Paternal Instincts. Elizabeth August

medical costs. However, since the balance in your checking and savings accounts was fairly high, I had all new monies invested and they’ve paid off nicely. Currently, Hesper Lawton, my personal financial advisor, is overseeing your account. Her name and phone number are in there, and when you want access to any of those funds, just contact her.”

      Eric frowned. “I had a designated amount each month being sent to the O’Malley Home for Boys.”

      “I saw that that was continued in full.” Concern entered Tobias’s voice. “However, three months ago I received notification that the O’Malley account had been closed. I’d been having your mail forwarded to me. A few days later a letter arrived from a Roxanne Dugan, informing you of Maude O’Malley’s death and the closing of the home. It’s all in that envelope.”

      Eric felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. Maude O’Malley wasn’t blood kin and, other than the money he’d sent regularly, he hadn’t seen her in years. Still, she was the closest to family he had.

      “My jet is at the airport. I’ll drop you and Hagen off in Washington, D.C., so you can renew your driver’s license and buy some more clothes. And, if you want, you can get your car out of storage. It’s at the same place as your other belongings. After that, I’d like for you to come up to my place to recuperate. Hagen will show you the way. It’s right outside of Craftsbury Common, Vermont. The mountain air will do you good and the quiet will give you time to think about your future,” Tobias continued.

      “I’ll want to make a stop in Pennsylvania,” Eric said around the lump in his throat. “I need to pay my respects to Maude.”

      Tobias nodded.

      They had reached the airport. After boarding the plane and buckling himself into his seat, Eric leaned back, closed his eyes and recalled Maude O’Malley as he’d first seen her. She was medium in build, standing around five feet six inches tall, with flaming red hair lightly streaked with gray, and green eyes. He doubted that any woman had more spirit than her. The O’Malley Home for Boys had been born because of that spirit.

      Maude’s husband, Norman, had died, leaving her alone with the farm to run. She’d been in her mid-thirties at the time and determined to keep the place. When it came around to harvest time, she couldn’t find help. She’d grown up in Eric’s neighborhood. It was a blue-collar enclave in Philadelphia that had fallen on hard times. She went back there looking for some sturdy teenage boys to hire for a month.

      “All the good’uns done gone,” one of the older women had told her. “All’s we got left is the troublemakers and loafers.”

      “Then I’ll take what’s left,” Maude had said. She’d found four boys to take back with her. Two went home almost immediately when they discovered how much work was involved. But two had stayed until the crop was in.

      Later that winter one of the boys who had remained came back and asked if he could stay and work for his room and board. His mother had taken off and his father was in jail. Maude, never having had any children of her own, welcomed him like a long-lost son. The second boy who had stayed had such an improved attitude, his juvenile probation officer came out to the farm to visit Maude. She suggested a couple of boys Maude could hire for the next summer…boys the officer felt had potential for good but needed to get out of their current environment, even if it was just for a short while.

      As the years passed more boys came to stay. Sometimes it was the juvenile authorities who recommended Maude’s place to families as an alternative to the child ending up in jail. Sometimes, a parent or guardian heard about the farm through word of mouth and brought a child they could no longer handle. Or sometimes, as in Eric’s case, an unwanted child was dropped off at the gate with a note giving Maude guardianship.

      The rules were simple. You worked. You went to church. You didn’t steal and you didn’t hurt anyone. In return Maude gave the boys love and the feeling that they were members of a real family. She never expected perfection. But if you crossed her, she had a way of looking at you with so much disappointment in her eyes that you wanted to crawl under a rock.

      “Maude O’Malley must have meant a great deal to you,” Tobias said, breaking into Eric’s thoughts.

      Eric didn’t normally feel comfortable talking about himself, but the memories of his childhood were too strong at the moment. They demanded to be released. “My mother died when I was born. My father was an alcoholic and physically abusive. My mother’s family didn’t want to have anything to do with him or me. My dad had beaten my mother the night before she went into labor. He didn’t want to face up to the fact that he was probably responsible for her death, so he blamed me. He took me directly from the hospital to his parents and left me with them. They weren’t happy about having another child to raise. I was getting into trouble with the police by the time I was nine. When I was ten, my grandmother heard about Maude’s place and had my father sign a paper giving Maude guardianship of me. Then they took me out there and dropped me off. The authorities warned Maude not to keep me. They said I was incorrigible and they doubted I was redeemable. But Maude kept me. We had a few rough times those first months, but she proved to me that there were good people in this world.”

      “I wish I’d known her,” Tobias said.

      Eric nodded, then fell silent once again. He hadn’t seen Maude in years. The first Christmas after he’d left, he’d gone back, but it hadn’t been the same. She’d had her hands full with a new nine-year-old who reminded him of himself and a fifteen-year-old who’d been badly abused. Eric had known she was glad to see him, but he also knew that, like the baby bird pushed from the nest, he didn’t belong there anymore.

      After that, he’d called once in a while when he needed to hear a friendly voice and he’d sent money regularly, but he hadn’t gone back. As the plane touched down in Washington, D.C., he said, “There’s no need for Hagen to baby-sit me. I’ll find my way to your place on my own.”

      For a moment Tobias looked as if he was going to argue, then, reaching into his pocket, he took out a gold case and extracted a business card from it. “This has my phone number on it. Call me if you need me.”

      Eric thanked him and, after shoving the manila envelope into his satchel, he disembarked.

      

      Roxanne Dugan, known as Roxy, took the intricately carved wooden box from its drawer and set it on the table. Seating herself, she opened it and took out the deck of Tarot cards housed within. For as many generations as anyone could remember, the women in her family had read cards. This deck had been handmade by her great-grandmother and given to Roxy as a gift on the day she was born. She loved the artwork and the feel of them. In her younger, more skeptical days, she’d discounted their warnings and had lived to regret it.

      It had been several months since she’d sought their guidance. Her chin trembled as she recalled the last time she’d laid them out. It had been just after Maude’s heart attack. She’d gone to them hoping they would tell her that Maude would be all right. Instead, they’d told her that Death was at the door. Hating them because they were the messengers of news she knew was true but didn’t want to face, she’d put them away and had not wanted to look at them again.

      But for the past couple of weeks a sense of uneasiness had been building within her and she needed to know its cause. Hesitantly, she began to spread the cards. Jamie’s card turned up first. Tears welled in her eyes. By the time Maude’s heart had given out completely, she’d found safe sanctuary for all the children under Roxy’s and her care except for the withdrawn ten-year-old. Roxy had tried to explain to the social services people that the boy needed to stay with her, that he was beginning to respond to her, but they’d explained that the law wouldn’t allow that and had assured her that they would take good care of him. She’d told them that she wanted to adopt him and they’d told her that they didn’t feel she could meet the required conditions. They’d even refused to tell her where he was. They’d said that he needed to make a complete break from her so that he could bond with his new family.

      She knew the laws were made to protect the children and that the social services people