Chapter Sixteen
“Whoever the girl’s father is . . .” Camille’s grammy had said. “Marsha and Joe Dixon want only the best for you and your daughter.”
Camille hugged her tulip quilt that Grammy had said her grammy had made when Camille’s mommy was born. It was so early in the morning, there was hardly any sunlight at all outside to keep Camille company. Grammy and Mommy had stayed up late talking on the porch. Their voices had gotten Camille up when the Hello Kitty clock on her wall had said two o’clock.
The sound of their voices had made her feel weird, even when she hadn’t been able to make out the words. They’d sounded mad or scared or something. Things Grammy and Mommy didn’t like for Camille to hear them being. She’d snuck down the hallway anyway, to get closer. Now she kinda wished she hadn’t.
Why hadn’t Mommy told her?
Why hadn’t Grammy?
Camille snuggled deeper into the window seat she loved—her room at Grammy’s had the coolest window. Big enough to sleep in, so sometimes she did at night after everyone else had gone to bed. Because it made her feel like she was sleeping in Grammy’s garden, just outside. Last night, she’d stayed in the window all night with her flower quilt, looking at the Dixon house next door, even though Grammy’s hedge hid most of it from where Camille was sitting.
Next door was her family, too?
Is that what her mommy and grammy had been saying? Her grandparents, her brothers and sisters, and . . . her daddy might be over there? Then why had everyone pretended they were just neighbors, and Oliver was just a friend from when Mommy was little? Even Mrs. Dixon had pretended. And why did Mommy want to move on again if they had another family in Chandlerville, plus Grammy?
Or if Oliver’s her father, while he’s so caught up in his crazy busy career . . .
Is the fact that it’ll be hard a good enough reason for you to run again and keep your daughter away from all of us?
Camille didn’t want to leave, now more than ever. Even if she didn’t understand how Oliver could maybe be her daddy. And she wasn’t sure she wanted him to be. And who was Brad? And why wasn’t anyone telling her about any of it?
Mommy had sounded so sad and scared, like she had right before they’d left Parker. Camille wanted the Dixons to be her family. That would be the coolest thing ever, besides coming to live with Grammy and maybe getting a puppy. But she didn’t want her Mommy to be scared again.
And Camille wanted a real daddy. She wanted to be part of the Dixons’ fun family. But if she couldn’t know about them and stay in Chandlerville, too, then she just wouldn’t tell Mommy or Grammy she that she knew. She’d pretend, the way she used to pretend she didn’t know that her mommy and Parker were fighting, and that Mommy was getting sad about staying in New York.
She snuggled with her quilt and looked out at the Dixon house.
How long, she wondered, ’til people were up next door? And how long ’til Mommy and Grammy wouldn’t notice if Camille snuck over there? She could stay outside all morning if she had to, and take her quilt and her bubbles and Bear and play in the shade by the back hedge no matter how hot it got.
Then when everyone was too busy to notice, she’d sneak over. Just to play. Just to see Mrs. Dixon and everyone and everything that might be hers, too. And maybe she could ask someone over there what was going on. Maybe that way, without making Mommy sad at all, Camille could find out for sure if the Dixons were her family, too.
Chapter Seventeen
“Shoot me.” Oliver slapped the lid of his laptop closed and stared at Marsha’s infernal stove. He was beginning to believe the thing was possessed.
It was late Saturday morning. He’d been up since five with Teddy. Fin had brought him to Marsha and Joe’s room at the crack of dawn, the toddler fussing again. Turned out the kid had been running a slight temperature. When Oliver called Dru, she’d said not to worry unless the fever got any higher. Oliver should push fluids—yay! more diapers—and give Teddy baby Tylenol at careful intervals.
Which had been a relief to hear and Oliver had almost gotten the kid back to sleep, when the rest of the tribe had woken up to their last Saturday before summer break, ready to rumble. Waiting for updates on Joe was wearing on all of them.
The kids had taken turns all morning giving each other and Oliver a hard time. And now his plan for a crowd-pleasing lunch that didn’t come in a pizza box was officially a bust.
“Just shoot me,” he said.
The pot of boiling macaroni heckled him by continuing to bubble over. Smoke seeped through the oven vent. His rep as a man who could fix any problem he set his mind to had just hit a record low. If only Xan Coulter could see him now. He snatched up the pot by its handle and dumped the half-cooked macaroni into a steaming pile in the sink.
“Is the oven s’posed to be doing that?” Lisa asked. She’d followed him from one room of the house to the other all morning, helping. “It never smells like that when Mom cooks. I don’t think there’s s’posed to be smoke.”
Fin sauntered in and laughed. “Told ya. He can’t even make crap macaroni and cheese and frozen fries. Let’s see if he can ruin PB&J.”
“Look, kid . . .” Oliver caught himself before he lost his cool.
If some loser with zero domestic skills had barged into Oliver’s life when he’d been the same age—needing the kids’ help most of the time to get through the simplest tasks—Oliver would have been a smartass, too. His eye tracked to the fire extinguisher on the wall by the sink. Did he even know how to use one? Cracking the tight muscles in his neck, he dragged on purple oven mitts and opened the stove he’d just turned off.
“Shut the door to the living room,” he said, “in case”—the fire alarm bleated its eardrum-shattering warning—“the detector goes off.”
He dumped the charred fries into the sink. The edge of the sheet pan brushed his wrist and singed him.
“Damn it!”
“I’ll get Teddy,” Lisa said over the blare of the alarm, racing into the living room where the toddler had finally gone down for a nap.
Oliver grabbed the broom and with the end of the handle stabbed at the squealing demon in the ceiling until it shut up.
“I’ll get the peanut butter.” Fin trudged to the pantry, lugging out a hernia-inducing-sized tub of extra-chunky. The kids had made a serious dent in it since Oliver arrived on the scene.
“Maybe Dru can bring something over from the Whip,” Oliver reasoned.
“Who’s as old as you,” Fin griped, “and can’t cook?”
Sandy-brown hair, athletic and growing into lanky, he wore a ripped soccer jersey this morning and almost-too-short jeans. He dumped his burden onto the island and flung the refrigerator door wide to root for the grape jelly Oliver had seen lurking behind the pitcher of orange juice he’d mixed up from concentrate for breakfast. A meal Oliver had finished cleaning up less than an hour ago.
Followed immediately by starting laundry, figuring out from the chore chart on the laundry room wall who was on vacuum duty on Saturdays and who got stuck with the bathrooms, and dragging half the kids back to their bedrooms to make the beds Marsha insisted be straightened at the start of every day. Lunch should have been a cinch after all of that.
“I cook just fine.” Armed with a pot holder, his wrist still stinging, Oliver scraped the burned remains of what used to be crinkle-cut fries on top of the failed mac and cheese.
Fin fake gagged.
Oliver pulled two loaves of bread from the cabinet under the island. “PB&J isn’t so bad.”
“Boris’s jelly only.” Fin flicked a thumb over his shoulder at the reminder list tacked to the white board that took up half of the refrigerator door. “Allergies.”
“Right.” Rule number one in Dru’s mind-numbing list of helpful reminders: Don’t send anyone to the hospital. “Thanks.”
“You’re no good at any of this.”
Oliver hadn’t failed at something this badly since high school math. Marsha had a
ctually laughed at some of his horror stories when they’d talked over the phone an hour or so ago. “Good thing being a domestic goddess isn’t why I’m here.”
“Why are you here?”
“Because I’ve already done everything all of you might think you can get away with, just because Marsha and Joe aren’t around—long before you figured out that rebelling is a natural high. So spread the word. Don’t waste your time.” He brandished the spatula for emphasis. “Not only will your chores double each time you test me, but I’ll be waiting for you at the starting gate, ruining your fun from the get-go.”
Fin rolled his eyes. “So if you’re so tough and badass, why come back now just to push us around? Dad might be dead soon . . .” The kid was suddenly furious. Except he sounded like he was going to cry. “And then we all gotta go somewhere else, right? Who cares if you ride our asses about making our beds?”
Lisa returned, the baby squirming in her arms, almost too big for her to hold. She’d heard Fin’s tirade, and she was looking scared—the way Oliver suspected all the kids were feeling, no matter how they acted like nothing had changed in their ever-changing worlds.
“I’m here because I’m your big brother. Like Travis is. Like Dru’s your big sister. And brothers and sisters stick together. That’s why I’m back. And Joe is not going to die. Mom says he’s doing better and about as cranky as you guys this morning. He wants to be back home, sleeping in his own bed. Sounds like the doctors might okay him moving to another room as early as this afternoon.”
“And that’s good, right?” Lisa fed Teddy snack crackers from a box she’d snagged from the pantry.
“It’s huge.”
Oliver looked between Lisa and Fin, feeling for them. Feeling too much like them some days. Even now after all he’d accomplished with his life, it was easy to expect whatever good he had not to stay that way for very long.
“I know I’m a disaster around here,” he said, “messing up all the things Dru and Travis do better than me. But that doesn’t mean I’m not good at listening, if you need to talk about Joe, or if—”
“Who wants to talk about him?” Fin stomped to one of the cabinets for enough plates to feed everyone. He yanked open the utensil drawer, grabbed knives and spoons. The sound of everything clattering onto the counter started Teddy crying again.
Oliver pressed his thumbs into his eye sockets, close to screaming himself.
“Can I help?”
Everyone pivoted. Camille stood in the doorway to the backyard looking fully recovered from being ill, wearing pink shorts and a yellow top. There were dirt smudges all over her, like she’d been rolling around on the ground outside. She headed straight for the baby, smiling as if they were best buds. Teddy’s arms opened wide. Lisa handed him over.
“Does your mom know you’re here?” Oliver watched Camille cuddle the toddler. She reached into the box of crackers Lisa had left on the island and started feeding him.
“She comes over sometimes.” Lisa picked up a spoon. Fin had already dragged bread out of the bags and divided out two slices for each plate. He was smearing peanut butter on half of them. Lisa started covering the rest with jelly.
“She does?” Oliver crouched in front of Camille, who was looking guilty but determined not to let it show. “How often?”
She didn’t answer.
“Saturdays mostly.” Lisa looked up from the sandwiches. “It’s no big deal. She helps Mom sometimes is all.”
“Do you come for the cookies, too?” Oliver asked.
Camille nodded. “I helped make them last weekend. Your mommy made them with stuff I can eat, which makes cookies taste gross. But hers don’t. She says it’s ’cause I’m good help.”
She’s sneaked over to the house a few times . . .
We’ve had some lovely chats.
Oliver’s mother had been baking with the girl. While Selena wanted Camille protected from his family, until Selena was ready to explain things to her daughter her own way. He tweaked Camille’s nose with his thumb and forefinger. He took Teddy before she collapsed under the toddler’s considerable weight.
“Those were the best cookies I’ve had in years.” He patted Teddy’s back. The baby fussed, reaching for Camille again. “Now I know why.”
Camille smiled.
“Where’s your mom?” he asked.
“Jogging. Every Saturday morning. Grammy doesn’t have to work on Saturdays. I help her in the yard. Mommy runs. Even when it’s raining. Running makes her happy. She says it helps her think. Sometimes at night, too, after I go to bed. But always on Saturday.”
“And your Grammy knows you’re here?” He found that hard to believe.
Camille bit her lip and shook her head. “She thinks I’m—”
Teddy barfed all over the only clean T-shirt Oliver had left. Oliver barked out something not suitable for children of any age to hear. Likely not for most of the adults in Chandlerville, either.
“Eeeeeew.” Fin stabbed his knife into the peanut butter jar and backed away. “I’m not cleaning that up.”
“He does that when he cries too much,” Lisa said with authority, while Oliver held Teddy at arm’s length.
Footsteps clambered from where the other kids had either been upstairs cleaning stuff or in the living room doing the homework they hadn’t finished yesterday. Suddenly Oliver had four more spectators surveying his latest disaster.
“Lunch!” Gabe and Shandra said at the same time.
The high schoolers grabbed their plates. Gabe snagged a bag of chips from the pantry while Shandra took orange soda from the fridge. They sprinted for the dining room as if they hadn’t nearly polished off a box of cereal between them just a few hours ago. Shandra giggled as she passed Oliver.
“Man,” she said, “you smell like baby puke.”
“That’s because I’m covered in baby puke.”
“I’ll take him again.” Camille held up her arms. “He likes me.”
Fin and Lisa deserted Oliver, too, with their plates and drinks. Boris grabbed his food and left without saying a word. Oliver was intimately familiar with the maneuver. In a big family, you kept your head down, you kept moving, and good things happened. The slow and careless were given projects, as Marsha and Joe liked to call them. There was always something to do. Especially when there were babies around.
Oliver shook his head, alone now with Selena’s smiling, helpful, not-supposed-to-be-there child. He got another whiff of himself and, resigned, handed Teddy over.
“Just for a second.” He shoved a kitchen towel at Camille in case there was another eruption and edged toward the laundry room. “Then we’re getting you home. My shirt from last night’s run is filthy, but anything’s better than this. I’ll be right back.”
He pulled the thing from the laundry room floor and shucked his soiled T-shirt off. At the sound of the doorbell, he hung his head and stared at his tattered tennis shoes. They were sporting even more character now, compliments of Teddy.
“Perfect.”
Still holding his running shirt, he used the puked-on one to wipe down his sneakers. Leaving it with the rest of the laundry, he turned back into the kitchen and rushed past Camille.
“I’ll be just a few more seconds,” he promised.
She had Teddy on the floor. The kid was giggling and playing with her ponytails and the pink polka-dotted ribbons tied around them. Oliver slowed, his heart beating frantically at the perfect picture they made—his maybe daughter and his youngest foster brother, sharing a happy, careless moment. Then the doorbell pealed again.
He headed down the hall. He tripped over a backpack half-tossed into a corner. It spilled onto the faded runner that had looked a hundred years old when he’d last lived there. The bell rang twice in a row this time, impatient, demanding. He yanked the door open, pulling his shirt over his head and one shoulder.
“Yeah?” he asked the young woman in a suit standing on the top step. She stared at his half-exposed chest. He shoved his oth
er arm into his T-shirt and pulled down the tail. “Can I help you?”
“Um . . .” She seemed to mentally shake her thoughts back on track. “I’m Ms. Walker. Donna Walker, with Family Services. I’m Teddy Rutherford’s caseworker. Actually, several of the kids are mine. Well, not mine. But you know what I mean.” She took a deep breath. “I apologize for the inconvenience on a Saturday. Our office was informed by Mrs. Dixon about Mr. Dixon’s heart attack. We already had this unannounced site evaluation on the schedule, and my supervisor wanted me to keep it considering the strain Marsha and Joe are going to be under for the next while. We need to be certain Teddy’s placement isn’t too much for the home. If other arrangements are needed, it’ll be important to make them as quickly as possible. Waiting too long might contribute to any attachment issues Teddy could experience after making another change so soon. That is . . .”
She paused and really looked Oliver over for the first time since staring at his pecs.
“Excuse me,” she said. “But who are you, exactly? And where are the Dixon children?”
“I’m Oliver Bowman.”
He pulled his cell from his pocket. Though what he’d accomplish with it at this point by calling Marsha, or Travis or Dru, he wasn’t sure. His mother was entrenched with Joe, and his brother and sister were both elbow-deep in their demanding Saturdays, working full-day shifts.
“I aged out of Marsha and Joe’s home seven years ago. I’m back to help the family. My mother was supposed to have let someone in your office know.”
Ms. Walker consulted her notepad. “I have a record of her call. But I see nothing about you supervising the kids in Mrs. and Mr. Dixon’s absence. We’d assumed your local siblings would be taking care of that.”
“I’m giving them a break. The kids are eating lunch in the dining room,” he said. “They’re being well supervised, and—”
A toddler wail unleashed, loud enough to be heard all the way from the kitchen. Though it could have been laughter—with Teddy it was always a toss-up.
Let Me Love You Again (An Echoes of the Heart Novel Book 2) Page 19