you.”