A Hero's Reward (21 page)

Sunday night, when he was knocking off
work on the basement for the weekend, Greg promised the children that
he'd take care of any little things that needed doing during the
evenings of the coming week. He'd finish the improvements with
paneling the next weekend. The children wanted Greg to finish up the
basement so it could be 'theirs'. Next Saturday he'd take them out to
choose the paneling and then he'd get it installed over the weekend.
The basement would be set for them then. They'd cleaned some old
pieces of furniture that had been stored in the basement so there
were a few chairs and a coffee table down there that they had set up
around the television. That way they had something to sit in and a
place to hold their snacks while they watched movies.

When Margaret and Greg went to bed
Sunday night Greg was immensely relieved. Margaret was very
enthusiastic about making love to him. Over the past week or so she
had been alternately unenthusiastic or not interested at all. He had
worried that he had done something to upset her or that she had been
blaming herself for Freddy's apparent descent into madness. Whatever
had been bothering her over the past week seemed to be better now
though and after making love to her Greg fell into a sound sleep,
sleeping better than he had for days.

Greg's workweek started off normally. On Monday and Tuesday he and
his crew were finishing up a job. On Wednesday, the job they had
scheduled to start was canceled. They had been planning on repairing
a roof from Wednesday through Friday but the weather forecast called
for six to twelve inches of snow. This was not conducive weather for
outdoor work and downright treacherous for working on a roof. So the
job was rescheduled and Greg found himself at loose ends.

After spending a pleasant morning with Margaret he spent Wednesday
afternoon taking care of all the little bits and pieces remaining in
the basement so it would be ready for the paneling. She had to work
Wednesday afternoon though so he was alone in the house after she
left for work. He tried to kill time his normal way, with an action
movie, but found that it just didn't have the same appeal for him now
that it had before. So he sat and thought for a while instead.

Greg was great at planning a project. He could think through what
would need to be done and come up with a materials list and a rough
schedule right through to completion. What he wasn't quite so good at
was thinking about interacting with people. He always froze up at a
certain point when he tried to think of things directly involving
other people. He just couldn't find it in himself to think 'Joe Blow
will probably do X if Y happens' since he didn't like to guess how
people might react. His freezing point regarding asking Margaret to
marry him came with her actually answering, whether it was a yes or a
no. If he could think through that and make a guess as to what would
happen if she said yes or if she said no then he might be able to get
up the courage to actually ask her.

His thought processes plodded along slowly, trying to analyze
everything and eventually over thinking it. He gave himself a
headache trying to figure out what would occur. He asked himself what
was the worst that could happen versus the best that could happen and
came up with, respectively, no Margaret at all or Margaret as his
wife. While he loved the idea of the latter possibility the idea of
the first one left him cold and trembling. He tried to think of the
pros and cons and tried to look at the situation from every angle. He
just couldn't bring himself to commit to asking her due to the fear
of her saying no and then leaving him just because he had asked.

He was still trying to work his way through the problem when
Margaret got home from work.

“Hi Greg. I'll be happy when the children are home because
the roads are lousy. There's probably four inches of snow out there
already.”

“Is there? I hadn't looked outside. Welcome home, I'm glad
you made it safely.” Greg walked over and gave her a kiss.

“You want to meet the bus with me? It's due in about five
minutes but you'll want to bundle up some. It's chilly out there.”

“Sure, I can do that. Give me a minute.”

Greg hurried to get dressed appropriately for the weather and the
two walked out to the bus stop. The bus was more than a few minutes
late and Margaret was worrying out loud when they finally saw it come
around the corner. The children got off of the bus and everyone
headed back inside.

“Wow, it's really nasty out there” said Ellen, “I
saw at least three accidents on the way home.”

Christine nodded vigorously in agreement.

Jack looked at Greg:

“You don't have to work tomorrow either, do you?”

“No I don't, why do you ask kiddo?”

“I'm hoping they call off school and we can build a
snowman!”

“Well, if they cancel school I'll take you out in the front
yard and we'll build a snowman that everyone can see.”

“Thanks Uncle Greg! Mom, can I have hot chocolate?”

Christine chimed in with a “Me too?”

Ellen looked at her sister and Jack, sighed dramatically and added
her own:

“I'd like one also if it's okay.”

The five of them entered the house and Margaret headed to the
kitchen to make the kids their hot treat. The children took their hot
chocolates down into the basement. They'd do their homework there and
if they finished before dinner they could watch a movie when they
finished eating and helping clean up the dishes.

Margaret settled in with Greg in the living room, the two of them
staring out the window at the snow falling and accumulating.

Trying to forget his failure at being able to organize his
thoughts earlier in the day Greg stepped back to the subject they had
been talking about before Margaret left for work.

“Margaret, you don't have to pay for groceries, I can do
that. When I was shopping for just myself I typically spent nearly as
much each week as you do to feed the five of us, plus the food is
better now. Let me pay for them, you can save your money or use it
for things for you and Jack.”

“Greg, it isn't fair that you pay to feed all of us. I'm
pretty sure that the remodel of the basement put a dent in your own
savings, you ought to let me chip in.”

“You do chip in, you provide the skill to get what we need
for a lot less than I'd spend getting the same stuff.”

“That's not what I meant and you know it.”

“I understand what you're saying Margaret but you do the
shopping and all the cooking, that ought to count for at least as
much as me paying for the groceries.”

Margaret sighed, willing to let the matter drop for the moment.
The two of them sat close together, thighs touching. They held hands
as they watched the snow fall. The heater chose that moment to kick
in and they were grateful for the warm air slowly filling the room.
There was a cold breeze coming off the window but neither of them was
willing to close the curtains and lose their view as the snow turned
dead grass, leafless trees, and man-made objects into a soft-looking
white vista.

It wasn't very long until Margaret had to get up to start dinner.
When she did, Greg gave in and finally closed the curtains. He set
the table while she cooked. Setting the table wasn't something he had
bothered with when he was by himself, but it was something he had
come to associate with having the house full with his children,
Margaret, and Jack. So he found himself enjoying the process as a
symbol of how his life had changed, in his opinion, much to the
better. He still wasn't very good at it though and he frequently
caught Margaret straightening things or rearranging things just
before she served the meal.

Ellen complained when dinner was ready, she hadn't quite finished
her homework yet. The extra fifteen minutes the bus took to get home
would have allowed her to finish before dinner so Greg told her not
to worry. If she finished quickly after dinner they could still watch
a short movie.

They sat down together and ate as a family, despite the fact that
they were two separate families. The line between the two families
had quickly blurred between the children and Greg frequently found
himself thinking of Margaret as more of a wife than Emily had ever
been, despite the lack of an actual ceremony. He nearly managed to
get over his fear of asking Margaret at that thought. Only the
presence of the children kept him from proposing on the spot when the
thought finished running through his mind.

The rest of the evening passed peacefully until bedtime when they
had another episode of the ongoing argument over Ellen going to bed
at eight o'clock. The argument kept her up until eight thirty and
Greg used that to get her to bed.

“See, it's eight thirty, you got to stay up a half hour late
already. So go to bed now.”

He used the tone of voice that Ellen knew meant he was done with
the discussion and would shortly be upset enough to hold firmly to
all
the rules they had established for the house for the next
week or two so she gave in and went to bed. She knew that he
frequently bent the rules for the kids and didn't want to lose that
slack.

Greg woke shortly before six o'clock to his alarm clock, which he
had set to a local news channel the night before. As he lay in bed
the words the announcer was saying penetrated his sleep fogged brain:

“Due to the heavy snowfall overnight, many local schools
have been closed. Visit our website to see the list of school
closures and delays by school name.”

Greg dragged himself out of bed, dressed, and headed downstairs to
boot up his computer. When he finally had it running he found that
Ellen's school was closed for the day as was the school that both
Jack and Christine attended.

He walked into the kitchen and found Margaret listening to the
little portable radio he sometimes took to job sites.

“I guess you heard then, that the kids are off of school
today?”

“Yes I did, I'm making french toast and sausage so when they
drag you out to build a snowman you all have a hot meal in your
stomach already.”

“Thank you.”

Greg plopped into his chair before noticing that Margaret had
already brewed a pot of coffee. He stood back up and went to get
some. Margaret blocked his way though:

“Pay the toll first.” she said, pursing her lips.

Greg gave her a hasty kiss and reached for the coffee mug. Halfway
through his first cup he apologized for his lack of attention with
his first kiss and made it up to her with another kiss that had the
slices of french toast on the stove at the time slightly darker brown
on one side than they should have been.

Margaret served Greg's breakfast to him and sat down with a plate
of food herself. Before they had finished, the sound of running steps
rang out from the stairs as the children, or at least two of them,
came charging down.

“Uncle Greg, I heard they called off school. So we can make
our snowman!”

“I wanna help too.” added in Christine.

“Sure you can help Christine.” said Greg, “Where's
your sister?”

“When we told her there was no school she said that she was
going back to bed.”

Margaret and Greg looked at each other and shared a chuckle. The
concept of the child who insisted on having a later bedtime deciding
on getting more sleep in the morning was amusing to both of them.

“Well, that's fine. She can sleep in if she wants to since
there's no school.”

The two children present sat down to their breakfast. When they
had finished Greg got them up and moving to get dressed for being out
in the snow. As they began to bundle up, Ellen came downstairs and
into the kitchen. She grabbed herself a light breakfast from what was
left and started eating, shooting wistful glances at Greg and the
other two children. Greg didn't see this but Margaret did and she
kept an eye on Ellen. Greg took the younger two children out into the
front yard and they started working on a snowman.

When Ellen had finished eating, she put her dishes in the sink and
went into the living room. Several minutes later Margaret came out to
see her staring out through the window.

“You know, you could go out and join them if you wanted to.”

“No I can't, I'm too old for that silly stuff.”

“Your dad is out there, he looks like he's enjoying himself,
and he's plenty older than you. You're only too old for it if
you
think you are.”

“But he's a dad, that's the kind of thing he's supposed to
do.”

“How many dads do what they're supposed to, did you ever
think of that? Your dad is something special.”

“Then why'd he leave my mom and leave us stuck with her?”

“From the way I heard the story,
she
left
him
to marry a politician. When he tried to get custody, your mom's new
husband rigged the hearings so that he couldn't.”

“What? That's not what my mom told us.”

“Maybe you should ask your dad about it. I don't know the
whole story. But look at what we both saw ourselves, did he hesitate
at all when your mom just ditched you here? Or did he jump right in
to make his custody official and keep you from having to go back to
your mom if she changes her mind again?”

“Umm, I never thought about it that way. Mom did remarry
awfully quickly, didn't she? Dad still hasn't remarried.”

Margaret smiled a small, sad, smile:

“No, he hasn't remarried yet. Not for lack of opportunity
though, I know that for a fact.”

Ellen looked at Margaret curiously:

“He hasn't asked you? I was sure that he had and you'd said
no.”

“You're a little young to go through all the details with
but if he asked me, I'd accept in a heartbeat.”

“Why do you think he hasn't?”