The Trouble with Joe Page 14

  “She’s not your garden variety seven-year-old.”

  “That she’s not.”

  “You’re wonderful with her.”

  She glowed from the compliment. “Really? Do you think I’m doing all right?”

  “I think you’re spoiling her rotten, but along the way you’re teaching her patience and manners. Even self-discipline.”

  “I’m still spoiling her?”

  “The last part of the critique was the most important.”

  “Maybe I just need your level head to guide me.”

  He didn’t answer, and she didn’t push. “Let me finish up in here and I’ll meet you down at the pond. You can take the cooler with the meat in it,” she said.

  “You don’t need any help?”

  “Everything’s all done. All we need now are extra arms to carry things down to the picnic tables.”

  “I’ll send likely candidates your way.” He kissed her once more before he left the kitchen. The day took on a decidedly rosier glow.

  She was packing a jug of lemonade and containers of salad into a box for someone to carry down to the pond when Corey ran inside through the kitchen.

  “Corey!” Sam called her back.

  “What?”

  “What on earth have you been doing?” Sam had helped Corey choose her clothes that morning. Not one of the Giovanellis would care if Corey spent the day in rags, but Sam’s mother would.

  Sam wanted her parents to like Corey. She wanted them to see her for what she really was, a wonderful little girl with a facade that just needed an alteration or two. Her manners were improving, and so was her grammar. She laughed occasionally now, and the nightmares were disappearing. But none of those improvements were visible at first glance, and the visible improvements, the fading bruises, the weight she had already gained, were hopelessly obscured now by a layer of dirt.

  “Corey?” Sam asked when the little girl didn’t answer.

  “I was digging for treasure!”

  “Treasure?”

  “Yeah. Patrick said there was treasure in the woods. Me and him and Mary Nell were digging for it.”

  “Find anything?”

  “A whole lot more dirt!”

  “Looks that way.”

  Corey took off.

  “Corey!” Sam went after her. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m gonna swim.”

  “You’re going to wade,” Sam said.

  Corey narrowed her eyes. It had been a terrible temptation all summer to have the pond so close. But with the cast on her arm, she hadn’t been able to do more than sink her toes in the soft mud of the pond bottom. And that wasn’t much fun.

  “You’re going to have to jump in the bathtub first before you put on your suit,” Sam said.

  “But I’m gonna be in the water! I’ll get clean.”

  “You have to take a bath.”

  “Why?”

  Why, indeed. Because Sam didn’t want her mother and father to pass judgment on the grubby little urchin standing in front of her. First impressions were important. But she didn’t want to admit that out loud.

  “Because you’ll get dirt all over your bathing suit. And only your legs will get clean in the pond,” Sam said. “Now scoot. You don’t have to stay in long.”

  Corey looked rebellious, but she didn’t argue. A few minutes later Sam heard the sound of water running.

  “I wish you’d let me get you some household help,” Kathryn said from the doorway, when everything was packed and ready for the trip to the pond. “Just someone to come in a couple of times a week to clean and cook.”

  “I don’t need help. I like doing it myself.”

  “Do you?” Kathryn seemed genuinely interested.

  “I like taking care of my family.”

  “Family? You and Joe and that little girl?”

  “Corey.”

  “I’m still surprised that you and Joe took in someone else’s child.”

  Sam heard all the things her mother didn’t say. “It’s temporary, Mother. Just until they can find her father.”

  “They haven’t found him yet?”

  “No. Apparently he moves frequently.” Sam didn’t add how unhappy that piece of news—delivered the previous week by Dinah Ryan—had made her. Apparently Corey’s father hadn’t lived in Spartanburg for more than five years, and Verna Haskins hadn’t even been aware that he had moved. They had traced him to two more towns, but the trail had since grown cold. If Corey’s father was ever located and he wanted his daughter, Corey would live the life of a vagabond.

  “Well, it’s kind of you to take her....”

  “She’s a wonderful little girl.” Sam heard the water stop. “She’ll be down in a minute.”

  “Isn’t this rather an odd way to start a family?” Kathryn asked.

  “I told you. It’s temporary.”

  “You always wanted to take in strays.”

  Sam faced her mother. “Corey is not a stray. She’s a child. And if you’ll give her a chance, you’ll see just how wonderful she is. But if you look at her like some mangy hound dog who followed me home from school one day, then you’ll be missing something pretty special.”

  “About that mangy hound dog...”

  Sam realized that what she had meant as merely a figure of speech had really been more. Now she remembered that there had been such a dog. Once, when she wasn’t much older than Corey. The dog had been whisked away at the Whitehurst front door on Kathryn’s command, and Sam’s heart had been broken.

  “I’d forgotten,” Sam said, turning away. “There was a stray once, wasn’t there? And you disapproved.”

  “No, actually, I took him to the vet, or rather, I had someone on staff do it. Melwin, I think.”

  “Melwin never told me.”

  “We didn’t want you to know. The dog was sick, too sick to help, as it turned out. He died after a week of treatment. We thought it would be better for you to think that we had just chased him away.”

  “What?” Sam sneaked a peek at her mother. “Mother, you have a soft heart.”

  “Absolutely not.” But Kathryn looked pleased with herself.

  They talked about the Whitehursts’ trip to Europe and friends that Sam knew until their fund of small talk ran out. Corey chose that moment to arrive. She had put on her suit backward, and her hair stood in wet spikes all over her head. Sam could see that she had tried to wash herself, but with one arm that had to be held out of the water, she hadn’t succeeded very well.

  “Come here, honey,” she said. Sam took a clean dishcloth from a drawer. “You missed a spot or two.”

  “I want to go to the lake!”

  “I’ll bet. And you can go just as soon as you put your bathing suit on right and let me wash your face and neck.”

  “I don’t want to!”

  “I don’t blame you. It’s hot, and you want to get in the water. But you have to let me wash your face.”

  Corey’s eyes were slits in her face, and her bottom lip hung nearly to her chin. Sam turned away to wet the washcloth. And when she turned back, Corey was gone.

  Sam saw the look of consternation on her mother’s face. She chalked one up for Corey.

  “Guess who that was?” Sam said with a nonchalance she didn’t feel. She had wanted Kathryn to approve of Corey. It had been important to her, although she wasn’t sure why.

  “Samantha, what have you gotten yourself into?”

  Corey came streaking back through the kitchen. Joe walked through the door a few moments later. “Upstairs,” he told her in his best high-school-principal voice. “Turn the bathing suit around, wash your face and comb your hair.”

  Sam stared at him.

  “I gather she was
escaping,” he said.

  “How did you know?”

  “She knocked down a Giovanelli and a Carter on her flight out of the house. Not to mention that she kept looking over her shoulder.”

  Sam had never been more grateful to him. “Thanks. I was going to come after her.”

  “Looks like you’re busy. I’ll just station myself at the bottom of the stairs and do a little inspection when she comes back down. Did I miss anything?”

  “That’ll do.”

  “So you’ve met Corey?” Joe asked Kathryn.

  “Not exactly.” Kathryn shook her head. “Samantha was just trying to explain why you’ve taken her in. Something about a wonderful little girl.”

  “She’s not a bad little monster,” Joe said. “Give her a chance. You might grow to like her.”

  Joe went to stand at the bottom of the stairs as Sam stared at his retreating back.

  * * *

  THE AFTERNOON WAS cloudless, the sky as blue as Samantha’s eyes. But even if the weather had cooperated fully for a perfect Labor Day party, one small girl had not.

  Joe watched Corey skipping stones over the surface of the lake. She missed one of his nephews, Magdalena’s son, by inches.

  Sam missed the entire breathtaking event, but Joe saw that Kathryn and Fischer had not. They exchanged looks that said what they thought of this child from the nether regions. He imagined that Sam, on the very worst day of her childhood, had never behaved half so outrageously.

  Joe strolled to the edge of the pond and squatted beside Corey. She tried to move away, so he put his arm around her. Firmly. “You’re about to go inside for the rest of the day.”

  “Let go!”

  “Be smart and don’t struggle. I’m bigger than you.”

  “Can’t make me do nothin’,” she said bravely. But she stopped trying to get away from him.

  “Now, here’s the deal. I know it’s hot, and you want to swim. And I know you feel strange because everybody knows everybody else and you’re new—”

  “Don’t care.”

  “And I know Miss Sam’s too busy to hang all over you today.”

  “You’re mean!”

  “You’re not the first kid who’s thought so. But if you can behave a little better, even just a little, like stop throwing stones at people and stop spitting in the water, things like that, then I’ll take you swimming. All the way in.”

  She was as stiff as her cast, but Joe could feel her yearning to believe him. He knew kids, and despite all his efforts, he was beginning to know this one in particular.

  “Miss Sam says I can’t go in the water,” she said.

  He felt a moment of real admiration. Despite her desperate longing to get in the water with the other children, her loyalty to Sam was more important.

  “I’ll clear it with Miss Sam. We’ll wrap your cast in plastic bags, and I’ll carry you out, so you can hold it out of the water.”

  “You won’t drown me, or nothing?”

  “With all these people watching?”

  That seemed to impress her. He released her and stood. “But remember what I said. I’ve got to see some better behavior from you, or the deal’s off.”

  “How long?”

  “How long what?”

  “How long I gotta be good?”

  “As long as it takes to show everybody you’re not really a devil child.”

  Clearly she thought that was a long, long time. On that one thing at least, they agreed.

  He went back to his table, where Rose was rhapsodizing about something that Corey had said to her. Rose was used to bratty little kids. She’d given birth to a full measure herself. Joe supposed that Johnny had told her that Joe wouldn’t be making her a grandmother again. She’d never said a word to him about it, but she seemed to have fully accepted Corey as a surrogate, despite the fact that Corey’s days in their home were numbered.

  “Then she says, she says, ‘Well, how come, if you’re Mr. Joe’s mama, you don’t make him come and live with you?’”

  Joe grinned, despite himself. He caught Sam’s eye, and she was smiling, too. “She’d like nothing better,” he said. “Then she’d have Miss Sam here all to herself.”

  “Don’t you think the child needs more...help than the two of you can give her?” Kathryn asked. “I mean, she’s...” Her voice trailed off, as if there was no word strong enough that a woman of breeding could use.

  “She’s what, Mother?” Sam asked, a decided edge to her voice. “Lively? Spirited? Normal, considering what she’s just been through? I think Joe and I can handle that.”

  Joe was always captivated when Sam stood up to her parents. Through the years of their marriage Sam had always chosen her battles well, ignoring the small skirmishes to save strength for those that were needed to win the war. Until now the war had been her self-esteem and independence. It seemed a new war had just been declared.

  “Don’t dance around it, Samantha,” Fischer said, always the businessman cutting straight to the point. “The child’s got problems. I don’t understand why you’re putting yourself through such a difficult time when she’s going to be leaving, anyway. You’ve got enough to handle, don’t you? And surely you’re planning to have children of your own to lavish some of this attention on.”

  “No, sir,” Joe said. “We won’t be having children of our own.” He waited until Fischer looked at him. “We can’t and won’t be able to conceive.”

  There was shocked silence. Kathryn was the first to breach it. “But surely there are doctors who can help.” She turned to her daughter. “They’re doing so much now. A friend of mine is married to one of the best fertility specialists in Maryland. I can get you an appointment—”

  “I’m the one with the problem,” Joe said. “Not Sam. And there’s nothing to be done.”

  “The problem is both of ours,” Sam said. “No matter who got the wrong end of the diagnosis. Joe and I can’t have children, and that’s that.”

  “So now you’re taking in other people’s problems? I don’t understand the point,” Fischer said. “What do you have to gain? That child is obviously not from a good family, and from the looks of her there’s not much you’ll be able to accomplish. She’s rude and hostile and probably not very bright. She’s not even pretty.”

  Joe saw the horror on Sam’s face. He saw Kathryn’s eyes widen in dismay. He didn’t even chance a glance at his mother, who was probably gasping for breath.

  He didn’t know he was standing until he felt the ground firmly under his feet. “That child,” he said slowly and distinctly, “is a member of my family. She may not be a permanent member, but as long as she’s living here, she’s mine. I hope you’ll reconsider your opinion, Fischer, but if you don’t, Sam and I don’t want to listen to it again.”

  Now Fischer looked as shocked as everyone else at the table. Sam stood, too. “I think it’s time to bring out the desserts. Joe, will you help?”

  She marched off. He joined her on the path back to the house, waiting as Francis’s children passed before he spoke. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “For what? For putting old Fischer in his place? It was masterful. I wish I could have done it as well.”

  He stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. Her eyes were glowing, but not with anger. “Just be sure you understand,” he said.

  “Understand what?”

  “That I was reacting to your father’s attitudes, Sam. What would life have been like for you if you hadn’t met his standards? What if you hadn’t been intelligent enough? Or, God forbid, pretty?”

  “I guess I’ll never know.”

  He saw that she did know, that all her life she’d fought for approval from both her parents when they hadn’t had it in their hearts to give. He pulled her close for a rib-crushing hu
g.

  “You stood up for Corey,” she said against his chest.

  “I’m a sucker for lost causes. That’s all.”

  “What’s life going to be like for Corey if nobody ever approves of her?”

  “Corey’s going to make it. She’s a survivor, a tough little bird.”

  “You’re standing up for her again.”

  “Not a chance.”

  She kissed him. He felt warmth flowing through him that had nothing to do with North Carolina sunshine. Then he felt something—or someone—tugging at his shirt.

  “I been good a long time,” Corey said.

  He moved away from Sam to gaze down at the intruder. She was dirty again, and her cheeks were flushed from the heat. Her eyes were narrowed into slits. Most of the time he couldn’t see enough of her eyes to tell what color they were.

  “Not long enough,” he said.

  He watched her droop, a black-eyed Susan wilting in the sun.

  “But I’ll take you swimming anyway,” he added.

  She didn’t smile or say thank-you, but he knew her well enough now to see that she was grateful. After all, she didn’t kick him or spit on his shoe.

  * * *

  IT HAD FELT funny to have Mr. Joe hold her in the water. His hands didn’t feel like Miss Sam’s, all soft and smooth. They were giant, wide hands that could crush her if he wanted. But he didn’t. He held her just tight enough so she wouldn’t sink.

  At first she was scared. She didn’t know how to swim, and if Mr. Joe dropped her where it was deep, she figured she’d drown real quick. But after a while she knew he wasn’t going to drop her. Miss Sam liked her and all. It would be pretty hard to explain to Miss Sam that Corey was lying on the bottom of the lake somewheres.

  It was a lake, too, not a pond like Miss Sam always said. Mr. Joe told her how it used to be nothing but a spring at the bottom of a hill, and how his brother Francis had come in with bulldozers and giant machines to make a lake. She couldn’t imagine such a thing. She wished she had lived here then, just to see it.

  She had been sorry when it was time to get out. Mr. Joe brought her up to the grass and wrapped her in a towel. Then she felt just like all the other kids. They were wet, too, shivering while the sun dried them off. Mary Nell had asked her if she wanted to play hide-and-go-seek, and she’d said sure. Mr. Joe had told her not to get too dirty again, or he’d have to throw her in the lake and leave her this time.