wash up,” he said.
She nodded, and he moved toward the newly installed back door, picking his way around tools and scraps of building material. He felt something very light bounce off his back and stopped, turning. She pulled another napkin from the top of the bag. He looked at the wadded one on the floor, then back to her.
“Where you going?” she asked before starting to wipe off the tabletop.
“Spigot out back.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Why not use the bathroom?”
The bath was the most feminine room in the house, pink and flowery and as clean as a surgical suite. Cody had obviously added the room and the kids’ bedroom onto the house himself and managed a fair job of it. No doubt he’d have had the whole place whipped into shape by now, had he lived. Instead, Dan was doing the work. It didn’t seem right, and Dan was never more keenly aware of that than when he was standing in her little bathroom looking at her pink fixtures. He couldn’t help wondering if Cody had installed them to please her. He certainly would have.
Shaking his head, he slapped at the legs of his jeans and said, “Too dusty.” Then he escaped out the back door to bend over the rusty old faucet at the corner of the house. By the time he returned, Becca had unpacked a number of disposable containers from the bag, and the girl had dragged the high chair in from the living room, where he’d moved it.
Becca was talking, but he didn’t try to follow her, his interest taken by the food as she opened the containers. He saw sliced brisket, baked beans, potato salad, coleslaw and a thick, rich barbecue sauce. She held up a bundle of butcher’s paper and unwrapped it, displaying three large pickle wedges and small banana peppers. He reached for one of the pickles, mouth watering.
She inclined her head toward the root cellar. “There’s bread in a box on the steps.”
He bit off a hunk of the tart pickle as he moved to open the flimsy cellar door. Inside, about four steps down a steep flight of rickety stairs, sat a cardboard box full of foodstuffs that Becca had removed from the kitchen shelves the night before he’d started work. A plastic bag of sliced white bread lay on top. He stooped and picked it up by the wrapper. By the time he carried the bread back to her, Becca had set the table with paper plates and plastic forks.
Jemmy hopped up on one of the pair of available chairs, but Becca spoke to her, and she started getting down again.
“Stay there,” Dan said, reaching for a short step-ladder. It made a tall but adequate stool when he sat on top of it. Becca put the baby in his chair and sat down.
Four people seated around a rectangular table in the littered kitchen made for a very crowded room, but Becca’s smile and his own satisfaction in a job progressing well overrode any awkwardness as Becca began filling plates. She piled his high, and he let her, suddenly ravenous. From pure habit he began to bow his head, then he felt a jolt as Becca took one of his hands in hers. Jemmy’s little hand slid into the other. His gaze flew to Becca. She had bent her head but lifted it again, eyes closed, as she spoke a simple grace.
“Thank You, Lord, for all Your many blessings, family, home, this delicious food and especially for Dan and all the good things he’s brought to us. We have need, Lord, and You’ve sent this fine man to help. Bless him for his willingness to share his talent.”
Dan felt a kick inside his chest. A fine man. He inclined his head and silently asked God to make him worthy of that description. When he looked up again he saw that Becca and Jemmy watched patiently. He looked at Becca and followed the seemingly natural impulse to squeeze her hand. She smiled. It was like warm sunshine bathing the cluttered, half-finished room. She pulled her hand back and began eating. Jemmy did the same, so he dug in to his own food.
“Good,” he said after swallowing.
She nodded and dabbed at her mouth with a napkin before saying, “John Odem cooks a couple times a week for the deli case. Monday it was a huge ham and macaroni and cheese.”
Dan nodded. “I bought some. Real sweet.”
“Yeah, he likes that brown-sugar-cured ham.”
They concentrated on the meal for some time, then Dan noticed that Jemmy reached for one of the small yellow peppers on the butcher paper with the pickles. He shot a quick glance at Becca, who smiled and said, “She eats them all the time. John Odem again.”
Dan chuckled and watched with interest as the little girl gingerly nibbled the succulent yellow flesh. “Hot?” he asked when she met his eyes.
She shook her pale head. “Nah, na if yont ea te sees.”
“Not if you don’t eat the seeds,” he repeated carefully, realizing that she was eating around the ball of seeds inside the pepper. She nodded and kept nibbling. He felt an odd glow of pleasure. Children were often difficult to understand because they didn’t always get words right, but he’d followed Jemmy. She was smart for her age, or maybe her diminutive size made her seem younger than she was. “How old are you?” he asked.
She grinned and held up four fingers, spouting rapid-fire words, few of which he caught this time. Lost, he looked to Becca, who ducked her head to hide a smile before lifting it again to say, “Jem’s telling you that she had a party on her birthday, which is February tenth, and that you’re invited next year. It’s going to be here in our ‘newed’ house, by the way.”
“Newed?” he repeated uncertainly.
Laughter danced in her soft green eyes. “Abby told her the place was going to be ‘like new.’ So in her mind when you’re done it’ll be ‘newed.”’
He glanced at Jemmy and smiled. She beamed at him with something akin to hero worship. Just then something flew right past the end of his nose. He looked down to find a corner crust of bread on the table next to his plate. When he glanced in the direction it had come from, he noticed that both Jemmy and Becca were laughing. Even CJ, who had obviously launched the missile, judging by the white stuff oozing from his fist, was grinning broadly, showing off the few teeth he possessed.
“I’m sorry,” Becca said. “He saw me throw the napkin to get your attention earlier.”
Dan looked at the boy, and something in that little face seemed to be saying that he craved the same attention that Dan had been showing his big sister. Without even thinking about it, Dan picked up the scrap of bread and tossed it back at the boy. It was just long enough and just curved enough, incredibly, to hang on the boy’s bit of a nose. For an instant Dan couldn’t quite believe what had happened, and neither, apparently, could anyone else, but then the little imp grinned, put back his head and laughed so hard that his round little body jiggled all over. His whole being seemed to light up, even as he collapsed into the corner of the chair, laughing. The kid was so purely tickled, that crust of bread now clasped in his plump hand, that everyone was laughing, Dan included. He laughed so hard that his chest shook and tears gathered in his eyes. It almost hurt. He hadn’t laughed like this, felt this good since…so long.
He wiped his eyes and looked at the smiling faces around him. It was time to be happy again, time to stop licking his wounds and concentrate on the good in life, on the good that he himself could do.
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