Man With A Mission

“Well, what if you do?” Erica demanded in a tearful rush. “Nobody expected Daddy to die and he did. And you’re at risk!”

Jackie took Erica’s hand and led her back to the table, where she pushed two chairs together and lowered her onto one. “What do you mean, ‘at risk’? Where did you hear that?”

“Sarah Campbell’s mom’s a nurse. She was talking about it with Mrs. Powell at the Valentine’s Day party at school. Mrs. Campbell brought treats.” Erica drew an anxious breath. “All ladies over thirty are at risk of stuff going wrong when they have babies ’cause they’re really too old. You should only have babies when you’re young.”

Caught between the need to calm her daughter and the personal affront at being considered “old” at thirty-four, Jackie focused on soothing Erica.

“Honey, that just means that they take special care of you if you’re over thirty. Sometimes there’s a problem, but most babies and mothers come through the delivery safe and sound. And I’m not old enough to be that much at risk anyway.”

“Are you sure?” Erica looked worried. “You’re not as old as Grandpa or Addy Whitcomb, but you’re pretty old.”

And feeling older by the moment, Jackie thought. She went to the counter for a tissue and brought it back to Erica. “My last checkup at the doctor’s proved that the baby is growing perfectly, and I’m healthy as a horse. There is nothing to worry about.”

Erica swiped at her eyes and dabbed at her nose. “We didn’t know there was anything to worry about with Daddy.”

“That was a heart attack. My heart’s fine. My checkup was perfect, remember.”

“What would happen to us if you died?”

Jackie accepted that as a legitimate question and was grateful she was prepared for it. “When Daddy died and I found out I was pregnant, I put it in my will that if anything happened to me, you and Rachel and the baby would go and live with Haley.”

Erica brightened. Jackie tried not to be offended. “Really? And that’s okay with her?”

“Yes. And her new husband, too. She talked about it with him when they got married.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. So there’s nothing to worry about. Now, you’re not going to bump me off so you can go live with Haley, are you?”

Erica smiled—finally. “No. I was just worried. Brenda Harris’s dad left when she was little, then her mom died in a car accident, and she’s lived at a whole bunch of different places and hasn’t liked any of them. All the houses have different rules and new people you don’t know. I’d hate that.”

“So would I.” Jackie leaned forward to wrap her in a hug. “You don’t have to worry. I’ve got everything looked after.”

Jackie felt the strength of her daughter’s return hug. “Okay. Thanks, Mom.”

“Sure.”

Erica went upstairs to do her homework and Rachel came down to report that she was bathed. She stood in footed pink pajamas patterned with black-and-white Dalmatian puppies.

“When I’m grown up,” she said, dragging a stool over from the lunch bar that separated the kitchen from the dining room, “I’m going to wear one of those floaty nightgown things with the feathers around the neck and the bottom.” She had a predilection for “floaty things” that was fed by Glory’s love of old movies from the thirties and forties where the women wore glamorous nightclothes.

“I like those, too,” Jackie admitted, closing the door on the dishwasher and setting it to run. “How was your day?” she asked, wiping off the counters.

“Pretty good. Things are kinda dull in first grade. How was your day?”

Jackie rinsed off the sponge, squeezed it dry and propped it up behind the faucet. “Well, things are never dull at City Hall. Some new tenants moved into the basement offices today. One of them is a man the city just hired to take care of our electrical repairs. And his mom is going to work in his office some of the time, and guess who she is?”

“Who?”

“Mrs. Whitcomb.”

Rachel smiled. She loved Addy Whitcomb. “Does she do electric stuff?”

“No. She’s just going to answer the phones, take messages.”

“Erica’s not so mad at me anymore,” Rachel said, abruptly changing the subject.

“You shouldn’t have cut up her pillowcase. But it was good that you paid her for it.”

“I just didn’t think pigs and ducks would make a neat dress like the roses. Your plain blue ones weren’t very good either.”

Jackie frowned at the knowledge that one of her pillowcases had been considered.

The chiming clock in the living room sounded seven, time for Rachel’s favorite television show about castaway children on a tropical island. She leapt off the stool. “Gotta go, Mom. Castaway Kids is on!”

Jackie replaced the stool, looked around her tidy, quiet kitchen, and said a prayer of gratitude that though the evening had begun in crisis, they’d managed to turn it around. Another family miracle.

It was a fact of life, she thought, that raising two little girls was often more difficult than running a city of four thousand.

HANK DROVE HIS MOTHER HOME after dinner at the inn, grateful that Jackie hadn’t been working tonight. Running into her once had been all his good humor could handle.

Fortunately the electrical problem he’d encountered at City Hall this afternoon had been simply a blown fuse caused when his massage-therapist neighbor plugged in a faulty microwave. Once he’d found his flashlight, then the fuse box, the problem had been easily solved.

“I’ve got a girl for you,” Adeline said.

The problem of his mother was unfortunately less easily dealt with than electricity. Unlike other mothers, she didn’t beat around the bush or try subterfuge to fix him up with a date. She’d once brought a pizza and the daughter of a friend of hers to his apartment and left them there.

“Doris McIntyre’s niece is visiting for a couple of weeks from New York,” his mother said, “and she needs someone to show her around Maple Hill.”

“Mom, she can see it in a two-hour walk. One hour if she doesn’t go to the lake.”

“Hank, don’t be difficult.” She folded her arms and looked pugnaciously out the window at the dark night as they drove down the two-lane road to the lake. “I’m not getting any younger and I have yet to have one grandchild. Not one. Everyone else in the Quincy Quilters has at least one, most of them several. Bedelia Jones has eleven. I have none. Zero. Zilch. Na—”

“I got it, Mom,” he interrupted. “But I’m single. Shouldn’t you be speaking to Haley and Bart about giving you grandchildren? They’ve been married six months. Let them give you something to brag about at your quilting sessions.”

Adeline made a face. “They’re waiting.” She imbued the word with disappointment.

“For what?”

“They didn’t say, I didn’t ask.”

“So I’m the only one you interrogate?”

“You’re my firstborn.”

“That means I inherit everything you’ve got. It doesn’t mean you’re allowed to harass me.”

“Is wanting you to meet a good girl and settle down harassment?”