Cal had moved home to Columbus after graduation. Kip had stayed in Ann Arbor, got on with SI, and the rest was history.
“…When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation to take me home…”
Leslie’s head fell gently against his shoulder. Her body felt so unbelievably good. Familiar—though, other than a teasing punch on the shoulder, he couldn’t remember ever touching her before.
She felt…genuine. A safe harbor.
That seemed crazy when she couldn’t even stand on her own.
The minister said a few final words, and then it was time for Leslie and her mother to take one last walk by the casket, to leave their roses on the grave.
“Les?” He pulled away, glanced down at the face streaked with makeup and tears. She stared vacantly back at him—reminding him for one scary second of someone in a state of shock.
“It’s time,” he said softly.
She nodded. Kip supported her as she said her final goodbyes to her only sibling and then stumbled back to the car. She didn’t even seem to notice the people watching her, those judging her ability to cope, those offering love and support. She was lost someplace. On her own.
With a last glance back at the only real friend he’d ever had, Kip sent up a silent promise. He’d watch out for Leslie and Clara.
“WHO’S THAT OLD LADY, Nana?”
Ada King tightened her grip on the bony little shoulders of the five-year-old boy beside her. They stood at the back of the small crowd gathered at the Lakeview cemetery.
“That’s your daddy’s mama.”
“She doesn’t look mean.” Jonathan’s childish voice belied the wisdom in his tear-drenched eyes.
“She’s not mean, child.” Ada adjusted the little girl draped over her right shoulder. Kayla had fallen asleep shortly after they’d arrived. Ordinarily that would’ve been just fine, but at sixty-two Ada’s bones weren’t as able to withstand the two-year-old’s weight as they might have twenty-five years ago, when she’d been raising the children’s mother.
“But she won’t let me be up there with Daddy.”
Ada’s arm dropped from Jonathan’s shoulder. “Come, child,” she said, turning toward the sedan Calhoun Sanderson had bought for Abby right after she’d had Jonathan. Jonathan was too smart to be just five. And Ada was tired.
Too tired. The children needed someone with a body that didn’t ache every minute of every day, someone whose legs could still run and whose eyes could still see all the little things that tiny fingers reached for.
“She’s white.”
“Yes, child.”
“Like Daddy.”
“Yes, child.”
“Is she mad ’cause me and Kayla ain’t?”
Ada unlocked the car, transferred the sleeping girl to her car seat in the middle of the back. Kayla’s frizzy little braids were glued to the side of her head with sweat.
“Aren’t, child. Not ain’t.” She double-checked the safety latch across Kayla’s chest.
Jonathan stared at her as he climbed in to the front passenger seat. “You say ain’t.”
“I’m old.”
The skinny little black boy buckled his seat belt around the church slacks she’d laid out for him that morning and stared out the side window at his father’s grave.
Ada ached for a good long cry.
“THANK YOU ALL FOR COMING,” Attorney Jim Brackerfield stood at the door of the conference room in the downtown Columbus office that housed his firm. It was Friday morning. Leslie barely gave her brother’s partner a glance; she was more concerned with her mother’s comfort, with breathing calmly through the next few minutes. She could hardly believe only four days had passed since she’d been standing in her own office congratulating herself on a South Seas deal that now seemed far more distant than mere miles away—despite her daily calls to Nancy.
Kip pulled out chairs at the conference table for her and her mother. Smiling her thanks, Leslie smoothed the gray wool skirt beneath her and sat facing the north wall, the window of which looked out toward Ohio State University. Her alma mater.
“I would’ve been happy to come to the house,” Jim was saying to Clara.
“I know, Jim, and that means a lot. Thanks,” Clara said, her lips trembling. “But I needed to come here, to see his…the office without him in it….”
Leslie nodded, rubbed the crystals in her necklace, shades of blue and gray and black. She’d agreed with her mother’s decision to meet the attorney at his office.
While her mother and Jim, who knew each other well, talked about mutual acquaintances who’d been at the funeral the day before, Kip took the seat next to her. She hadn’t been surprised to hear that Cal had left something in his will for his closest friend.
His sports equipment, she’d bet.
She smiled at him a second time, glad he was there. She was doing much better today, now that the whole process of saying goodbye to Cal was behind them. Still, Kip’s presence was…a blessing.
Jim sat on the other side of the long table. He was older than her brother by at least ten years, his hair thinning and gray, but judging by his athletic frame, he’d shared her brother’s passion for sports.
“I…” He coughed, looked down at the papers in his hands, put on a pair of reading glasses. Took them off.
“Oh, hell.” He pushed the papers away. “Cal’s will is here. We can read it together or apart, whatever you prefer. But I know what it says, and there’s just no easy way to tell you—”
“None of us needs my brother’s money, Jim,” Leslie said, relying on her years of professional experience to put the other man at ease. “Even if he’s left it to…to historic car research, we’ll all support his choice.”
Clara patted Leslie’s thigh under the table, reaching for her daughter’s hand. “She’s right,” Clara added.
Kip nodded.
“He didn’t leave his assets—and they were considerable, by the way—to historic car research.”
Leslie waited, honestly unconcerned with anything but enduring this for her mother’s sake and getting out of there, as soon as she could. She’d used an antique gold clip to pull her hair back, but wished she’d let it hang free to curtain her face.
“He didn’t leave them to any of you, either.”
“Calhoun felt the weight of responsibility for all he’d been given,” Clara said softly. “He knew that neither Leslie nor I needed his money. It truly is fine, Jim. I’d just like to know who he chose to help….”
Let it be meaningful, Leslie thought. Please let his last grand gesture be full of heart and compassion.
Jim tapped the tips of his fingers together, glancing down again. His gaze, when it met each of theirs in turn, was grave.
“He left it to his children….”
Leslie’s skin chilled. Her fingers, sliding from her mother’s, were clammy.
“His…” Clara’s face was white, pasty-looking beneath makeup that no longer enhanced her skin, her lips thin and pinched.
Calhoun had children. Leslie’s heart raced, filled with fear, and then settled into an uneasy pace. God, please let them be well-loved. Safe. Protected.
She’d been all of those things.
No! Let them be…oh, she didn’t know what. Please, God, let it be okay. If something happened to them, if I could’ve done something…
“I should’ve known,” she muttered, “should never have stayed away so long.”
“Your mother was right here in town and she didn’t know….” Jim’s voice seemed to come from far off.
“It can’t be true,” Clara interrupted, sounding lost. “He would’ve told me. Cal was a loving son. Attentive. He was over for dinner every Sunday, took me to the theater, visited during the week. He would never have kept my grandchildren from me.”
Jim cleared his throat. “He—”
“He wasn’t even married!” Clara blurted, rubbing one hand up and down the skirt of her violet suit and pulling at the lapel of her jack
et with the other. At seventy, Clara Sanderson was retired, but in her day, she'd been every bit as formidable in the business world as her daughter was now. Where Leslie’s forte was finance, Clara’s had been real estate.
Leslie took her mother’s hand under the table, as much to still her own jitters as to calm her mother’s.
“Be that as it may, your son had two children, Mrs. Sanderson,” Jim said, leaning forward as he spoke.
“And he left them everything,” Kip said, as though trying to sum up what they’d been told and get them out of there. Or at least, that was what Leslie hoped he was doing.
“Not quite,” Jim said, looking from Kip to Leslie. “He left the two of you something quite valuable, too.”
Leslie didn’t want anything of Cal’s. She just wanted to get outside, breathe, figure out what to do next.
“I can’t imagine what that would be,” Kip said, frowning.
Cal had kids someplace and presumably Jim knew where. She had to find them. Hell, she didn’t even know how old they—
“He left you the kids,” the attorney’s voice was like a loud crack in the silence. “To you, Kip, he left guardianship of his five-year-old son, Jonathan. And Leslie, he asked that you take two-year-old Kayla.”
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS ALL TOO incredible to believe. She was a mother. A mother! No, she wasn’t. She could be a guardian. If she chose to accept Calhoun’s final wishes.
Chose to accept. She couldn’t turn her back on a two-year-old child!
“I realize that you live in Phoenix, Ms. Sanderson, and expect you might need to get back soon. A temporary order can be issued immediately for you to take the child with you if that’s what you decide.”
“Hold on.” Kip stood, his slacks a lot more creased than they’d been when he sat down less than twenty minutes before. “Who are these children? Where are they? Where’s their mother? Why haven’t we heard about them until now? Who’s taking care of them? Where do they live?”
All questions she should have asked. Would have asked if she’d been able to think.
Jim nodded, glanced at Clara and then directed his answer to Kip, who was standing by the window, gazing back at him through narrowed eyes.
“A little over seven years ago, Cal met a woman while arguing a case in court. She was the bailiff. The way he explained it to me—just after Kayla was born and he set up a trust for the kids, and changed his will—he’d never met a woman like her. Her name was Abby and he said she made him feel complete in ways he’d never felt before. His actual words, if I remember them correctly—” he glanced at Clara and Leslie before returning his attention to Kip “—was that when he was with her, he felt accepted, forgiven for the parts of himself he wasn’t proud of. He didn’t tell me what he meant by that, what he’d done, or believed he’d done. But he said that with Abby, he felt worthy. Those were his exact words.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Clara said. “Cal was a wonderful human being, always giving, thinking of others. I told him all the time how much I appreciated him. I heard other people say similar things. He didn’t suffer from feelings of unworthiness….”
Her mother was breathing heavily, but otherwise she appeared to be taking the news a whole lot better than Leslie was.
Jim shrugged. “I’m only telling you what he told me.”
“So why wouldn’t he have told any of us about her?” Kip asked, coming back to his seat at the table.
“She was…different from him….”
None of this was making sense to Leslie. “Cal wasn’t a snob,” she said.
“And he knew we weren’t, either,” Clara added. “We’ve always been an accepting bunch.”
“Different, how?” Kip asked from over by the window.
“Abby was African-American.” The shock of Jim’s words shot through Leslie, not because she cared about Abby’s race, but because her brother had always been so careful to behave conventionally. “The kids are biracial.”
“So?” Clara didn’t even blink. “They’re my grandchildren.”
She turned to Leslie then, grinning, tears in her eyes, her face pale. “I’m a grandma,” she said.
“Yes, you are,” Leslie told her, finding a smile for the woman she adored. Clara might not have protected Leslie in all the ways Leslie would’ve liked, but she’d been the best mother she could be. Leslie had never doubted that she was loved. Cared for. Supported.
“YOU SAID WAS.” Kip hadn’t yet found anything to smile about in the news they’d just been given. He needed facts.
And a night with a good woman. He didn’t need a five-year-old child. Didn’t know the first thing about raising children. Could hardly remember having been one himself.
Jim’s raised brow was his only response.
“You said this Abby woman was African-American. I’m assuming she didn’t have a racial transplant.”
He could feel both Sanderson women looking at him, but couldn’t meet their eyes. He could take care of them. But he couldn’t raise a little boy.
“Abby died shortly after Kayla was born.” Jim’s expression softened, his words low. “A gravel truck ran a red light. She died instantly.”
“So who’s watching the children?” Clara seemed to be handling the situation far better than he was. Leslie was completely still.
“A woman named Ada King. She was a friend of Abby’s mother, took Abby in when the mother died of cancer. Abby was only three. She’d been living with Abby since just before Jonathan was born. They owned a condominium in Westerville.”
It was a nice suburb, north of Columbus. Upper middle class.
“Did Cal live there, too?” Leslie sounded as though she couldn’t imagine her brother deserting his own kids.
Kip agreed with her. Cal cared. Maybe too much.
Jim shook his head. “From the little he told me, Abby wouldn’t agree to marry him, and wouldn’t let him live there. She’d had a hard life, needed her independence—and wasn’t willing to face society’s reactions to their union. She also said she wasn’t going to make her children’s lives harder by exposing them to the curious glances inherent in having parents from two different races. But I gather Calhoun spent a lot of time with them anyway. She and the kids were frequent visitors to his home in Gahanna as well.”
The room was warm, comfortable. The light blues in the upholstery and picture frames an easy contrast with the off-white walls. It was a room designed to put people at ease. To Kip it felt like prison. He sat back down.
“How old is Ada King?”
“Sixty-two.”
Still young enough to care for children. Kip nodded.
Clara leaned forward, both arms on the table in front of her. “Have you met her?”
Jim nodded. “She was at the funeral yesterday.”
Kip hadn’t seen a black woman there. “And the children?” Clara asked.
“They were there, too. In the back. Jonathan cried some. Kayla was asleep.”
“Oh, my God.” Leslie jolted beside him, and Kip wished he knew what she was thinking. Wondered if she felt anywhere near as trapped and inadequate as he did by the unexpected “gift” they’d both received.
“The poor little guy,” Leslie said. “First losing his mother, then his father…”
Kip’s entire body stiffened as unexpected, intense emotion grabbed hold of him. He’d just had a flashback, knew something about being a young boy, after all. He knew exactly how it felt, how utterly terrified he’d been when, a few days after his sixth birthday, they’d buried his mother.
“When can we see them?” Leslie and Clara asked almost simultaneously.
“Anytime you’d like, but there’s more that you should know first,” Jim said, his glasses back on his nose as he picked up some papers. “Calhoun left a generous sum of money for Ada, and with the rest he set up a trust for the kids.” He peered at Kip over the top of the wire frames. “Kip, you and Leslie are both named as trustees.”
The rope arou
nd Kip’s neck tightened, as he became responsible for more duties he hadn’t asked for and didn’t want.
Leslie glanced at him, her lips turned up in a tentative smile that failed to hide the panic in her eyes. Seeing her discomfort had an odd effect on him; it quieted his own sense of impending doom. He wasn’t alone here. Together he and Leslie would figure a way out.
“You said a temporary order could be issued immediately,” she said, her gaze back on the attorney. “Does that mean we could have immediate access to the kids?”
“It does.”
“What about Ada King?” The returning strength in Clara’s voice was a relief. “Does she know about us? About the will? Will she be resistant to our visit?”
Jim’s face broke into a grin for the first time since they’d entered the room. “Ada’s known about you all since the first time Abby brought Calhoun home. She knows about the will. Cal discussed it with her before he ever came to see me. After Abby died, Ada was willing to continue caring for the children as long as Calhoun was around to help. But I think that though she’s going to miss those children terribly, she’s relieved to know she won’t be raising them all by herself. I spoke with her the day after Cal’s accident. Kayla’s an active little thing and Ada’s getting old, can’t keep up. And she has a sister in Florida who’s invited Ada to share her retirement condo….”
Kip loosened the top button on the shirt that was sticking to his perspiring skin. Life just didn’t damn well work this way. A man didn’t get up in the morning, and find himself a parent three hours later. Raising children required knowledge he didn’t have. A man didn’t just take an orphan boy home with him and suddenly become equipped to father him.
The Promise of Christmas Page 2