Kathleen Eagle: In Care of Sam Beaudry

Hilda had heard plenty of comments about Maggie’s eligibility—single women were harder to find in Bear Root than available men—and she’d been treated to more than a few silly imitations of Dave Cochran’s stiff-necked approach. The real thing would have been more painful than gratifying to watch if Hilda hadn’t mentally taken Maggie off the mate market. On so many levels, Maggie was taken. All she and Sam had to do was wake up and smell the music.

“Yes, sir, I promise,” Jimmy was saying, and Cochran offered an awkward high five. Some people shouldn’t do high fives, Hilda thought. She, being an old lady, was probably one of those people, and the school principal, being the school principal, was certainly another.

“We appreciate your patience,” Maggie called after him.

“Just don’t tell him his call is important to you,” Hilda whispered. “He’ll think you mean it.”

Maggie shot her a look before turning her attention to their new charge. “Hey, Star, I see you’ve made friends with the star attraction of Allgood’s Emporium.” She bent to pat the motor-tailed little dog, quietly adding, “I just came from the hospital. Your mom’s still resting, and Dr. Dietel is taking good care of her.”

“I wanna go see her. She’ll be waking up pretty soon.”

“I thought we’d have a little supper first,” Hilda said. There was more to it than food, of course. There was company. Acting on the theory that kids help each other cope, Maggie had offered to bring her son over for supper. With a hand on each child’s shoulder, Hilda made a bridge of herself. “This is Jimmy. He’s just about your age.”

“How old are you?” Jimmy challenged. “I’m nine.”

“I’m seven and a half.”

“I’m nine and—” he used his fingers to calculate “—seven months, so you’re way younger.”

Star looked up at Hilda and murmured plaintively, “I’m not hungry.”

“Your mom would worry if she knew you weren’t eating. I know I would.” And did. It was easier than worrying about the faces of Star’s comatose mother and her own uneasy, unforthcoming son. She slipped her arm around the girl’s shoulders. “And you’re worried about her. I know I would. So we’ll all go upstairs, sit down and have some food, and then we’ll go see her.”

“Will she get well?”

“Dr. Dietel is very good at finding out what’s wrong and making it right,” Maggie put in. Hilda nodded, giving her friend the keep-talking look as she flipped the sign on the door to Closed. “He’s still working on the first part, but she’s getting two things we all need. Food and water.”

“If she could eat she’d be awake,” Star reasoned. “Did she wake up at all?”

“Not yet, but she’s getting her food put directly into her body through a tube.”

“And we have to put yours through your mouth.” Hilda made a sweeping gesture toward the stairway to the heavenly scent of her famous Hilda’s Crock-Pot Cacciatore.

“Mmm, smells like our favorite.” Maggie extended a come-with-me hand to Star. “And tomorrow, maybe you’d like to go to school with Jimmy. Just for a little while. Visit Mom for a little while, maybe have lunch with me.”

“I’ll ask my mom.” Star accepted Maggie’s hand. “Tomorrow, when she wakes up.”

Hilda served her guests at the table that had been in her kitchen since she’d taken over the store, basically the same kitchen she’d grown up in, although she’d replaced the woodburning stove with gas right after her father died. Daddy had refused to depend on anything he couldn’t harvest with his own hands. Not that he didn’t use store-bought—he ran a store, after all—but using and depending were two different things. Hilda had moved the stove downstairs and made it part of the country store décor. Her kitchen was still cozy, and any number of power failures and stranded gas trucks had given her pause to appreciate the little potbelly wood burner she’d kept in the living room when she was “updating.” Her TV was a little dated, but she didn’t have much time to watch it, anyway. She did love to cook, and she wished she had room for a bigger table and more guests.

Hilda got a charge out of sitting Maggie in Sam’s place. She’d had them figured for a match ever since she’d met Maggie, who would surely charge Sam up a bit, while he would offer her some good ol’ Western grounding. Every time those two came within sight of each other, you could already feel the current flowing.

After supper, Lucky lured the children into the living room while Maggie helped Hilda clean up the supper dishes.

“Is her mother going to wake up?” Hilda asked quietly as she slid four scraped plates into the mound of bubbles Maggie was growing in the sink.

“You’ve heard of trying to get blood from a stone? That poor woman. It’d be easier to get an IV into Mount Rushmore.” Maggie flipped the faucet handles and lowered her voice in the new quiet. “Has Sam been able to get in touch with her family?”

“I haven’t had much chance to talk with him, but I’m sure he’s trying. I guess he knows her pretty well.” She glanced up at Maggie. “Or did.”

“You don’t?”

“Never even heard the name.” She pulled a beats-me face. “My boys used to tell me everything when they were Jimmy’s age.”

Maggie glanced over her shoulder at the sound of one quick bark and two easy laughs. “When did they stop?”

“I’ve never asked. I’m satisfied with the way I remember it. They told me everything back then. Anything they don’t tell me now, I probably don’t need to know.”

“Until you do.”

“And then they’ll tell me. Sam will, anyway.” Soon, she hoped. “It all works itself out. Ninety-five percent of your worries never materialize, and four out of the other five turn out to be a whole lot less dire than you thought.”

“That leaves one percent.”

“Yes, it does. And that’s life.”

Maggie screwed her head and rested her chin on her shoulder to get another look at her son. “Math was never my strong suit, but it sounds like I could improve his chances by increasing the worries.”

“You’re absolutely right.” Hilda met Maggie’s questioning glance with a smile. “Math is not your strong suit.”

“I’m not the best worrier, either. I don’t want Jimmy to get shortchanged just because I’m a single parent.”

“That small percent is always gonna be there no matter how many parents a kid has. You can throw yourself in front of the bus, but he could still get hit.”

Maggie chuckled. “That’s what I like about you, Hilda. You never give away the ending.”

“Speaking of which, have you finished the book for this week?” Hilda pulled a paperback novel off the top of the refrigerator. “Who suggested this, anyway? The wrong guy gets the girl.”

“Well, now I’ve finished it.”

“Just kidding.” She set the book aside. “Mr. Right always gets the girl. And Mr. Lucky gets—”

The dog barked. Hilda laughed, but he barked again. And again. She turned to the kitchen door just as it opened and the brim of a hat appeared. “It’s just me, Ma.”

“And you missed supper, but there’s some left.”

“Thanks, I’m good.” Sam acknowledged Maggie with a nod and took his hat off in one economical gesture as he closed the door behind him. “I still have some paperwork to finish up. Kinda lost track of some of the details.”

“It’s caccia-to-reee,” Hilda sang out. She knew he hadn’t eaten. As hard as she’d tried to feed him up, he was still as skinny as he was when he’d come home from the service.

“Smells great. If it’s gone tomorrow, you’ll know I got the midnight munchies.” He held up a big plastic bag. “One of the nurses said you’d taken charge of the little girl, so I brought over a few things that were in the room.”