Hugo wore his bow tie to church with a white button-up shirt. I’d used a little bit of Brylcreem left over from Norman to slick his hair back. Still, the curls wouldn’t be completely tamed, looking like tight finger waves that reminded me of Cab Calloway.
He raced up the steps behind Nick and Dick to their Sunday school classroom, and I stood at the bottom, watching them go and fighting the urge to call out for him to hold the railing.
Sometimes being safe wasn’t the most important thing.
“He’ll be fine,” Pop said, coming up from behind me, his cane thudding on the hard floor. “He’s got to spread his wings a little.”
“I know.” I drew in a deep breath, holding it a few seconds before letting it out. “I just worry about him.”
Pop patted me on the shoulder then nodded at the stairs. “Want to sit with me for a spell?”
“What about Sunday school?”
“I got kicked out for bad behavior.” He winked at me.
“Well, I can’t say that surprises me.”
Pop made a groaning sound when he sat down. When I asked if he was all right, he grimaced.
“Yeah. Getting up will be a whole lot harder.” He rested the cane against the wall under the railing. “How are you holding up, kiddo?”
“Well, I’m still alive,” I answered, sitting beside him.
“That’s got to count for something.” He patted my hand, his arthritic swollen knuckles looking sore. “You’re doing a good job with that little boy.”
“I’m trying.” I bit my lip. “Half the time I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“I remember those first years of having kids. It’s a lot of work, isn’t it?”
“Well, I’m not sure that I would know exactly.”
“Sure you would,” he said. “You might not have given birth to Clara or Hugo, but you’ve been a makeshift mother to both of them.”
It was generous of him, and I was grateful.
“Now, I don’t want you thinking I’m a scaredy-cat, but I was so afraid when my three were all little,” he said. “I was scared the bakery would go broke or that our house would catch fire or that I’d be a terrible dad to them. I wore myself out with the worry. It made me mean more times than I like to admit.”
“I can’t imagine you being mean.”
“Sometimes that’s how a man deals with his anxious thoughts.” He shrugged. “Lacy cornered me one day.”
He shook his head and laughed at the memory, rubbing his clean-shaven face with the palm of his hand.
“She said if I didn’t knock it off, she’d have me sleeping in the back room of the bakery until I did.” He caught my eyes and raised his brows. “When I told her it was because I was scared, she said I was wasting my time.”
He wiped under his nose with the back of his hand.
“She told me something that’s stuck with me. And I’m going to say the same thing to you today,” he said. “The people in our lives, they were God’s before they were ours. And just because we’ve got them doesn’t mean they stop being his.”
I folded my hands in my lap, trying to keep from fidgeting.
“When I married Lacy, I didn’t take her from God and I wasn’t borrowing her. She belonged fully to him before and above anything.” He squeezed his hand into a fist and released it, a few crackles sounding in the process. “It’s the same with the kids.”
“Did that work?” I asked.
“Well, sometimes.” He chuckled. “But you better believe she reminded me whenever I forgot.”
“I’m sure she did.” I felt a pang of missing Mom Sweet.
“I will tell you that it didn’t make losing Lacy or Norm any easier,” he said. “Nothing could have made that easy.”
He knocked a tear out from under his eye.
“Oh, Pop.” I took his hand.
“Nothing that can happen to any of us is outside of God’s hand.” He looked me straight in the eyes. “He knows we’ll suffer, Bets. He knows because he has suffered. And I believe he feels the pain right along with us.”
He turned his hand over and wrapped his fingers around mine.
“I know that’s not the most comforting way of saying what I mean.” His grin was the exact one he’d passed down to Norman. “What I’m trying to say is that we’re going to have trials of all kinds. But we can’t lose hope, Bets. We can’t. If we can just believe, we might just see him overcome it all.”
From the classroom at the top of the stairs the kids sang “Jesus Loves Me” just like they did every week.
Pop smiled as he hefted himself up. When he offered me his hand, I took it even though I didn’t need his help to stand.
We walked down the hallway together, my arm tucked into his.
He sang along with the kids with every bit of earnestness as they did.
We were God’s little ones.
We belonged to him.
It didn’t take away all the worry.
But it made it easier to bear.