Getting Some Of Her Own (11 page)

“Are you always so punctual?” he asked after she greeted him, “or are you telling me you don't want us to linger here?”

Candid, was he? Well, honesty never hurt anyone. “Since you mention it, possibly some of both. You ready?”

He squeezed both eyes together in his version of a wink, a gesture that she found increasingly endearing. “I'm ready. I hope you trust me to drive. Would you mind if I detoured past Pine Tree Park East? We won't stop, or at least I hope we won't have to.”

“I don't mind. What's over there? You don't mean the marshlands, do you?”

“No. It's northeast of the marshlands. I'm building a village there that has health and recreation facilities. It's designed for retirees.”

He drove along Wright Road, took the underpass beneath Bakers Bridge to the east bank of the Salem River, and she marveled that he waited calmly while a pair of equestrians trotted their horses leisurely across the road, and did the same minutes later when a dog-lover strolled in front of the car with half a dozen identical terriers. In neither case did he display an eagerness to move on, but waited with evident patience.

She commented on his sangfroid, and he replied, “What's the point in getting shook up? I couldn't run over them. Whenever I can repair a situation that's not to my liking, I do it. If I can't change it, I either accept it or walk away from it. I try not to stress myself attempting the impossible.” Those words told her much about him, but they seemed to belie his dogged tenacity about their night together. “Well, what do you think?” he asked her of the structure rising on the river's east bank.

She hadn't imagined a retirement village with the potential for elegance. “I'm impressed. I'd like to see it again six weeks from now when the brick walls are up.”

“So would I. I think Woodmore is the perfect place for a retirement village, and I can't believe no other builder has considered it.”

“You're the architect as well as the builder?”

“Willis is the builder. I own a share of the building company.”

Yes
, she thought, as it dawned on her that Lucas's part ownership of the building company explained the modest amount she paid for the work on her shop and her kitchen.
If I want this day to pass smoothly, I'd better not allude to that,
she told herself.

It surprised her that Lucas had such a wealth of information about Old Salem, and she eagerly encouraged him to tell her about the lives of people who might have been her ancestors.

 

 

“This is God's Acre,” he said of the graveyard. “The first burials here were of Moravians in 1771. In its oldest section, African American and European Moravians were buried side by side. As I told you earlier, segregation took place in the nineteenth century. You know, it seems to me that the Moravians gradually adopted the attitudes of other southerners. They opened a school for girls in 1772, and in 1785, admitted an African American student, daughter of a baptized Moravian. Today, it's known as Salem Academy and College.”

He drove down Main Street to the corner of West Street, parked and walked with her past houses, former schools and churches that were once a part of African American life, institutions that helped to spawn the new-world African American culture.

“I wouldn't have missed this. It would be a nice excursion for my students,” she said. “But I don't know if they could grasp it. Junior high level might be more appropriate.”

“They would probably enjoy seeing the old method of weaving, and making other hand crafts, and they would certainly enjoy being back in the eighteenth century.”

They walked back to his car, seated themselves, and he drove through Winston-Salem slowly so that she could acquaint herself with the city. “You really enjoy the tutoring, don't you?” he asked her.

“I do. It surprises me that I never considered teaching.”

“Don't get too attached to them, Susan. They belong to someone else and can be snatched from you at any time. So be careful.”

His words had the impact of a sculptor striking stone. They and children like them were the only children she would ever have. She didn't respond to him. She couldn't.

 

 

The following Tuesday afternoon, as Lucas entered Wade School, he saw Rudy and Nathan standing beside their classroom door holding hands. He remembered Susan having said that the children abused Rudy because of her outdated and tattered old clothes, so he stopped and greeted them, hoping to make them feel special.

“Hello, I'm Mr. Hamilton, your principal. Are you waiting for your tutor?”

“Yes, sir,” they said in unison.

Rudy's smile revealed one captivating dimple. “We always wait for her right here,” she said.

Nathan seemed uneasy. “Can we stay right here and wait for Miss Pettiford, Mr. Hamilton?”

He let his gaze roam over Rudy, taking in her red coat, obviously new and very elegant. “You don't want to wait in the classroom?” he asked them.

The children looked first at each other and then at him. “She'll be here soon,” Rudy said.

Without a guard at the door, he didn't think it a good idea for them to stand in the hall. “There's a cold draft from that front door. Come down to my office and wait there. I'll let her know where you are.”

Nathan showed reluctance, and to encourage the child's cautiousness, he took his badge from the pocket of his jacket, and handed it to the boy. “That satisfy you?”

It amused him that Nathan scrutinized both him and the badge. “Yes, sir.”

The children walked on either side of him holding his hands, and he had a strangely protective feeling toward them, an emotion that he had not previously experienced. And how odd it was. His thoughts of fatherhood hadn't gone beyond the joy of holding and nurturing his own son or daughter. But as he walked with two vulnerable children who were not his own, but who trusted him to care for their well-being, it occurred to him that fatherhood didn't necessarily involve a man's genes.

In his office, the children sat together in a big leather chair, still holding hands as if they needed each other. He dialed Susan's cell phone number. “This is Lucas. Rudy and Nathan are waiting for you in my office. It's rather cold on that end of the corridor.” He listened for a second and then said to the children. “She'll be down here in a few minutes.”

He stood to greet Susan when she entered his office, and both children jumped up from the chair, ran to her and hugged her. Susan's expression of joy at their welcome made his heartbeat accelerate. “Thanks for taking care of my charges,” she said to him and opened the door to leave.

However, Rudy ran back to him and hugged his leg. “Thank you, Mr. Hamilton.”

“You're welcome.” He watched the three of them leave, holding hands with the children skipping happily along.

“Both of those children love Susan, and she loves them,” he said to himself. Furthermore, Rudy's new coat was a gift from her. He'd bet anything on it. They needed her, and he was beginning to suspect that she needed them
. It's irregular. What the hell am I supposed to do?

Somewhat bemused and suffering a rash of internal conflict—a rarity for him—Lucas excused his class five minutes before the scheduled time and went down to Susan's classroom, arriving there as her pupils jumped up from their seats and bolted for the door. When he entered, Rudy and Nathan smiled and rushed to him, and he experienced an attack of guilt about what he was obliged to do.

He greeted the children with a pat on their shoulders, but that did not satisfy Rudy, who reached for his hand. He looked down at the child whose trusting smile planted a seed somewhere deep in him.

“Who's taking these two home?” he asked Susan.

“My grandmother,” Nathan said before Susan could reply.

“We'd better be certain that she's here,” he said to Nathan.

The boy took Rudy's hand. “She always comes,” he said.

They left the children in Ann Price's care, and stood in the darkness on the barren acreage of what had once been one of Woodmore's most vibrant social and educational centers. For the first time in his life, his emotions interfered with his head. He ought to tell her that further involvement with her pupils would result in her being asked to withdraw from the tutoring program. Reason told him to back off from her, that she didn't plan to level with him and answer the question that had begun to haunt him. She looked at him, expectantly, he thought.
Oh, no
.
The thing for him to do was get into his car and go home.

“Drive carefully,” he said. “Be seeing you.”

He was safe then, but he soon had reason to wonder if agreeing to volunteer his time as principal of the tutoring program would have a lasting effect upon his personal life. Fate seemed determined to lock him into her clutches. He arrived at Wade School for the next tutoring session to find Rudy standing alone at the door of Susan's classroom.

“Hello, Rudy,” he greeted the little girl, whose face immediately bloomed into a smile. “Where's Nathan?”

At his question, the child's eyes clouded with unshed tears. “He didn't come to school today. His grandmother said he has a real bad cold.”

“Want to wait in my office until Miss Pettiford comes?”

She reached for his hand. “Yes, sir.”

“You didn't walk all the way from Rose Hill School, did you? How'd you get here?”

“I used to walk, but Nathan's grandmother brings me along with him. She brought me today. That's when she told me he's sick.”

“She seems like a wonderful lady.”

“Yes, sir. She loves Nathan.”

He heard the unspoken message. Someone who loved her was lacking in Rudy's life. “That's a pretty coat you're wearing.”

She rubbed the sleeves and patted the pockets. “I love it. Miss Pettiford bought it for me. It's nice.”

“Do you have brothers and sisters?” he asked her, hoping to learn more about her life.

“No, sir, but I have foster sisters and brothers. I don't like my oldest foster sister, 'cause she's not nice. She told me someone found me in an alley, and that my real mother left me there 'cause she didn't want me.”

“You're a lovely little girl,” he said, feeling helpless to comfort her. “I don't believe that anyone wouldn't love you. Try to ignore your foster sister if she says unkind things.”

“But she's mean all the time, Mr. Hamilton.”

He leaned forward and had to resist cradling her when tears spilled down her cheeks. “Some day, she will regret mistreating you. Try not to be angry with her.” What else could he say without fanning the coals of an ugly situation. “What is the name of your teacher at Rose Hill?”

“Miss Brown.”

He looked at his watch. “Let's see if Miss Pettiford has arrived.” It didn't surprise him that Rudy reached for his hand as soon as he stood. She seemed to enjoy emotional security from the comfort and warmth of his hand. No wonder Susan paid her special attention.

He left her with Susan, and the next afternoon, went to Rose Hill to speak with Rudy's teacher.

“I don't think she needs tutoring any longer, Mr. Hamilton. It's worked wonders. The child's making A's and B's in all her classes.”

“She's improving as much for emotional as academic reasons,” he told the woman. “She has a new friend in Nathan, a six-year-old boy who is very protective of her, and most especially, she's in a tutoring class of only twelve children with a tutor who mothers her. She's responding to that little friend and to the mothering that she's apparently never had. If she leaves the tutoring session, her grades may drop.”

Ms. Brown pursed her lips, pushed her glasses higher on the bridge of her nose and looked hard at him. “Are you saying she's not happy at home?”

He frowned and didn't care if she saw it. A teacher should know about a child's home environment. “Ms. Brown, Rudy is a foster child who has lived in a series of foster homes, and she is not happy in this one.”

The woman's eyes widened. “What's wrong in that home?”

“I questioned Rudy, and her answers suggested that love wasn't something she received there. Moreover, I'm sure the State provides money for her clothing, but you know how she's dressed when she comes to school.”

“Yes, but I thought she was from a poor family. I'll look into it. But . . . she just got a new coat.”

“Yes, her tutor bought it, because the one she wore was a rag.”

“Yes,” the woman released the word slowly. “This explains a lot. Thank you for coming, Mr. Hamilton. I'll watch this more closely.”

After the end of the next tutoring session, Lucas stood with Susan beside the concrete steps of the old schoolhouse. “Do you have any plans for this evening?” he asked her and was immediately aware that his question had unsteadied her. “I'd like us to talk for a few minutes, Susan, but if you don't want to do that in more apt surroundings, we can talk right here.”

He could tell that she anticipated his concern and the reason for it. “I don't want to hurt you,” he began, “but it's my duty to tell you that you're overstepping the line with Rudy. You bought her a coat. I know she needed one, and I can't blame you for doing that, but she's becoming emotionally dependent upon you, and you've been cautioned against that.”

She turned her back to him, and he walked around to face her, certain that she was at that moment experiencing emotional turmoil. “What if you become deeply attached to her and she's suddenly taken from you? Don't you see the danger in this?”