The Blessing Read online

  The sight that greeted her had to be seen to be believed. Jason, wearing what had to be a handmade shirt and very formal wool trousers, had Max stretched out on the kitchen countertop and was trying his best to change his diaper. And all the while he was fiddling with the thing, Max was staring at him in intense concentration, not wriggling as he did when Amy changed him.

  Putting her hand up to stifle a giggle, Amy watched until she was in danger of being discovered; then she silently ran back into the bedroom to take her time dressing.

  After a luxurious thirty minutes of putting on her clothes, combing her wet hair, and even applying a little eye makeup, she went into the living room, where Jason sat on the couch, looking half asleep, while Max played quietly on the floor. Max wasn’t yelling for breakfast, wasn’t demanding attention. Instead, he looked like an ad for Perfect Baby.

  Maybe she wouldn’t fire Jason after all.

  “Hungry?” she asked, startling him. “I don’t have much, but you’re welcome to it. I haven’t been to the grocery store in a few days. It’s difficult since I have no car. My mother-in-law usually takes me on Fridays, but last Friday she was busy, so . . .” She trailed off, since she knew she was talking too much.

  “I’m sure that anything you have will be fine with me,” he said, making her feel silly.

  “Cheerios it is then,” she said as she picked up Max, took him to the kitchen, then strapped him into his plastic booster seat, which she placed in the middle of the little kitchen table. She did the best she could to make the table pretty, but it wasn’t easy, not with a red, blue, and yellow baby chair in the middle and Max’s feet kicking at everything she set out.

  “It’s ready,” she called, and he sauntered into the kitchen, all six feet of him. He’s gay, she reminded herself. Gay. Like Rock Hudson was, remember?

  As she prepared Max’s warm porridge and mashed banana, she did her best to keep quiet. It was tempting to chatter away, as she was hungry for the sound of an adult voice, even if it was her own.

  “David said you were looking for a job,” the man said. “What are you trained for?”

  “Nothing,” she said cheerfully. “I have no talents, no ambition, no training. If Billy hadn’t shown me what’s what, I wouldn’t have figured out how to get pregnant.” Again she saw that tiny bit of a smile, and it made her continue. Billy always said that what he liked best about her was her ability to make him laugh.

  “You think I’m kidding,” she said as she held the cup of porridge up to Max’s mouth. He was much too impatient to give her time to spoon-feed him, so he usually ended up drinking his morning meal. Of course a third of it dribbled down his chin and onto his clothes, but he got most of it inside him.

  “Really, I’m no good at anything. I can’t type, can’t take shorthand. I have no idea how to even turn on a computer. I tried to be a waitress, but I got the orders so muddled I was fired after one week. I tried to sell real estate, but I told the clients that the houses weren’t worth the asking price, so I was asked to leave. I worked in a department store, but the perfume caused me to break out in a rash, and I told the customers where to buy the same clothes cheaper, and the shoes, well, the shoes were the worst.”

  “What happened in the shoe department?” he asked as he ate a second bowl of cereal.

  “I spent my whole salary on the things. That was the only job I ever quit. It cost me more than I made.”

  This time he nearly gave a real smile. “But Billy took you away from all of that,” he said, his eyes twinkling.

  Amy’s face lost its happy look, and she turned away to grab a cloth to wipe the porridge from Max’s face.

  “Did I say something?”

  “I know what everyone thinks of Billy, but he was good to me and I loved him. How could I not? He gave me Max.” At that she gave an adoring look to her messy son, and in response he squealed and kicked so hard that he nearly knocked over the booster seat.

  Jason stuck out a hand and steadied the thing. Frowning, he said, “Isn’t he supposed to be in a high chair? Something with legs on the floor?”

  “Yes!” Amy snapped. “He’s supposed to be in a high chair, and he’s supposed to sleep in a bed with sides that lower, and he’s supposed to have a changing table and all the latest clothes. But as you know, Billy had priorities for his money and . . . and . . . Oh, damnation!” she said as she turned away to hide her sniffling.

  “I always liked Billy,” Jason said slowly. “He was the life of every party. And he made everyone around him happy.”

  Amy turned around, her eyes bright with tears. “Yes, he did, didn’t he? I led a pretty sheltered childhood, and I didn’t know that the cause of Billy’s forgetfulness and his—” Abruptly, she halted. “Listen to me. My mother-in-law says that I’m so lonely that I’d ask the devil to dinner.” Again she stopped. “I’m not complaining, mind you; Max is all I want in life; it’s just that—”

  “Sometimes you want an adult to talk to,” he said softly, watching her.

  “You’re a good listener, Mr. Wilding. Is that a characteristic of being gay?”

  For a second he blinked at her. “Not that I know of. So, tell me, if you need to get a job to support yourself and you have no skills, what are you going to do? How are you going to support yourself and your son?”

  Amy sat down at the table. “I haven’t a clue. You have any suggestions?”

  “Go back to school.”

  “And who takes care of Max all day? How do I pay someone to take care of him? Besides, I’m much too thick to go to school.”

  Again he smiled. “Somehow I doubt that. Can’t your mother-in-law take care of him?”

  “She has a bridge club, swimming club, at least three gossip clubs, and it takes time to keep that hair of hers.” At that, Amy made motions of a bouffant hairdo.

  “Yes, I do seem to remember that Mildred had a real fetish about her hair.”

  “Religious wars have been fought with less fervor. But, anyway, you’re right, and I have to get a job. I was going for an interview this afternoon.”

  “Doing what?” he asked, and the intensity of his eyes made her look down at the banana she was mashing with a fork.

  “Cleaning houses. Now, don’t look at me like that. It’s good, honorable work.”

  “But does it pay enough for you to hire someone to look after the baby?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m not very good with numbers, and I—”

  “I am very good with numbers,” he said seriously. “I want to see everything. I want your checkbook, your receipts, your list of expenses, whatever. I need to see your income and your outgoing money. Give it all to me and I’ll sort it out.”

  “I’m not sure I should do that,” she said slowly. “Those things are private.”

  “You want to call David and ask him about me? I think he’ll tell you to show me any papers you have.”

  For a moment she studied him. It had been so long since she’d been around an adult, and it seemed like years since she’d been around a man. Billy never cared about finances. If there was money, he spent it; if not, he found a way to persuade someone to lend it to him. “There isn’t much,” she said slowly. “I have a checkbook, but I don’t write many checks, and . . .”

  “Just let me see what you have. You take care of Max, and I’ll deal with the numbers.”

  “Do you always order people around?” she asked softly. “Do you always walk into a person’s life and take it over as if they had no sense and you knew how to do everything in the world?”

  He looked startled. “I guess I do. I hadn’t thought about it before.”

  “I bet you don’t have too many friends.”

  Again he looked startled, and for a moment he studied her as though he’d never seen her before. “Are you always so personal with people?”

  “Oh, yes. It saves time in the long run. It’s better to get to know people as they really are than it is to believe something that isn’t true.”

&
nbsp; He lifted one thick black eyebrow. “And I guess you knew all about Billy Thompkins before you married him.”

  “You can laugh at me all you want, and believe me or not, but, yes, I did know. When I first met him I didn’t know about the drugs and the alcohol, but I knew that he needed me. I was like water to a thirsty man, and he made me feel . . . Well, he made me feel important. Does that make sense?”

  “In a way it does. Now, where are your financial records?”

  It was Amy’s turn to be startled at the abrupt way Jason dismissed her. What is he hiding? she wondered. Whatever secrets he had, he didn’t want anyone to know what they were.

  After she gave Jason her box of receipts and her old checkbooks, she spent an hour cleaning the kitchen and pulling Max out of one thing after another. If there was a sharp edge, Max was determined to smash part of his body against it.

  “Could you come in here?” Jason said from the doorway, making Amy feel like a child being called into the principal’s office. In the living room, he motioned for her to sit down on the couch, Max squirming on her lap.

  “Frankly, Mrs. Thompkins, I find your financial situation appalling. You have an income well below the national poverty level, and as far as I can tell you have no way to replenish your resources. I have decided to make you a, shall we say, permanent loan so you can raise this child and you can—”

  “A what?”

  “A permanent loan. By that I mean you’ll never have to pay it back. We will start with, say, ten thousand dollars, and—”

  He broke off as Amy got up, walked to the front door, opened it, and said, “Good bye, Mr. Wilding.”

  Jason just stood there gaping at her. He wasn’t used to people turning down money from him. In fact, he received a hundred letters a day from people begging him to give them money.

  “I don’t want your charity,” Amy said, her lips tight.

  “But David gives you money; you told me he did.”

  “He has given my son free medical treatment, yes; but in return, I have scrubbed his house, his office, and the inside of his car. I don’t take charity, not from anyone.”

  For a moment Jason looked bewildered, as though her words were something he’d never heard before. “I apologize,” he said slowly. “I thought—”

  “You thought that if I was poor, then of course I was looking for a handout. I know I live in a house that needs work.” She ignored the expression on his face saying that that was an understatement. “But wherever I live and how I live is none of your concern. I truly believe that God will provide what we need.”

  For a moment Jason just stood there blinking at her. “Mrs. Thompkins, don’t you know that nowadays people believe that you should take all that you can get and the rest of the world be damned?”

  “And what kind of mother would I be if I taught values like that to my son?”

  At that Jason stepped forward and took Max from Amy as the baby was trying his best to pull her arms from her shoulders. As before, the baby went to Jason easily and quickly settled against his chest.

  “I do apologize, and you have to forgive me for not realizing that you are unique in all the world.”

  Amy smiled. “I hardly think so. Maybe you’ve just met very few people. Now, if you really want to help, you can take care of Max this afternoon while I go for the job interview.”

  “To clean houses,” he said with a grimace.

  “You find something else I’m qualified for and I’ll do it.”

  “No,” he said slowly, still looking at her as though she came from another planet. “I don’t know what jobs are available in Abernathy.”

  “Not many, I can assure you. Now, I need to tell you all about Max, then I have to get ready to go.”

  “I thought you said the interview was this afternoon. You have hours yet.”

  “I don’t have transportation, so I have to walk, and it’s five miles. No! Don’t look at me like that. You have, ‘I’ll pay for a taxi,’ written all over your face. I want to make a good impression at this interview because they’ve said I can take Max with me if I leave him in a playpen. If I get this job, all our problems will be solved.”

  He didn’t return her smile. “Who would you be working for?”

  “Bob Farley. Do you know him?”

  “I’ve met him,” Jason said, lying. He knew Bob Farley very well, and he knew that Amy would be hired because she was young and pretty and because Farley was the biggest lecher in three counties. “I’ll take care of the baby,” Jason said softly. “You get dressed.”

  “All right, but let me tell you about his food.” She then launched into a long monologue about what Max would and would not eat, and how he was to have no salt or sugar. Everything was to be steamed, not baked, and certainly not fried. Also, there was half a chicken in the refrigerator and some salad greens that could be Jason’s lunch.

  She went on to tell him that Max didn’t really like solid food, that he would much rather nurse, so, “Don’t be upset if he doesn’t eat much.”

  Jason only vaguely listened, just enough to reassure her that everything would be fine. Thirty minutes later she was out the door and he was on the phone to his brother.

  “I don’t care how many patients you have waiting,” Jason said to his brother. “I want to know what’s going on.”

  “Amy’s great, isn’t she?”

  “She is . . . different. Wait a minute.” He’d put Max on the floor, and the baby had half crawled, half dragged himself to the nearest wall socket and was now pulling on the cord to a lamp. After Jason had moved the baby away from the dangerous socket and put him in the middle of the floor, he went back to the phone.

  “This woman,” Jason began, “lives on a tiny life insurance policy left by that husband of hers, and she has no way to make a living. Do you know where she’s going for a job interview today? Bob Farley.”

  “Ahhhhh,” David said.

  “Call that old lecher and tell him that if he hires her, you’ll inject him with anthrax,” Jason ordered.

  “I can’t very well do that. Hippocratic oath and all that. If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you sound a little like a jealous husband. Jason? Are you there?”

  “Sorry. Max was caught under the coffee table. Wait! Now he’s eating paper. Hold on a minute.”

  When Jason got back, David spoke in frustration. “Look, big brother, I didn’t mean for you to get involved with her, just take care of the kid so I could have time with Amy. That’s all you’re to do. Once I convince Amy we’re made for each other, I’ll support her and she won’t have to work. Why don’t you tell her wonderful things about me?”

  “If she thinks you’re going to take care of her for the rest of her life, she might not marry you. She has more pride than anything else. And can you tell me why a baby can’t have salt or sugar or any form of seasoning on his food?”

  “The theory is that he’ll grow up to crave sweets if he has them as a baby, so if you eliminate those things, he’ll be healthier as an adult.”

  “No wonder the kid only wants to nurse and won’t eat much solid food,” Jason muttered, then dropped the phone to move Max away from the door, where he was swinging it and trying to hit himself in the face.

  When he returned, Jason said, “Do you think she’d allow me to give her a Christmas gift?”

  “What did you have in mind? Buy a business and give it to her to run?”

  Since this is exactly what Jason had in mind, he didn’t answer. Besides, Max was now chewing on Jason’s shoe, so Jason picked the baby up and held him, and Max grabbed Jason’s bottom lip, nearly pulling the skin off.

  “Look, Jason, I have to go,” David said. “Why don’t you use your brain instead of your money and figure out another solution to this problem? Amy’s not going to take your charity, no matter how you disguise it.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Jason said as he looked across the room to a potted plant set on a folded newspaper. “You call F
arley. I’d do it, but I don’t want him to know I’m here, and you say whatever you have to, but he’s not to hire her. Got it?”

  “Sure. How’s the monster?”

  Wincing, Jason removed the baby’s fingers from his mouth. “Fine.”

  “Fine? The kid is a brat. What’s that sound?”

  Max had grabbed both of Jason’s cheeks painfully and pulled him closer as he planted a very wet raspberry on Jason’s cheek. “I’m not sure, but I think the kid just kissed me,” Jason said to his brother, then hung up before David could reply.

  For a moment, Jason sat down on the couch, while Max stood on his lap. Strong kid, he thought, and not bad looking. Too bad he was wearing what looked to be hand-me-downs from someone’s hand-me-downs. He could believe that every kid in Abernathy had worn these overalls and faded shirt. Shouldn’t a smart little fellow like Max have something better than this? So how could he arrange it?

  At that moment, the newspaper caught his eye, and in the next moment he was fighting Max’s hands to be able to dial his cell phone.

  “Parker,” he said when his secretary answered the phone. There was no greeting. She had been his private secretary-assistant for twelve years, so he didn’t need to identify himself.

  Within a few minutes he had told her his idea. She didn’t make any complaint that it was Christmastime and he was telling her that she had to leave her home and family—if she had one, for Jason had no idea what her personal life was like—she just said, “Is there a printer’s in Abernathy?”

  “No. I wouldn’t want the work done here anyway. Do it in Louisville.”

  “Any color preference?”

  Jason looked down at Max, who was chewing on a wooden block that had probably been his father’s. “Blue. For a manly little boy. None of those pink-and-white bunny rabbits. And add all the bells and whistles.”

  “I see. The whole lot.”

  “Everything. Also, buy me a car, something ordinary like a . . .”

  “Toyota?” Parker asked.

  “No, American.” For all he knew Amy was against foreign cars. “A Jeep. And I want the car to be very dirty so I’ll need to hire someone to clean it. And buy me some clothes.”