A Husband for Margaret(2)

Of course, he wouldn’t do that to the poor woman. They were his children, after all. But they sure did need a mother in the worst possible way. And he needed them to have a mother as well. He could only pray she’d be willing to marry him instead of his brother.

“Are we there yet?” Doug, the seven year old, asked.

“Almost,” Joseph mumbled, closing his eyes. His head hurt.

“But you said that an hour ago,” Doug whined.

“Compared to when we started, we were almost there.”

“And now?”

“We’re even closer.”

“How much closer?”

“Five minutes,” he guessed. At least, based on the itinerary, they should be ready to pull into the Omaha train station. Dear God, let the itinerary be right. My sanity depends on it.

“How long is five minutes?” Bob, the six year old, asked.

“I don’t know,” Joseph said.

“How come you don’t know?” Doug asked.

“I do know. I just don’t know how to explain it so you’ll understand,” Joseph clarified.

“Is five minutes long?” Doug asked.

“No.”

Then Charles leaned his head back and knocked his father in the jaw.

Joseph grumbled and rubbed the sore spot. “Alright. Five minutes is long.”

“Longer than an hour?” Bob pressed.

The train finally—mercifully—began to slow, and Joseph breathed a loud sigh of relief. God did answer prayers!

“We’re here!” Doug cried out and jumped up on the seat.

“Sit down!” Joseph yanked on the boy’s collar until the lad obeyed. “The train hasn’t stopped yet. And remember what I said. Stay with me. You can’t go running off with all these people. I might lose you.”

Doug groaned but stayed seated.

Bob shook a sleeping Ben. “We’re here!” he yelled in his brother’s ear.

“He’s not deaf,” Joseph said, pressing his hand over his own ear to get it to stop ringing. How a little kid could manage that high of a pitch, he’d never understand.

“I can’t wait to meet our new ma,” Bob told Doug. “You think she can make cookies?”

“Course she can. All mothers make cookies,” Doug said. “And pies.”

“Ooh! Pies. Pa, is she gonna bring a pie?”

Joseph shook his head. “She’s not even expecting us. She’s expecting your uncle Paul. Now, I want you all to be on your best behavior. If you act up, she might not want to go through with this.” Good Lord, the last thing he needed was to scare the woman off.

“Don’t she know we’re coming?” Doug asked, his eyes wide.

“No.”

“Why not?”

He glanced at the child who, in many ways, looked just like his mother with his blue eyes and blond hair. He was curious like her too. Joseph shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought it was best this way.” Which wasn’t entirely true, but he saw no sense in explaining that to a child. The situation was complicated enough without trying to go into detail about it. “Look, your uncle can’t be here.”

“Cause he’s dead,” Bob said.

“Right. So I figured if this nice woman is looking for a family to care for, who better than you boys?” He really hoped she’d understand and be willing to go through with this because if she didn’t... He glanced at his four boys who were busy shoving at each other and laughing. One, predictably, got hurt in the play and started bellowing. If she didn’t marry him, he might go insane. There was no way he could keep raising these kids by himself. One year was one year too many.

The train came to a stop and Doug bolted out of his seat, nearly tripping a man who was walking down the aisle.

“Stay with me, boys,” Joseph ordered.

Doug’s shoulders slumped as he returned to the seat.

“Take your toys.” He pointed to the floor and seats which had ‘Kids were here’ written all over it. “And watch out for other people,” he added.

The other passengers struggled to squeeze around the seven and six year olds who scrambled to get in the aisle to grab the toy trains that had rolled under the seat. Well, he couldn’t blame the boys for trying. He set Charles next to Ben who looked as if he could easily go back to sleep. Except, Charles wouldn’t let him. He sat on Ben’s face and giggled.

Margaret Williams is going to take one look at these kids and order me back on the train. I just know it.

He grabbed the bag which contained enough clothes and supplies for the kids and a change of clothes for himself. Then he pulled Charles off of Ben and set him on his feet next to Doug and Bob whose arms were full of toys.