Father to Be (18 page)

F
orty-six days.

That was the first thought that came into Caleb’s head when he awakened Saturday morning. Forty-six days since their father had kissed them all good-bye and driven away from the farm in his old truck. Forty-six days since he’d given his promise that he would be back just as soon as he could. Forty-six chances to keep that promise.

So far, forty-five broken promises.

Nobody believed he was coming back, not Grayson or the cops or the welfare lady, not Mrs. Larrabee or Miss Agatha or Miss Corinna. Sometimes not even Jacob, Noah, or Gracie believed it. Only Caleb always believed.

Did that mean he had more faith than the others?

Or that he was dumber?

After forty-five disappointments, he didn’t know.

He lay on his back and listened to the noises down the hall. The shrink was in the shower, which meant he was back from his run. He always came back in a good mood,
but it didn’t last. Not that he ever got mad and yelled at them or anythin’ like that. It was just the look he got on his face when he saw Caleb. Gracie didn’t get it, and neither did Noah or Jacob, but Caleb always did. It was a look of dislike.

Well, he didn’t care if Grayson liked him or not. In fact, he liked knowing that the shrink didn’t. He’d be glad to see the last of the shrink.

The water in the bathroom shut off, and a minute later the door opened. A couple of minutes after that, Grayson stuck his head in their room. Caleb lay still, pretending to be asleep.

“Come on, wake up, kids. It’s time to be up and about. We’re going to Harry’s for breakfast, and then we’re heading out to the house.”

“Who’s Harry?” Gracie mumbled from below.

“He owns the café downtown.”

That made her wake up completely, and Noah too. “You’re taking us to eat in a restaurant?” She asked as if he’d just offered something special.

Noah sounded that way too. “We never been in a restaurant before.”

Until last week, the children had eaten at one of two places—at school or at home. At school Jacob and Noah got free breakfasts and lunches. Caleb could have gotten ’em too, but he’d rather go hungry than let the kids who made fun of him see him eating for free.

“Nope, we never have.” That was Jacob, sitting up now in the other top bunk. Through slitted eyes Caleb saw him prepare to jump to the floor, but Grayson stopped him.

“Don’t do that. You could hurt yourself. Use the ladder.” He grabbed hold of Caleb’s covers and pulled them back. “Come on, Caleb. Quit playing possum and get up.”

Below, Gracie giggled. “Caleb’s not a possum.”

“It’s a figure of speech, Gracie,” the shrink explained. “It means pretending to be asleep or dead.”

“Maybe he’s really asleep,” she suggested.

“If he’s really asleep, then he won’t mind if I tuck him in and give him a kiss, will he?”

Gracie giggled again, and Noah did too as Grayson began pulling the covers back. When he got too close, Caleb’s eyes snapped open. Grayson was wearing that I-really-don’t-like-you look. He was trying to hide it, but Caleb recognized it.

Grayson took a few steps back. “I thought you were awake. Get up and get dressed so we can go.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Then you can sit and watch us eat.”

“I’m not gonna work for you today. You can’t make me. I’m not your slave.”

“I didn’t say a word about you working today. But you are going to the house with me, and you’re going to stay there while I work. Get moving.” He turned away to start making Jacob’s bed.

Caleb jumped to the floor, landing with as loud a clatter as he could manage. For a minute Grayson got all still and stiff, but he didn’t turn around, didn’t say a word. He just went back to making the bed.

Obviously, he wasn’t as worried about Caleb hurting himself as he was about Jacob.

They took turns in the bathroom, brushing their teeth, combing their hair, then got dressed. The kids put on new clothes, then went to the living room. Caleb stared into his open dresser drawer. He didn’t have any clothes there, at least, none of his own. They were all in the laundry, waiting to be washed. If he went anywhere today, he’d have to wear either dirty clothes or the clothes the shrink bought him.

Picking up a pair of shorts that still had the price tag on
it, he rubbed the denim, then sniffed the new-clothes smell. Like the kids, he’d never had any new clothes all his own that he could remember. Even though he’d swore he wouldn’t wear them ’cause they came from
him
, they’d sure felt good when he’d tried them on in the store. He’d looked real different too. Nobody who didn’t know him would look at him in those clothes and figure his family was poor.

He curled his fingers around the price tag and yanked it off, then thrust his legs into the shorts. Just this one time, it would be all right to wear these.

Just this one time he could look like every other kid in town, even if everybody knew he wasn’t.

When he went into the living room, the others were all waiting. Grayson looked at him as if he wanted to say something about the clothes, but he didn’t. He just jangled his keys and said, “Let’s go.”

Caleb had seen Harry’s Diner plenty of times, but he’d never been inside. There’d never been enough money, not even when his dad was around. Not even when his mother was there. The shrink had lots of money. He didn’t work nearly as hard as Caleb’s dad did, but he got paid a whole lot more. It wasn’t fair.

But Caleb quit thinking life was fair a long time ago.

Everybody in the café said hello to the shrink. There was even a booth with a cup of coffee waiting for him. It wasn’t big enough for all five of them though, so he moved the coffee to a bigger one, a round one in the corner.

“Mornin’, J.D.” The waitress set down a stack of menus, pulled a pencil from her hair and a pad from her pocket, then smiled. “My, my, what a good-looking bunch you are. I’m Maeve, and I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Reluctantly, Caleb shook hands with her and mumbled his name. The other kids did the same.

“Three handsome young men and the prettiest girl I’ve seen in a long time,” she said, still wearing that big smile. “J.D., you are a lucky man.”

Yeah, right, Caleb thought with a scowl.

“What can I get for you? Let’s start with you, Gracie.”

“Do you have pancakes?”

“Yes, ma’am, we do. The best pancakes in town.”

“I want free, please.” Gracie held up four fingers, and Caleb folded one down.

“It’s
three
, not
free
,” he corrected her in a hushed voice.

She gave him her stubborn look. “I like free. Free pancakes, please.”

Maeve turned her smile on him. “What about you, Caleb? What would you like?”

He’d told Grayson he wasn’t hungry, and he’d meant not to eat to prove it. But the smells coming from the kitchen were too good, and he wasn’t sure he could sit there and watch them eat without his mouth watering. But he also wasn’t sure he could back down in front of the shrink. If he ate now, Grayson would know he’d lied and he would get that look again.

“Well, honey?” the waitress asked.

Across the table, Grayson spoke. “Caleb isn’t sure he has an appetite this morning. Why don’t you see if Harry’s got anything back there to tempt him, Maeve?”

“I’ll bring you the special, Caleb,” she said with a grin and a wink. “It’ll put some meat on your bones for sure.”

Noah ordered pancakes and bacon, and Gracie asked for bacon too. Jacob ordered eggs and toast, and Gracie asked for toast too. When Grayson ordered the special with ham, she opened her mouth to call after the waitress, but he stopped her with a raised hand. “No, you cannot have
ham too. If you eat everything you ordered, it’ll take all four of us to carry you out.”

“Gracie’s a little piggy,” Jacob teased, until Caleb poked him.

“I’m not a pig,” she argued. “What I don’t eat, I can take home for later. You know, for if we need it.”

Now it was her turn to get poked. The food in the closet was a secret, for emergencies. If Grayson knew, he’d take it all away and they wouldn’t have anythin’ when they needed it.

“You’re not going to need it, Gracie,” the shrink said. “No matter what happens, you’re always going to have enough food.”

She shook her head sadly. “We been hungry before.”

“But you won’t be again. I promise.”

Shaking her head again, she snuggled closer to Caleb. “Our daddy promised to come back and get us, but he didn’t. Caleb promised to take care of us and not let nobody find us, and we got finded. And our mama promised she would love us forever, but Noah and me, we don’t even remember what she looked like.”

Everyone who’d made her a promise had let her down, including Caleb. It made him feel empty inside. He’d done his best, but it wasn’t good enough. Like his dad’s best hadn’t been enough either.

Grayson signaled the waitress, who came over with her arms full of plates. “Maeve, would Harry let me run a tab here?”

“Well, we don’t normally do that, but …” She grinned. “Anything for you, Doc. You want this morning’s check put on a tab?”

“No, this one’s not for me. If any of the kids ever comes in here wanting a meal, give them whatever they want and put it on my tab.” He looked across the table. “Do you understand what that means, Gracie?”

She shook her head.

“It means that anytime you’re hungry, you can come here and Maeve will feed you.”

Her eyes opened wide. “For free?”

“For free.”

“For how long?”

“Forever. I promise.”

She fell for it. So did Noah, and maybe even Jacob. Caleb didn’t. He knew Grayson was a liar, knew it was just a trick. If any one of them came here asking for food after they’d moved out of his house, they might get it, ’cause Maeve seemed like a real nice woman, but the shrink wouldn’t be paying for it. Once they’d moved out of his house, he would forget that they’d ever existed, and he would forget about his promise.

And they would forget him too. Caleb swore they would.

S
unday morning’s church service was well under way when Kelsey slipped into the last pew. Attending church was no longer a routine part of her life, though it had been when she was growing up. Every Sunday she and Steph had shared a pew directly behind their parents. They’d gone to the same Sunday school class, had both sung alto in the choir, and had passed notes and played silent games during long, uninspired sermons.

Then Steph had died. Kelsey attended her funeral, but she hadn’t set foot inside a church for a regular service since. Yet here she was today, in panty hose and heels on a warm Sunday morning, and she wasn’t even sure why. She should be home cleaning the apartment or maybe taking a lovely drive through the countryside. She could be reading the book on her night table or window shopping at all
those quaint little shops downtown. She belonged anywhere but here, doing anything but this.

Partway through the sermon she slipped out again. She hoped no one had seen her, but if someone had, she could always say she’d been paged. In her job that could—and did—happen at all hours of the day, and no one, with the possible exception of J.D., was likely to call her on it.

Lying about church. Kathleen Malone would be ashamed that the thought had even occurred to her daughter, and mortified that she might actually follow through. She’d raised Kelsey better than that, but while her faith had remained strong, Kelsey’s had waned. Of course, her mother hadn’t seen the things Kelsey had seen, hadn’t lived with the guilt that haunted her every day.

Please, God, make sure she never would.

She had cleared the heavy carved doors and was on her way down the steps, when a young woman greeted her. Her face was vaguely familiar, although no name came to mind. Then Kelsey remembered where they’d met—at the hospital her first day on the job. The woman was the younger of the two volunteers she’d spoken with, the one with the straight hair that made her own curls look more disorderly than ever. Instead of her volunteer’s lavender lab coat, today she wore a sleeveless dress in vibrant red, and her hair was done up in a soft style that exposed her neck.

“Sometimes the Reverend Howard does go on,” the woman said, “but he usually doesn’t send the parishioners flying from the church. You must be in a hurry to get where you’re going. And where would that be on a beautiful day like today?”

Kelsey opened her mouth, but the lie wouldn’t come. Maybe Kathleen had raised her even better than she’d realized. Sighing, she shook her head. “Nowhere.”

“Ah. So maybe you weren’t in a hurry to get somewhere—rather, in a hurry to leave somewhere.” She
smiled warmly. “You’re the new social worker. Kelsey, isn’t it?”

Kelsey nodded.

“How do you like Bethlehem? It’s a wonderful place, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. I’m going to be very happy here.”

“Going to be? So you’re not now?”

“I’m perfectly happy.” Most of the time.

“You’re meeting people? Making friends?”

“Yes. Everyone’s been very nice.”

“I’m sure they have. Bethlehem’s a community in the true sense of the word. They believe in sharing the Christmas spirit year-round.”

The woman sat down on a concrete bench and patted it in invitation. Kelsey wanted to say
No, thanks, I’m in a hurry, remember
? But somehow that seemed rude. Though was it any ruder than a stranger demanding her time? her devil asked. Still, she didn’t want to be rude on the church steps on a Sunday morning. With a glance at her watch she sank onto the sun-warmed bench. She could spare a few minutes and still be on the other side of town when the church service ended.

“Are you a regular here?” she asked, wondering why the woman wasn’t inside with the faithful.

“Oh, I can be found here virtually anytime,” the woman said with a laugh. “Whether the doors are open or not. I understand you come from New York City. Why such a big change?”

“I wanted to work someplace where I could really make a difference.”

“Don’t you think you were making a difference in the city? Surely there were people you helped, children you protected, lives you saved.”

Kelsey gazed up, her attention drawn to a stained glass window of Jesus with children drawn around. She
had
done some good in the city, but she’d had failures too. She’d been to too many trials, too many funerals. In a small town, she figured, she stood a better chance, with less bureaucracy, more caring neighbors, a community looking out for its own.