rushed up her neck and pooled in her cheeks. He’d misunderstood, thought she mean the two of them. “An activity for the children?” she managed to choke out.
“Oh, that.” He let out a gust of air.
She narrowed her eyes as she looked at him. Was it so challenging to think of spending time with her? Would she always be a necessary nuisance to others?
Not if she learned to be a secretary and no longer depended on anyone else.
“I can do it myself if you have other things you need to do.” She would not be treated as a nuisance. And she saw no reason the children should be, either.
“We can get along without you,” Eddie told him.
Missy hadn’t realized the two men waited at the door. What must they think of her? First, asking for Wade to stay, then practically telling him to leave? She must sound silly.
She drew her chin in. She was not silly, though perhaps a little confused by her unusual reaction to the events in which she found herself. Caring so deeply about the children and their future, torn between her feelings of being unwanted and her desire to see Wade give the children a home.
Wade returned his coat to the hook by the door. “Let’s do it.”
The other men left without him.
Linette had told Missy where to find paper and pencils, and invited her to use what she needed. She got four sheets of paper and four pencils and laid them out at the table. Grady had gone upstairs with his mama, but Joey and Annie watched with interest.
“What are we going to do?” Annie asked.
“You showed me a tradition from your family. Now I’m going to show you a tradition from mine.” She explained what they’d done when Mama and Papa were alive.
Annie took up her pencil. “But I can’t write.”
“I’ll... We’ll help you.” The look she gave Wade informed him he was part of this.
His gaze captured hers. “We’ll work together.” His quiet response brought a rush of heat to her heart. She needed to stop judging him as if he was Gordie. She had to stop letting her feelings of rejection color her attitude toward him.
“Joey writes his name very well.” At Wade’s softly spoken words, she sucked in a deep breath.
“Fine, put your name on the top of your page.” She wrote her name on hers and helped Annie, who sat at her side.
Wade and Joey, sitting side by side, wrote their names.
“Now what?” Joey asked, sounding a bit uncertain.
“Now we start listing all the good things about the past year.”
The three of them stared at the blank page, no doubt thinking the death of two people they loved and missed could not be considered good. But her goal was to help them find good despite the tragedy of their lives.
Holding the pencil, her hand hovered over the paper as she realized she needed this exercise as much as they did. “There are things in life that make us unhappy and sad.” Her voice was low. She hoped they wouldn’t hear the strain that made her throat tight. “Those things are like clouds hiding the sun.” To illustrate, she drew a little sketch. “Some clouds are white and fluffy. Some are dark and heavy.” She added a dark one to her drawing. “But if we push them aside, the sun is still shining and it makes things bright.” She erased the clouds and drew a field of flowers and trees and birds.
Annie nodded. “That’s nice.”
Joey and Wade wore matching expressions of doubt.
Missy smiled at how alike they were. “Let’s see how many good things we can remember. I’ll go first.” She bent over the paper and wrote “Baby Chloe.” “I love my little niece and I am so happy she’s here.”
Joey’s expression relaxed a bit, but Wade’s was still tight.
Missy looked at the three who shared the table. “Who wants to go next?”
“Me.” Annie edged her paper toward Missy. “Write your name.”
“My name?” Missy wasn’t sure she understood the child’s intent.
“Yes. I’m glad we found you.”
Missy’s heart stalled. Her gaze slid toward Wade. He watched her unblinkingly, his blue eyes giving away nothing. She swallowed hard. Did he object to the child’s request? Perhaps he was concerned Missy would have a bad influence on the children, that she’d suggest they should bombard him with demands for him to keep them. No, she silently informed him. She’d be the one doing the bombarding.
Joey bent over his paper. “I want to write her name, too.”
Wade jerked his attention to the boy and Missy turned back to Annie. She wrote her name on Annie’s paper.
Wade spelled out her name for Joey to print on his paper and then, to Missy’s consternation, he wrote it on his own. She stared at the letters forming her name. Black. Thick. Solid. She tried to make sense of seeing them on his page, in what was supposed to be a list of good things. If she’d given it a bit of thought she might have predicted the children would count her as a good thing. But Wade? She fought to keep from looking at him.
“Is that bad?” Joey asked, misconstruing her silence.
She turned her attention back to the children. “Not at all. I’m so touched I can’t think of what to say.”
Annie patted Missy’s hand. “You’ll think of something.”
Missy chuckled. “I suppose I will.”
Satisfied that things were back to normal, Annie studied Missy’s page. “What else are you going to put on yours?”
“You two for sure.” She wrote their names.
“But what about Uncle Wade?” At the uncertainty in Joey’s voice, Missy held the pencil poised above the paper, wanting to satisfy the boy, but not wanting to give Wade cause to think her too forward.
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