Anita Mills (36 page)

“I don’t think I can.”

“I haven’t asked for anything of you but your love in the months we’ve been married. I’ve been as good a wife to you as I know how, and you wouldn’t deny it. Well, I’m asking for something now.”

He stood there, looking into her upturned face, seeing the tears spilling down her cheeks. “If I look at him, then walk away, he’s going to feel worse,” he said finally.

“I don’t think you’ll walk away. I don’t think you can.”

“If I do, will you still be satisfied to leave it at that—or are you going to pester me to keep coming back?”

“If you can’t stand to look at him more than once, I guess I’ll have to accept it. But I want you to understand, I’ll be coming to visit him. You don’t have to come with me, but he’s going to know somebody cares about him.”

“But you won’t mention him to me again?”

Afraid he could see the elation in her face, she had to force herself to meet his eyes. “I won’t mention him to you again, Spence. You’ll have to ask me to find out how he’s doing.”

“All right. You’ve made sure that she’s still got a hold on me—I hope you realize that.”

“She’s dead. She can’t do anything to or for anybody anymore, including herself. But you’d better come on—I told the sister in charge we’d be here at four, and we’re late.”

As they entered the building, there was a waiting area in front of the office door. Sitting ramrod straight, a stern-looking couple waited in chairs
by
the entrance. As he passed them to take a seat across the room, Spence thought the woman looked as sour as if she’d been drinking vinegar. A young nun sat in the corner, watching several children, trying to keep them quiet.

“If you’ll wait, here,” Laura told him, “I’ll see if we can still arrange to see him.”

When she entered the office, he could see her talking to someone behind a desk. He wanted to pray the sister wouldn’t let them see the child, but he knew Laura would just drag him back tomorrow. No, he might as well get it over and done with. When he looked up again, the door was closed, and he realized he’d been left to fidget while she told the head nun only God knew what.

He didn’t notice the child come in and sit down next to him until the kid began swinging his legs, kicking the wooden rung of his seat restlessly.

“I hope I’m not in trouble again,” boy said wistfully.

“You get in trouble often?” Spence asked, his eyes on that closed door.

“Some.”

Turning to look at him, Spence froze. “Oh, God.”

“You in trouble, too, mister?”

It was hard to say anything. “I don’t know.”

“Well, you put your hand on the table ‘stead of holdin’ it up, and it don’t hurt near as bad when she hits it.”

“I’ll try to remember that.” It had been like looking into Lydia’s eyes again. “What did you do?”

“I dunno.”

“You must have an idea.”

“No. It’s always somethin’ I didn’t know I did.”

“Like what?”

The kid gave his chair several kicks before he answered. “Bad words. You’re not s’posed t’ say hell or things like that, but I must’ve.”

“You don’t remember?”

“I get mad.”

“Oh.”

“You cuss, mister?” the kid asked curiously.

“Some.”

“Then you can’t let sister hear it, or she’ll smack your hand real good.”

Casting a sidewise glance at the child, Spence was struck by how sober he was. “So—have you been here a long time?”

“Yeah.” Leaning close, the kid confided, “I hope them folk’s not comin’ to ‘dopt me. Don’t she look mean?”

“Well, she doesn’t look like she’d be much fun to live with,” Spence conceded.

“That’s what I was thinkin’.”

“Do you want to be adopted?”

“I dunno.”

“I’d think you’d have to be an orphan to be adopted.”

“I dunno.” The boy’s dark eyes looked at nothing for a moment before he turned them on Spence. “My mama’s dead.”

“That’s too bad.”

“I guess so. I’d ruther have m’ mammy, but she’s dead, too.”

“Auntie Fan.”

“How’d you know that? You got one, too?”

“No. I just knew her, that’s all.”

“She was a big ole fat mammy, and she didn’t ’llow no sassin’. She got mad, even Mama was skeered of her. I liked that ole woman.”

“Yeah, so did I.”

The office door creaked as it started to open, and the boy jumped down from the chair. “Bye. I gotta go see her.”

He looked sturdier than Spence had pictured him, and he had that all-boy look to him, like he could be a handful. And there was no question about it— Laura hadn’t lied when she’d said he was a handsome child. He watched Joshua Hardin cross the room, trying to see something of himself in that little body.

“Well, Josh, if you’re not a sight for sore eyes! You look even bigger than you did yesterday!” Laura was in the doorway, bent over, greeting the kid. “You remember me, don’t you?”

“Yes’m. You was comin’ back to visit me.”

With an elderly nun hovering behind her, she took the boy’s hand. “I’ve got somebody over here who wants to meet you, Josh, He’ll be real excited,” she added, pointing to Spence.

“No, he won’t. I done seen ’im.”

“Did you tell him your name?”

“No, ‘cause he didn’t ask me,”

“Well, maybe you’d better.”

The kid wasn’t looking sober at all now. “I’m not in trouble?”

“Of course not. I asked if you could come down to see me.”

A sigh of relief escaped him. “I was ’fraid I was gettin’ ’dopted, and she just don’t look like
a mama.”

Stopping in front of Spence, she urged the child, “Tell him your name,”

“Joshua Hardin.”

“We’ve met,” Spence managed.

“No, we ain’t—not ’xactly. Not till you tell me yours, we ain’t. We just been jawin’ some.”

“Spence?”

Her eyes were swimming as she looked at him, and he knew he couldn’t disappoint her or the kid. Bending down close to eye level with the dark-haired, dark-eyed boy, he tried to smile. “My name’s Hardin, too—Spencer Hardin. I’m your daddy, and I’ve been looking for you for a long time. Last time I saw you, you weren’t much bigger than a minute, so I don’t expect you to remember me.”

The kid’s eyes grew big like saucers; then an excited grin lit his face. “I been waitin’, that’s for sure,” Wheeling, he ran to the office. “You hear that, Sister ‘Lotta? I ain’t got to stay!”

The tears spilled over, streaking her face, as Laura whispered, “Thank you.”

“He cusses.”

“Surely not—he’s too little.”

“He told me himself.”

“Well, we’re going to change that.” She hesitated long enough to take a quick look at Joshua before she turned back to Spence. “You do want him, don’t you? No matter what I told you outside, it’s going to take both of us to raise him.” Before he could answer, she added quickly, “I know I can love him. I’m halfway there already, because there’s just something about him that reminds me of you.”

Just then, Josh emerged from the office to make a dashing sweep of the room, whopping, “My daddy’s come to get me!” As he passed the other couple, he shouted, “You ain’t takin’ me home—you got to get you another little boy now!”

“Since he’s got the Hardin name, he might as well have the Hardins to go with it,” Spence said finally. “But with three children by this time next year, we’ll damned sure need to build a house.”

As the boy ran past her, Laura scooped him up to hug him. “I’m your new mama, Josh, but we’re going to get along just fine, ’cause we’ve both got brown eyes. And you know what?—you’ve even got a little sister, and her name’s Jessie.”

Setting him down, she looked to Spence. “You can build me a fancy house if you want
to
,
but it’s the people in it that’ll count to me.”

“As long as I’ve got the money to pay for it, you can have anything you want, Laurie.”

“Well, then I want you to give up cussing. All those damns and hells will have to go, or he’ll just keep repeating them.”

“I’ll try.” Afraid she’d start crying again, he put his arm around her shoulders. “Well, I guess we round him up and take him home,”

“Yes—just as we planned on all the way out here. Sister Carlotta says if you’re his natural father, you don’t have to sign but one paper. Actually, I think she’s more than a little glad to see him go.”

“I was afraid of that. I don’t know why, but he’s not quite what I’d imagined.”

“Oh?”

“He may be the spitting image of Lydia, but aside from that, there’s nothing about him that reminds me of her. I just hope he’s not too much for you.”

Under the disapproving eyes of the two nuns and the sour-faced couple, she pulled his head down close enough to kiss him. “Now that I’m not ironing and scrubbing, he’ll give me something to work on.”

His arms closed around her, holding her tight, as he fought the lump in his own throat. “We’ve got everything now, Laurie,” he told her. “And it’s just going to keep getting better. I’ll get my practice built up, we’ll have a fine house up on the hill, and you’ll be the belle of San Francisco.”

“As long as you never forget all I really need is you.” Leaning back in his arms, she wiped his wet face with her hand, “I think we’d better get him and go before we scandalize these folks so much they won’t let us have him. I mean, after all this, we don’t want to leave empty-handed now.” For a moment, her chin quivered again. “Spence, I’m about as happy as I’ve ever been,” she said, her voice dropping huskily. “I don’t ever want to forget how I feel right now.”

And neither did he. “Come on,” he said gently, “let’s go home. It’s time he met Jessie.”

“L
adies and gentlemen, it is with a great deal of pleasure that I give you a truly remarkable woman who must surely be an inspiration to all of us, the formidable-looking society matron announced. Holding up two leather-bound books, she added dramatically, “By sharing her mother’s gift to her, she has enriched the lives of thousands of other women, young and old.”

“Who’s that, Daddy?” Jessie whispered.

“Shhh—it’s Mama,” Josh answered for Spence.

Shaking her head, the little girl pointed. “No, it isn’t—Mama’s over there.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mrs. Lane’s generous daughter!”

There was a soft rustle of petticoats beneath the skirt of her green silk dress as Laura stood up, smiling, and the polite clapping erupted into a thunderous burst of applause. In the front row, Spence rose to pay his own homage to her, and the chairs emptied behind him. As he watched her move gracefully to the podium, he was too proud of her for words.

“Thank you.” Discovering she’d only encouraged them, she smiled and waited a minute before she held out her hands to quiet all those people. “Thank you,” she said more loudly. “And now that I have everyone’s attention, I’d really appreciate your ears.” Pausing, she looked out over the cream of San Francisco society, then her gaze dropped to Spence, Josh, and Jessie, and she waved happily at them.

There was no trace of her earlier nervousness. In fact, she looked like a cat about to dive into the cream pot, Spence decided.

“That’s my mama,” Jessie told everyone around her.

As the applause tapered off, Laura acknowledged it again. “Thank you so much for your kind welcome. I find myself quite overwhelmed by such generosity of spirit.” Clearing her throat discreetly, she began her speech. “While some of you already know me through an acquaintance with my husband, Dr. Spencer Hardin, I suspect those of you who’ve read
Practical Advice to a Young Woman
or
The Household Companion
have come to meet my mother’s daughter, as Mrs. Kendall so aptly introduced me. Yes, I was and am the grateful recipient of all the wisdom in these two books.

“For those of you who’ve never met me before, my name is Laura Lane Taylor Hardin, and I was born twenty-nine years ago on a small farm near Salisbury, North Carolina. The publisher has kindly described my family as less than prosperous, but the truth is we were downright poor.” As a murmur of disbelief rippled through the audience, she nodded. “My daddy dreamed of preaching instead of farming, but he had a family to feed, so he kept plowing the poorest piece of land in Rowan County, hoping the crops would be better the next year.

“My mother was the truly extraordinary one. Born Nellie Mae Parrish nearly twenty years before me in that same little house, she was most certainly poor in material things, but she had her dreams, too—she’d grown up wanting to be a schoolteacher. Unfortunately, my grandfather saw little purpose in educating his sons, and absolutely none in teaching his daughters to do anything but cook, clean, sew, and raise babies. It made no difference to him that she’d taught herself to read, write, and work arithmetic—she still had to stay home to help her mother tend eight younger brothers and sisters.

“She was two months short of her sixteenth birthday when a virulent fever wiped out most of her family—both parents and five of the nine children. An uncle she’d never met came to bury the dead, then took the three younger children back to Tennessee with him. She felt that loss as long as she lived.

“When she married, she wanted a big family of her own, but it never happened. I was born when she was eighteen, then she lost several babies before my brother came along six years after me. When I was eleven, she died of consumption, and the next year, my father passed on also, leaving Danny and me alone.

“Because of what had happened to her own family, Mama made me promise I wouldn’t let anybody have Danny, and if you don’t think I was scared half to death, then you’re sadly mistaken. I was a skinny little girl trying to manage a wild little boy by myself, and I couldn’t ask anybody to help me with him. I was afraid if I did, there’d be somebody coming out to take him away from me.

“Now, I’m not going to tell you any hair-raising tales of what it was like for us back then, because unless you’re not nearly as smart as I think you are, you’ve got a pretty good notion. I worked hard, and we got by. Thanks to Mama and God, Danny turned out to be a fine young man, one any of you would have been proud to call yours. When my first husband enlisted in the Confederate Army, Danny joined up, too, and since he was too young to fight, he drove an ambulance until he died in a cholera epidemic.