Elizabeth August - Paternal Instincts

Roxy nodded and forced her mind to remain on the food and the drinks. When her sandwich was ready and the drinks poured, she carried her lunch out onto the back porch and sat down in Maude’s rocking chair.

Respecting her silence, Eric, too, had said nothing more while he made his sandwich. Following her outside, he seated himself on the stoop, as he had when he was a kid, and leaned against one of the pillars supporting the porch roof. The sound of the rocker brought back memories… some good, some bad…but then, a real home was like that. Only fantasies could be perfect.

In her mind’s eye Roxy saw Jamie…slender, dark haired, a haunted expression on his face, sitting in the tire swing suspended from the branch of the old oak in the middle of the yard. “I’ve had trouble sleeping since they took Jamie away, so when I’m home, I work on repairing this house until I’m so exhausted all I can do is sleep.” Suddenly realizing she’d spoken aloud, she flushed and clamped her mouth shut.

Eric heard the love in her voice. “How often do you get to see him?”

“I don’t.” Hot tears again burned at the back of her eyes. “They won’t even tell me where he is. They say he won’t learn to relate to other people if he’s still attached to me. But he wouldn’t even relate to Maude…only me. I can’t stop picturing him sitting alone in a corner somewhere, frightened and feeling deserted.”

Her pain disturbed him. “Maybe he’s found another child to play with,” Eric suggested, trying to ease her mind.

“I doubt it. He won’t talk. He prefers to keep to himself and there’s a haunted look on his face that makes other children nervous. They tend to avoid him.” She hadn’t had anyone to talk to since Maude’s death, and she needed to talk. “When he was six, he saw his father, in a drunken jealous rage, kill his mother and then himself. The father’s jealousy was because he thought Jamie wasn’t really his son. Jamie’s maternal grandmother took him in, but she didn’t honestly want him. No one wanted him. She saw his father in him and his father’s family blamed him for the deaths. He withdrew into himself. According to the grandmother, he stopped speaking the night of the murder-suicide and to everyone’s knowledge, he hasn’t spoken since. About a year after the tragedy the grandmother heard about Maude’s place and brought him out here. She refused to even come in. She stood on the porch and handed Maude a handwritten note giving Maude complete guardianship over the boy, then she told Maude that if Maude didn’t want to keep him, she could turn him over to the authorities because she was tired of taking care of him.”

Eric recalled his own childhood before he’d been brought to Maude’s farm. “It’s tough growing up unwanted.”

“It’s always tough being unwanted no matter what age you are.” Roxy clamped her mouth shut. She’d assured herself a million times that she was over the pain. Obviously, she’d been lying to herself. But her private hell was her own and would remain her own.

“Sounds like you’ve had some experience,” Eric noted.

“Life is full of experiences. As Maude used to say, the trick is to learn from them and move on.” Uncomfortable with the path this conversation had taken, Roxy said, “It’s time to eat and then get to work.”

The bitter edge in her voice confirmed Eric’s assessment that something had happened to Ms. Dugan that had scarred her deeply. But the hard set of her jaw let him know that whatever it was, she wasn’t going to talk about it.

Later, back on his ladder, he wondered what her story was. None of my business is what it is. He was here to do some thinking about his own life, not stick his nose into someone else’s, especially when that someone didn’t want it there.

Eric switched off the lamp on the table beside his bed and lay on his back staring into the dark. Although he was supposed to be settled in for the night, he was still dressed in his jeans, T-shirt and socks. His hostess’s image was strong in his mind. She’d told him to call her Roxy and the name fit. Living with her was a lot like living with a block of granite. He’d been at the farm for four days. It had been a Sunday when he arrived. Beginning on Monday, Roxy went into town to work each day. She’d be gone from six-thirty to three-thirty or four. When she arrived home, she’d prepare dinner. While it was cooking, she’d inspect the work he’d done that day. Then they’d eat and work on the house until dark. After that, they’d have a snack and go to bed.

She was like a robot that went about its business on its own and expected others to behave in the same fashion. Even during mealtimes she rarely talked. It appeared that she’d told him all she was willing to relate to him on Sunday and had little else to say. She wasn’t unfriendly. But she made it clear by her actions and her body language that she didn’t want to be his friend, either. It was as if she’d constructed a barrier around herself and he was not allowed past it.

Since Sunday, everything he’d discovered about her was from observation and tidbits she felt necessary to tell him. So far, he knew she worked at the local grocery store as a cashier, that she’d come to the farm about five years earlier and that she did have family in Philadelphia.

The part about the family he’d learned because of a series of phone calls on Tuesday night. From what he’d heard of the conversation with her first caller, he’d realized she was talking to her mother. He’d gathered that the woman wanted Roxy to sell the farm and move back home or get a house or apartment nearer her parents. The firm set of his hostess’s jaw had told him that her mother was wasting her breath.

A few minutes later the phone had rung again. This time the caller had been her grandmother. Since she’d addressed the caller only as Grandmama, he didn’t know if it was her paternal or maternal grandparent, but he guessed it was better than a fifty-fifty chance it was her maternal grandparent, since they spoke of her mother’s call.

Again Roxy had held firm to her determination to remain on the farm and he’d begun to wonder why. If she sold the place, she could buy something smaller but in much better condition and probably have a little cash left over. Surely a more financially stable position would aid her in getting the boy back. Then his question had been answered.

“Even if the social services people insist on keeping us apart, someday he’ll come looking for me and I want to be here,” she’d said. Her jaw had hardened even more, and he’d had the feeling she was holding back a flood of tears. “I know he’ll come.”

The conviction in her voice had apparently convinced her grandmother that she could not be dissuaded, because there had been no further discussion of her selling the farm.

His mind returned to the present as the sound of a door being quietly opened caught his attention. It was followed by softly padded footfalls coming his way. They paused outside his door, then turned toward the stairs and grew faint as they descended to the first floor.

Each night he’d been here, his hostess had followed this same routine. In about half an hour or so, she’d return to her room and settle in for the night. The first couple of nights he’d been too tired to really think about her actions. Only the many years when his life had depended on him always being aware of his surroundings so that, even when asleep, he would wake instantly to any sounds of movement had caused him to wake enough to realize she’d risen. But he’d sensed no danger and, assuming she was a worrier and merely double-checking to make certain all the doors were locked, he’d gone back to sleep.