Virginia Myers - The Dad Next Door

Kate started gathering up the homeschooling material.

“Look, Kate, let’s level with each other. You and Ian think you’re going to educate Raymond— my son —here at your dining-room table with… this? Well, maybe that’s all right with Ian, but it’s not all right with me. Or with my father, once he learns of it. I mean no offense, Kate, you personally are a lovely woman, and you mean well, but I can’t just ignore this. I’m going to have to follow through on it. You must understand that. Raymond is my only son, and when it’s time for college I want to see him accepted at a prestigious university, but he won’t be if he’s schooled at home.”

“That’s not necessarily true. Raymond is a very intelligent boy,” Kate said steadily. “He is also a very sensitive boy. Ian talked this over with the pediatrician, Dr. Madison, and Dr. Madison was in favor of it. And I’m quite sure Raymond will be ready for a good university when the time comes.”

Marsha stood frowning, watching with troubled eyes as Kate put everything back into Pastor Ledbetter’s old briefcase and stowed it in the bottom cupboard of the sideboard.

“I don’t like it,” Marsha said uncertainly. “I’ll have to discuss it with Chet. And with Daddy, of course. You do understand that, don’t you, Kate?”

“Discuss it with anyone you want to,” Kate said. “You certainly have that right.” She’d have to remember to tell Ian tomorrow, so that he could talk to Colonel Greer about it before Marsha got to him.

After Marsha had wandered back into Kate’s bedroom and gone to bed again, Kate sat down in the big fireplace chair. She really should make down the couch and go to bed. She looked at her watch. Was it only ten forty-five? Jill would still be up. She and her husband, Greg, always had an unwinding interval after their three kids were down for the night. Kate, you’re going off the deep end here, she thought. Deep end or not, she got up and went to the little phone table with its spindly little side chair. When Jill answered, she got right to the point. They knew each other so well that sometimes words were not necessary.

Kate, two years older than Jill, had abdicated her bigsister role early in their relationship. Jill was brighter, more assertive and seemed to have been born “in charge.” It had taken Mom a while to stop saying, “Look after Jill, Kate” when they went out to play. Eventually Mom had “got it” that her baby was the leader and her older child seemed content to follow. Dad had always known, of course.

It was the same now and, Kate thought, a rather comfortable arrangement. She could always depend on Jill, and it had long ago ceased to bother her that Jill was the beautiful sister, with Mother’s dark hair and eyes. Jill, who had a large share of the family guts, had made the hard decision to put her career as a successful restaurant owner on hold until their three children were raised.

“Jill,” Kate said, “I’ve been thinking today how awful I look. I don’t even want a mirror in the house anymore. I didn’t used to look this awful. Claude thought I was pretty. I was kind of pretty, at least in my wedding picture I was. But, you know, I don’t really keep myself up the way you do. It just doesn’t seem to be in my nature. You would die before you wore your hair in a skinned-back ponytail fastened with a rubber band, wouldn’t you?”

“Ah…yes, I would. Kate, what are you building up to? It’s almost eleven o’clock and you are fretting about your ponytail? There’s got to be a reason.”

“Yes, there is. I want to look better. I mean all the time. And, uh, a couple of times you’ve mentioned that you wished I’d let you give me a makeover.”

“A makeover,” Jill said thoughtfully. “Kate, does this have something to do with Ian McAllister?”

Trust Jill to read between the lines.

“Yes. But I don’t feel like talking about it right now.”

“Right. Well, let me think a minute. We can’t do much until the snow goes. And the weatherman just said we’re stuck for at least three more days. But I think this is wonderful news. You don’t have to look like a little peeled onion. I agree, your hair isn’t the greatest color, but we can fix that…”

Kate started to object, but Jill cut her short. “No, not dyeing it. Just a few little highlights here and there. And Mom and I would love to see you in a short cut. But you know, a makeover isn’t just from the neck up.”

“Well, I’m not overweight anymore. I know I was getting a little chubby, which I can’t afford to at my height, and I got that exercise video. Tommy and I do that every morning, and it’s trimmed me down several pounds.”

“I don’t mean your body. Your body is okay for someone only five feet tall. I mean your wardrobe. Kate, if you are thinking about what I think you are thinking about, you’re going to have to get rid of those faded denim skirts and tacky cotton blouses.”

“I…I don’t want to spend too much money,” Kate said cautiously. Pinching pennies had become a life work since Claude’s death, when her income had become so limited. On the other hand, she had more money now. Ian was paying her too generously for Raymond’s care and Mom always insisted on paying top dollar for the homemade baked goods for the B and B.

“Kate? Are you there? Or did you go into shock about the wardrobe makeover? Thrift shops are out, Kate. Out. Are you hearing me?”

“Loud and clear,” Kate said, suddenly laughing. Imagine that. Not shopping in thrift shops anymore. She really was going off the deep end, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter. She looked down and saw the faded denim skirt and faded tacky cotton blouse, and remembered that Jill always changed her clothes in the middle of the afternoon, after her housekeeping was finished, so that she always looked lovely when Greg came home. Suddenly anything was possible.

As soon as the rains come back,” Jill was saying, “we’ll get together.” Then, miraculously, Kate didn’t feel tired any more and she and Jill settled down to a good gossip. She gave Jill an update on Raymond’s condition. She told Jill about Marsha’s arrival and the homeschooling decision. She told Jill about Mom’s three-meals-a-day guests, until somehow it was almost midnight before they rang off.

The next morning about ten o’clock Kate saw Ian’s sport van drive into the McAllister driveway and Ian, in jeans, boots and heavy windbreaker, walk through knee-high snow to her back door. She was at the back door to open it for him. He took off the knit cap he was wearing.

“I saw everybody out in front,” he said, smiling. “They all seem to be having a great time.”

“Yes, they are,” Kate said, taking the cap. “Come on in. I was about to have a coffee break. Would you like some?”

All three children and Marsha, dressed in one of Claude’s old ski outfits, were out in front rebuilding the snowman, who had suffered some damage during the night’s storm. Marsha had said nothing more about the homeschooling or about Raymond’s custody. She had been up early, had eaten breakfast with them, and seized the opportunity to join in the snow fun out front. Kate had observed her from the front window and knew that she was actually having as much fun as the children were. And they, like children everywhere, accepted a new playmate without question.

Kate did tell Ian that Marsha knew about the homeschooling idea. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have cleared the stuff off the dining-room table.”

“No problem,” Ian said easily, sitting down at the kitchen table. “It’s a done deal, anyhow. I called your Pastor Ledbetter early this morning. He’s a great old guy, isn’t he? He volunteered to go with me over to Raymond’s school to see the principal And we did. I think the principal didn’t want to refuse a sudden request from a man of the cloth, and I think Ledbetter knew it, because he offered to make the call and ask for an appointment. Anyhow, we went over.”