The boys spoke in unison sounding a bit like a talking choir. “Pleasure to meet you.”
Donna laughed. “Pleasure to meet y’all as well.” She then looked at Sara. “Might as well introduce them by name, but I’m telling you now, I ain’t got a chance in hell of remembering them.”
Sara turned to her boys. “Line up by age please.”
After a quick scramble, she started with the oldest. “Joshua, Colby, Sam, Peter, Edward, Mike, Oliver, Joe, Tyler, Oscar, Paul, Tom, Conrad, Sean, and Elijah. Inside in his crib is Marcus.” She then pulled Ethan closer. “And this is their tutor, Mr. Ethan Long.”
Ethan held out his hand. “Call me Ethan.”
Donna gave him a speculative look. “Tutor, eh? How long you’ve been tutoring?”
“A week and a half.” Ethan replied, noticing the disappointment in Donna’s eyes. Did she really think he might be the father? He had dark hair and a hawk nose. These boys looked to come from a blond Adonis…a bastard Adonis.
“Did you win the bus, Ma?” Oscar asked.
Sara shook her head. “No, I bought it with my lunch money.”
Harry Hodgkin laughed at her declaration. “That’s probably true. She only paid five dollars and thirty-two cents at the silent auction today. She turned out to be the only person who bid on this old bus.
“Can we go look at our new bus?” Sam asked.
Sara nodded and the boys swarmed it like locusts. Sara led the Hodgkins and Ethan inside. “May I offer you water or tea?”
Harry grimaced at the choices.
Donna noticed and laughed. “My man is a beer man. Would you mind if he drank a beer in front of your boys?”
Sara blinked. “I wish I had a beer to give you, but all we have is tea and water.”
Harry stood up. “Oh, I got the beer, I just wanted to make sure you didn’t mind me drinking in front of your boys.” He then looked at Ethan. “Can I bring you one?”
A beer sounded like heaven. Ethan glanced at Sara, trying to determine if she really didn’t mind.
“They’re ice cold. I’ve got Coors, Heineken, and Bud.”
“Coors,” Ethan said after detecting no hint of a frown on Sara’s happy face.
When Harry left the room, Donna sighed. “Sure wish I could have a beer.”
Sara tilted her head. “I’m sure Harry would give you a beer as well.”
Donna rubbed her stomach. “Can’t have beer until this brute gets out of me.”
Sara nodded, but Ethan sensed she still didn’t understand.
“Can I bring you tea or water, then?” Sara asked.
“Is the tea hot or cold?”
“Whichever you want.”
Donna propped her feet on the coffee table. “I think hot tea sounds nice.”
Once Sara disappeared into the kitchen, Donna turned her focus on him. “I’ll probably say something to offend you before the night is out…”
Harry had walked in as she spoke her warning and laughed. “Hell, it won’t take that long. My girl’s got a mouth that runs on its own.” He handed Ethan his beer. It was ice cold as promised. Harry sat down beside his wife and draped his arm around her shoulders. “The doctors think she’s got a mild case of Turrets, but I think she’s just bad at being funny.”
Donna slapped his leg. “It’s my damn problem, let me introduce it.”
“Go on then,” Harry laughed.
“Well, I can’t now. You already told him. If I tell him again, he’ll think I’m senile.”
Harry kissed her temple. “No one has ever accused you of being that. This girl’s got a memory like a computer on her. When I first met her, she didn’t know a damn thing, and now she knows everything there is to know in the whole universe.”
Donna rolled her eyes. “Just drink your beer and choke on it.” She then laid her head affectionately in the crook of his arm.
The boys burst in and filled the room. They sat on the floor across from Harry and Donna and stared at them expectantly.
Ethan could tell the Hodgkins were feeling uneasy with so much quiet attention. “Boys, perhaps some of you would like to go out and play?”
Six-year-old Paul looked up at him as if his suggestion was insane. “We can play any old day, but they’re the first friends Ma has ever had.”
His comment seemed to upset Donna and she buried her face in her husband’s chest. Harry stroked her strawberry blonde hair and pressed his lips against her temple. To distract everyone, Harry focused on Ethan. “So how do you like your job, Mr. Long?”
“Ethan. And…” He noticed the anxious looks of the boys. “…It’s the best job I’ve ever had. A teacher dreams for students as dedicated, hardworking, and smart as these boys.”
The boys gave each other high fives. No doubt learned from the elder boys’ years in public school.
When Sara returned with a tea tray, Ethan came to her assistance. She handed him the tray and allowed him to set it on the coffee table, now sans Donna’s feet. “Thank you, Ethan, for saving my guest from possible burns. Bending over is never a sure thing this close to birth.”
“How long ‘till you’re due?” Harry asked.
Donna answered before Sara could. “Twelve days, damn her.”
While her curse shocked Ethan, neither Sara nor Harry seemed to think it an odd reaction. In fact, Harry laughed. “My wife has been suggesting an early C-Section for three weeks now.”
Sara tilted her head in confusion, but said nothing.
Noticing, Donna spoke. “A C-Section is where they slice open your lower stomach and take the baby out.”
Now Sara and the boys looked horrified.
“Wouldn’t that kill you?” Colby asked.
“No, hon. They sew you back up, good as new.”
“Sounds like it would hurt like the devil,” Sara said.
The boys nodded their heads in agreements. Oscar looked at Sara. “We’ll have this one just like the others, right?”
“Absolutely,” Sara assured him.
Donna sipped her tea. “Well, if you ever do decide on a C-Section, you’d have to stop having babies so often or they’d need to put a zip lock on your uterus.”
Harry nudged her.
“Sorry, that was a joke.”
“Now that Ethan’s here and I’m learning with the boys, I’ll get smarter, so I can understand your jokes,” Sara promised.
Harry fell into a coughing fit. When he finally calmed, he replied, “Don’t rush on Donna’s account. She’s better off with you not understanding.”
Donna rolled her eyes. “That may be true, but I think it’s great that you are studying with your boys. What grade did you leave school, if I may ask?”
“I was thirteen, in the seventh grade, when I got pregnant with Joshua. I left when I started to show.”
Ethan glanced at Joshua. He could tell it bothered the boy that his creation made his mother leave school. Ethan stood up. “I need to get something out of my car. Joshua, would you come with me to scare off the bears?”
The eldest boy followed him outside. Opening his trunk, he collected a few batteries and then closed the lid.
“Joshua, you can’t blame yourself for your mother leaving school.”
The young man kicked at the rocks in the dirt driveway. “Don’t see anyone else to blame.”
“The person to blame isn’t here. But it wasn’t you. Let’s say you hadn’t been born, then Colby would have been first born. And your mother would have left school then. The only one that could have changed your mother’s life is the man who got her pregnant.”
Joshua stared up at the sky. “There is no man.”
Ethan sighed. “Do you really believe that?”
“I did when I was young, but later I became convinced that some man was creeping into my mother’s window and raping her in her sleep. So I’d stand guard outside her door on Valentine’s Day to stop him.”
“Then he must have come through the window—”
“Colby stoo
d guard at the window.” He sighed. “Last year there were five of us standing guard for a full week before and after Valentine’s. I’m telling you, we have no father…at least no human one.”
Ethan stared at him in shock.
Joshua kicked a rock across the driveway. “Now you think I’m nuts.”
“No.” Ethan placed his arm around the boy’s shoulder. “I think you are a very bright and stable young man desperate to protect his mother. This year, we’ll find the truth once and for all. I promise you.”
Joshua breathed out in relief. “I’m glad you’ve come. I love my brothers, but enough is enough. I want whatever is impregnating my mother to stop. If she weren’t the luckiest person in the whole world, we’d be in serious trouble by now.”
Ethan gently rubbed his back and ignored Joshua’s tears glistening his cheeks. “We’ll find out what is happening and put a stop to it. I promise you.”
***
When they returned, everyone was laughing. Peter, the thirteen-year-old, explained. “Miss Donna made a joke we understood, and it was really funny.”
Ethan wasn’t certain he would ever like Donna, but one look at Sara’s glowing face and he was glad they had found each other. Probably no two people in the world were so desperate for friends as these two.
At eight, Harry declared it time to go home. Donna called him a wuss, but allowed him to pull her off the couch.
Donna wrapped her arms around Sara’s neck, their two bellies pressed against one another. “I’m so glad I’ve met you. You call me every time you’re planning to come into town, so I can be there.”
“I don’t have a phone.”
Ethan spoke up. “I have one.”
“Of course you do,” Donna said and then focused on Sara. “And bring the boys. Lots to do in town.”
“I’ll want to make one more purchase of meat before the baby comes.” Then her mouth fear open in dismay. “The meat! I forgot to put it up!”
Donna rubbed her back. “Don’t worry. Harry packed it in ice.”
Harry nodded. “I’ll get it now.”
Sara glanced at Joshua and he gathered some of the older boys to help bring in the meat.
Donna shook her head. “I have to beg, plead, and threaten my boy to take out the garbage and yours only need the slightest glance. I’ll trade you mine for two of yours?”
“No!” the remaining boys yelped.
Sara kissed their heads. “That was a joke. My new friend likes to tease me.”
Edward gave her a scolding frown. “Well, joke about something else. The Child Welfare lady is always talking about taking us away and putting us in foster homes. And while I’m sure those foster homes are really nice, I like my life here, thank you very much.”
Donna walked over to him and leaned down as far as she dared. “You should, because you’ve got the best and nicest mama in the whole world, and don’t you let anyone tell you that life would be better out there.”
He nodded in agreement.
She stood up straight and grimaced at the pain in her back. “That C-Section sounds better every minute.”
Chapter 11
Ethan waited in the living room with the boys. He couldn’t believe Sara intended to have this baby with only the help of a midwife. He offered to pay so she could go to a hospital, but she stubbornly refused. Hospitals were full of sick people. She didn’t want her boys getting sick.
Ethan paced beside the door to his room as he worried for both Sara and the baby. At least he’d convinced her to take back her bed for the birthing. The midwife wouldn’t have had room to move in the laundry room.
Joshua placed his hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “Relax, she’s an old pro at this.”
Ethan forced a smile, but he knew the older a woman got, the harder the pregnancy became. While Sara was only thirty-one, seventeen babies had to take its toll on her body.
He stared at the boys. Little Tom was sharing his crayons with his younger brothers Conrad and Sean, admonishing them to stay within the lines. They diligently wished to oblige. What would happen to these boys if Sara were to die? Their happy world would turn into a living nightmare overnight. She had to live! Those boys needed her. They loved her with all their hearts.
Unable to pretend a calm composure any longer, he stepped outside. He leaned against the trunk of his car and prayed to God for help. He hadn’t prayed since he was a small boy. The violence in the world had made him doubt the existence of God. Yet now, at his most desperate, he called to the entity he had denied most of his life.
“Just keep her safe. These boys need her.”
Joshua opened the front door and called to him. “Baby will be here in two minutes, and the midwife will let us in a few minutes later. So come in when you’re ready.”
Ethan frowned. “Did the midwife tell you that? It’s very soon.”
Joshua looked at his watch. “Julius ain’t early. He’ll be right on time.”
Before Ethan could make sense of the boy’s reply, he’d closed the door.
Wishful thinking, Ethan decided. He remained outside to continue his prayer.
His pleas were answered by the healthy cry of a newborn baby. Rushing in, he found all the boys waiting patiently in a line at the door. Joshua stood at the head. He smiled at Ethan. “We go in by age. Would you like the front of the line?”
Ethan was torn. He wanted to see for himself Sara was all right, but to put himself before the boys seemed wrong on all accounts. Their bond was one of love. His was…
Joshua pulled him to the front of the line. “It’s all right. Just breathe.”
When the midwife opened the door, she frowned at him, no doubt questioning his right to enter at all. After all, he was merely a tutor for the boys.
He once again tried to refuse the honor. “You boys should go first.”
Joshua gripped his arm. “Tell you what, we’ll go in together.”
When they entered, Sara sat up in the bed holding her newborn. She looked as if she’d just woken from a long night’s rest. “Mr. Long, come meet Julius.”
Ethan tentatively approached the bed.
Sara nodded at the unoccupied area next to her. “Sit, and I’ll let you hold him.”
Ethan sat as commanded. He couldn’t take his eyes off Sara. She was glowing with joy. She looked like an angel—a wingless angel. “How are you feeling?”
She laughed as she stroked the tiny face of her new son. “I feel blessed.”
Ethan studied the boy a moment and then the midwife, who shuffled about the room, packing up her case. “He’s rather small. Shouldn’t a doctor look him over?”
The gray-haired woman’s eyebrows rose. “I’ve birthed every one of these boys and not one has had even a sniffle.”
Ethan was sorry to insult the woman, but Sara and her new son were more important. “But were any of them this small?”
The old woman sighed. “They all come out small. That’s why she has such an easy time of it, but they grow fast enough.” She glanced at Joshua. “Ain’t nothing wrong with any of them.”
Sara smiled at the woman. “Thank you, Mrs. Smoot.” She then nodded at her eldest son.
Joshua handed the midwife an envelope.
The woman opened it and counted the money, then stuffed it in her bag. “’Til next year then.” Joshua opened the door for her and she waddled out of the house.
Ethan realized he hadn’t seen her car in the driveway. “Where did she park her car?”
Sara handed him little Julius. “She doesn’t have a car. She lives somewhere off in the woods. I think I may be her only customer these days. Most people prefer the hospital, but why they want to have their babies in a place for sick people stumps me.”
Julius’ contented angelic face mesmerized Ethan. He had always wanted a child, but a case of measles when he was twenty ended that possibility forever. Not only did he lose any chance of having children, but he also lost his first love. When she discovered he was sterile, she broke
off their engagement. From then on, his personal life disintegrated. He eventually married a woman too selfish to ever want children, and his misery found a new depth of hell.
Looking into the face of this precious angelic child made all that irrelevant. God! But he loved this child. His realization startled him. It was one thing to love his students, but why should he feel such an attachment to Sara’s newborn child? He tried to return the baby, hoping to pass off his unwanted adoration as well, but she had her eyes closed as if recalling some very fine moment.
Joshua swooped in and scooped up his brother. He then nodded for the first boy to enter. Colby first went to the bed and kissed his mother. She hugged her second born in return. “I love you!”
Colby then took the baby from Joshua and cooed at his new brother. Next, Sam entered and did the same. By the time the younger boys entered, the room was packed with brothers aplenty to ensure the smaller boys didn’t drop their new brother in their greetings. Even Marcus, the one-year-old was carried in and introduced to his new crib mate.
Sara reached out and grabbed Ethan’s hand and Joshua’s. “My beautiful family. No woman was ever as blessed as me.”
A surge of love shot through his body and settled in his heart. God help him. He was irrevocably in love with this family: the subjects of his investigation.
***
Late that night, he stepped outside to call Jacobs.
“Find the fellow yet?” Jacobs asked when he answered the phone.
“No. Sara had her seventeenth son tonight.”
“Something happen?”
“No.”
“Then why do you sound so down in the dumps?”
Ethan paused before answering. If he told Jacobs that he was in love with the Smith family, his editor would pull him out and send down Carlton, who’d create a husband from thin air and portray Sara and the boys as whatever characters he developed in his rancid mind.
He breathed out and stared up at the stars. “It’s just been a long night.”
“Any clues on the father?”
“Not a one.”
“The boys must know—”
“They don’t. They’ve tried to figure it out themselves, but to no avail. I’m going to need some expensive surveillance equipment. You’ll pay for it, right?”
Luck Be an Angel Page 6