Once in a Lifetime

Holding Tara’s hand securely, she walked on. With so much free time on her hands and none of the social obligations she’d had as Jack’s wife, she longed to take up once more the hobby she loved. She planned to begin by sculpting wood and hoped to find some hardwood on the premises. She stopped short when Tara said, “I’m going to ask that man over there if he has any little children for me to play with.”

“Honey, you can’t just…”

But Tara dropped her hand and ran to a tall man who was speaking with a much shorter one and told him what she wanted.

Obviously impressed, the man introduced himself to Alexis. “I’m Allen, and I work for the Harringtons. You have a charming little girl. It’s too bad they’re so fragile.” His eyes mirrored a sadness, and she knew at once that his hurt was deep-seated and raw. “I’m afraid I don’t have any little girls, and my boys are teenagers.”

She didn’t know why, but her heart ached for the man. “I’m so sorry we bothered you. Tara thinks the world is filled with people who love her, and she doesn’t hesitate to ask them for proof of it. She doesn’t meet many strangers.”

He looked past her into the distance. “Wouldn’t it be great if we were all like Tara?”

“Can’t I play with teenagers, Mummy?”

“No, dear,” she said, and explained why. She thanked the man and walked on. They’d walked almost to the construction site when she realized where they were.

“Let’s go back, Tara. Come on.”

Too late. A red Buick station wagon that bore the imprint of a lion’s head encircled by the words HARRINGTON, INC. ARCHITECTS, ENGINEERS AND BUILDERS stopped beside them. She knew its driver before she saw him and could have kicked herself for going there.

“Howdy, ma’am. I was wondering when you’d find your way back.” He reached over and opened the front passenger door. “Hop in.”

She squashed the urge to smash his ego. “Sorry. We aren’t going your way.”

He smiled in a way she supposed some people considered captivating—so sure of himself—but he only made her flesh crawl. “You don’t know which way I’m going, babe.”

She took Tara’s hand and prepared to walk on. “No matter where you’re going, it’s opposite from where I’m headed. Come on, Tara.”

When it came to walking and looking backward, Tara was an expert. She stopped and turned Tara to face her. “I need your cooperation. So come on.”

“I’m cop-ter-ating, Mummy, but I don’t like the man.”

That squared it; if Tara didn’t like a man, he bore watching. Later, she mentioned it to Henry.

“You mean Biff? That fellow goes through women like water through a sieve. Tara got sense. As a foreman, he’s first-class, but as a man, he ain’t worth poop.”

“I’ll be happy never to see him again.”

“I hope your happiness don’t depend on that. He’s like a weed. Always shows up where you don’t want to see it.”

Tara barged in, ending that conversation. “Mr. Henry, do you have any little children for me to play with?”

“Nope, not a one. Sorry to say.”

Tara needed playmates. “Maybe I’d better get her into summer camp, or…” She couldn’t think of an alternative.

He sorted the potatoes according to size, selected five and began scrubbing them. “Ain’t no summer camp around here. This ain’t Philadelphia, you know.”

She dragged a stool over to the counter and began stringing beans. “There aren’t any children around here. What do you suggest I do?”

“The church school is open all summer. Telford teaches music over there a couple of mornings a week. Maybe he can tell you something.”

“Of course she can go with me,” Telford told Alexis at supper that night. “You want to learn the violin, Tara?”

“I wanna learn the keyboard. The piano.”

“I’ll teach you.”

Alexis imagined that she gaped at him. “I knew you played the violin, but the piano?”

“I studied that first, starting when I was about Tara’s age. I didn’t start the violin till I was thirteen, but it’s my real love.”

“You ain’t bad on the guitar, neither,” Henry said. “You gonna take Tara to church school with you, ain’t you?”

“Sure, if it’s all right with Alexis. In the fall, she’ll take the bus to school.”

She listened to them, weaving her more tightly into their lives. Closing the hatch. If she wanted to get away from them, she wasn’t sure she could. They gave her what she’d never had, a world free of ugliness and selfishness. Warmth. Peace. Chills streaked through her when she remembered that she was deceiving Telford, and he’d warned her that he demanded honesty.

“Mummy, what’s a unrest?”

“It means…well, it means someone is unhappy.”

“Mr. Allen told that man some was coming.”

Telford put his fork down and spoke in a voice that was unnaturally quiet. “Which Allen are you talking about?”

Alexis completed the story for him. His demeanor, tense and apprehensive, aroused her concern and compassion, for she had never seen him when he didn’t appear to be solidly in control.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I have to make a call. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Telford dashed up the stairs to his bedroom. He wanted absolute privacy for that call. “Allen, this is Telford.” He repeated the essence of Tara’s story. “What’s this all about?”

“Sparkman Manufacturing won’t negotiate with the union, and old man Sparkman’s got most of the other builders in the surrounding counties to side with him. If the union strikes on Sparkman and his cronies, it’ll force the rest of us into a sympathy strike.”

“I hadn’t heard anything about this. You know I’d be the last man to join Fentress Sparkman in anything.”

“Yeah, I know. I just got wind of it this morning, and I didn’t call you because it could have been a false alarm.”

“What’s your take on this?”

“Your employees don’t have any reason to strike; we have a good contract. But if the union says walk, we have to walk. You know that.”

Fentress Sparkman would paralyze western Maryland’s building industry to prevent him from completing that school building on schedule. Talk about dirty politics. He sank my father, but he’ll never trample on me.

“You’ll keep me posted?”

“You know you can count on me, Telford. I’d have called you if I’d been certain that what I heard was anything more than gossip.”

The men wanted more overtime work, so he’d give it to them starting tomorrow. If the union went on strike, he’d be ahead.