Milky Way. Muriel Jensen

washed off the mud,” she said, then ran from the room as though something had chased her.

      * * *

      JAKE FOUND showering in Britt’s bathroom an unusual experience. The soap was scented, the shower curtain had green sea grass and pink seashells on it, and the bathroom counter held a modest lineup of cosmetics and colognes. It smelled like she did—vaguely floral and fresh.

      On one level he felt uncomfortable because he didn’t want to dirty anything, and he feared in his present condition that was going to be impossible. But on another level, the femininity was curiously comforting.

      His condo was all brown and beige and leather. His cream-colored bathroom had a functional shower stall and brown towels. His counter was bare, thanks to a three-sectioned, mirrored cabinet.

      He showered quickly, washed his hair and buffed himself dry with a fragrant pink towel. He found a pair of jeans, a chambray shirt and a set of underwear on the foot of the bed. The jeans were a tad short, but fit well. The shirt was perfect. Apparently Jimmy Hansen had been pretty much his size.

      The thought had no sooner formed than he was confronted with its confirmation. Sitting down on the bed to put on the slippers Britt had left on the carpet, he found himself eye to eye with a photograph of the man himself in his wedding clothes.

      He was surprised to find himself feeling suddenly aggressive. Jimmy Hansen had been nice looking in an unremarkable sort of way, tall and broad and smiling. What showed through and made Jake look twice was what must have been a basic kindness. It was in his eyes, in the way he held the laughing woman in the bridal gown, in the way Britt looked at him with complete trust and open-hearted love.

      He felt their unity like a jolt. No wonder Britt could look so bright one moment and so fragile the next. A love like that would be a beacon, but without someone to direct it to, it would be a powerful force to deal with day after day.

      He went downstairs feeling unsettled.

      He heard the shouting before he reached the kitchen door. “She is not!” a girl’s voice said adamantly. He guessed it was Christy’s.

      “She is,” a boy’s voice said reasonably. David. “I heard her talking on the phone to Judy.”

      By the time Jake reached the doorway, Christy, wooden spoon in hand, was waving threateningly at her younger brother, who was placing silverware in orderly precision around the table. “Mom would never sell the farm. She couldn’t. We’d have nowhere to live.”

      A quick glance around the room showed Jake that Britt and Matt were missing. Matt was delivering papers, Jake knew, but where was his hostess?

      Renee followed David with plates and stopped to ask in horror, “You mean...we’re gonna go away?”

      “Of course not!” Christy said with conviction, moving back to the pot of stew. “David’s just being dumb.”

      “Then how come Mom was crying?” David demanded.

      “She wasn’t.”

      “She was.”

      As though in sympathy, even though the issue wasn’t clear, Renee began to cry. “I don’t want to go away,” she wept, confounding Jake by turning to him, arms raised, as he walked into the room.

      Panic seized him. He was alone with three children, two of them fighting and one of them crying. He didn’t know what to do. He tried to tell himself this was no different from a sales meeting, and proceeded to take charge.

      He picked up Renee and gently hushed her.

      “I don’t want to go away!” she complained, taking his neck in a stranglehold and weeping into it.

      “I’m sure nobody’s going away,” he said, one-handedly finishing the placement of plates the child had started. “There. What else do we need to do?”

      “Salt and pepper and napkins,” Christy said, pointing to the caddy on the counter. Her own composure looked a little tenuous, Jake thought. “I’m sure Mom’ll be right back.”

      The silverware placed, David followed Jake and Renee from the table to the counter, then back to the table. “She was crying,” he told Jake, almost as though he wanted him to do something about it.

      “Where’d she go?” Jake asked.

      Christy turned away from the stove. “To the barn with the goat.” Then she added in a very mature tone, “I think she just needed a minute to herself. The bank called.”

      David looked up at him with solemn dark blue eyes. “They’re not gonna give us the money.”

      Jake felt a rush of unreasonable anger. He’d seen her credit profile. Loans-R-Us wouldn’t lend her money. It was only good business. But she wasn’t just a statistic in a ledger to him anymore. She was a brave and beautiful woman pitting herself against impossible odds to try to save her family’s past for her children’s future. Wasn’t that what life was supposed to be about? Taking the love and knowledge of those who came before to make a better world for those who came after?

      Jake was just about to put Renee down and check on Britt when the back door opened with a sudden crash. Matt strode into the kitchen, pulling off his delivery sack, its giant pockets emblazoned with the Tyler Citizen logo, and tossing it into a corner between the refrigerator and the wall.

      “Mr. Marshack!” he said, his nose and cheeks bright red, a fresh out-of-doors smell clinging to his clothes. “The bike takes the hills like it’s got a motor and I did the most radical wheelie you ever saw on the pad at the gas station.”

      Jake smiled at his ingenuous excitement. “Glad to hear it. Maybe we’d better get you a helmet.”

      “All right!” Matt agreed as he swept descriptive hands around his head. “One with an eagle with its wings swept back.”

      The back door opened and Jake looked up to see Britt walk into the kitchen. She’d apparently stayed in the barn long enough to make certain there would be no evidence of tears when she came back. But on just a little over twenty-four hours’ acquaintance, he knew her well enough to know she felt lower than a hole.