Mark stood back and admired the wall he’d just painted. He had finished harvesting the wheat around noon, and when he’d gone back to his family’s ranch to get something to eat after that, he made another trip to the barn’s tack room and found an assortment of cans of paint left over from the time his sister painted the kitchen and the downstairs bath. Between trims and accent paints, he had five or six colors. He’d come back to the Stelling place and cleaned the window in the small house. Then he scrubbed the cigarette smoke stain off the walls in the living room. By the time he finished the last wall, the first one was dry, so he went to work with the paintbrush.
He had two coats of yellow on one wall and a partial pattern on half of the ceiling before he heard the rattle of Hannah’s car. The window he’d just washed faced west and the sun was shining through, so when he turned to look, he saw Hannah clearly. He stepped out in front of the house and waved so that everyone would know where he was. His pickup was still parked at the main house. When Hannah went to her trunk, he remembered the groceries and hurried across the weedy ground.
“Let me carry those,” he said when he got there. By then she had the car trunk open and she was reaching for the boxes.
“I can get it,” Hannah said as she put her hands through the hand holes in the box.
“Of course you can,” Mark said as he stood to the side until he saw her falter. She couldn’t lift it. So he put his hands under the box, as well. “Things are always heavier than they look.”
She let him take the whole thing. “You know, I plan to pay you back for whatever money you gave to Randy this morning.”
He heard Jeremy and Mr. Stelling as they walked to the main house. Mark glanced up enough to see that Jeremy was dragging his feet. Mr. Stelling held out his hand and helped the boy up the steps to the porch. The cat was following them into the house.
“Jeremy’s tired,” Mark said as he looked over at Hannah.
She nodded, looking weary herself. “I can’t seem to manage anything these days.”
“Of course you can,” Mark protested. “You already got him to a doctor who diagnosed him and you’re going to take him to a specialist tomorrow.”
“I forgot my money at home today or I would have had more to give Randy for groceries,” she confessed. “I should thank you for covering for me.”
“Did he say I gave him any money?” Mark asked Hannah. He knew very well Randy would not say anything of the sort.
“No,” Hannah admitted.
“Maybe they just had a sale at the store,” Mark said. “Or maybe he had some coupons. You can save a lot that way.”
Hannah leaned over and looked into the box he held.
“There’s a whole chicken in there,” she said. “Not to mention a package of hamburger meat and a couple of cans of tuna fish.”
“And apples,” Mark noted when he looked down. There were also carrots, potatoes and an onion.
Hannah must have kept looking, because she turned to him. “All of the ingredients for some chicken soup.”
“That should build up Jeremy some,” Mark said. He’d have to thank Randy for adding a chicken to the box. “That’s what my mom always used to make when any of us were sick.”
“Mine did, too,” Hannah said, looking more positive than she had earlier.
“See, you’ll do fine,” Mark said as he hefted the box so it settled against his hip and started to walk to the door that Mr. Stelling had left open. Hannah picked up the small ice chest and carried it beside him.
Mark was suddenly conscious of how much parenting Hannah had been forced to learn on her own while he had been laid up with that coma. He wished he could make up for some of it. His father told him he’d regularly sent money to Hannah to help her with Jeremy, but Mark figured it hadn’t been enough. He planned to sit down with her and set up a schedule of payments. Of course, that would be only the beginning. His childhood hadn’t been perfect, but he wanted to be a good father to Jeremy. He wasn’t sure of everything that would mean, but he planned to find out.
* * *
Once she was in the main house, Hannah put a blanket over the window in the back bedroom so that Jeremy would be able to take a nap. He came willingly when she called and she tucked him in. He was asleep before she left him lying there. His cat was curled up at the bottom of the bed and she expected it would doze, too.
On the way back to the kitchen, Hannah passed the living room, where her father and Mark were discussing the wheat crop. She caught enough of the words to know that her father was pleased with the careful job Mark had done with the combine. Mark had also called someone to truck the wheat to the closest grain elevator. She thought she had smelled the wheat dust when she walked into the house minutes earlier. She remembered that from her childhood.
Hannah told herself things were getting better as she put the chicken in the oven to roast for supper. Her father didn’t have much more than salt and pepper in the cupboard, but she coated the bird with a little olive oil and applied what seasonings she had freely. She’d hold back some of the cooked chicken from the table tonight so she could make a pot of soup for tomorrow, too. It made her feel good to cook, like she was sharing this kitchen with her mother again. She was glad Mark had reminded her that her mother had always made chicken soup, saying it would cure whatever ailed you. She knew it wouldn’t cure Jeremy’s leukemia, but she hoped it gave him some comfort and feeling of home.
“Mommy!”
A sharp cry came from the back bedroom. She hurried to her son, but she had to go through the living room, and by the time she got through the doorway, Mark was already heading down the hall.
When Hannah reached the bedroom door, she saw Jeremy with his arms wrapped around Mark’s neck, looking like he’d never let go. Her son had been frightened. His breathing was still ragged. That cat of his paced the floor by the bed as though she disapproved of Jeremy seeking comfort from a stranger. Hannah couldn’t blame the animal for that; she felt the same.
“Mommy,” Jeremy called again—his voice softer this time—and Hannah went to him, sitting on the bed next to Mark.
She expected her son to fling himself into her arms. After all, she’d been his sole comforter since he was born. But Jeremy didn’t seem inclined to loosen his death grip on Mark. What her boy did instead was cling to Mark’s neck while he rested his head against her shoulder with what looked like extreme relief. Hannah had to reach around Mark to pat her son on the back, but that’s what she did.
“Sorry,” Mark whispered, sounding reluctant as he started to untangle himself from Jeremy’s grip. He looked over at Hannah. “It’s you he wants. I just got here first so he figured any port in a storm.”
“I’m glad you were here,” Hannah murmured as she held her hands out to her son.
Jeremy did give up Mark then and came to her. She saw the flash of loss on Mark’s face. Whatever happened, she was beginning to understand that Mark did want to be a father to her son. She might have to work on trusting him whether she wanted to or not. She didn’t want to cause Jeremy any distress and her son seemed to have become attached to Mark the moment he met him.
She was still troubled by the longing she saw on his face when he looked at Jeremy curled up in her arms.
“We’ll have to tell him soon,” she said, sharing the task with Mark the only peace offering that she could think of.
“Not now, though,” Mark said, although he looked pleased at her words. “We can wait until things settle down. He’s had enough to deal with today.”
Hannah nodded. Jeremy burrowed into her arms the way he used to when he was a toddler. She started to rock him and she felt him relax until he went soft.
“Bad dream?” she asked him.
Her son nodded. “It was dark in here. I thought I was asleep.”
She probably shouldn’t have covered the window, Hannah thought. He was usually fine without light when he slept, but maybe that was because she was always in the room with him. She wasn’t so sure she’d sleep well without his breath on her face, either.
“I’m sorry, baby,” Hannah murmured as she drew Jeremy closer.
When some time had passed, Mark stood up from the bed and said he should get back to the work he had been doing in the small house. He wanted to finish more of it, he said, before the sun went down.
Her father, who had come to stand in the doorway, frowned as he watched Mark get up. He must have forgotten how pleased he was to have his wheat harvested because he scowled at Mark and then declared he had some phone calls to make before he stomped off.
“He’s just—” Hannah tried to think of a believable reason to excuse her father’s rude behavior, but Mark interrupted.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said.
“I can’t help that,” Hannah said with a half smile.
Mark looked at her, his eyes lingering on her mouth. “Come with me.”
Jeremy must have been listening to Mark because he climbed down from Hannah’s lap, ready to leave.
Hannah stood, intending to go chop up something for supper. But then she remembered her father and decided she should give him some privacy since the only place in the house with a phone was the kitchen. So she nodded toward Mark and, taking Jeremy’s hand, walked beside Mark through the living room and out the front door into the heat of the afternoon. She noted the sky was clear so the threat of rain had passed.
“What I’m doing isn’t finished,” Mark cautioned her as they neared the little house.
Hannah was conscious of all the weeds in the dirt as they walked. The crop might be taken care of with the help of Mark, but the yard around here needed work. This yard used to be covered with cultivated grass and now there was nothing but clumps of the strongest wild grass that blew through and lodged in every nook and cranny in the spring winds. It didn’t look like her father made any effort to keep the property up. She knew Mark was talking about the house, but she already knew the same longtime neglect would be found there.
“Anything you’ve done to the place will be an improvement,” Hannah answered. Jeremy was walking between the two of them, holding one hand from each of them. He sounded like he’d forgotten his earlier distress. He seemed to enjoy holding both their hands, but Hannah figured he would not be able to keep his balance on this rough terrain without the two of them. The cat, as always, followed in her son’s wake.
Hannah surveyed the land again, looking at it with a new image in her head.
“You couldn’t get a wheelchair over this,” she muttered, almost to herself. Everything would tip over and Jeremy would spill out.
Hannah had barely made a sound, but Mark must have heard her. He stopped in midstride and turned to face her.
“Is that what you’re expecting?” he asked in a tone just as soft as the one she’d used. “Is that what the doctor said would happen?”
“Oh.” She wished she’d held her tongue. Mark looked appalled at the thought of a wheelchair. She wasn’t sure how he would feel about Jeremy if her boy ended up in one of those things. Half of the doctors she’d talked to said it might happen that way, especially with the complication of a tumor.
Hannah looked down and saw her son look up with a curious expression on his face.
“It’s nothing,” Hannah finally said loud enough for everyone to hear as they started walking again. “Nobody needs to worry. I was thinking of...using it to deliver our groceries.”
She saw the jaw on Mark’s face tighten, but he didn’t say anything.
Mark opened the door wide when they got to the house, and Jeremy dropped both of their hands and stepped inside. Mark touched Hannah’s arm before she could enter, too.
“I’m not worried about me,” Mark said in a low, tense voice. “Don’t treat me like I’m on the other side. I’m not. I want what is best for Jeremy.”
Hannah looked up. She’d have to be blind not to see that he was sincere.
“I didn’t want him to know what we were talking about,” she admitted. “He might be scared.”
Mark grimaced. “We need to learn to speak in code like other parents do.”
“Oh,” Hannah said. She felt a butterfly flitting around in her stomach. “I’ve never learned how to do that.”
“We used to speak in code,” he said. “Remember?”
“But we were spying then.” She grinned at the thought. “The cows were enemy soldiers and we had to get across enemy lines.”
“That didn’t last very long,” Mark replied. “I can’t remember why.”
“You had football,” she said. She’d had a fierce wish to be a boy about then. They’d been in the sixth grade. She’d been devastated not to be able to join the team. She was glad they let girls join now. “You said you didn’t have time.”
“Well, that was a shame,” he said. “We would have gotten good at all those dots and dashes we used. After all, we had the cows fooled.”
“They weren’t even paying us any attention,” she said.
Right about then, Hannah heard a whoop coming from inside the house.
“It’s a hero’s room,” Jeremy exclaimed when Hannah stepped inside. He turned to her with a wide grin on his face. She hadn’t seen him so happy since the last time he’d been able to pet a horse.
Hannah looked forward, seeing the room through her son’s eyes.
The bright yellow wall had a sparkling clean window square in the middle and rays of afternoon sun were pouring through, filling the whole room. A strip of ceiling above the wall was painted blue and a series of comic features popped out from the blue. She recognized Davy Crockett and the superhero with the cape. There was even an angel with a sword standing on a cloud and what looked like Cupid in the corner.
“You won’t have to worry about the darkness anymore,” Hannah said to Jeremy.
He nodded vigorously. “They won’t let anyone get me.”
“Who’s going to get you?” Mark squatted down to ask him.
Jeremy just shrugged.
When it became apparent Mark wouldn’t receive a response, he stood up.
Hannah looked over at Mark. “Thank you.”
Jeremy turned then and added, “Thanks from me, too, Mr. Man.”
“You’re most welcome,” Mark said, his face losing its serious expression and eventually beaming at both of them.
“I’m going to go look in the kitchen,” Jeremy announced as he started to walk toward the other room.
“I haven’t done any work in there yet,” Mark called out a warning as the boy went through the doorway.
Hannah felt a sense of peace watching her son explore new territory. Then she turned to the other wall.
“Oh!” she exclaimed with delight.
A solid-looking double bed, with a curved mahogany headboard and a firm mattress, was lined up with that far wall. A white blanket and several white sheets were folded on top of the mattress. She could see right away that a person, even a little boy, could lie in that bed and look through the window, pretending he was having adventures with his comic book heroes.
“Where did you get the bed?” Hannah turned to Mark. She knew she and Jeremy would have a good night’s sleep in that bed. There were even new pillows. The air mattress she’d brought with her didn’t stay inflated throughout the night, and when she used it, she had to add air about one o’clock in the morning.
“The headboard belonged to a bachelor uncle of mine at one point,” Mark said. “It’s been in the attic at our house for as long as I can remember.”
“It’s an antique!” she exclaimed, her enthusiasm waning. “Oh, I couldn’t use something like that. It’s hard to make sure Jeremy doesn’t jump on the bed and I wouldn’t want to damage it. I couldn’t replace it.”
“Jeremy can pound away all he wants,” Mark said with a grin. “All of the legs have been replaced at some time or other. And there’s a crack on the back of the headboard. I doubt if it would bring more than ten dollars in an auction.” He lifted his hand. “And the mattress is clean, but it’s old. No antique at all. So, no, you can’t pay me for any of it.”
Hannah blushed. She had just been going to say she would give him the ten dollars when she collected some more tip money. She’d bought a good mattress some years ago, but she’d never owned a bed frame before and she wouldn’t mind buying it outright. She had always rented furnished apartments and the furniture had never been good. One time she and Jeremy had to share a single bed and the headboard on that had been nothing but heavy cardboard.
“I only hope you both are comfortable enough sleeping on it tonight,” Mark continued. “I found another mattress, but I’m going to look through some more things in the attic and see if I can’t find another bed frame, so you’ll want to use the second mattress then. I’ll bring a table and chairs over tomorrow when I come—”
Hannah stiffened.
Mark stopped and studied her. “I thought I’d come over around six o’clock in the morning.”
She felt foolish for reacting so she only nodded.
Everything was silent for a few minutes.
“Will that give us time before we head off for the doctor’s appointment?” Mark said with his face suddenly stoic. “Have you decided if I can go with you? I’m happy to do the driving.”
“Yes.” She was relieved to share her decision. “Mrs. Hargrove was determined that I get someone to go with me. She said I needed someone.”
“Well, she’s right,” Mark said as his face relaxed. “I’m glad we have that settled. Nobody should have to go through something like that alone.”
She was going to nod again when she saw Mark suddenly look stricken. She wondered if he’d changed his mind about going with her to the doctor, or maybe he remembered another commitment he’d made and couldn’t go.
“I am so sorry,” Mark said, his eyes locking on hers. “I just realized that I don’t even know all of the times you felt alone when you were pregnant with Jeremy. You must have gone to the doctor several times. I hope you didn’t have to go alone. And then when Jeremy was born and you had a baby to take care of—that must have been difficult. I’ve been planning to increase the monthly payments my father sent to you, but that won’t ever make up for not being there during those years.”
“Your father sent me enough.” Hannah gave him a curt nod. She was suddenly overwhelmed. “Besides, I’m used to being alone.”
She thought Mark would take comfort from her words, but he seemed even more distressed when he heard them. “I don’t want you to ever feel like you have to face life alone again.”
She didn’t know what to say. Things would happen in life. “It’s nice to know you want to be there for me.”
That was about the best she could do, and Mark seemed to accept that because he only nodded.
“I will be here tomorrow,” Mark finally said. “I can bring my pickup to drive or borrow my sister’s car if you’d rather we use that.”
“Which one has the biggest back seat?” Hannah asked. “In case we need to stop and take a break for Jeremy. We could pull into a rest stop and he could take a nap if he’s tired. He doesn’t have much stamina these days.”
“My pickup would be wider,” Mark said. “And I think it’s longer, too. Plenty of room. Are you going to bring those comic books of his? Since he can’t have his cat, he’ll want the comics.”
“He will, won’t he?” Hannah figured she should have thought of doing that earlier, but it was nice to have someone else looking out for Jeremy. “Thanks for thinking of it.”
“Jeremy’s the one who thought of them,” Mark confessed. “But we make a good team—you and me. We always have.”
Hannah couldn’t deny that. They had survived everything together as children and then young teens. She was beginning to hope they could be friends again. She could probably handle being friends with Mark if she didn’t rely on him too much. It was all a matter of balance, she told herself. And then she looked at him.
Lord, help me, she prayed.