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“Thanks for being so patient with Sam.”
“No, you thank him for being so patient with me.”
“Sam forgets strangers sometimes have trouble understanding his speech. His world is still small enough that, thankfully, it hasn’t been a big problem yet.”
“Do you all know sign language?” She shouldn’t be having this conversation. She shouldn’t be giving in to the urge to learn more about him. She should be shaking his hand and picking up her backpack, then climbing into her car and driving out of town.
“Some of his friends are learning a few words and phrases. It’s not just a translation of English words into ASL—American Sign Language—like most hearing people think. It’s a complete language, with French derivation. The sentences are constructed differently from English. It’s confusing sometimes. He’s in regular classes at school, and none of his teachers have had the time to learn sign. His speech therapist uses it. Granddad and I sign with him, but mostly we encourage him to read lips. Actually, it’s something of a controversy in the deaf world. To sign or to speak.”
“I wasn’t aware of that.”
He raked his hand through his hair and turned back to the windows for a moment. “It’s probably more than you wanted to know.”
“I’m not that shallow,” she defended herself, and was again surprised how much his good opinion of her mattered. “I just haven’t had much contact with hearing-impaired people. And none with hearing-impaired children.” She smoothed a hand over her stomach. “Was Sam born with his handicap?”
Mirch had turned back in time to see her instinctive protective gesture, and he raised his eyes to hers. “It’s the result of an illness when he was two. It was just one of those things that happen from time to time. No one’s fault.”
“He seems happy and well-adjusted. You and his mother must be very proud of him.”
“I’m divorced. His mother hasn’t seen him in sixteen months.”
“Oh. I…I’m sorry.” Now she really had to go. They were moving into personal territory. She was a private person. She didn’t talk like this to strangers. He seemed uncomfortable, too.
“And you don’t want to hear about that, either. Look, I’m keeping you from being on your way. The fog will be gone in an hour. It’s probably already lifted east of town. I have to get the store opened. My manager quit to take a job with one of the big chain hardwares. I’ve got to interview a couple of temp workers today.” He’d channeled the subject away from Sam’s mother with deliberate intent. The hard set of his face told her no questions about his ex-wife would be welcome.
“I worked in one of those stores for four and a half years,” Tessa said.
“You did?”
“Uh-huh. While I worked my way through college. I’m a history major. I…I would have graduated in the spring.” But now in the spring she would be taking care of her baby and trying to find a job and some sort of day care. Day care. Leaving her baby with strangers. The thought squeezed her heart.
“I would never have pegged you for a history major.” Mitch shoved his hands in the front pockets of his khakis and took a step toward her. He seemed to fill the small room, and Tessa fought against the impulse to take a matching step backward.
“Twentieth-century history,” she responded. “I had visions of getting my master’s and teaching. High school, maybe junior college. But—” She shut her mouth with a snap. There she was, confiding in him again! “But now I have my baby to think about, and making a home for the two of us comes ahead of getting my degree.”
“What about the baby’s father?”
“I don’t know how dependable he’s going to be. So I’m not going to depend on him at all.” Her chin came up a little and she looked him square in the eye. Somehow she couldn’t envision any woman ever having to admit that about Mitch.
“How about a job?” Mitch surprised her by asking, one corner of his mouth turning up in a rueful grin. “A temporary job at Sterling Hardware and Building Supply.”
“What?”
“I was going to pay the temp service eleven bucks an hour so they could give some poor guy seven and a half. I’ll give you the same. Eleven, I mean. Not seven-fifty.”
Almost five hundred dollars a week. She needed the money badly. But staying in Riverbend, even a couple of weeks, wasn’t part of her new life plan. A plan as carefully worked out as she could make it. Nothing left to chance. No impulsive decisions. No acting on her instincts, which had proved so wrong, ever again. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t possibly.”
“Sure you could. What department did you work in at your old job? Paint and wallpaper?”
“I was the assistant manager,” she said a little sharply. “And I was the head of plumbing and electrical before that.”
“Sorry, sexist remark,” Mitch said with a grin guaranteed to melt a harder heart than hers. “I ought to know better. My grandmother and mother both knew more about the hardware business than I ever will. What do you say? It would help us both out. The son of a friend of mine, Mel Holloway, is getting out of the army just before Thanksgiving. I promised to give him an interview if the job’s still open. I’d like to help the kid out. We need new blood in town. But until then I’m strapped. What do you say? It’d give you a little nest egg for your baby. And get me out of a bind.”
“I don’t have a place to stay.”
“You can stay right here in the boathouse. The place is winterized. It’s small, but it’s got everything you need.” She was tempted. Oh, so tempted. A few more weeks of independence, of not having to disrupt her sister Callie’s household and routines. Of not being beholden to anyone. She was in danger of acting on impulse again. She’d heeded just such an overwhelming urge when she followed Brian to California. And look where that had gotten her.
“I can’t. I have to get to my sister’s. I have to find an obstetrician. I have to establish residence.” So she could go on welfare. The words hung there unspoken between them. She felt her face grow warm. “It just wouldn’t work out.”
“Dad!” Sam’s shout from the driveway cut through the tension in the little room. “It’s time to go.”
“I have to leave.” Mitch came a little closer. “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you want. But promise me you won’t go before the fog lifts.”
“I promise.”
“Drive safely, Tessa.”
He held out his hand. For a wild moment she hoped he would try again to talk her into staying and taking the job in his store. But he didn’t say anything more. He just stood there waiting, with his hand out.
She took it. “Thank you for everything, Mitch. Goodbye.”
CHAPTER FOUR
FOR THE PAST HALF HOUR Harvey Medford had been debating the pros and cons of buying a new lawn mower now, while Mitch had them at rock-bottom prices, or waiting until spring, when he really needed one.
“My old one probably has a good couple of Saturday afternoons left in her,” he said, taking off his green John Deere cap to scratch his bald head. “It’s already coming on to the middle of October. Supposed to get a hard frost end of the week. Probably won’t have to mow again at all this year.”
“Might not,” Mitch agreed, laying both hands on the big lawn tractor, leaning his full weight on the sturdy housing, a gesture not lost on his potential customer. “Then again, it might stay warm for another couple weeks. You never can tell about the weather this time of year. Grass will grow some with this rain we’re getting.”
“You’re right there.” Harvey continued to ruminate, running gnarled fingers over the two-day stubble on his chin. He moved his cud of chewing tobacco from one cheek to the other, and Mitch couldn’t help but think how much the old man looked like one of his prize milk cows.
“You got nearly two acres all told to mow, Harvey. You won’t get this good a deal on next year’s model in the spring.” Mitch didn’t let the slightest hint of impatience show in his voice or on his face. Dickering a little was part of the ritual of buying from the hometown merchants. If Harvey had wanted to plunk down cash for a lawn tractor without any conversation to go with it, he’d have gone to one of the big chain stores.
“I’ll tell you what, Harvey. It’s worth another twenty-five dollars to me not to have to store this baby over the winter. I’ll give you as good a deal as you’ll get anywhere on the snowplow attachment. And if it does up and freeze next week, you can run her over the yard and chop up the leaves so they blow over onto Roger Nickels’s place.”
Harvey’s rheumy blue eyes shone with a wicked light. He and his neighbor hadn’t spoken a civil word to each other since Mitch was in grade school. No one in town remembered what had caused the falling-out. Maybe not even Roger and Harvey. No one knew or cared anymore. But they respected the old codgers’ right to carry on their feud. “You got a deal,” Harvey said, then held out his hand. “Darned if you don’t drive near as hard a bargain as your granddad.”
“Who do you think taught him what he knows?” Caleb said, coming up to them. “I’ll write up the bill for Harvey’s mower, Mitch. There’s someone wants to talk to you in the office.”
“Thanks, Granddad.” Probably another salesman, although Mitch didn’t remember having any on his appointment schedule for this morning. He really had to get some more help. Too many things like this were falling through the cracks since Larry had quit.
His office was in the oldest part of the building. It was situated at the top of a flight of stairs, open to a view of the sales area below. The walls were bare brick, the ceiling beaten tin in a wheat-and-sheaves pattern that was worth its weight in gold these days. It was still up there on the ceiling, but not because his granddad or his father, or even Mitch himself, had known there was going to be a revival of such things. It was there because when times were bad, remodeling the office was the last place to spend scarce capital. And when business was good, like now, there wasn’t time.
Mitch took the stairs two at a time and looked over the half wall, expecting to see a copper-tubing salesman or the guy who sold the new brand of tools. Both were due to call in the next week or so. Mitch figured they’d just gotten into town ahead of schedule.
But the figure seated in the chair beside his desk wasn’t a salesman. It wasn’t a man at all. It was a woman. A pregnant woman.
Tessa Masterson rose to greet him. “Hi,” she said with that smile of hers, half shy little girl, half siren. The image had stuck in his mind like a burr since yesterday.
“I thought you’d be halfway to Ohio by now.” He didn’t smile back. He’d spent the last three hours attempting to forget he’d ever seen that smile or the woman who wore it.
He’d taken Sam to school the long way around when the fog lifted. He’d been determined to eat lunch at the Sunnyside Café and not go home to let the dog out, in case she was still there. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t set foot in the boathouse until her scent had dissipated and the imprint of her head on the pillow was gone.
Her smile faded as she regarded him. She tugged nervously at the hem of the fuzzy sweater she wore over her denim jumper. Today her blouse was lime green. A bright cheerful color, he supposed. But somehow it only served to underscore the paleness of her skin and the dark bruiselike smudges of fatigue that shadowed her blue eyes.
“I came to see if the offer of a job is still open,” she said.
“I still need help,” Mitch admitted. “That hasn’t changed since this morning. But since you’re here, I’m figuring you’ve changed your mind about taking it. Why?”
“It’s a woman’s prerogative, changing her mind.” He walked to his desk and rounded it, facing her across the cluttered expanse of scarred walnut. “Not in this day and age.”
“You’re right.” She took a quick little breath and spoke in a rush, as though she was afraid she’d lose her nerve. “I wanted to say yes this morning, but I needed to consider my options.”
“You weren’t prepared to act on impulse.”
Her chin rose a little and her eyes narrowed. Then she nodded. “Exactly.”
“I can understand that.” He motioned for her to take a seat. She lowered herself carefully into the chair. She wasn’t clumsy in her pregnancy, but neither had Kara been until the end. He wondered exactly how pregnant Tessa Masterson was.
“I’ve learned the hard way not to walk into a situation without both eyes wide open,” she said, and he thought he heard sadness, laced with an undercurrent of resignation, in her voice. She looked past him for a moment, as though his scrutiny had made her uncomfortable. He didn’t fool himself that she was looking at the Riverbend Farmers’ Co-op calendar hanging on the wall behind him.
He waited for her to go on. It was quiet in the office area. Linda Christman, the bookkeeper, had gone to lunch. His granddad was still chewing the fat with Harvey. Someone was loading lumber out in the yard. He could hear Bill Webber’s amplified voice calling for the yard boy to bring up the forklift. But Tessa took her time, ordering her thoughts, or gathering her courage, or both.
“I had every intention of leaving town this morning. But as I said, circumstances have changed. I called my sister from the phone booth in front of the courthouse. My nieces have been exposed to chicken pox. I’ve never had chicken pox.” She was looking at him again, not past him, and he didn’t have to guess about the emotion in her cornflower-blue eyes. It was plain to read. Fear. Not for herself but for her unborn child. “I can’t take the chance of catching it from the girls and risk harming my baby.”
Mitch nodded his agreement.
“I would have to find someplace to stay if I go on to Albany. I need money badly. Another job like this one isn’t going to fall into my lap.” She gave him another little half smile. “Not that I have much of a lap left these days.”
He liked that about her, too. Her determination to see the lighter side of things.
“So you decided to stick around Riverbend as an informed choice and not on impulse. I’d probably do the same thing if I were in your shoes.”
“I can’t promise you how long I’ll stay. My baby’s due the middle of December. I need to be settled in Albany and to have found an obstetrician before then.”
“What will you do about prenatal care while you’re here?”
“I have my medical records with me. I saw my old doctor just a week ago. I’m healthy. But…”
“One of the docs at the hospital is a friend of mine. I’ll give her a call and set you up with an appointment.”
Her lips tightened almost imperceptibly, and her eyes sparkled with challenge. For a moment he thought she’d refuse his offer. But in the end she swallowed her pride. “Thank you. Does that mean I get the job?”
“I’m as desperate as you are, Tessa. I’m making an informed choice, too. Yes, the job’s yours for as long as you care to stay. The apartment above the boathouse, too. Just like I told you this morning.”
“I won’t stay there for nothing. I’ll pay fair rent. Is a hundred dollars a week enough?”
Mitch snorted. He couldn’t help himself. For a moment the fear was back in her eyes and he was immediately sorry. She probably figured he was going to ask for more. “This isn’t California. Three-bedroom houses might rent for a hundred dollars a week in these parts, but not the boathouse. I’ll tell you what. I can’t offer you any benefits. My insurance carrier won’t cover you until you’ve worked here for six months. And they won’t cover your pregnancy even then.”
“I understand that.”
“Consider the use of the apartment the only fringe benefit I can offer.”
“I—”
“Take it or leave it.”
Once more she surprised him, this time by not arguing. “I’ll take it. Providing I can start work as soon as possible.”
“First thing tomorrow.” Mitch stood up. She did, too, and he motioned with his hand for her to precede him down the stairs.
She stayed put. “I want to start today. Now. Or the deal’s off.”
“You drive a hard bargain.” He didn’t want to push her any further, or she might bolt and run. She was going to be staying in Riverbend for at least a couple of weeks. He felt like a kid who had made a wish on a star and had it come true.
The only thing he had to remember now was not to get too close to that star, or he might find himself blinded by the brightness.
“SHE’S GOING to be staying in the boathouse,” Caleb told Sam as they were setting the table for supper. He stopped putting down forks and spoons so that Sam could watch his lips. “She’s going to work at the hardware for a couple of weeks.”
“To help you and Dad.”
“That’s the idea.” His great-grandfather’s lips were pulled into a tight line. That meant he wasn’t happy.
“It’s hard working at the store,” Sam said. “She’s going to have a baby. Should she be doing that work?” He’d noticed she was pregnant right away. It was pretty hard to miss.
“Having a baby is a natural thing. As long as we don’t let her lift anything too heavy, she’ll be okay.”
“Where’s her husband?” Sam set a glass of water by Caleb’s plate. He didn’t sign much with his great-grandfather. Caleb’s arthritis was too bad.
“I don’t know she has one.”
“Why not?” The pregnant ladies he knew in Riverbend had husbands.
“Haven’t got the foggiest notion why not.” The old man shook his head and frowned. “The world’s changing fast. In my day a pregnant woman didn’t go gallivanting around the country by herself. She stayed home and let her husband take care of her. Women don’t think they need husbands to raise kids these days, more’s the pity.”
Sam couldn’t catch all the words. Caleb liked to ramble on to himself, and he didn’t always remember to look at Sam while he did it. Granddad Caleb was losing his hearing, too. Pretty soon, he said, he and Sam would be in the same boat.
Except Granddad Caleb had been able to hear things all his life. He didn’t have to guess what a bird singing sounded like. He didn’t have to wear a hearing aid and use an augmenter in class and feel like a geek.
“She’s pretty,” Sam said. “Her hair’s the same color as Mom’s.”
“She doesn’t look anything like your mother.” Caleb rounded on him with narrowed eyes. With his big nose and white hair, he looked just like an eagle when he did that.
“I know. Mom’s shorter than her. And skinnier.”
“Yeah, I guess she does have the same color hair now that I think on it. But that’s all they’ve got in common, I hope.” Caleb turned away as he said the last words so that Sam wouldn’t see him. But he was too slow. Granddad Caleb didn’t like Sam’s mom. He’d never said so out loud, but Sam knew. He couldn’t hear everything people said, but he was pretty good at figuring out what they didn’t say.
“I hope she stays awhile. If she helps out at the store, maybe you and Dad won’t be so busy all the time.” He was worried that if he made the basketball team this year, his dad would always be working and never be able to get to the after-school games.
“It would be nice to slow down a bit. But your dad up and hiring a woman practically off the street isn’t my idea of the way to go about it. I don’t see any good coming of this.” Caleb saw him watching his lips and abruptly stopped talking. He motioned to the refrigerator. Sam took his cue and went to get the sliced ham and homemade baked beans that Granddad Caleb’s friends Ruth and Rachel Steele had brought over for them two days ago. They’d also brought an apple pie. But that hadn’t lasted long.
“Do you suppose she knows how to bake apple pies?”
Caleb shrugged, looking at the clock. “Danged if I know. Probably not. Women these days don’t like to cook no better’n men.”
“Dad’s a good cook.”
“By necessity, not temperament.”
Sam wasn’t sure what his great-grandfather was talking about. “What’s temperament mean?” He tried hard, but he knew he didn’t get it right. Sam sighed. Another word to add to his practice list with his therapist.
“I’ll explain later. Let’s eat. It’s been a long time since I had my lunch.”
“Do you suppose the lady in the boathouse has anything to eat for supper?” He’d seen her red car drive in a little while ago. He could see lights in the boathouse from the kitchen window.
“I reckon she got herself all this way from California, she can find her way to the grocery and buy some food.”
“And milk for her baby. I know that women who are going to have babies are supposed to drink a lot of milk so their babies are big and strong.”
“Who told you that?”
“Tara Webber’s stepmom had a baby last spring, remember? She told me.”
A lot of his friends’ moms were having babies. He wouldn’t mind a baby brother or sister himself. Except his mom didn’t live with them anymore. He could hardly remember when she had. She’d moved to Chicago so long ago. Chicago wasn’t all that far away. He’d looked it up on the map once. But she hadn’t been back to Riverbend since a year ago last Fourth of July. She hadn’t even called him on the phone for weeks and weeks. Not even since he’d got his own phone. The one with the special earphones so that he could really hear her voice.
She didn’t have a computer, so he couldn’t e-mail her. She said she’d get one if his dad sent her the money. She said she couldn’t afford to buy one on her own, and she wasn’t allowed to e-mail him from work. Sam wanted to believe her. But the truth was, his dad did send her money, and she always had something else to spend it on.
He was almost getting used to it—his mom not doing what she said she was going to do didn’t hurt so much anymore. Most of the time. But it would be nice to have a mom again. If he couldn’t have his own mom come back to live with them, maybe his dad could find another woman to be his mom.
Sam bent his head and pretended to study the piece of ham on his plate. Only he really wasn’t checking out the fat on the edge of his ham slice. He was thinking. Thinking real hard.
His dad must like the lady in the boathouse. If he liked her some, maybe he could learn to like her a lot. And if he liked her a lot…well, wasn’t that how grown-ups sometimes fell in love?
When Sam’s mom had first left, he hadn’t wanted his dad to have any girlfriends. He figured if his dad had a girlfriend, then his mom would never come back. But as a guy got older he saw things differently. In January he would be eleven. Practically a teenager. Almost a grown-up. He could share his dad now. With the right woman. Maybe Tessa was the right woman.
She didn’t have a husband, as far as Sam could tell.
And she was already going to have a baby.
That was good, too.
Once, just before his mom left, he’d come into the room while she was arguing with his dad. Her face was all red and scrunched up like it got when she was going to cry. His dad had seen him and tried to make her be quiet, but she wouldn’t. Sam was getting pretty good at reading lips by then, and he’d seen what she was saying before she figured out he was there. Sam had never forgotten that one sentence. She’d said, No more babies, Mitch. No more babies like Sam.
But Tessa’s baby wouldn’t be like him. Her baby would be able to hear.
Tessa didn’t have a husband. His dad didn’t have a wife. And Sam didn’t have a mom, or a baby brother or sister. If he could get his dad and Tessa together, he’d have everything he needed to make a family again.
CHAPTER FIVE
“I DON’T KNOW, Ruth. I can’t decide whether I want stripes or a floral pattern in the bathroom. I wish you’d tell me which you like best.”
“I don’t think stripes will work, Rachel,” said Rachel’s twin sister in a tone of long suffering. “The house is as old as we are and the walls aren’t all that straight.” The two women sat surrounded by sample books at the old-fashioned oak library table in the middle of the hardware store.
Rachel pursed her pink lips. “But this one is so pretty.”
Everything about the two old ladies, Tessa had noticed, was pink and white. From the tops of their curly white heads to the tips of their toes.