A Family for Christmas (7 page)

“He mentioned his plan to Ester and me.” Nancy bit her lip before going on. “He could have done it,” she said, sounding as proud of Michael as his own mother should have. “But can Trent? I didn't know he was handy around the house. I always pictured him as the type to hire workmen.”

“He is.” Maggie giggled, then tried to describe the look on the plumber's face when he saw the chewing gum wadded on the leaking pipe in their apartment

“This could get interesting,” Ester said with a dry chuckle. “Remember you and the children can always come stay here if he blows the house up or floods you out.”

Maggie blushed. “Actually, it was me who almost burned the house down.” She went on to share the story of the French fry fire, as well as several other outrageously funny problems her inexperience with children had caused thus far.

By the time she was on her way to visit Mickey with Nancy, her mother had Grace down for a nap and had started doing crafts with Daniel and Rachel. Though her mother would never have grandchildren of her own, she had been a doting grandmother from the day Mickey was born.

Maggie and Nancy were both anxious to see how Mickey was responding to his new environment. They entered the room to find him staring out the window, ignoring the TV that was set to his favorite Saturday cartoon.

“Who could this handsome lad be?” Nancy asked. “Could this be my grandson? Goodness, it is!”

“Hi, Grandmom. You didn't have to come, you know.”

“Michael Trenton Osborne! What a thing to say! As if I'd need duty to make me come see my own grandchild.”

Mickey shrugged. “It's not like we can have fun or anything. All I can do now is lay here.”

“Oh? And how would you know that? I hear that pretty soon you'll be good as new.”

“Yeah. Sure. How are the other kids, Aunt Maggie? Rachel really misses Mom, I'll bet. You, too, I guess. Uncle Trent misses Daddy. He really loved him, you know.”

Maggie nodded, wishing she could climb into Mickey's head and know what was going on in there. “How about you?” she asked, hoping to draw him out. “Do you miss them?”

A rebellious look came into Mickey's eyes. His chin firmed stubbornly. “I'm glad they aren't here because having me be crippled would have made them sad.”

Shocked at first, Maggie quickly regrouped. “If they were here, they would tell you that you're not crippled. You were hurt and your body has to have time and help to repair itself. You
will
walk again. And they'd want you to believe that.
We
want you to believe that.”

“I still miss them a whole lot,” Mickey admitted.

“And I know that makes you sad, and that's okay. You realize that, don't you?” Nancy asked.

“Yeah. Uncle Trent told me it was okay to be sad. So did Aunt Maggie. That's what I decided to be today—sad.”

Nancy smoothed a stray lock off Mickey's forehead. “Do you want to play a game? I'm sure there are some games in the playrooms. Suppose Aunt Maggie goes there and finds one?”

Mickey shook his head and handed his grandmother a book. “Could you just read to me? I'm sort of tired.”

“Well, sure. We'll take turns.”

Maggie stepped back to watch Mickey as Nancy read to him, but within a few minutes he was asleep. Or he appeared to be. After an hour they left, disappointed and worried about a child whose onceexuberant personality now seemed a distant memory.

Mickey opened his eyes and pursed his lips, fighting tears as he heard the door swish shut. He loved Aunt Maggie and Grandmom, but he wished they wouldn't keep lying to him. He knew he was broken and that nobody wanted a broken kid. He knew he wouldn't get better no matter how hard he tried. He knew he'd never get better because his grandparents had said so. He'd have to live in a place for crippled kids. They had the place all picked out where he'd have to go live. Because he'd be a burden unless he was in an institution.

Mickey hadn't been at all sure what
burden
or
institution
meant after he heard his daddy's parents talking
outside his hospital room back in Florida. But he'd asked a volunteer there. And now he knew. He didn't like the sound of an institution, but he liked being a burden even less.

T
rent turned off the table saw and cocked his head, listening. High-pitched squeals and raucous shouts reached his ears a few seconds later. Maggie was back from her mother's with the kids, he mused, and smiled as he heard her shout for order. She was apparently organizing a game of some sort. He chuckled. She hadn't yet figured out that order was the last thing you got when three children under nine played any game. A few minutes later, though, the shouting turned a little too frantic for his liking and he was off like a shot to investigate.

He blasted out of the shop door and came to a screeching halt. Grace stood in the middle of the lawn, facing him with a carefree grin on her face. Behind her, Maggie wore a worried frown. She looked like a statue, pale as marble and still as stone.

“Kitty,” Grace shouted gleefully to Trent.

At that point, he looked more closely at the bundle
of black-and-white fur in her arms. Some days it just didn't pay to get out of bed. He put a hand up trafficcop style to Maggie, never taking his eyes off Grace and her troublesome armful. “Stay there, Mag. I'll handle it from here. Grace, love, that isn't a kitty,” he told the toddler.

Grace's grin turned into a frown. “Pretty kitty my
fwend!
”

“Honey, I'm sure he's very nice, but that isn't a kitty. He's a wild animal. A skunk.” Trent knew that if the animal were any older, the toddler would already know how true that was. Luckily, the skunk looked content and might not scratch her—or worse, bite her. Any danger of it spraying was minimized by the way she held it with its tail tucked under its bottom. Unless she lost her grip. Then things would get interesting—fast.

“Want to pet my kitty, Uncle Twent?” she asked. “His name is Bobo.”

Trent sighed.
In for a penny.
He had to get close sooner or later—he may as well do it by invitation. He inched closer, careful not to startle the little animal or Grace.
How early do they learn to spray?
he wondered as he reached out to stroke the soft fur stripe on its back.

“Sweetheart, this is a skunk.”

“Not a kitty?”

“No, and cute as he is, we can't keep him. It would be bad for him. He'd…ah…get sick from living with us. He needs his mommy.”

Grace's lower lip puckered. “He not have a mommy. Just like me.”

Trent felt his heart lurch and heard Maggie's quick intake of breath. He looked away from Grace for a moment. “Mag, get the others and get inside before they spook it” He turned his attention back to baby girl and baby skunk, picking up the conversation where it had left off. “Oh, his mommy died too? That's sad. But I'll bet he has lots of aunts and uncles. Animals have big families, you know. Suppose you and I go over to the woods and send him back home. Okay?”

Grace's face started to crumple. “Come on, Gracie, don't cry. You'll scare your little friend. Remember, he's a wild animal. He has to live in the woods.”

“I want my kitty,” she said, tightening her hold. The skunk gave an annoyed little squeal.

Desperate to get her to loosen her hold at least a little, he said the only thing he could think of. “Maybe we can get you a real kitty soon, but we can't keep Booboo. It wouldn't be fair.”

Her hold loosened perceptibly. “He's Bobo, not Booboo!”

Trent winced at her raised voice. “Sorry. Bobo. Bobo has to go home now, Gracie. Come on, we'll take him home to his family.”

Bottom lip puckered and quivering, Grace nodded and turned to. toddle off toward the woods. Trent stayed close at her side, his mind searching for a way to ensure a safe release of her captive. He finally settled on helping Grace set the skunk on the ground while making sure she kept the tail tucked under. Trent hooked his arm around her waist and sprinted
off with her as soon as the skunk's feet touched the ground.

The bumpy ride he gave her cradled against his chest had Grace laughing uproariously by the time he collapsed onto his back on the rear porch. His heart pounding, Trent gasped for breath as Grace crawled off him.

“Is everything safe?” Maggie asked as she stuck her head out the back door and sniffed.

Trent looked up. His already pounding heart turned over at the sight of her, and he could have sworn he felt the porch floor tilt under his back. She wore shorts and a tank top in deference to the warm late September day. How had he forgotten those lush curves, or how smooth and shapely her legs were? He knew when Maggie noticed his interest because a blush stole up her neck and across her sweet face.

It was that innocence that had first drawn him to Maggie so many years before, when she'd been a senior design student at Drexel University and he'd been finishing his postgraduate work at Stanford. They'd met at Christmas and had married six months later, after a pen pal courtship that adhered to the most oldfashioned of courting standards. And even after their honeymoon, she'd still somehow retained the innocence she'd given him on their wedding night.

When he glimpsed it, that sweetness had never failed to kindle his need for her and it didn't fail this time. He sat up and looked away, not wanting her to realize how much she still affected him.

Trent was grateful to Grace, who'd promptly pounced onto his back demanding another ride. He
pulled her over his shoulder and into his lap, his wits finally together enough to answer Maggie's question. “Everything's okay. Bobo's on his way back home to his aunts and uncles,” he explained. “They take care of him just the way we take care of Gracie. Right, Gracie?”

Grace looked up at him with her big brown eyes. “And they love him, too! Right, Uncle Twent?”

His throat started to ache. He swallowed and nodded, answering with a hug. He was losing it. First, Maggie's return to his life had begun squeezing his heart mercilessly, then assaulting his senses. And now the kids started.

“Right. They love him, too,” he answered, and nearly cringed at the rusty quality of his voice. He hoped Maggie would chalk it up to his sprint from the edge of the woods.

“Bobo wasn't a kitty,” Grace told Maggie, her little face serious, her tone self-important with her new knowledge.

“No. He sure wasn't. It's a good thing he liked you. He was a skunk,” Maggie said. Then she was telling Grace about the dangers and repercussions of approaching another such creature, and extracting a promise that she wouldn't approach any more wild animals.

“I pwomise,” Grace said, then turned back to Trent. “Can we go get my kitty now?”

“Your kitty?” he asked, and for a few seconds was completely at sea. Then he realized she wasn't asking to go back to the woods to find good ol' Bobo. She was talking about his nebulous future promise of a
kitten. “Oh!
That
kitty. I said maybe, Gracie. And I said soon.
Soon
doesn't mean right now. And
maybe
means…ah…means—”

“It means that Uncle Trent and I have to discuss it,” Maggie said, coming to his rescue even though her expression promised later retribution. “And soon really has to mean later in this case. Like after the house is done. Remember all the holes in the floors and walls? Kittens are small and curious and would get into all those dangerous places. The house wouldn't be safe for a kitten right now. We wouldn't want it to get hurt—
if
we agree to get one at all. Okay? Why don't you run on in and watch the
Young Adventurers
video we got today with the other kids? Tell Rachel I said she should rewind it so you won't miss anything.”

“You gonna talk about my kitty now?”

Maggie crossed her arms and leaned back against the house. “Oh, you can count on it,” she promised Grace, who squealed with glee and ran into the house.

Trent winced as the screen door flapped shut in her wake, then got to his feet. At least he could face the music standing.

“How could you?” Maggie demanded.

“I only said
maybe.
”

“
Maybe
from an adult means
yes
to a two-and-a-half-year-old. Trent, I have too much going on right now. I can't handle the addition of a kitten to the mix. And it wouldn't stop at that. Each of them would want a pet of their own. I shudder to think what Daniel would ask for.”

“Well, I think we're safe from Tyrannosaurus
Rex,” he teased, but didn't get a smile. He got a glare. Trent was a little taken aback by the strength of her anger. He'd been prepared for annoyed, but this was more. “I didn't know what else to do,” he defended himself. “She was starting to hold on to the thing for dear life. I was afraid if she squeezed any harder the little guy might get scared and scratch her or bite her. Then there was the charming possibility that he'd wiggle his tail free and spray. I thought the promise of a possible pet in the offing would be better than rabies shots or tomato juice baths for both of us.”

Maggie groaned and plunked down into one of the wicker chairs. “I'm sorry.” She sighed and put her head back with her eyes closed for a second or two, her struggle to overcome her deep-seated tension evident. “You're right,” she said, looking over at him. “We'll just put her off if she asks for a pet again. Don't mind me.”

“What is it? Taking care of the kids getting to you?”

She shook her head. “I'm just so worried about Mickey. What did you think of the way he acted when you saw him yesterday?”

“He seemed tired. I imagine the trip was a lot for him. He fell asleep right after I started reading to him. I hung around for a few minutes, but he didn't wake up. I thought I'd head in there again after dinner.”

“He was probably pretending to be asleep. I think he did the same thing with Nancy and me this afternoon.”

“Why would he do that?”

Maggie shrugged. “I don't have a clue.”

Now Trent was worried. “Maybe he doesn't believe he'll ever walk again. And he just lost his parents on top of that. It might be a good idea to have a psychologist talk to him.”

“I don't know how he'd react to that. I know there's something that
we're
missing, but would a stranger see it if we can't? Do you think he'd even talk to a stranger if he won't talk to you or me or Nancy?”

“It's worth a try. When I'm in there tonight, I'll find out if there's someone on staff.”

Maggie stood. “Okay. If you're comfortable with the idea. I guess it couldn't hurt. Are you eating here or are you going to grab something on your way to the hospital?”

Grace came barreling back out the door before he had a chance to answer. “Come kill de bug. You ‘quash it dead! It's in our house.”

Trent raised his eyebrows in a silent question.

“It's probably a mosquito or a fly,” Maggie told Grace. “Or maybe a spider.” Maggie chuckled at Grace's departure. “After the bugs in Florida, she's not exactly a fan of the insect kingdom. We had to make a rule that outside is the bug's house and that they're not fair game in their house. Inside, they are.”

“I'll go. I know they aren't your favorite, either.”

Maggie smiled. “After Florida, Pennsylvania's bugs are pretty tame, but thanks. So are you staying for dinner?”

Trent was surprised how much he wanted to say yes, but he still hesitated, thinking of his reaction to
Maggie. And then there was her accusation that he'd practically turned her into a maid and a nanny by staying in the carriage house. Since he wasn't ready to change things between them, he'd better back off a little, he decided. It was fast food for him again tonight.

“That's okay,” he told her. “Mickey wasn't happy with his dinner last night. I thought I'd take him a kid's meal and eat with him. I'll be sure to mention a psychologist to the nurses. Right now, though, I have a search-and-destroy mission.”

Trent watched Mickey pick at his favorite food after ignoring the toy inside the box. “Do you want me to put the toy together?” he asked the boy.

Mickey shrugged. “If you want,” he said, his tone flat.

Trent frowned. Maggie was right The kid wasn't acting at all like himself. “I hear you started therapy today,” he mentioned, trying to sound nonchalant as he fitted slot
A
into slot
B
of the toy.

“Yeah. It was fine.”

It didn't sound fine to Trent. “What did you do?”

“Nothin'. I just lay there, and they moved my legs. Kind of a waste if you ask me.”

“You know you're going to get better, don't you?

Mickey shrugged. “Yeah. Sure.”

He didn't sound sure to Trent. In fact, he sounded decidedly sarcastic. “Mickey, do you want to talk about what has you so down? I'd like to help. Really, I would. Is it your mom and dad? They wouldn't want you to stay unhappy. You know that, right?”

“Aunt Maggie read me all sorts of things about heaven one day in the hospital in Florida. It's okay that they left us to go there. I know they're happy.”

“Do you miss being at home, then? You'll be home with us soon. All you have to do is get better enough to be released.”

“Yeah. That's it,” Mickey agreed, but to Trent it sounded as if the boy had just grabbed onto a lifeline. “And I'm tired,” he added, and yawned expansively. “I think I'll go to sleep now. You can leave.”

“I could read to you.”

“Naw. That's okay. You can go help Aunt Maggie get the little kids to bed. I'm fine. It isn't too bad here. Really.”

Trent felt once again a wrenching in his chest. It was clear the boy was troubled, and just as clear that Trent wasn't helping him. He knew it was ridiculous, but he felt rejected and inadequate—which was really nothing new at all.