Matt stepped beside her and saw Mike lying propped on the bed with his leg in a cast. “Hi, Mike.”
The woman backed away and Mike smiled; he looked healthy despite the bruises and cast. “Hey, Chaz.”
“Janet, the woman who doesn’t like people—you know, the lady who’s on the square from time to time…?” Mike nodded. “She heard that you were here.” Matt dragged the vinyl yellow chair up to the bed and settled in. He told his story and looked at the floor, fumbling with the coat in his hands. “I’m not telling you what to do,” he said. “I’m not even suggesting it, but…” Mike listened, watching his face, and Matt shuffled from foot to foot. “I was wondering if you’d be up for a road trip?”
Erin picked her things up at my house after work. She and her mother were coordinating their schedules for now and taking care of Gabe. “Once I have money saved, I’ll need to move back into town,” she said. “To be closer to work.”
“Call me when you’re ready and I’ll help you find something,” I said. I helped her pack her things into a box and suitcase. “So, Robert Layton tells me you’re sweet on someone downtown.”
Her mouth fell open. She threw a pair of jeans into the suitcase. “What! No. He was standing there when this guy just—”
“Swept you off your feet,” Miriam finished.
“No! No, he ran into me, and—”
“Birds tweeted, rockets launched, the earth moved?” I laughed at Miriam and Erin dumped a drawer full of socks and underwear into the suitcase.
“He wouldn’t want a girl with a baby,” Erin said. “Trust me.”
“I’ve been studying and watching and performing for people my whole life,” Miriam said. “I can sense when someone is angry or bored.”
“Are you sensing anything now?” I asked, winking at Erin.
Miriam held up her hand. “Gloria, please. I can tell if someone is anxious or worried. And I can see when someone is in love.”
“Me!” Erin screamed. “I am not!”
Miriam and I laughed. “Just tell us this,” I said. “Is he handsome?”
Erin zipped up the suitcase and pulled it off the bed. “Yes,” she said, brushing past me.
“I knew it,” Miriam said, running after her. “And what is the handsome man’s name?”
Whiskers bolted from the stair landing when he heard us coming. “I don’t know his name and as soon as he discovers that there are two of us in this family I doubt he’ll want to know my name, either.”
“Oh, a doubter,” I said, loading the box into the trunk.
“And a skeptic,” Miriam said, watching Erin. “But I know people, and this one is in looove.” She dragged the word out and Erin slammed the trunk shut.
She turned and hugged us, and I was certain that I saw a tear in Miriam’s eye. “Thank you, Gloria. Thank you both for everything,” Erin said.
“Come back anytime,” I said. “Bring your boyfriend. I’ll leave the light on for you.” She laughed and backed out of the driveway, waving. We watched her drive away and I sighed. “I hate good-byes and endings, and the conclusion of things in general.”
“You’d think we’d be used to them by now,” Miriam said.
I walked up the stairs to the porch. “I know. But they still stink.”
Miriam picked up a large box filled with plates, saucepans, and utensils, and carried it into the house. I followed her into the garage with a huge bag of clothes. “We really need a permanent place for all this stuff,” she said.
I dropped the bag. “We?”
She unloaded the box onto the shelves. “You! Dalton and Heddy and you! Who do you think I mean?”
I sorted through the clothes and laughed.
Matt’s siblings all had plans to be with their in-laws on Christmas but they rearranged their plans so they could come to my house. Miriam and I shifted into high gear. There would be twenty of us, including Dalton and Heddy and Carla and Donovan, and there was lots of baking and cooking and shopping to be done.
Matthew was awkward around his brothers and sister—they were strangers, really—but that would change over the course of time. On Christmas day my grandchildren littered the living room with wrapping paper and kept Miriam on her toes. “Throw that in here,” she said to each child as he or she unwrapped a gift. “No, no, not on the floor. We’re not rats!”
My grandson brought his toy horse named Pink, and Whiskers spent the day darting from one hiding place to the next. Miriam said she’d never seen anything like it, and actually felt sorry for Whiskers. “There. It’s passed now,” she said, running through the house waving Pink in the air.