Part-Time Wife

“Oh, sure,” he told her. “All the time. He gets real mad if we don’t.”

“Then explain this.” She motioned to the toys, books, clothes and cassette tapes littering the room.

“He’s been gone.” C.J. gave her a charming smile. All three brothers were going to cut a swath through the female population when they got older. But for now they were just messy little boys.

There were four bedrooms upstairs. To the left was Craig’s. Not wanting to pry, she’d only peeked inside. She’d had a brief impression of large pieces of furniture and a bed that looked big enough to sleep six. Of course, she wasn’t even five foot two. To Craig the bed was probably just big enough. His room was relatively tidy, with only a few pieces of clothing tossed on the sofa facing the corner fireplace.

Next to his bedroom was a small alcove. There was a large desk with a computer and printer. Disks had been piled around the keyboard. On the wall was a bulletin board covered with computer-generated graphics.

Each boy had his own bedroom. First Danny’s, then C.J.’s, then Ben’s. The bathroom they shared was right next to the stairs. Jill glanced in each of the rooms and saw far more than she wanted to. Danny had toys piled everywhere, C.J. had tons of clothes scattered and Ben seemed to be storing half the plates and glasses on his floor. Aside from that, the three rooms were all identical, each with a twin bed, a dresser, a desk and a set of bookshelves attached to the wall.

“You’re all slobs,” she said, pausing outside their bathroom door. It was closed. She thought about opening it and looking inside, but then decided that some things were best left for professionals.

“We work hard at it,” C.J. said.

Danny moved next to her and touched her hand. “I’ll help you clean up.”

“Thanks, honey.”

Ben snorted. “The little shrimp’s already sucking up.”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“Excuse me,” Jill said loudly. “You’re all going to help me clean up. We’re going to do the laundry, pick up everything that doesn’t belong on the floor and do the dishes.”

There was a collective groan.

“I’m sorry,” Jill said. “But it’s your fault. If you’d chosen to live like civilized people instead of baboons—”

She knew the word was a mistake as soon as she said it. Instantly all three boys hunched over and started making monkey noises.

“Herds of the Serengeti, return to the family room,” she said over the din of their hooting.

They began the awkward shuffle down the stairs. Halfway there, the game changed and became a race. The in-line skates resting on the foyer floor created a hazard, but everyone avoided them.

“Where does the sports equipment go?” she asked.

“There’s a closet under the stairs,” C.J. told her.

She found the door and opened it. The storage space had a slanted ceiling, but the floor space of a small room. It was empty. “Ah, I see you like to keep it clean in here and not in the rest of the house. It makes perfect sense now. Why didn’t someone tell me?”

C.J. grinned, Danny giggled, even Ben forgot to scowl. Together, the four of them walked into the family room. Jill saw her suitcase sitting there. “Where do I sleep?” she asked, realizing she hadn’t seen a guest room.

“Here,” Danny said, pointing to a door at the far end of the family room.

She walked around him and stuck her head inside the cheerful bedroom. Big windows looked out onto the backyard. The white wicker furniture looked new. There was a bright yellow bedspread on the double bed, and she could see the entrance to her own private bath.

This was by far the cleanest part of the house.

“Dad says we’re not allowed in here,” Danny said. “Mrs. Miller lived here before she had to go away. Now you live here.”

Jill thought about pointing out the fact that her stay was temporary but figured the boys had been through enough today. Instead, she carried her suitcase into her room, then tried to figure out what should be done first.

“Danny and C.J., you two start sorting laundry.”

The boys stared at her blankly, identically confused expressions drawing their mouths into straight lines.

“Clothes,” she said, pointing to the piles around the laundry room and flowing into the hallway. “Sort them. By color. One pile for whites. One pile for darks, one for lights and another for jeans.”

A lock of medium brown hair fell across Danny’s forehead. He was the only one of the Haynes males she’d seen who didn’t have dark hair and eyes. “Those piles are going to be huge. They’re going to reach the ceiling.”

She looked at the mounds of clothing. “Oh, probably, but do the best you can. Ben, I’d like you to help me in the kitchen. We’re going to load the dishwasher and try to figure out what color the counters are.”

“I know what color they are,” C.J. said. “They’re white.”

She leaned over and wrapped an arm around his neck. Rubbing her knuckles against the top of his head, she said, “I know they’re white. I was just being funny.”

The boy giggled and wiggled, but didn’t move away. Her chest tightened in sympathy as she wondered when they had last been hugged by a woman. It couldn’t be easy growing up without a mom.

She released C.J. He and Danny went to work on the clothes. Ben followed her into the kitchen, and with only minor grumbling began loading the dishwasher. Jill sorted through cereal boxes, figuring out which were empty and which just needed to be put away. There were piles of food. Bread, chips, jars of salsa. A melted carton of ice cream had spilled on, then stuck to, the counter. She wet a cloth and set it over the mess. Maybe by that night it would have loosened up a little.

From the family room came muffled sounds of a battle being waged. C.J. and Danny were tossing more clothes than they were piling, but the work was getting done. Ben made the flatware dive-bomb the dishwasher. The childish sounds brought back memories of being with her two stepdaughters. She shoved the last box of cereal onto the top pantry shelf and wondered what they were doing now. Did they ever think of her or miss her? She still remembered how hard it had been to lose them. Even after her divorce from Aaron, she’d wanted to see the girls. She’d tried to call them, but their mother said to leave them alone. Jill had quickly found out she didn’t have any legal rights to visitation, and when she’d pushed the matter, Patti and Heather had phoned her directly and told her to stop bothering them. They had a mother, they didn’t need her.

The words still had the power to wound her. She hadn’t tried to take their mother’s place in their lives. She’d just wanted to love them. Was that so bad? It must be a horrible crime because they’d never forgiven her for it.

“You got a husband?” Ben asked.

She spun toward him. He was stacking plates in the bottom of the dishwasher and had his back to her. “No. I’m not married.”

“Got any kids?”

“No. Of course not. If I had children, I would be with them.”

He looked up at her. “Why?”

“I just would. I wouldn’t—” She had started to say, “leave my children,” but clamped her mouth shut. Craig had told her that the boys’ mother had left them.

Without thinking, she crossed the room to stand next to him. She reached out to touch him, then had second thoughts. Her hand hung awkwardly between them. At the same moment she moved closer, he started to straighten. A lock of dark hair fell onto his forehead. She reached up and brushed it back. Ben stiffened, but didn’t move away.

She smiled, then frowned. She was looking up. “My word, you are taller than me!”

He grinned. Once again, he reminded her of his father. If he could just lose a little weight, he would be a good-looking kid. She wondered what Craig would think if she tried to help Ben with his problem.

By the time Ben had filled the dishwasher and stacked up the dishes for the next load, she’d found out there was no fresh food in the house. Actually there was very little to eat at all. When she commented on the fact, Ben told her that his father had meant to go shopping that day, but he’d been called to work.

“He’s on some secret assignment,” he said. “He can’t talk about it.”