to the stove. “Just don’t let anybody mess with my kitchen.”
“Why would I do that?” Daniel asked. “It’s the cleanest room in the house.”
“THIS IS A FUNNY WAY to wash clothes,” Jonathan said.
“But it works,” Lilah told him, smiling brightly and trying to hide the sickness she felt inside. “The sun dries them, they smell fresh and sweet…This is the way the pioneers did their laundry. How about a bologna-and-cheese sandwich before I take you to the park?”
Their hideout hadn’t been easy to find. After scouring the back roads of the three towns that made up the valley, Lilah had found, just outside Churchill, a lumber road that led up to a forested area, beautiful and serene, with no heavy equipment around to indicate that the trees were marked to be cut any time soon. This is where she and Jonathan were living. They slept in the car, bathed in the icy stream and washed their clothes there, leaving them to dry in the dappled sunlight.
They ate cereal and milk, sandwiches made of the least expensive sandwich meat and cheese, or peanut butter and jelly, with a piece of fruit for Jonathan each day. Lilah ate as little as she could without making herself feel faint, saving everything possible for her son. They’d been living like this for almost two weeks now. She couldn’t hold out much longer. It wasn’t fair to Jonathan.
“What do you think about the dreamcatcher?”
“It’s great,” Jonathan said, his face lighting up.
Together they admired her handiwork. She’d cut a circle out of a cereal box and had painted it with scarlet nail polish she’d found among the things she’d hastily thrown into garbage bags when they left Whittaker. When had she ever worn bright-red nail polish? Long years ago, when she was still in love with Bruce and had no idea what he would eventually do to her, to their lives? The love hadn’t lasted long. The bottle of polish had been almost full.
When the polish dried, Lilah filled in the circle with the yarn she’d bought, a twisted red and white, and then she attached red-painted twig arms and legs, crocheting fanciful feet and hands to fit over the twigs.
In a moment of whimsy, she crocheted a baseball cap and attached it to the top of the circle. A Boston Red Sox dreamcatcher. And then, giving it one last critical look, she decided it needed a catcher’s mitt.
“Is Nick right-or left-handed?” she asked Jonathan.
Jonathan looked at her as if she’d asked a pretty dumb question, but then he thought about it. “Left,” he said suddenly, “because when there’s a new kid at Sunday school everybody writes himself a name tag, and Nick was sitting over here,” he gestured to his right, “so our elbows kept bumping and we thought it was funny and that’s when we started talking.”
“You’re a great detective,” Lilah congratulated him. So she’d crocheted the mitt onto the left toothpick hand, smiling to herself as she worked.
Making the dreamcatcher had been as good for her as she hoped it would be for Nick. It was the first time in ages she’d found anything humorous to think about her in life.
“Okay, kiddo,” she said, giving him that forced bright smile. “Off to the park.”
And back to her desperate job search. This week, she didn’t even have to buy the Valley News. Someone had left a copy on a park bench, which she spotted after dropping Jonathan off at the soccer field. In the classified ads section, she read, “Single father is seeking housekeeper. Call 802.555.4432. References essential.”
It was as if an angel had left the newspaper for her to find. She felt a glimmer of excitement, and then the glimmer began to shine. It would be a perfect job for her.
She had no references, however. If she asked for one from the son of the woman she’d cared for these past three years she’d be letting him know where she was, and she didn’t want anyone in Whittaker to know where she was. She raised her chin resolutely. She’d have to convince this single father that she’d be the housekeeper of his dreams, references or not.
Gathering change from the bottom of her handbag, knowing every penny had to be spent carefully, she sought out the pay phone on Main Street and dialed the number. If no one answered, she’d just have to call again and again. In her mind’s eye she saw dollars and dollars clinking through that slot…
“’Lo.”
She blinked. She hadn’t expected such a gruff, grumpy voice. “I’m calling to apply for the housekeeping job,” she said. The assured voice she’d planned on using came out timid and shaky.
“He’s working now,” the voice said, skipping several conversational steps. “What’s your number? He’ll call you back tonight.”
This time, Lilah got her voice to cooperate. “I don’t have phone service just now,” she said. “Is there a time I could drop by?” She held her breath and crossed her fingers.
Silence. Then, “Ay-uh. Might talk to you around five. In his office.” He gave her the address. “Side door,” he added.
Limp with relief, Lilah almost slid to the sidewalk. She had an interview. At five o’clock this afternoon she would get that job. She had to.
“ANOTHER APPLICANT,” Jesse told Daniel.
Daniel blew a breath into the hands-free mouthpiece of his cell phone. “When can I talk to her?”
“She made an appointment. I told her five—figured that would work.”
Daniel sighed. “I didn’t realize how much time it would take just to hire a housekeeper. What’s your take on that first one I talked to last night?”
“She gossips. Everybody knows it.”
“Hmm. The next one had an excellent reference.”
“From Shaw’s Supermarket, yes. If you were needing a butcher, then she’d be your woman.”
Daniel had disliked the other two he’d met after five minutes with each of them. “You’re not much help,” he grumbled.
“I’m not too excited about this housekeeper idea.”
“Duh,” Daniel said, and frowned. “Well, okay, I’ll make the decision about the one who’s coming in this afternoon. I’m not even going to let you see her.”
“Humph,” Jesse said, and hung up.
It was a busy afternoon. Jesse had caught Daniel on the way to the Dupras farm to check on Maggie, a prizewinning pig who should be delivering her piglets in the next few days. After he’d seen Maggie, he went back to the office to see two cats, a dog, a mynah bird who called him “pond scum” in a radio announcer’s voice and a boa constrictor that kept wrapping itself around Daniel’s arm.
He was still a little rattled by the snake’s fondness for him when Mildred, his receptionist—actually, she did everything except practice medicine—put her head through his office door and said, “Your five o’clock is here. No pet.” She gave Daniel a quizzical look.
“Housekeeper applicant,” he said.
“Hmm,”
