Mary Forbes - A Father, Again

Around strangers he remained shy about his handicap.

Soon that, too, would change.

Nothing would keep her from giving her children what they deserved: a loving, happy home. With friends and cats and all things normal. Everything she’d grown up with, here in Misty River.

“Are you taking the man’s shirt back to his house, Mom?” Emily asked.

“I need to wash it first.”

Sam reached over, tapped the slim, curved edge of a capital S. “What’s the logo?”

Rianne pressed back the folds of the material, careful to hide any bloody smears. An oval seal came into view, its gold letters arcing above a shield. Seattle Police. Jon was a cop?

Sam leaned over. “What’s it say?”

Rianne bundled the shirt into a ball and climbed to her feet. “It’s a bit messy from the birth. Could you take out those brownies I baked yesterday, Sam?”

“Can I have two? I’m starving.”

“Me, too.” Emily got up.

“Fine, two each and pour some milk. I’ll be back as soon as I get the washing machine going.”

She went down the basement stairs, headed for the cramped laundry room. Maybe Jon wasn’t a cop. Maybe he’d received an SPD sweatshirt from a friend.

And if he was?

If he is, it’s got nothing to do with you.

It simply meant that tough, bad-boy Jon Tucker of Misty River, Oregon, had become an officer of the law dressed in blue, with thirty pounds of weaponry strapped to his body. If there was irony in that, so be it.

The Jon Tucker today is not the man you remember.

No. At fourteen, she’d been enthralled. A little in love. And, unable to make sense of her English class. Who cared that Robert Browning wrote love sonnets to his wife, Elizabeth? That Alfred Lord Tennyson saw “a flower in a crannied wall”?

Twenty-year-old Jon Tucker had.

Sitting on the worn vinyl seat of his old Ford pickup, Rianne had listened while he interpreted the rich beauty of poetry and the classics. That year, she got her first A in English. And Jon, treating her with the ease of a big brother, got her heart. He’d left Misty River a year later, and she’d tucked him into a quiet corner of her soul where he hovered like a tiny, bright spot all through high school.

All through her marriage.

“Mom?” called Sam.

“Be right there!”

She eyed the sweatshirt in her hands.

Water under the bridge.

She shoved the garment into the washer’s barrel. Several socks, another shirt, softener, and the lid clunked down.

What was he doing back in Misty River?

And what had he, standing on her porch in faded jeans and white T-shirt, thought of her?

Doesn’t matter.

Your tummy is doing little spins.

It is not.

Of course it is. You know why, don’t you?

Oh, yes, she knew why.

Jon Tucker lived next door. And she was no longer a childish fourteen-year-old with braces on her teeth.

“You figure June is the earliest we can dig up this mess, put in new brick?” Jon asked. He and his brother sat on Jon’s porch steps surveying his ragged driveway in the evening light.

Seth lifted his cap, raked back his shaggy hair and gave the lane another thoughtful study. Tall weeds sprouted at its edges. Grass tufted through spider-web cracks in the concrete. “Wish I could fit you in before, J.T., but you know how it is.”

“Yeah.” Jon did know. Seth and his crew had been booked nearly six weeks ahead since March. Seemed everybody and his dog wanted some type of contracting work done this spring.

Jon figured the driveway would take a week or so. Situated last on the narrow tree-lined street, his parcel of land was the biggest. And the shabbiest. Great for the price, not great for renovations.

Checking the sky, Seth commented, “Looks like we’ll be held up another day as it is.”

Over the Coast Range mountains, rain made a dull approach into the valley. Terrific. Another day’s delay to the house’s exterior changes. Jon wanted them done by mid-June when he could concentrate on the inside—and Brittany’s bedroom.

“Well,” he said and grinned. “Considering the price you’re charging me, I suppose I can wait for the driveway.” Besides, it wouldn’t do for his brother to bump a paying customer because his long-lost kin had hit town and wanted instant curb appeal.

The red, dented Toyota rolled up next door. His neighbor, Ms. Kitty Litter. The one he’d dubbed Ms. Sex Kitten in the past twenty-four hours.

“You talked to her yet?” Seth drawled, watching what Jon watched—slim, black-hosed legs swinging from the car. Gold skirt above feminine knees. Clingy black sweater. Small shapely curves.

“Yesterday. For about sixty seconds. Seems like a nice enough woman.” It didn’t matter one way or the other; he wasn’t into congeniality, especially with the neighbors.

“She’s single again.”

“Huh.” Jon figured as much. Mr. Kitty Litter had been visibly absent since Jon had moved into the vicinity. “Didn’t get around to the small talk.”

The woman held a brown bag. Her eyes found his across ninety feet of ratty grass. She didn’t move, didn’t open her mouth, just stood and looked back at him.

A dark-haired boy, about twelve, entered the carport from their backyard. She slammed shut the car door, the sound hollow in the quiet dusk.

“Hi, sweetie.” Her smile could liquefy a steel girder.

The kid hauled up the mountain bike propped against the house. “Can I go over to Joey’s for a half hour?”

“Where’s Emily?”

“With the kittens. Can I go?”

Lightning crinkled the navy sky and thunder growled, closer now. She looked west, past Jon and Seth, as if they were transparent. “Not tonight, Sam.”

“Aw, Mom… I’ll pedal real fast,” he added eagerly.

“No, Sammy. It’s after eight and I don’t want you coming home in a downpour.”

“Pleeease.”

She veered another look Jon’s way. “I said no.”

Without a word, the kid shoved the bike back into place, spun toward the rear of the house and vanished behind the junipers. Shoulders squared, she skipped a third look their way. Jon almost smiled. She had grit, this woman.

With her son. With him and Seth as an audience.

She hadn’t run off. That point alone was enough to jack up his admiration about two hundred notches. Offering the slightest of nods, he conveyed what he felt. Deference in the slant of her chin, she returned the gesture and walked out of sight.

Sparse drops of rain fell. Seth set down his empty soda can. “Well. This town hasn’t seen anything that pretty in a while.”

“That a fact?”

“Uh-huh.” A measured look at Jon. “You really don’t remember her, do you?”

“Should I?”

“Hell, I thought every guy from sixth grade up, living to a hundred, would remember the way that red hair used to hang past her—Hell,” he said again, clearly disconcerted about the direction of his musings.

Jon stared at the carport. “She’s…Rianne Worth?”

“Bingo.”

Clueless fool. She knew you. He took in the weathered little house. “Husband?”

“Dead, what I heard. She showed up one day early last summer from California somewhere, rented a motel for a week, then moved in there. She’s a part-time librarian or some such at Chinook Elementary. Hallie knows her. Says she subs now and then at the high school as well.”

Jon kept silent. He wondered what Seth’s daughter thought of Rianne Worth as a teacher. Jon knew what he used to think of her, as a teenager.

Too many years ago, way too many years.

The rain increased. Drops mottled the driveway. Seth got to his feet and pulled the bill of his cap low. “Okay, I’m off.”

“Yep.” Jon rose. “Talk to you tomorrow.”