raised a brow, but didn’t comment on this assessment of Ryan Grant. Instead she pointed out, “Tomorrow evening would be better than Monday, when one of us would have to be home to let a plumber in.”
“That’s not true, anyway!” Emma’s face flushed red. “He always comes when he says he will!”
“You haven’t known him as long as I have,” her mother said crisply. “If he were more ambitious, he wouldn’t still be working with his own hands. He’d be running the business instead of driving nails.”
“He likes working on houses!” the teenager cried.
“If he wanted to be successful…”
Apparently he didn’t, at least to his sister’s standards. Maybe he didn’t like wearing a white shirt and tie and spending his day sending faxes and talking on a cell phone.
On the other hand, Jo amended, maybe he was one of those irresponsible jerks who’d rather go fishing on a nice day than show up to do the work he’d promised to. Just this summer, when she put her condo up for sale and needed to lay a new vinyl floor in the kitchen, the first two days she’d stayed home from work to let workmen in, they had neither come nor called.
Her interest in Kathleen’s brother waned. Not much for lazing around herself, she liked workaholics, not playboys.
Still…
“You’d better call him,” she advised.
Kathleen made a face. “Oh, all right.” As she backed into the hall, she explained, “Emma, it’s not that I don’t like Ryan…”
“You don’t!” the teenager cried. The venom in her voice startled Jo into swiveling in time to see bitterness transform the fifteen-year-old’s expression as she finished, “Maybe he has dirt under his fingernails sometimes, or he smells sweaty, or he doesn’t know what to wear to one of your parties, but he’s nice!”
Kathleen seemed frozen in shock. “I’ve never said…”
“You have!” her daughter flung at her. “I heard you and Dad! You were embarrassed by Uncle Ryan! Just like you’re embarrassed by me!”
With that, she turned and ran. Jo heard the uneven thud of her feet on the stairs, and then the slam of the front door.
None of the women moved for what seemed an eternity. Ginny had her face pressed into her mother’s side.
Kathleen finally gave an unconvincing laugh. “Teenagers!”
Helen smoothed her daughter’s hair. “I was awful when I was thirteen.”
“Me, too,” Jo admitted. “And when I was fourteen, and fifteen, and sixteen…” Actually, she hadn’t quit rebelling until at eighteen she’d realized that her father didn’t even notice her snotty comebacks or sulky moods. She wasn’t upsetting him, she wasn’t even making a blip on his radar screen. That’s when she left home and never went back.
Looking unhappy, Kathleen left the room. A minute later, her voice floated up the stairs. “I left a message on Ryan’s voice mail.”
“Okay,” Jo called back.
Helen and Ginny made repeated trips up and down the stairs, carrying boards from which Jo was careful to remove all the nails. In her quiet way, the six-year-old seemed to be enjoying herself. She’d hold out her arms and wait for Jo to pile on a child-size load, then carefully turn and make her way out of the gutted bathroom. Sometimes she even went ahead of her mother, or reappeared before her.
Kathleen had been right, Jo had discovered: Ginny wasn’t any bother. Living with her was more like having a mouse in the house than a child. Tiny rustles marked her presence.
Once, when Ginny reappeared ahead of her mother and stood waiting patiently while Jo pried at a stubborn board, she felt compelled to make conversation.
“Your mom says you’re in first grade. How do you like it?”
“I like to read.”
“Really? Better than recess?” The hammer slipped and banged her knee. “Ow!”
“Did you hurt yourself?”
“Yes!” Jo moderated her voice. “Not permanently. I just…whacked myself.”
“Oh.” Ginny cocked her head at the sound of her mother’s footsteps on the stairs.
“So, what do you do at recess?”
The solemn gaze returned to her. “I stay in if Teacher lets me.”
Jo sank back on her heels. “You stay in?” she asked incredulously. She could remember how much she’d longed to be outside, pumping herself so high on the swing that she momentarily became weightless, or skipping rope with friends to nonsensical songs that still had to be sung perfectly.
Ginny’s face showed no expression. “Kids make fun of me.”
Jo frowned. “Have you told the teacher? Or your mom?”
She shook her head.
“Why not?”
“Why not what?” Helen asked from the doorway, her voice dull, as if she had to force herself to ask. She often sounded that way. Jo wanted to shake her sometimes and say, Wake up! But what did she know about grief?
Knowing Helen wouldn’t care enough to be suspicious, Jo improvised quickly. “I asked why she isn’t wearing overalls and leather gloves and a tool belt, since she’s a carpenter now.”
A tiny smile flickered on the pale face, whether at Jo’s attempt at humor or because she’d kept Ginny’s confession confidential, Jo didn’t know.
“Heck, maybe we should get her one.” Helen gave a rare smile, too, her hand resting lightly on her daughter’s head. “She’ll grow up an expert on how to do all this stuff.” Her voice became heavier. “I don’t want Ginny ever to feel helpless, about anything.”
“Well, she’ll learn right along with us,” Jo said heartily. “Right, kid?”
Very still under her mother’s hand, Ginny said nothing.
Jo took a deep breath and pried again at the board. It groaned and squealed in protest. She braced her feet and used her full weight to wrench upward. It snapped free and she landed on her butt just as the doorbell rang.
“Jo! Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She picked herself up. “You’d better go get that. It might be Kathleen with her hands full.”
She flipped the board over and hammered. The nail popped out, and she started on the next.
Should she tell Helen what Ginny had said about recess and the other kids taunting her? Or was that betraying a confidence?
Oh, damn! Why had the little mouse confided in her?
“You
