Muriel Jensen - Always Florence

“I’m glad you didn’t have kid feet in there,” Sheamus said.

She pinched his chin. “Me, too. They would have looked awful sticking out of my paper.”

Sheamus laughed infectiously.

Bobbie watched them walk across the yard to the big yellow Craftsman-style house next door, the man and the boy hand in hand, the dog lumbering along beside them. She smiled at the sight.

Nice, but not for her.

CHAPTER TWO

NATE LOOKED THROUGH the rack of Halloween costumes, spotted the bright red and blue, and triumphantly pulled out Spider-Man. They’d been to four stores, found Dylan’s Iron Man right away, but had been searching all afternoon for Sheamus’s choice. Everyone was now tired and grumpy.

Certain this find would change the mood, Nate was surprised when he held up the costume and turned around, only to discover Sheamus close to tears—again. Nate drew a breath for patience.

“I thought you wanted to be Spider-Man.”

“I want the one with the muscles.” Nate looked to Dylan for help. Dylan, holding the bag with his own costume in a death grip, reached up to a shelf of masks for a skull with a rubber snake crawling out of the mouth. “Would you lend me a hand here, please? What is Sheamus talking about?”

Dylan rolled his eyes, clearly disdainful of his uncle’s ignorance. “Some of the superhero costumes have built-in muscles. They’re more expensive.”

“Built-in muscles,” Nate repeated under his breath. What he needed was built-in patience and endurance.

A smiling older clerk gave him a sympathetic look. “Musclemen are over there.” She pointed to a long rack across the floor. A half dozen parents and children were rummaging through it.

Sheamus ran in that direction. Dylan shook his head. “He’s not going to be able to reach it. Then he’ll start crying again.”

“Why don’t you go help him,” Nate suggested, nerves frayed after the grueling afternoon, “instead of making fun of him?”

“Because he’s such a baby!”

Nate directed him toward Sheamus, who was already being pushed aside by older kids. “You find things hard sometimes, and he’s a lot younger than you are. You should try giving him a hand rather than telling him the neighbor is a witch who collects body parts of little kids.”

“Who’d believe that, anyway?”

“He’s seven, Dylan. And he’s scared.”

“So? Isn’t everybody scared?”

The profound question stopped Nate in his tracks, but the frantic shoving going on at the rack precluded a discussion. And Dylan had already wandered away, looking as though he regretted that admission.

Nate spotted all the red-and-blue costumes hung together, and reached for a small one at the same moment that a beautiful, pregnant young woman did. Prepared to fight her for it no matter how bad it made him look, he was relieved when she grasped another size instead. He yanked the small outfit off the rack and got down on one knee to hold it up against Sheamus. Stitched to create the appearance of muscles across the torso and along the arms, the costume brought a smile to the boy’s face. Sheamus wrapped his arms around Nate’s neck. “Thanks, Uncle Nate! We got it!”

“Great. Now we have to get candy for the trick-or-treaters.”

“How can we give out candy?” Dylan asked. “Aren’t we going to be at the Monster Bash?”

“Stella’s going to stay until we get back,” he said.

Nate cringed inwardly at the thought of the event. The city-sponsored Halloween celebration held in a Parks and Recreation building was intended to keep children safe while letting them enjoy a ghoulish experience. He heard it was an ordeal for parents, who often commiserated with each other about having to go.

There was a brief discussion over the merits of mini chocolate bars, small boxes of licorice and sour candy. Nate bought several bags of each.

“Can we get something to drink?” Dylan asked at the checkout. “I’m thirsty.”

“Sure.” Nate pictured a tall gin and tonic, but led the boys to the Starbucks on the other side of the store. “We shoulda brought the brownies with us,” Sheamus said on the drive home. “They would taste good with this.”

Nate found the boy’s reflection in the rearview mirror. Sheamus drew on the straw of his smoothie so hard that his thin cheeks sucked in. “We can have them for dessert tonight. Stella left us mac and cheese for dinner.”

Dylan grumbled. “She’s a really good cook, but I like the mac and cheese in the box better.” Then he asked seriously and without warning, “Do you think Bobbie had cancer?”

His older nephew’s out-of-the-blue observations never failed to surprise Nate. Mostly because they were usually on target.

“Her hair looks like a man’s. And she looks kind of like she has a bad cold. You know what I mean?”

Nate knew exactly what Dylan meant. Their neighbor had beautiful eyes, but they were a little soupy, as though she wasn’t quite well. And he, too, had wondered about her hair.

“Yes, I do. But we shouldn’t mention it unless she does.”

“She’s kind of skinny,” Sheamus contributed. “But I like her. We should have her over for dinner sometime. When Stella makes that Mexican stuff with the chicken and the corn chips.”

“Mexican chicken casserole.” Nate nodded. “I like that, too. But Bobbie has a lot of work to do. Especially after what happened today.” He let that hang in the air a moment for guilt effect. It was probably bad parenting, but he was just an ignorant bachelor pressed into service.

“She could come on game night,” Dylan suggested. Nate studied the boy, wondering why his nephew suddenly seemed keen on the woman. Could it have been the brownies? “When Hunter comes over to watch our big TV.”

Hunter had lost his own accounting business when his office manager embezzled from him, then disappeared. Hunter had liquidated all his assets to pay creditors and his employees, then moved into the Grand Apartments with a few pieces of furniture he’d saved, and an old television he’d bought at Goodwill. He loved coming over to watch big games and play-offs on Nate’s plasma TV.

“We’ll see how it goes.” Their neighbor had kindly given them brownies, but he couldn’t imagine she’d want any more to do with them.

“I don’t think she has a husband.” That was from Sheamus, who thought Nate needed a wife. Nate had explained over and over that he had more than he could handle with the two of them and the business, but the boys’ mother had been a wonderful, warm, funny woman, and Sheamus was trying hard to put those qualities back into his life. He didn’t realize that not all women were like Sherrie.

“I didn’t see a ring.” That was from Dylan, who enjoyed stirring things up.

“She could have a boyfriend.” Nate paused to sip at his coffee and thought longingly of that gin and tonic. “There’s no way of knowing that.”

“If she isn’t married to him,” Dylan said, “it doesn’t matter. She’s still available.”

“That’s a big word.”

“I’m a smart kid.”

“I don’t know. A smart kid would stop annoying me by trying to get me married off.”

Dylan met his eyes in the mirror, smiled grudgingly and the subject was dropped.

Nate pulled into their driveway, congratulating himself on a day that had turned out better than it had begun. He’d made peace with their neighbor, found the right costume for Sheamus and had a conversation with the boys that hadn’t ended in tears or with Dylan stomping away.

And they had brownies. All in all, a successful afternoon.

* * *

BOBBIE DUNKED AN English Breakfast tea bag into the hot water in her favorite pink mug and picked up her ringing phone. The caller ID read Molloy, D. J. She prepared herself to lie through her teeth.