My Lucky Stars (23 page)

“You,” Maddie said. “She wants you to rock her or snuggle with her in bed. That’s what Jessica did when she was here and what my mom does when Allie can’t sleep at night.”

Tara stared down at the little girl. “You want your mom?”

Allie nodded.

“Mom says Allie misses her parents and needs extra loves.”

“We all do, Sugar.” Tara blew a stray hair from her eyes then bent down and scooped a now-screaming, kicking Allie from the floor. With purposeful steps, she returned her to Maddie’s room, this time not letting her go when she set Allie down. Looking into the toddler’s eyes, she searched her mind for possible ways to handle the situation—aside from rocking or cuddling, which weren’t her thing. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much in her life experiences to draw on.

“Allie.” Tara spoke firmly. “You need to take a nap.”

More wailing—accompanied by kicking—met this announcement. Still keeping an eye on Allie, Tara stood and backed away.

“Listen,” she said, “your mom and dad will be back in a couple of days, and Aunt Jane will be here tonight. I’m sorry, but I don’t do that rocking thing, and my bed is just for me, so you’re gonna have to deal with this on your own. It’s time to put on your big-girl panties and grow up.”

Covering her ears so she wouldn’t hear the little girl’s continued screams, Tara practically ran back to her own room. Maddie stared curiously after her a moment then went to her bedroom with Allie and closed the door behind her.

After a few minutes more, Allie’s crying ceased, and Tara let out a relieved, satisfied sigh.
Both girls must be lying down now. There’s something to be said for being firm.
She tucked the victory away for future incidents and to share with Jane.
Poor Jane has been getting up at night, letting that squirmy kid in her bed, when all she needed to do was be a little tougher.
Tara felt a new kind of satisfaction.
Of course I can take care of a kid. I’ve been in the boardrooms of corporate America. What’s so different?

Setting the magazine aside, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to doze lightly. Every few minutes she would open her eyes and look at the clock. Ten then twenty then thirty minutes passed with no noise from Maddie’s room.

They must both be asleep. I am
so
good.

Invigorated by her success, Tara got up and went to the kitchen to start dinner. Tonight she’d make something nice—something besides tacos or spaghetti or burritos. If the little girls didn’t like it, well too bad. She’d tell them it was what she served or nothing. They’d come around.

She was assembling the ingredients for chicken parmesan, angel hair pasta, and a spinach salad when both girls started screaming. Tara set a pot on the counter and ran down the hall. She flung open Maddie’s door and found the girls sitting on Maddie’s bed, each with their mouths open and howling.

“What?” Tara asked. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“My bed is wet,” Maddie wailed. “Allie pottied all over my bed—and me.”

“She did?
You did?
” Tara stared at Allie, her legs slightly raised over the wide, dark spot on the comforter beneath. “Did your Pull-Up leak?” Tara marched across the room, grabbed each girl by an arm, and hauled them from the bed.

“She’s not wearing one,” Maddie said. “I let her wear my panties—my pretty flowered ones—and she
wet
them.” Fresh tears fell from Maddie’s eyes.

“Why did you do that?” Tara stepped forward and yanked the blanket off the bed.

“Because,” Maddie said, “you told Allie to put on her big-girl panties, but she doesn’t have any. So I shared.”

“You shared,” Tara repeated.
I have to clean this up—seriously?
Hands on hips, she frowned at the little girls. Allie stood awkwardly, her legs spread wide, a look of abject misery on her face. Maddie, on the other hand, looked disgusted and angry.

With me
, Tara realized.
She’s ticked at me.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Tara wagged a finger in her face. “I’m not the one who peed in your bed.”

“Why are you so mean?” Maddie yelled. “I snuggled with Allie ’cause you made her sad, and now my bed is all wet. This is
your
fault.”

You want to see mean?
Tara thought. But the accusation stung. Biting her tongue so she wouldn’t be
meaner
—and get tattled on to Jane—Tara ignored the girls and began pulling the sheets off. They bore a similar round stain, as did the mattress beneath.

“Great. Just great.” She gathered all the wet bedding, stepped around the girls, and headed for the laundry. “Stay right there,” she ordered. “You’re both going to have a bath.”

Before she could get to the laundry room or start the water running in the tub, the phone began ringing. Tara glanced at the caller ID on the kitchen counter as she walked by.
Harrison Medical.
As the name registered in her mind, she dropped the laundry and reached for the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Tara.” Jane’s voice was tired.

“Are you okay?” Tara asked, trying not to sound worried.
Please don’t tell me you’re going to be late. I can’t take another hour. I—

“I’ve got to stay overnight,” Jane said. “They want to monitor the babies for several hours, and I have to take a stress test in the morning.”

You think
you’re
stressed?
“Um—okay,” Tara said. What else
could
she say?
Come home right now? These kids are driving me nuts?
Pushing aside her own concerns, she tried to think about what Jane must be dealing with. “Is anything wrong with the babies? Are you having contractions again?”

“Little contractions, but their heartbeats are strong. My doctor’s just being cautious. How are the girls?” Jane asked.

“They’re—”
Naked.

Maddie and Allison streaked across the hall and into the bathroom.

So much for staying right where I told them to.
Tara imagined their wet, smelly clothes sitting on Maddie’s carpet. “They’re fine. I, uh, I’m getting ready to give them a bath.”

“Oh, did they get really dirty playing outside?” Jane asked.

Tara caught the wistful note in her voice. To Jane, the most difficult thing about bed rest was not being able to work out in her yard.

“They’re pretty dirty,” Tara hedged. “But don’t worry about it. I’ll make sure they’re all clean. I’ll take good care of them.”

“Thanks, Tara. I
really
appreciate it. I owe you.”

No kidding.
“No problem. Feel better, okay?”

They said good-bye and Tara headed down the hall. She entered the bathroom to find both little girls sitting in the tub with no water but about a million toys and a big blob of something pink between them. An empty bubble bath container lay on its side on the floor.

“We waited to start the water,” Maddie said, as if she were the authority here and had taken over the bathing process because Tara was incapable.

I am capable
, Tara thought.
Just because I messed up on the panties thing . . .
She turned the faucet, and as the cold water hit their skin, both girls squealed.

“Sorry,” Tara said in a cheerful voice, feeling slightly better about the mess awaiting her in the other room. She held her hand under the water until it reached the right temperature then sat on the edge of the tub as it filled, a giant mound of strawberry-scented bubbles rising ever higher.

While the girls played, she decided to clean the bathroom.
One less thing to do later
, she reasoned as she scrubbed out the sink. Now that she thought about it, she wasn’t exactly certain
what
she would do “later” with Jane gone tonight. They’d settled into a familiar routine of eating ice cream and talking about life, a routine that she looked forward to. A hint of loneliness tugged at her heart, but Tara pushed it firmly aside. She was too busy to feel sorry for herself.

Overworked and underpaid . . . just like—Jesus.
She thought of the New Testament scriptures she’d been studying the past few days. The missionaries had left her with a copy of the Book of Mormon, but she preferred reading from the four Gospels—as Jane referred to them. There was something about reading of Jesus’s life, the words He spoke, that spoke to her. Again and again she returned to the message from the first Sunday school lesson she’d attended.

He who will lose his life, shall find it.

She hadn’t really tried that yet. It was hard—all this giving and serving and doing unto others. Maybe that’s what impressed her so much and drew her to reading about Jesus. The way He’d continuously given of Himself. She didn’t understand how He could.
Or why he would.

The girls laughed and a second later, water splashed over the edge of the tub. Tara turned a reprimanding frown on them. She opened her mouth, intending to scold, but something about the looks on their faces stopped her.

They’re just little.
I
was little once. Did Mom scold me when I splashed in the tub?
Knowing her mother, probably. It was an unhappy thought, one Tara didn’t wish to act out. Surprising herself more than the girls, she cupped a hand under the sink faucet and filled it. “You want to splash, do you?” she asked, tossing the water at the girls.

Maddie’s eyes widened and her mouth opened in a shocked O. Allie laughed and sent another wave over the side of the tub. Tara gasped and jumped back, as if the water had just missed her. It
had
succeeded in soaking the bath mat, but Tara held back a groan.
I’ll just add the mat to the wash I’m already doing.

Pushing the wet rug aside, she knelt beside the tub. She scooped up a handful of bubbles and plopped them on Allie’s head. “Bet I can make you look like Ashton Kutcher when he’s growing a beard.” She proceeded—to Allie’s delight—to sculpt a full bubble beard.

“Would you like one too?” she asked Maddie.

Maddie’s eyes were still huge, and she stared at Tara as if seeing her for the first time. Tara couldn’t blame her.
I’ve been impatient and grumpy and
. . .
What is wrong with me? This is
Jane’s
daughter. My friend’s child.

“I’m sorry, Maddie. I’m sorry I made Allie cry and your bed got wet.”
And for everything else I’ve said or done since I’ve been here.

“That’s okay.” The corners of Maddie’s mouth lifted in a smile. “I forgive you.”

Tara remembered when another little girl had asked her forgiveness, when Ben’s niece had tried to tell her why forgiving others was so very important.

“Thank you, Maddie.” Tara felt another lump in her throat and wondered if she was developing some condition she ought to have looked at.

Her symptoms—the frequent inability to swallow and watery eyes—were troubling.

Twenty-Seven

Maddie rested her head on the counter, an inch from the newspaper Tara was trying to read. “I miss Allison.”

“Me too,” Tara said. She didn’t miss the messes, but she’d been surprised to discover the way Maddie latched on to her now that her cousin was gone. From the minute she came home from kindergarten every day, until she finally dropped off to sleep at night, Maddie followed Tara around, seeking constant attention. Jane did what she could to entertain her daughter, reading stories, and playing those never-ending games, but Maddie was like Jane, always wanting to be outside. She wanted action.

“Want to play ball?”

“Not really.” Tara scanned the want ads. Reading the newspaper classifieds wasn’t nearly as efficient as looking for jobs online, but she checked every day just to make sure she hadn’t missed something. Since she’d had to partially replace her wardrobe—she couldn’t begin to purchase substitutes for everything she’d packed up and promised not to wear—her bank account had shrunk even more. She worried that if she didn’t have a job by the time Peter came home, she wouldn’t have enough to pay first and last month’s rent and a security deposit, let alone anything left to tide her over for a month or so until she had a regular paycheck.

“How about jump rope?”

“Nope.” At five, Maddie had not yet mastered jump rope. She
had
mastered jumping up and down, singing loudly, and snapping the rope repeatedly—on Tara’s arm, shoulder, and head. Once had been more than enough for that game.

“Tea party in the playhouse?” Maddie’s voice was pleading. “We can pretend the prince is coming again.”

Tara set the paper aside and looked down at the little girl. “You know what you need?”

“A sister or a brother to play with?” Maddie suggested.

“Yes,” Tara said. “That’s exactly what you need.”
So this is why people have more than one kid—to keep the first one from driving them nuts.
“Lucky for you, you’re going to get both.”

“I know. I know.” Maddie excitedly bounced up and down on her toes. “And Mommy says I can help feed them bottles, and I can rock them, and when they get bigger they’ll play outside with me.”

“I’m sure they will.” Tara imagined Jane in her element, outside with a spade in her hand, the flower beds bursting and children running over every inch of the yard.

“Will you play with me now? We can have real cookies outside.” Maddie put on her most hopeful expression. “I’ll let you have the china cup,” she offered, as if that were enticement beyond what Tara could resist.

“All right,” Tara said, holding her hands up in surrender as she got off the stool. “Tell you what. You can have the china teacup if I get to answer the playhouse door when the prince arrives.”

“Deal.” Maddie’s grin was huge.

Tara grabbed a package of Oreos from the cupboard while Maddie skipped down the hall to get her play dishes. When she returned, they filled the tiny teapot with water then headed outside. It wasn’t as warm as the previous day, but the wind wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been last night. Tara glanced up at ominous clouds overhead. “I think this had better be a quick tea party, unless we want to get soaked.”