Carolyne Aarsen - The Matchmaking Pact

And threaded through this all was the slim hope that one day her grandmother would grant her scarce approval, turning to Josie with a smile instead of her habitual scowl.

“Alyssa is a good girl,” Josie said quietly, defending her niece. “Just like her mother.”

“You better hope she takes after Trisha—otherwise you’ll have your hands full. Like I did. Visits from the cops. Phone calls from other parents. You were nothing like Trisha and even less like your mother. Debbie was a good daughter and a good mother. Good thing she didn’t live to see what happened to her girls. One dead and the other nothing but trouble….”

Josie closed her ears to her grandmother’s litany of shame as she helped Betty Carter to the edge of the bed, moving her just as the physiotherapist had shown her the last time she had come for a home visit.

“Just put your arm over my shoulder and we’ll go up on the count of three. Ready?”

A few quick maneuvers had her grandmother in the wheelchair.

“My goodness, girl, could you be any rougher?” Betty frowned as she tried to get herself settled, pulling her pink, fleecy housecoat around her with one arm. “That collarbone will never heal if you aren’t more careful and you made my leg hurt. Again.”

“What would you like for breakfast, Gramma?” Josie ignored Betty’s complaints as she shifted the wheelchair through the doorway. The temporary living arrangements had never been meant to be wheelchair accessible, but thankfully a volunteer who had come to High Plains to help with the rebuilding had built a rough ramp up to the front door.

“I’m not hungry.” Betty closed her eyes and sighed. “You can do my hair right away.”

“I’ll need to get some elastics from my room first.”

“Why didn’t you think of that in the first place? I always have my hair done in the morning. You know that.”

Josie walked to the room she shared with Alyssa, closed the door behind her and leaned against it.

“Please, Lord, give me patience,” she whispered, clenching her hands into fists. “Please help me to love her as You love her.”

She waited a moment, then pushed herself away from the door and walked to her dresser.

She shook her head when she saw the framed photograph sitting front and center on the dresser.

Her niece had come home from school one day with this picture of her best friend, insisting on putting it on the dresser.

In the picture, Lily held the reins of the horse and grinned at the camera, her hair brushed and braided. She wore a cowboy hat and blue jeans. Silas was on the horse, his mouth tilted in an unfamiliar smile. He wore a cowboy hat pushed back on his head and he leaned toward the camera, his arms resting on the pommel of the saddle, as if about to divulge some secret.

When Alyssa had brought the picture home she said it was so she could remember her friend when they weren’t together in school.

Josie picked up the picture. Lily looked a couple of years younger than now, which made Josie suspect Lily’s mother had snapped the picture. Hence Lily’s neat hair. And Silas’s warm smile that transformed a face that Josie had seen only scowling or frowning.

He wasn’t a happy man, and she wondered what it would take to see that smile again.

She set the picture back on the dresser, snatched the elastics she needed out of a basket holding Alyssa’s hair stuff and hurried back to her waiting and impatient grandmother.

“You took a long time,” Betty said, scowling at her granddaughter.

As Josie brushed her grandmother’s hair, she wondered what it would take to get a smile from Betty Carter, as well.

“Did you give your dad the picture?” Alyssa slipped her backpack on and tugged her braids loose from the straps. They always got caught. Sometimes she wanted to get her hair cut, but then she wouldn’t look like her friend Lily anymore. Lily’s dad would never let her cut her hair, so Alyssa kept her hair long, too.

Tommy Jacobs bumped her as he ran past them, heading out the door to catch the school bus. Alyssa was a bit angry with him, but then she remembered that he was a foster kid and he had lost his dog. When she thought about that, she felt sorry for him and wasn’t mad anymore.

“Yeah. He looked kind of funny when I did, though.” Lily dropped her books in her backpack, but didn’t zip it up before she put it on.

“Like funny laughing or funny weird?”

Lily tugged on her hair and tightened her ponytail. “Funny weird.”

Alyssa thought about this a moment. “Do you think that means he likes her?”

Lily shrugged as she grabbed her coat. “I asked him if he thought she was pretty and he said, “She’s as pretty as she needs to be.’ I don’t know what that means.” She sighed. “Now what are we supposed to do?”

Alyssa bit her thumbnail while she thought. “Maybe just wait a day or two? Then we can try something else?”

“Maybe. But this matchmaking is taking a long time. I know my dad is lonely, because I see him looking sad when he’s sitting on the porch drinking his coffee and I’m supposed to be sleeping. And I want a mom again. Like Josie.”

“And I want a dad. But I don’t know how to make getting them together go faster,” Alyssa said, taking Lily’s hand.

Auntie Josie was already at the church, so she and Lily walked down the street from the school. The town didn’t look as messy as it had the day of the tornado, but the trees still looked sad. At least that’s what Auntie Josie always said.

“I’m tired of waiting,” Lily said as they turned onto Main Street. “And I’m tired of eating grilled-cheese sandwiches and hot dogs.”

“My aunt makes good suppers. We had something called pesto with our pasta last night. I liked it, but Gramma said it had too much garlic. Gramma doesn’t like much of the food Auntie Josie makes.”

A truck drove past them with a bunch of wood in the back, and Alyssa’s heart skipped. That looked like Lily’s dad. Was he in town already to pick up Lily? Was their plan going to get wrecked already?

But the truck kept going down the street.

“Did you phone your dad and tell him the program is going an hour later today?” Alyssa asked.

“Yeah.” Lily swung her jacket back and forth, the cuffs of her sleeves dragging over the ground. “Will we get into trouble for fibbing? Your aunt told him it was over at six.”

Alyssa didn’t want to think about that. “I don’t think so. Because if your dad comes late, and he comes to my aunt’s house to pick you up, maybe you both will eat supper with us. And that’s good for our cause.”

Lily brightened. “That would be cool. How will he know I’m at your aunt’s place?”

“Aunt Josie will put a note on the door. Guaranteed.”

“But would your auntie Josie invite him for supper?”

“You just have to say how hungry you are. And make sure you let my aunt know how good the food smells. Say something again about how you usually eat hot dogs for supper. She’ll feel sorry for you for sure.”

“Right. I forgot.”

“And maybe you shouldn’t drag your coat and make it so dirty. You don’t want your dad to get mad about that.”

Lily shrugged. “My dad doesn’t care. I never get in trouble ’cause my clothes are dirty.”

“Really? My aunt doesn’t like it when I get dirty.”

Lily giggled. “One time Daddy forgot to put soap in the washing machine and my shirt didn’t get clean. I didn’t tell him, ’cause I didn’t want him to feel bad.”

“Maybe Auntie Josie can give him some hints,” Alyssa said.

“If our plan works, then maybe he won’t have to do the laundry anymore.”

“That would be so cool,” Alyssa said with a grin.