Family Of The Year

She moved to the refrigerator and peered inside, seemingly intent on its well-stocked contents, but Ben had seen the white lines of tension that had appeared around her mouth in spite of her smile and accepting words. As for there being no hard feelings, the look that had come into those expressive Mexican eyes was as close to panic as Ben Calder had ever seen.

“Are those crickets, Mama?” Tina asked, snuggling back between her mother’s open knees as they sat on the porch steps of the little guest house and listened to the sounds of a desert night.

“I think so.” Maria continued her rhythmic brushing of the little girl’s hair, the repetitive motion soothing to them both.

“They sound awfully loud for crickets. They aren’t so loud in Phoenix.”

“They get drowned out by the sirens.” Juanita Romero’s voice creaked through the darkness, drier even than the creaking of the rocking chair she kept in motion with an occasional nudge of her walking stick against the wooden floorboards.

Trisha, Maria’s oldest daughter, looked up at the night sky, her head tilted so far back her long hair touched the step behind her. “And there’s a lot more stars up here, did you notice that, Mama?”

“I think you might be right.” Maria’s eyes filled with a sudden rush of tears. She wanted crickets for her children. She wanted stars. They had to stay, there must be a way.

“Mama, not so hard! You’re hurting me,” Tina tried to pull her head away from Maria’s unintentional increase in pressure.

“Sorry, sweetheart.” Sighing, Maria resumed the gentle movement. Of course Mr. Calder was right, she admitted to herself. She knew she was stepping over the line to bring everyone up here and foist them on him. But what choice had she had? She was still haunted by that look on Veronica’s face that horrible morning last week. The cool evening around her faded, replaced by the interior of her Phoenix apartment, as Maria remembered.

“He’s gone.” Veronica had wearily leaned her head back against the top of the sofa, her dark hair fanning out to cover the worn spot in the avocado tweed. The baby she held in her arms listlessly nuzzled her breast, too hot to suckle.

“Tucson isn’t exactly the ends of the earth, you know.” Maria had tried her best to keep her tone low and soothing, both for her sister’s sake and not to disturb the fussy infant, quieted for the first time that morning.

“He won’t be back.” Veronica’s voice was as flat as her dark eyes. “I’m surprised he hasn’t bolted sooner. This family doesn’t have the best luck keeping men around.”

Maria’s lips turned up in a mirthless smile of agreement.

“He said the job’s just for the summer, but I know he’ll keep right on going.” Veronica shifted, trying to pull her blouse away from her sweat-sticky back. The movement caused the baby to let out a wail of protest and Veronica froze, then carefully leaned back against the sofa again. Both women let out a sigh of relief when the baby began to nurse. “Roberto loves you,” Maria insisted. “And you both agreed that he couldn’t pass up this job. You’ll need that money for his tuition this fall.”

God, she looks so tired, Maria thought as she watched her sister, pale and gaunt, run a finger along the rhythmically moving cheek of her infant daughter. The pregnancy had been very hard on her, and it hadn’t helped that she’d worked right up to the day she delivered, long shifts on her feet at the family’s restaurant. Maria still winced, remembering the sight of her sister’s swollen ankles.

She wished she could offer her some reassurance. Roberto did love her. But their first year of marriage had been difficult, marrying so soon after graduation and getting pregnant almost immediately. When Roberto’s uncle had offered him a summer job in Tucson at wages too good to turn down, he’d jumped at it.

For her sister’s sake, Maria had to believe he’d be back, in spite of the way his phone calls had suddenly stopped and Veronica’s letters went unanswered. Although, as Veronica had said, there’d hardly been a man in the family so far who’d stuck around. Was Roberto, barely twenty years old, going to be more responsible and mature than the rest?

“You know Linda’s losing her apartment?” Veronica asked.

Maria nodded at the mention of their older sister. “Mama told me they’re turning her building into condos. I said she could stay here while she’s looking for a new place but I don’t know where we’re going to put David. I hate to put him in the same room with the girls. It’d be hell trying to get three kids to sleep at night.”

“And he’s so hyper. He’s been giving Linda fits. Ever since his dad took off, it’s been one thing after another.”

They listened in silence while the swamp cooler growled ineffectively at the heat. Maria watched the water leaking around the edges of the old machine run down the wallpaper and drip into the pan on the floor, a faint round rust stain on the vinyl marking the exact spot for it.

“I guess I should get going. I told Mama I’d be home for lunch.” But Veronica made no move to rise.

Maria felt the sweat that had pooled behind her knees begin to trickle down the backs of her legs. She wiped at it with her hands, then rubbed her hands against her shorts. “I’ll fix you something, if you want.” Maria knew she sounded almost as lethargic as her sister, stupefied by the heat.

“I hate Phoenix in the summer.” But Veronica seemed unable to put any emotion into the words. “It’s supposed to get up to one hundred and five today.”

The noise of Maria’s girls squabbling in their bedroom began to grow more insistent and a siren rose somewhere outside. It would be nice to be able to leave Phoenix in the summer like most of their customers did, Maria thought. With college out, their little family restaurant was nearly empty most evenings, and not only was time hanging heavy but bills were mounting. Even a quick weekend up to Flagstaff was out of the question.

Little Tina came bursting into the room, waving a doll with long blond hair, her sister in hot pursuit. “Mama, I had it first! Tell her it’s mine! It’s mine!” Maria was engulfed by crying, angry girls, the awakened baby began to wail and the siren in the background got louder and closer.

Get out! something inside Maria screamed. I’ve got to get out! The words went around and around in her brain as she fought for a gulp of cool air in the stifling apartment. I have to get my family out of here!

Maria started, brought back to the present by Tina’s impatient wiggling. She resumed her brushing, staring into the dark over her daughter’s head. That ad in the paper had been like a sign. She would have said anything, agreed to anything, to get the job. Three months out here away from the city, with nothing but sandstone and sagebrush and fresh air and hard work—it was just what they all needed, adults as well as kids. She had to find a way to make Mr. Calder see it would work out.

But Maria remembered the way he’d glared at her in the kitchen, that stubborn look of a man used to getting his own way in eyes the same gray as the sage all around. Benjamin Calder had said no. Politely, yet firmly.

Maria listened to the incredible richness of sound of the quiet country night, surrounded by her family, all safe and happy for the time being. Benjamin Calder might have said no, she told herself, but Benjamin Calder was a man. And for Maria Soldata and the women she knew, men were something to be worked around, something to ignore as much as possible—something to survive in spite of.

The sound of laughter drew Ben to the kitchen window that looked out on the guest house. He walked over, shirt pulled out of his jeans and unbuttoned to the waist, and turned slightly so he could see through the crack in the sheer white curtains.

Two of the children tumbled about on the grass at the edge of the porch, somersaulting themselves dizzy. The old woman rocked in the chair Vergie always sat in to do her knitting, just a silhouette in the evening shadows. The girl was in the porch swing, her hand keeping up a steady patting motion against the back of the baby she held to her shoulder.

His about-to-be-ex-housekeeper, Maria Soldata, who had just finished fixing him the best meal he’d eaten in two weeks, brushed the hair of one of the little girls, Tony or Tiny or something like that, spotlighted by the yellow light coming through the open door behind them. He watched her hands move. First the stroke of the brush with one hand, followed by a smoothing caress of the other hand-smoothing, stroking, smoothing, stroking.

Their voices drifted across to him, low and indistinguishable, an occasional word of Spanish spicing the sound. Family talk. Ben thought of Connor, who should be there in two more days. Family.

He reached out to flip off the light switch and stood there in the darkened kitchen. He knew that the feeling that gripped him, held him by the window, was envy.

Ben woke to the smell of bacon and fresh coffee, the aroma tantalizing his eyes open. He rolled over and looked at the clock. Five-thirty. Damn that woman, anyway! That wasn’t playing fair. How’d she know he’d been eating cold cereal for the past two weeks?

He picked his jeans off the floor, swatted them a few times to try to remove some of the dust and pulled them on. They were his last clean pair—or least dirty pair, anyway. Thankfully, he still had a couple of clean work shirts in the closet. He took one from the hanger and shrugged into it, then picked up yesterday’s from the foot of the bed. Struggling into his boots, he took the shirt down the hall to the laundry room to add it to the overflowing basket.

Except the basket wasn’t overflowing anymore. The washer hummed and the dryer purred and neatly folded stacks of clean clothes covered both surfaces. Damn that woman, anyway. How’d she know this was his last pair of clean socks?

The spotless living room, two weeks’ worth of newspapers gone from the coffee table, annoyed him even further, and when he heard the sound of laughter coming from the kitchen…that was the last straw. How’d she know how much he hated waking up to a silent, empty house?

He stomped into the kitchen and glared at Maria and the man at his table.

“Morning, boss,” Harvey Wainright, his hired hand, greeted him, happily downing a plate of eggs and hash browns.

“It won’t work,” Ben announced, ignoring Harvey.

“So you said.” Maria indicated the table with the coffeepot she held in her hand and left the stove to pour him a cup. “How do you want your eggs?”

Grimly, he sat down in front of the steaming cup. “Sunny-side up.”

“That’s not good for you anymore, you know. What with salmonella in the chickens these days, you need to cook your eggs more. I’ll make them over-easy.”

“I said sunny-side up.” There she went again! Completely ignoring him just like last night, as if he was of no account. “Those eggs come from my chickens and my chickens don’t have salmonella and I’ll eat them raw if I want to!” “Easy there, boss,” Harvey said, his faded eyes opening wide in surprise. “You know, I read about that salmonella thing a while back. You can’t be too careful. And Maria makes darned good over-easy.” He smiled his gap-toothed smile at Maria.

“That’s okay, Harvey. If he grows his own chickens, then I’m sure sunny-side up will be perfectly all right.”

“You don’t grow chickens. You raise chickens,” Ben mumbled into his cup, annoyed by Harvey’s good mood. Frowning, he watched Maria crack the eggs into the pan, making the melted butter sizzle.

“It wasn’t necessary to do all this, you know,” he addressed her back. “Since it’s not going to work out, I mean.”

“It wasn’t any trouble.”