Marie Ferrarella - Adding Up To Family

“Right now,” she continued, “you probably feel like you’re all alone, but that’s going to change, I promise. And most of all, you’re going to be the girl who makes it, who becomes somebody , while they, if they don’t start changing and actually applying themselves to their schoolwork, are just going to wind up fading into the background, while you do great things.”

She could see by Stevi’s expression that the girl wanted to believe her, but still wasn’t sure if she could, or if this was just a lot of talk this new housekeeper was trying to sell her.

“You think so?”

Without a single shred of hesitation, Becky stated, “I know so.”

Stevi still wasn’t 100 percent sold on what she was saying. “But if you were so smart, how come you’re a housekeeper? How come you’re not doing something... bigger ?” she finally said, for lack of a better word to describe what she was trying to get across.

“Well, I wasn’t always one,” Becky confided. “You know what I was before I decided to take a break and become a housekeeper?”

Confusion and curiosity furrowed the girl’s brow again. “No—what?”

Becky smiled. Her past life seemed like a million miles away now. “I was an engineer.”

“Really?” Stevi questioned, a little unclear on how the woman she was talking to could have been one and then the other. The two professions seemed light-years apart.

“Really,” Becky assured her.

“Can you do that?” Stevi asked. She was thinking about her father. “Can you just stop being an engineer and become a housekeeper?”

“I did,” Becky responded.

“But why would you do that?” Stevi demanded. Her father was totally dedicated to doing what he did, sometimes to the point of staying at work for long hours and coming home after she’d gone to bed. “Didn’t you like being an engineer?”

“In the beginning, I did. Very much so,” she told Stevi. “But after a while I decided that maybe the pressure was too much. I found I was always working and that it wasn’t fun anymore, not like it used to be. So I decided to take a break for a bit and just smell the roses.”

“So is that what you did?” Stevi asked, doing her best to understand what this adult was telling her.

She liked the fact that Becky was talking to her as if she were another grown-up rather than just a little kid. Too many adults treated her as if she couldn’t understand things. Her father wasn’t like that, but lately, communication between them hadn’t been going very well. Like an old train with a faulty wheel, it kept breaking down.

“Did you go smell roses?” she pressed.

“Yes,” Becky answered. “I took time to enjoy the things around me.”

“And being a housekeeper lets you do that?” Stevi was still somewhat unclear about the concept.

“Well, until now, I’d come to different houses, race around cleaning them up and then go home. This will be my first live-in position. So, like I said earlier, I’m counting on you to help me navigate this whole new career change. I’d like to be the best housekeeper that I can be,” she confided. She looked at Stevi. “So, can I count on your help?” she asked, holding out her hand.

Stevi looked at it, and after a moment, she grinned broadly and put her hand into Becky’s, shaking it.

“Yes!” she declared, doing her best to sound grown-up. “You can.”

Chapter Four

Steve left work early, which was to say that he actually left on time. As usual, there was enough work on his desk to keep him busy until well after seven o’clock, but since things were still up in the air at home, he thought he should be there at a reasonable time—just in case. After all, this was Rebecca’s first day with Stevi and he didn’t want to take any chances on things going wrong.

If he were being honest, Rebecca was not the only one who was on trial here. He felt as if he and Stevi were on trial, as well. Quite frankly, both sides were scrutinizing and sizing each other up, seeing if they met the other party’s standards and vice versa.

As he drove home, he really hoped that Stevi was on her best behavior. He loved his daughter to pieces, and at bottom she was a really good kid, but she could be trying at times, and not everyone—obviously—was up to dealing with a half child, half fledgling woman. He had been through three other housekeepers to prove that, and even the last one, who supposedly left because her daughter was having her first child, had never seemed completely comfortable around Stevi and her endless barrage of questions.

And Stevi, he knew, had never really taken to the woman, either.

Finally pulling up into the driveway, Steve released the breath he hadn’t even been conscious of holding until this moment. When he’d turned the corner toward his house, he’d seen Rebecca’s car parked at the curb. That meant that unless the woman had been so terrorized by Stevi that she’d fled on foot, unable to stand being in the same house with her a second longer, Rebecca Reynolds was still in his house.

There was hope.

The second he opened the front door, even before he walked in, Steve was aware of an exceptionally tempting aroma swirling around him. He felt his taste buds salivating.

“Ste—phanie?” he called out, remembering at the last moment to use his daughter’s name of preference. He looked around the empty living room. “Ms. Reynolds?”

Following his nose, he made his way into the kitchen. And that was where he found both his daughter and his new housekeeper.

Becky reacted as if she was expecting him. She looked up in his direction. “Dinner will be on the table in a minute,” she promised.

“You made dinner?” he asked. He hadn’t expected that. Not yet, anyway.

She noted his surprise. “Isn’t that what a housekeeper is supposed to do?”

“Then you’re taking the position?” Steve made no attempt to hide how relieved that made him feel.

Becky looked at him, a little bemused at his question. “I thought we already settled that.”

He cleared his throat, taking in all the activity in the kitchen. She’d obviously made dinner, but there were no telltale signs of chaos. Every time he cooked, it seemed to generate five or six pots and pans, no matter how small the meal turned out to be.

“Well, we did, but I wanted to leave you the option of changing your mind,” he told her. “I mean, in case you felt, after spending some time here, that this wasn’t going to work out,” he added tactfully, slanting a glance in his daughter’s direction. “What are you doing?” he asked, when he realized that Stevi’s arms were filled with a couple of dinner plates.

Although he thought of Stevi as precocious and definitely on the brilliant side, she didn’t have a domestic bone in her body. He was to blame for that, because he’d never attempted to give her any chores that were remotely domestic in nature. The closest he had ever come to making her do chores was to get her to make her bed, which she reluctantly did. The rest of her room looked as if it was home base for a twister that kept passing through on a regular basis.

“I’m setting the table,” Stevi informed him, in a voice that indicated he should have figured that out on his own.

After arranging the plates in the small dining room, Stevi doubled back for the silverware. As he watched her, fascinated, she folded napkins, then placed a knife on each one, on the right side of the plates. She put the forks on the other side.

Becky nodded her approval at Stevi’s progress. “Don’t forget the glasses,” she reminded her.

“I’ll do those,” Steve instantly volunteered, envisioning a sudden shower of falling shards of glass if his daughter tripped while carrying the glassware.