Page 50
“Were you really stressed before you went to bed?” Gramps asked. “I know when I’m really stressed out about something, I usually have nightmares.”
God bless the man who had raised her for apparently not realizing how stressed she’d been over a number of things. Of course, she’d been putting on a good front for him and Danny. Still, she thought about her parting words with Johnny. “Yeah, Johnny stressed me out before he left.”
“You want to talk about that?” Gramps asked.
“Oh Gramps, he’s ready to marry me, but I’m just not there yet. I’m so in love with him, Gramps, but I’m afraid he’ll abandon me like he did before.”
“And what does he have to say about that?”
“He’s sworn that he’ll never leave me again, but I’m afraid to believe him. I don’t know what to do about it.”
Gramps frowned thoughtfully. “I know it’s odd for me to say this about the man who left you pregnant five years ago, but maybe you just need to have a little blind faith in the boy.”
“That’s basically what he said to me.” She sighed deeply and then took a drink of her coffee. “I know he’s getting tired of waiting for me to fully commit to him. He even asked again if Danny was his.”
“And what did you tell him?” Gramps asked.
“The same thing I’ve been telling him, which is basically nothing.” She released a deep sigh as impending tears burned at her eyes. “I want to trust him, Gramps. But I also don’t ever want to go through the kind of heartache that I experienced five years ago again.”
“In this case, there’s really no way to know what the future holds. There’s no way to predict what the future might be with Johnny. You either take a chance on him, or you don’t.”
Take a chance on him or don’t. Those words echoed in her head throughout the morning. She sat at the table while Danny ate the pancakes that Gramps had made. As he ate, he told her about the wonderful dreams he’d had the night before, while she wondered if she could find the faith she needed to commit to Johnny.
Later as she and Danny sat on the living room floor and played with his action figures, that question whirled around and around in her mind.
One of Gramps’s friends stopped by, and the two men went out on the front porch to visit for a little while. After a half an hour or so, Gramps came back inside alone.
“Good visit?” she asked.
“The usual,” Gramps replied. “He just jawed on and on about how much he loved his grandkids.”
“Did you tell him you love yours, too?” she asked.
Gramps grinned. “Of course I did. Besides, mine is much smarter and better looking than all of his put together.”
That pulled a burst of laughter from her.
Lunchtime was pleasant with sandwiches and chips to enjoy and Danny explaining to Gramps all about his action figures and their roles in the fantasies he created about them.
She loved that Danny had a wonderfully vivid imagination. Most of the children in the swamp shared that trait. With no television or internet to fill their minds, they created their own stories.
After lunch, Gramps read to Danny and Mimi stretched out on the sofa. With Gramps’s deep voice filling the room and Danny occasionally adding his, she found herself dozing. For just a little while, no serious thoughts filled her head.
It was about half an hour later when she woke up. Storytime had apparently ended, and Danny was on the floor playing quietly with his little cars as Gramps read one of his mystery books.
She stared up at the ceiling as questions returned to her mind. Who was after her? What man had punched her in the jaw, and was she still in danger from him? She couldn’t stay home from work forever. And what was she going to do about Johnny?
“Danny, why don’t you go get your alphabet book?” she said before these thoughts could fully take hold of her.
There were no preschool classes for four-year-olds in Black Bog. Next year, Danny would be in kindergarten, so in the meantime, Mimi had been working on him learning the alphabet. She hoped that by the time he went to school in September, he’d already be reading.
He ran into his room and returned a moment later with the book. She sat up, and he snuggled close to her side with the colorful picture book in hand.
She drew in a deep breath of her son. He smelled like strawberry shampoo, a hint of little boy sweat and childhood dreams. She loved the scent of him, and as she opened the book, love for him welled up in her heart.
At that moment the front door flew open, and a masked man with a gun burst inside.
Mimi swallowed the scream that instantly begged to be released, but the last thing she wanted to do was scare Danny even more than he already was.
