Almost A Wife. Eva Rutland

was still holding onto her brother and her bear, but she was no longer the staunch protector. Just a tiny lost and lonely child. The boy, following her lead, added his cries to hers, and the tumult filled the room, tearing him apart.

      He bent to his knees, gathered them in his arms and held them close. Their tears wet his face as their bodies heaved against him in hot convulsive sobs that broke his heart.

      “That’s right. Let it all out,” he whispered. It was too much. No way could they hold it in.

      What to do!

      “I miss your Mommy, too,” he said, guided by pure instinct. “I knew her when she was a little girl just like you.” Not altogether true. Kathy had been much older than Sunny when she first came to play in his yard.

      It worked. Sunny choked back a sob and her eyes widened with interest. “You did? You saw Mommy when she was little like me?””

      He nodded, and her questions were eager and rapid. “Did she look like me…have a bear like mine? Could she read?”

      He sat on the floor, settling them against him, as he talked about Kathy with colorful, exaggerated details that soon had them giggling. After that, it was easier. They consumed some of the peanut butter sandwiches and hot chocolate he’d ordered, splashed in the tub for a short while, helped him find pajamas and books in their luggage. The suite was a mess, but he finally settled them together in one bed and read to them as instructed. “That’s what Mommy does.”

      It was after ten when he picked up the phone in his own room. Thank God Nanny, Incorporated was a round-the-clock, twenty-four-hour operation.

      “I’m a little worried about my grandfather,” Lisa told Joline. “He’s acting…well, not like himself.”

      “Oh? How?”

      “Grandma said he got into an altercation with a man at lunch one day. Over passing the salt of all things,” Lisa said, trying to picture her affable, always agreeable grandfather in an altercation with anybody about anything. “And Grandma says he gets very confused at the bridge table.”

      “That’s too bad. Has he seen a doctor?”

      “Yes. Grandma finally got him to go, and she talked to the doctor later.”

      “And?”

      “He’s not sure. Maybe just aging he says. Lots of people get irritable when they get older it seems. And forgetful. But Grandpa has always been so mild-mannered. I’m worried.”

      “Guess so. Do you think he could be getting that…what is it so many old people are getting now? Alls…something. Mrs. Salter, a lady I work for, says her father got so he didn’t even know her.”

      “Oh, Joline, don’t mention that for goodness’ sake. I couldn’t stand that.”

      “Couldn’t pay for it neither I reckon. Them places is awful expensive, Mrs. Salter says.”

      “Oh, we wouldn’t have to worry about that. My grandparents bought into that senior complex which guarantees continuing life care without raising the cost. That’s why gramps insisted it was the best place. He said he didn’t want me to have that burden in case either of them became ill.”

      “That’s the best way. Be prepared.”

      “Yes. Grandpa was like that. Extravagant, especially where I was concerned. But really smart.” She chuckled. “So why am I worried about something like Alzheimer’s? Whatever happens, Gramps’s not likely to lose that sharp mind of his.”

      The phone rang, and she picked it up.

      “Hello, Lisa,” came the voice of Mrs. Dunn, whose house she cleaned every Thursday. “I’m calling for a neighbor, a family that just moved in next door. They are desperately in need of a cleaning person, possibly twice a week. Interested?”

      “I certainly am.” Twice a week. She needed as many jobs as she could get. It was getting harder and harder to make the money for her grandparents and take care of herself too. If she didn’t get a decent job soon—

      “Good. It’s the house on the right, 168 Pine Grove. This is the phone number…The name is Kingsley.”

      Lisa wrote down the number and slowly replaced the phone, wondering…Kingsley. Why did that name ring a bell?