“I teach at Montford. And I work on plays there.” Matt told the child, stopping on his way out of the kitchen, a bottle of drain cleaner in his hand. “Maybe you can see one sometime.”
“Where Mommy and Daddy go to school?” Alex asked him. She didn’t bother to look up from her dinner.
“Yep.”
“Cool.”
On that vote of approval, Matt turned to Phyllis. “I noticed the drain in your guest bathroom sink was running a little slow. I’ll take care of that and check the other ones, as well. You shouldn’t be inhaling this stuff.”
“Thanks,” Phyllis said. She was talking to his back. He’d already left the room.
“Aunt Phyllis? When Mommy has the baby, will it hurt?” Alex was asking when Matt walked back into the kitchen several minutes later.
“Just for a little while,” Phyllis answered, trying to keep her mind on the conversation and off the man who’d just entered the room. Time with Alex was filled with a barrage of unexpected questions that could only come from an introspective seven-year-old. She required full attention.
“Then how come Daddy’s letting her have one? He told us he’d never let anything hurt us again.”
Matt coughed.
“Because the baby will make your mommy so happy she won’t care about a little bit of pain.”
“How come babies can’t be born without hurting their moms?” Alex asked around a mouthful of macaroni. She’d never noticed before what an inordinately slow eater the child was. Alex hadn’t even started on her carrots and peas.
Sending her a commiserating grin behind the girl’s back, Matt excused himself to check a sprinkler head. He claimed it had been spraying straight up when he’d pulled into the drive.
Chicken, Phyllis called silently after him.
AFTER HE’D REPLACED the sprinkler valve, Matt carried Phyllis’s laundry in from the bedroom and was ready to go.
“Won’t you have some dinner?” Phyllis asked. “It’s only macaroni-and-cheese with vegetables, but there’s plenty of it.”
“Aunt Phyllis makes the not-from-a-box kind,” Alex told him importantly. Phyllis was astonished to see how quickly the little girl had relaxed around him. With just the brief exchange they’d shared earlier, she appeared to be as unconcerned about him as she was with Sam or Will or any other of “her” people in Shelter Valley.
Was it a sign of the healing power of love that was found in Shelter Valley in such abundance? Or something Matt himself had done?
Matt ruffled the little girl’s hair. “If I hadn’t already eaten, I’d take you up on that,” he said. “Tasty, isn’t it?”
“It’s the best,” Alex told him. “Just like Aunt Phyllis.”
Meeting her eyes over the little girl’s head, Matt’s eyes were suddenly serious. “You’re right about that.”
WHEN MATT CAME OVER on Friday after work, Phyllis wasn’t even surprised to see him.
Tonight he was wearing a pair of faded jeans with holes in the knees and an old T-shirt with writing so faded she couldn’t make out what it said. It was fifty degrees outside and he didn’t even have a coat on.
“I really don’t need anything tonight,” she said, following him out to the kitchen. “I’ve got a pan of frozen lasagna in the oven for dinner, which is light enough for me to lift out myself after it’s cooked another hour, and then I’m going to soak in the tub and go to bed and read.”
He nodded. “I won’t get in your way.”
Hadn’t he heard her? He wasn’t needed here. It was Friday night and Phyllis was planning to spoil herself, think about her baby—and enjoy not having to struggle through the traditional Friday-night blues as everyone else went home to families and she faced another batch of weekend chores alone. She wasn’t alone anymore. She’d be doing her Saturday cleaning for two. And grocery-shopping, too. Especially grocery-shopping, since Dr. Mac had her on a special high protein and glucose diet.
Matt got
cleaning supplies from the cupboard under the sink.
“What are you doing?”
“You told me that night in the hospital that you clean on Saturday mornings. I have to be at the theater in the morning.”