***
When Joseph came home, he noticed that everything seemed to be in order. Doug and Bob were quietly playing on the porch with some jacks. The house was quiet.
“Is everything alright?” he asked his sons.
“Sure, Pa,” Bob said. “We helped Ma, just like you said.”
For some reason, something seemed to be off. “Where is she?”
Doug shrugged. “She said she needed a moment alone. We promised to play nicely out here, so she let us out.”
“Where are Charles and Ben?” he asked.
“Sleeping. They just settled down.”
“You boys be good out here.”
“Of course, we will, Pa. Ma’s gone through enough.”
That’s what he was afraid of. Joseph entered the house and hung his hat on the hook by the door. He shouldn’t have gone to work until Margaret had time to adjust to being a mother. At the time he agreed to start right away, his sole thought was getting a steady paycheck as soon as possible.
“Margaret?” he called out as he walked through the house. Everything was in order. The parlor and kitchen were clean. He glanced in the children’s room and saw that Charles and Ben were fast asleep. He wasn’t surprised since they had a busy day with the wedding and stayed up later than usual last night. He turned his attention to his bedroom. “Margaret?”
She quickly turned over on the bed so he couldn’t see her face.
He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard a sniffle. Sighing, he went over to the bed and walked to her side, but she turned the other way, blocking his view of her face. He sat down behind her and touched her shoulder. “Margaret, what is it?”
She shook her head and buried her face into her pillow.
“Margaret?” he softly asked.
“I’m a failure,” came a muffled sob.
“No, you’re not.”
“You weren’t here.”
She started rambling, but he couldn’t make out what she was saying into her pillow so he gently rolled her over. “What happened?”
She brought a well-used handkerchief to her eyes and dabbed them. “Who is Debra Potter?”
The question surprised him. “Did she come over here?”
“She found me and the boys at the park and gave me a hard time. Why does she want to marry you so badly?”
He groaned. “I hoped she would leave town since we married.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. When it came to Debra, it seemed that a headache was inevitable. “I don’t know why she wants to marry me. Hannah never liked her. We all grew up together, but Hannah made it a point to avoid her. I didn’t even know she was interested in me until I started courting Hannah.”
“Did you ever tell her that you don’t want her?”
“Well, I proposed to Hannah instead of her, and I married you yesterday. I don’t know how much more obvious I can be in how I feel about her.”
Though he dreaded it, it looked like he was going to have to find her and tell her to go back to Ohio. Just the thought of seeing her made him queasy. What did he ever do to deserve being followed by a woman who couldn’t take no for an answer?
He rubbed Margaret’s arms. “I’ll see what I can do about getting rid of her. Did she mention where she’s staying?”
“No. And I don’t care.”
He offered her a sympathetic smile. “Did anything else go wrong today?”
She shrugged and sniffled again. “There were a couple of other women who came by the park, and—” Her lower lip quivered as tears filled her eyes. “I’m not a good mother.”
He dug into his breast pocket and pulled out a clean handkerchief to give her. “Why do you say that?”
“Well...” She took the handkerchief and wept into it. “So much happened so fast. I thought I had control over everything. But then Charles had an accident, Ben got into the canister of sugar, and Bob and Doug tried to help but things just got worse. Then people came by to sell cookware, and the woman suggested I needed a nanny. I can’t do anything right.”
“Everyone’s settled down now,” he softly said, lightly brushing some stray strands of hair from her face. “You succeeded, sweetheart.”
“Oh sure. Just in time for you to come home.”
He laughed. “Hannah used to say the boys had a way of knowing when I was going to be here because things fell into place right before I walked through the front door.”
“She’s right. They do know, and what’s scary is that I didn’t even have to tell them.”
Sighing in sympathy, he helped her sit up. He gathered her into his arms and let her lean against him. “I’ve been there. I know what it’s like. You did better than I did the first time I had to be alone with them.”