Kristine Rolofson - The Husband Project

“Maybe he could come to school. You know, talk about the jungle and stuff.”

“Maybe.”

“Can I ask him?”

“Maybe. When he feels better.” Lucia doubted that would be anytime soon. The man couldn’t even take his own boots off. Now that had been an interesting little moment yesterday. She wouldn’t even tell Meg about it because of how silly it would sound: “I untied his boots—the most intimate moment I’ve had with a man since the night before my husband went to war.”

“Mom,” her son said. “Mom.”

“What?”

“You’re not listening.”

“I apologize. I was thinking about dinner,” she fibbed. She was thinking about Sam Hove’s blue eyes. “There,” she said, giving herself a mental shake. “I guess I have everything he’ll require for a few days. Maybe even a week.”

“I need more points,” Davey, still angling to do the job himself, said. Lucia admired his competitive spirit but wondered if this Random Acts of Kindness project was something he worried about too much. Davey was her quiet son, the philosopher of the trio.

“You could shovel Mrs. Beckett’s steps.”

“She’ll just yell at me.”

Yes, she probably would. “You’re right. She’s not worth the points.”

“I think she likes being mean,” he said, but Lucia could see him considering whether being yelled at was worth a point or two on the Kindness scoreboard.

“Some people do,” she agreed. Her eight-year-old was wrestling with big concepts now. She wanted to hug him, reassure him that people were good and kind and life was fair and the world was his oyster and all that, but the truth was a little harsh: mean people existed and weren’t worth the do-good-things points.

Davey pondered that for a long moment, while Lucia dug through her purse for the grocery receipt. She’d kept Sam’s food separate from hers. It wasn’t the first time she’d delivered food next door: Mrs. Kelly had become more dependent on help that last year she’d lived in town. Lucia had agreed to Jerry’s request to pick up supplies for the new neighbor—after all, the man was practically an invalid, and she was going to the store anyway—but once in the middle of the IGA with three lively boys and a horde of intense Sunday shoppers, she’d wished she’d refused.

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