Father Of The Brood. Elizabeth Bevarly

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      Mickey scrambled up onto her bed and began to remove things from her duffel bag, inspecting each item as if it were the most fascinating scientific specimen he’d ever had the good fortune to encounter. “Where are you going?” he asked.

      They’d been through this a million times already, so Annie had the routine down pat. She continued to pack as she obediently replied, “Cape May.”

      “That’s in New Jersey, isn’t it?”

      She nodded again. “Yes.”

      “And New Jersey is across the river, isn’t it?”

      “Yes.”

      He grinned, clearly pleased to be able to show her just how much he knew of the world. Then he plucked a pair of her socks out of the duffel, unrolled them and asked, “How long will you be gone?”

      “I’ll be back Sunday night.”

      “When will you be leaving?”

      “Saturday morning.”

      “That’s tomorrow, right?”

      “Right.”

      “Who are you going with?”

      “A friend.”

      “His name is Ike, right?”

      “Right.”

      “And he lives in Philadelphia, like we do, right?”

      “Right.”

      “Are you going to marry him?”

      Annie stopped packing and gaped at Mickey. Well, that was a question that hadn’t cropped up in their earlier interviews. Where on earth had he picked up an interest in marriage?

      “Why would you think I was going to marry him?” she asked cautiously.

      “Cause that’s what grown-ups do, isn’t it? Molly says when you grow up and become an adult you have to get married. It’s the law.”

      “Molly said that, did she?”

      Mickey nodded furiously. “And she’s older than me, so she knows what she’s talking about.”

      Annie bit her lip. “Um, Molly’s only seven, Mickey. She’s not that much older than you.”

      “But she said grown-ups—”

      “Not all grown-ups get married,” Annie interrupted him gently. “Only the ones who fall in love.”

      The little boy thought about that for a moment, then asked, “Are you going to fall in love with Ike?”

      She chuckled. “I can safely say no to that.”

      “Why not?”

      She ruffled his hair. “Because he’s not my type, kiddo.”

      “What’s your type?”

      Annie thought about her husband. She recalled Mark’s unruly black hair and bittersweet chocolate eyes, his tattered jeans and sweatshirts, and how much he loved coaching little league baseball. She remembered how he had always talked back to the network news and secretly devoured true-crime books. She smiled as she reminisced about his expertise in bandaging scraped knees so the BandAid wouldn’t pull, and about how he could bake absolutely perfect Toll-House cookies. And she realized she would never, not in a million years, meet another man like him.

      “I don’t have a type, Mickey,” she said wistfully, “Not anymore.”

      Mickey nodded his approval. “Good. Because when I grow up, I’m going to marry you.”

      She smiled and bent to place a quick peck on his forehead. “Okay, palomino. I’ll wait for you.”

      As quickly as he had taken an interest in her activities, the little boy’s fascination abated. “I’m going outside,” he announced as he launched himself off the bed. “See ya.”

      Annie watched him leave, marveling that such a sweet kid had come out of such a crummy situation. She knew she had no business picking favorites when she had ten kids ranging in age from six to sixteen living under her roof. But Mickey Reeser was Annie’s favorite. No question about it.

      She stuffed the last of her toiletries into the well-worn, army green duffel bag that had belonged to her husband, then placed it by her bedroom door. It was going to be a lousy weekend, she thought. Not only was she going to be spending it with someone she had no desire to get to know better, but she always became anxious when she had to leave her kids for any length of time.

      True, she had two graduate students from local universities who volunteered part-time to help her out. But Annie was the one responsible for the children at Homestead House. She was the only human being in the world who was there for them twenty-four hours a day. She didn’t like being gone overnight, even if Nancy and Jamal, her two volunteers, would be staying at the house with the kids. She just didn’t feel right being away. She didn’t feel as if she were being a good mother.

      And although she reminded herself over and over again that she wasn’t anyone’s mother, she couldn’t help but to have fallen into the role. The children of Homestead House had no parents or families, either because they had been orphaned or abandoned or worse. Annie was it for them. She was their mother, father, sister and brother. She was their role model, their caretaker, their rock. She was all they had in a world that had turned its back on them. And she didn’t like leaving them alone.

      Nevertheless, she reassured herself, it was only a weekend. Two days and one night that were of no consequence whatever in the scheme of things. And what could one simple weekend possibly do to screw up her very satisfying life-style?

      Annie hummed as she closed her door behind her and headed down the stairs, an old Cat Stevens tune about the wild world. She decided not to dwell on the couple of days she’d be spending with Isaac Guthrie, prominent architect and indecent bachelor. Instead, she thought, she’d just look forward to Monday morning.

      When her life would return to normal.

      

      Ike glanced down at the piece of paper he had tossed onto the passenger seat when he’d climbed into his car that morning, then looked up at the red brick building again. Yep, this was the correct address all right. Though the place hardly looked habitable to him. There were bars on all the first story windows and a security door that was, at the moment, thrown open in welcome. The paint on the front shutters and door frame was stained and peeling, and what was left of the front stoop was a cracked, crumbling mass of concrete. A simple metal plaque affixed to the brick beside the front door read, Homestead House. And like everything else about the place, it looked old, tired and overused.

      In contrast to the decay of the building—or perhaps in spite of it, Ike thought wryly—a bright cache of well-tended marigolds, petunias and geraniums had sprouted along the walkway that led to the sidewalk and street. They bestowed a certain humanity on the building it wouldn’t have claimed otherwise, and he couldn’t help but smile. The sky providing a backdrop СКАЧАТЬ