Bonnie Winn - Family by Design

He paused beneath the arched opening to the kitchen. Maddie was scurrying around the room, pushing strawberry-blond hair off her forehead with one hand, reaching for a tray with the other. Seeing that it was perched on one of the higher shelves, he quickened his pace. “Let me get that for you.”

Whirling around at the sound of his voice, she looked completely, totally, utterly flustered.

“Guess I need to stop doing that. Coming up from behind, surprising you.”

Her throat worked and her blue-gray eyes looked chastened. “I feel terrible about how I reacted the other day. It’s just that Mom’s gotten so fragile, and …” Moisture gathered in her eyes and she quickly wiped it away. “I’m so afraid that the next stroke …” Again her throat worked, but she pushed past the emotion. “I know she needs these tests—”

J.C. lightly clasped her arm. “Being a caregiver is the most stressful job I can imagine. Do you have enough help?”

“Help?” Maddie nodded. “Samantha relieves me so that I have some extra time when I run errands, but she has her own family to take care of. Neighbors and people from church sit with Mom, too, when they can.”

He’d reread the file and knew that Lillian was widowed. With no siblings, did that mean that Maddie was the sole caregiver? “It’s important that you have time for yourself.”

She laughed, a mirthless sound. “Hmm.”

Spotting the cups on the table, he took her elbow, guiding her to the table. “Let’s sit for a few minutes.”

“But your niece—”

“Is taken by your mother. Best Chrissy’s acted in a while. Tea smells good.”

Distracted, Maddie glanced at the tabletop. “It’s probably the vanilla you’re smelling.”

J.C. sat in the chair next to hers. “Who else helps you take care of Lillian?”

“Just me.”

J.C. knew that endless caregiving could suck the life from a person. And Lillian had required home care for nearly a decade. “Have you lost some of your relief help?”

“Never had any.” Picking up the sugar, she offered it to him.

“But when do you have time for yourself?”

She lifted the porcelain strainers from their cups. “I don’t think of it like that. This is my life, my choice. It’s hard for other people to understand.”

“What about before Lillian’s strokes? You must have had plans.”

An indecipherable emotion flashed in her now bluish eyes and then disappeared. Had her eyes changed color? Or was it a trick of the light?

“That’s the thing about the future,” Maddie replied calmly. “It can always change. So far, mine has.”

Since J.C. had witnessed that she wasn’t always a serene earth muffin, he sipped his tea, wondering exactly who the real Maddie was. “This is unusual. Don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything quite like it.”

“The tea’s my own blend,” she explained.

“How did you come to make your own tea recipe?”

She chuckled, some of her weariness disappearing. “Not just one recipe. I blend all sorts of teas.”

“Same question, then. How did you start making your own tea?”

“I’ve always been fascinated by spices. I can remember my grandfather telling me about the original spice routes from Asia and I could imagine all the smells, the excitement of the markets. So my mother let me collect spices and we’d make up recipes to use them in. Then one day I decided to add some fresh nutmeg to my tea.” Her cheeks flushed as her enthusiasm grew. “Mom always made drinking tea an event—using the good cups, all the accessories. Anyway, Mom bought every kind of loose tea leaf she could find so I could experiment. For a time our kitchen looked like a cross between an English farmhouse and a laboratory. After college I planned to open a shop where I could sell all my blends.” She leaned forward, her eyes dreamy. “And I’d serve fresh, hot tea on round bistro tables covered with white linen tablecloths. Oh, and little pastries, maybe sandwiches. Make it a place people want to linger … to come back to.”

“The tea shop your mother said should be smack dab in the middle of Main Street?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Did you ever get a shop set up?”

Maddie shook her head. “I was investigating small business loans when Mom had her first stroke, the major one. Luckily, I’d graduated from U.T. by then.”

“Have you considered starting the business? Using part of the profits to hire someone to stay with your mother while you’re working?”

“Our funds aren’t that extensive. I took enough business classes to know I’d have to factor in at least a year of loss before we’d show any profit. Or just staying even. Doesn’t leave anything for caregiver salaries. Besides, Mom’s happy with me.”

“Don’t forget I’ve got a building that needs a tenant if you change your mind. Plenty of room for a shop and tearoom.” He swallowed more of his tea. “What about the senior center activities we talked about? That would fill several hours a day.”

Maddie’s smile dimmed. “As the first step toward a nursing home?”

“Nothing of the kind. If Lillian responds to her new medication, she could well enjoy spending time with people her own age.”

“Her friends have been loyal,” Maddie objected. “People stop by fairly often to visit her.”

J.C. studied the obstinate set of her jaw. “But not to visit with you?”

Maddie looked down, fiddling with the dish towel still in her lap. “People my age have young families of their own to take care of.”

A situation he knew only too well.

“It’s difficult for someone who’s never been in this position to understand,” Maddie continued. “I’m sure you’re busy with your work … and it probably consumes most of your time, but I can’t walk away from my mother. It’s not some martyr complex. It’s my choice .”

“And sometimes there isn’t a choice.”

Maddie scrunched her eyes in concentration. “Your niece? Chrissy? You said something about how she was behaving. Is there a problem?”

J.C. explained how he’d come to be his niece’s guardian. “I don’t blame her for acting out. She’s lost everyone she loves.”

Unexpectedly, Maddie covered his hand with hers. “Not quite everyone.”

He stared at her long, slender fingers.

“Dr. Mueller? J.C.?”

“Sorry.” He pulled his gaze back to hers. “Chrissy’s been fighting with some of the girls at school, her grades are slipping.” And she was miserable.

“What about your babysitter? Do they get on well?”

“We’ve been through a parade of sitters and housekeepers. Can’t keep one.”

Concern etched Maddie’s face. “Can I help? She could spend afternoons with us. Does she go to the community church school? We’re in easy walking distance.”

“Don’t have enough on your plate?” J.C. was dumbfounded. Maddie claimed she wasn’t a martyr, but …

“It’s what we do.”

He felt as blank as he must have looked.

“You know, here in Rosewood. She’s a child who needs any help we can give her.”

It was how J.C. had been raised, too. “Maybe from people who have the time. You’re exhausted now. I’m not going to add to that burden.”

The fire in her now stormy-gray eyes was one he remembered. “It’s not a burden. I realize my situation isn’t for everyone, but it works for me. And I have enough energy to spare some for Chrissy.”

She was pretty remarkable, J.C. decided. Even more remarkable—she didn’t seem to realize it.

J.C. stood in front of his sister’s closet in her far-too-quiet home. Fran’s things were just as she’d left them. Not perfectly in order; she was always in too much of a hurry to fuss over details she had considered unimportant. No, she’d lavished her time on her family, especially Chrissy.