The Second Family

An elevator opened as she approached the company reception area and she jumped into it, breathing a sigh of relief as the door closed. How long, she asked herself, are you going to keep hiding from him? Ashamed of her own cowardice, she vowed to face up to him the next time. That’s what comes of breaking your own rule, Tess my girl, about dating a colleague.

As she entered her office, Carrie waved a handful of phone message slips. “Some lawyer’s been calling you ever since late yesterday afternoon, Tess.”

“Lawyer? What about, do you know?”

“No, but he’s calling from Colorado so—”

“Oh, God!” Tess expelled a mouthful of air.

“Not bad news, I hope?”

“I’m not sure,” was all she said, grabbing the messages and retreating into her office. She plunked down into her swivel chair, set her elbows on the desk and lowered her chin into her cupped hands. She needed to calm down. Perhaps Mavis was right after all. A vacation might be the best thing for her now. Except that she’d canceled the cruise and had no place to go.

Tess leafed through the phone messages. They were all from her father’s lawyer, Jed Walker, in Boulder. Jed. A picture came to mind of a rugged man in a big white cowboy hat puffing on a fat cigar, booted feet propped up on a desk. Or would that be a Texan? She frowned. Whatever, the guy’s persistence was annoying.

She set the messages aside and skimmed through her notes from the executive meeting. The merger was proceeding well now and her part wouldn’t really happen until all the paperwork was finished, which could take another couple of months. Then she’d have to come up with some flashy ideas to promote the newly formed company, glossing over the reality that jobs would be lost as a result of the merger. The prospect worried her, though when she hesitantly raised the question at the meeting her boss advised her not to dwell on the negatives.

“Other jobs will open up with new manufacturing,” he’d reassured her before going on to the next item on the agenda.

Tess had let the matter drop, thinking at the same time how someone like Mavis, underpaid and undervalued in the workforce up to her retirement, would have reacted to such nonchalance. Thoughts of Mavis took her back to the discarded phone messages on her desk.

She had advised her to contact the lawyer, for curiosity’s sake if nothing else. Tess picked up one of the slips of paper and stared at it. Could she seriously call someone named Jed without cracking a cowboy joke? More to the point, did she really want to pursue the matter of her father?

Except for a birthday card months after he left, she’d had no word from him. Mavis had tried in vain to change Hannah Wheaton’s mind about accepting child support and trying to locate Richard. Hannah’s standard response had been, “He knows where we are if he wants to find us.”

But he doesn’t, Tess had wanted to argue. Once they’d moved in with Mavis, all ties to the old neighborhood had been cut. When her mother died years later, Tess hadn’t bothered searching through their few boxes of belongings to find an address for her father. She’d finally managed to wipe out his memory.

Her curiosity got the better of her. Tess clamped down on the receiver, about to pick it up, when the phone rang. She waited for Carrie to pick up and a second later, her voice came through on the intercom.

“Tess? Call for you from Colorado—”

“I’ll take it,” Tess interrupted. The lawyer. “Mr. Walker?” she said, after Carrie transferred the call. “I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance to get back to you—”

“Mr. Walker? Jed Walker? Hell, I’m no Jed Walker. I can tell you that much. That son of a—sorry, just don’t get me started on Jed Walker. I’d as soon—well, never mind that, either. Look, I’ve been trying to find you for about a week now and things have just gone from bad to worse here.”

“Wait! Please. I don’t have the faintest idea who you are and what you’re talking about. I’m sorry if I mistook you for Jed Walker and obviously you’re acquainted, though not exactly bosom buddies, but—”

A deep resonant chuckle sounded from the other end. “Well put, Miss Wheaton. Sorry about all the blathering there. The name’s Alec Malone and I’m—”

“Mr. Malone, what can I do for you?” Tess snapped impatiently.

“I’m a social worker here in Boulder. I guess Walker’s already contacted you about your father. That right?”

Tess closed her eyes. Here it was. “Yes, I got a letter from him yesterday.”

“A letter? And just yesterday? He’s known about you for more than a week.”

“Look Mr. Malone—”

“Alec. We don’t stand on formality down here.”

“Whatever. Alec, then. My father left my mother years ago and I haven’t seen or heard from him since. So if his estate owes anyone any money, you can forget—”

“Money’s definitely part of it but that’s not why I’m calling. Your father and his wife—well, I suppose she’d be his second wife—”

Wife! Tess took a deep breath. Her past was snowballing toward her and she had no place to leap.

“She was killed in the car crash, too, with your father. Maybe you didn’t know that.”

The snowball doubled in size. Tess tried to speak, but couldn’t. A commotion from beyond her closed office door distracted her. She heard Carrie’s voice pitch indignantly.

“You can’t go in there! She’s on the—”

The door burst in and two people shot into the room. Two small people. Children. They lurched to a halt a few feet beyond the door and stared at her. Carrie, standing in the doorway behind them, raised her shoulders apologetically.

Tess pressed down the hold button. Her gaze shifted from the taller boy with thick chestnut hair that edged the collar of his jacket to the little girl clinging to his leg. There was something familiar about her. The large, vibrant green eyes and the raven tousle of hair. The same heart-shaped face and a smaller version of a delicate nose. Tess could have been looking at a mirror image of herself at the same age.

She released the hold, keeping her eyes fixed on them. Alec Malone was still talking. “Anyway, the reason I’m calling is that they left behind two kids who’ve just—”

Tess jabbed the hold button again. “Who are you?” she asked them. “What do you want?” But she knew what the boy was going to say even before he spoke.

“I think—well, uh—that you’re our sister.”

CHAPTER TWO

“TESS?” Carrie asked.

Their sister? Me? Dazed, Tess looked from the two youngsters to Carrie, standing behind them. Her secretary’s eyes were wide with surprise.

“I’ll take any calls,” Carrie said at once, backing out of the room and closing the door behind her.

The office was dead quiet. Tess’s labored breathing competed with the drumming at her temples. The little girl, clad in denim overalls and a nylon windbreaker, looked anxiously up at her brother, whose brown-eyed gaze never wavered from Tess’s face. He was a handsome boy on the verge of adolescence, his lanky frame awkwardly thin for the baggy jeans and jacket he wore. Without thinking, Tess released the hold button in time to hear Alec Malone drawling, “Somethin’ wrong at that end, Miss Wheaton?”

Tess moistened her dry lips and cleared her throat to ask, “Would those two kids be a teenaged boy and a little girl?”

A whistle of relief sounded from the other end. “They there?” His voice was low and urgent.

“They just walked into my office.” Tess caught the sharp glance sent from boy to girl. A reassuring signal, she wondered, or a warning?

“Thank God,” he said. “I’ve got foster parents on standby here, chomping at the bit to call the police. Those two put together one heck of a runaway plan and managed to bamboozle everyone.”

“I think you’ve got some explaining to do, Mr. Malone,” she said.

“Right you are. I’m getting to that. I don’t know if you’ve got to the introduction stage yet, but their names are Nick and Molly. He’s thirteen and she’s six. I’ve had their case file since they were placed in foster care right after the accident and—”

“Why was that?” Tess interrupted.

“No next of kin and no one close to the family able to take them. We didn’t know about you until several days ago.”

Before Tess could respond, an exchange of hissed whispers interceded.

“Excuse me,” the boy said, “but is there a washroom here? And a water fountain?”

Tess frowned, clamping her palm across the receiver. “Are you thirsty?”

He nodded. “And hungry, too. We only had some apples and crackers early this morning.”

“One minute, Mr. Malone,” she snapped into the phone, then put him on hold while pressing the intercom button. “Carrie? Could you come back in here for a sec?”

“She’ll take you to get some lunch…or dinner…or whatever it is for you,” Tess explained to the children. The door flew open as she was speaking. “Carrie, would you mind taking these two down to the concourse for a bite to eat? Hit the washrooms up here first—that may be the more urgent need.” She eyed the girl, hopping from one foot to the other.

“I’d love to take them. C’mon, kids. So, I’m Carrie and you are…”

“Nick,” the boy said. “She’s Molly.” A pause, then, “We’re Wheatons, too. Her brother and sister,” he added huskily, his voice trembling slightly.

In case Carrie missed that bit of information the first time around, Tess was thinking. As soon as they left the office, she released the hold button.

“Okay, Mr. Malone, how soon can you get here to pick up these kids and what am I supposed to do with them in the meantime?”

There was a slight pause, punctuated by a heavy sigh. “I was afraid you might say that.”

Tess felt the stirrings of a migraine. She closed her eyes, massaging her temples. “I don’t know what you mean by that, Mr. Malone, but obviously if people there are looking for the children, they have to be returned as soon as possible. You’re their social worker, surely you must have a plan. So what is it?”

She thought she heard a low chuckle before he said, “Maybe we’re not as busy down here, ma’am, as you seem to be up there. Guess I was half hoping you’d offer to come back with them or, at best, keep them till someone can get to Chicago.”

“What am I supposed to do with them? I’m at work right now and my day doesn’t usually end until eight at night. I don’t know much about kids, but I suspect that’s too long a day for them. Besides, I only have a one-bedroom condo here and—”

“I get the picture, Miss Wheaton,” he interjected. There was another sigh, followed by a low mumbling that Tess suspected was swearing. “Look, someone—most likely it’ll be me—will be there as soon as possible but it may not happen until tomorrow. You think you can handle those two youngsters till then?”

Tess grit her teeth. Nothing ambiguous about the sarcasm in his voice. “I don’t think it’s fair to get short with me, Mr. Malone. It’s hardly my fault the children ran away.”

“Short? Would that be like short as in snotty? If so, then I apologize but I gotta admit, those kids took a helluva gamble to make that trip to Chicago on their own looking for a sister they just discovered they had. Kids who’ve never been outside Boulder, Colorado. I don’t have all the details yet, but I do know they got the whole thing together without any adult help and actually made it there in one piece. So if I sound a bit short as you put it, well yes, dammit all, that’s precisely what I am feeling.”

It wasn’t often that Tess found herself speechless. A hundred questions swarmed her mind about how the children learned her identity and why they came looking for her. Tess sensed that firing off a slew of defensive inquiries would fuel an already heated conversation with the presumptuous social worker. Her business experience had taught her that obvious anger only made your argument weaker.

“Still there?” he ventured after a pause.

“Unfortunately,” she said.

“Sorry if I seem a bit tetchy but I’m real worried about these kids. You haven’t had a chance to get to know them yet—”

“No,” she put in as icily as she could. “And I’m not likely to, either. Richard Wheaton—my father—walked out on my mother and me when I was eight years old, Mr. Malone, and I haven’t heard a word from him or about him since yesterday. So if I appear a tad cool to the notion of family and siblings, please forgive me. I’m not a callous person. If these children need a place to stay until tomorrow, I will provide them with one.” She hesitated, alarmed at the promise she’d just made. Too late now, she thought. But there’s always Mavis. Beyond her office door, she heard muted voices. They were back. “I’ll give you my home address and phone number. When might I expect you?”

There was a resigned exhalation from the other end. “I don’t imagine you’ve dealt much with government bureaucracies, Miss Wheaton—or maybe you have—” he quickly added “—but nothing in this office moves faster than a slug on a cabbage leaf. And when it comes to applying for air travel, I should’ve requested this trip months ago. So…”

Tess was beginning to think he didn’t move very fast either. “So?” she repeated, wanting him to get to the point. If he ever could.

“There’s a flight arriving in Chicago after noon.”

“Nothing sooner?”

“That’s the best I can do.”

Tess closed her eyes. “All right, Mr. Malone, I’ll be waiting to hear from you.”

“There’s one more thing,” he said. “The kids are real upset about being split up. The accident has pretty much traumatized them, as you can imagine. I’d appreciate it if you avoided making any statements to them about their future.”

“How could I do that when I’ve no idea what future plans exist for them?”

His sigh suggested he was trying to be as patient as possible. “That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about. If they bring up the subject about what’s going to happen to them, be as vague or evasive as possible. Please.”

“Of course I will, but why belabor your point, Mr. Malone? Obviously I don’t have any idea what the future holds for them.”

“You’re not getting it yet, are you Miss Wheaton? The kids headed to Chicago because you’re the only family they’ve got.”

Family. She’d never felt she had one. There was Mavis, who tried her best over the years to compensate for the real family Tess lacked. Tess tried to come up with a response but words failed her.

“Miss Wheaton? Sorry if all of this is overwhelming but that’s the situation. I’ll call you as soon as I get into town.” And he hung up before she had a chance to say anything more.

Tess replaced the receiver and sat, oblivious to the hushed chatter outside her office. Her office. How odd that at that very moment, nothing in the room was familiar. It suddenly seemed to belong to someone else. She peered down at her tailored, olive-green skirt with its matching, long-sleeved silk blouse. The delicate gold chain around her neck was a graduation present from Mavis and the titanium and gold watch, a gift to herself on her promotion. But the whole outfit might as well be trappings owned by a complete stranger. Tess sighed. The double whammy she’d just received—father dead and two half siblings on her doorstep—had instantly diminished all the rewards of her success.

So she instinctively turned to the one person who’d been her saving grace over the years and punched in Mavis’s phone number. After the tenth unanswered ring, Tess remembered that Mavis would be with her sister all weekend. She hung up, propped her elbows on the desk and lowered her head onto her hands. She didn’t have the faintest idea what to do—which was, for her, an almost frightening state of mind.

“Tess?”

She raised her head enough to glare at the intercom, wanting desperately to simply tell everyone to go away and leave her alone. “Yes?”

There was a slight hesitation before Carrie continued by, saying, “The kids have had a bite to eat and gone to the washroom, but they’re tired. Do you know when you’ll be taking them home?”

Taking them home? Tess checked the time. Four o’clock. Leaving early two days in a row would raise more than a few eyebrows.

“Did you hear me?”

Tess swallowed. Taking them home. To a one-bedroom condo? “Uh, Carrie, can you come in here for a sec?”

The intercom fell silent and Carrie popped her head around the door an instant later. “Don’t ask,” Carrie forewarned.

“Ask?” Tess ran her tongue along her lips, trying to kick some life into the smile she was squeezing out.

“It’s all over your face so let me spare you the humiliation of a no. I’ve got big plans this weekend.” Carrie closed the door behind her.

“This is what comes of having a too familiar relationship with your staff,” Tess muttered to herself. She groaned and gently massaged her temples.

“I guess we’ve caused you a lot of trouble.”

Tess jerked her head up. She hadn’t heard anyone come in. The boy—Nick—stood in the open doorway. His face was pale, drawn with worry. Something in his expression tugged at her.

“Not a lot,” she began. “But—well, there are other issues here.”

He nodded. “Something to do with my father.”

He was quick, she thought. “Something like that.” It wasn’t the time or place to get into a lecture on parental responsibility. Besides, what Richard Wheaton had done was hardly his fault.

Nick’s sigh echoed in the silence of Tess’s office. “I thought there might be a problem. Otherwise Dad would have…well, we’d have known about you.”

She waited to see if his trail of logic would lead him where she hoped he’d go.

“At first it was weird thinking someone as old as you could be our sister. Then I started thinking maybe it was kinda good luck. But I knew when Molly and me decided to come here, it might turn out that…you know…you wouldn’t be able to take us.”

Tess forced her thoughts away from the old reference, focusing instead on how he’d said able instead of want. A face-saving gesture for them, she wondered, or giving her an out? Either way, she figured he’d gotten the message.

“I live in a one-bedroom condo….” she began, her voice falling off as she realized how lame that sounded. “Mr. Malone said he could be here tomorrow to…well, take you back to Boulder.” As soon as she uttered the words, Tess had a surge of guilt. She’d promised the social worker to be vague about their return to Boulder.

Nick’s face twisted in a grimace. “Yeah,” he said huskily, turning his back on Tess to head for the door.

“Where are you going?”

He stopped, but didn’t turn around. “To break the news to Molly. I don’t want her to freak out.” He pulled on the door and walked out of the office.

Tess was quick on his heels, anxious to hear exactly how he was going to tell his little sister. The last thing she needed was a hysterical child. She watched as Nick crouched down to whisper in Molly’s ear. The little girl stared at Tess the whole while, her eyes wide and unblinking in her pale face. When Nick finished and stood protectively behind his sister, he said, “Will it be all right if we stayed with you tonight? I’ve spent all our money.”

Carrie shot Tess a look that would have shriveled anyone else.

“Of course,” Tess quickly said, casting a so there glance at her secretary. “It’ll be like camping,” she added, catching the incredulous expression on Carrie’s face. “We’ll get videos and order in pizza,” she said, trying for a note of enthusiasm.

“Whoopee!” Carrie muttered as she brushed past Tess to get to her desk.

“Well then,” Tess said, “I guess I’ll be leaving for the day.” She saw Carrie raise an eyebrow, as if silently echoing the I guess. For the first time, Tess noticed a backpack and plastic shopping bag on the floor next to Carrie’s desk.

“I’ll get my coat,” she murmured and went back into her office, moving as if in a trance, trying to avoid the question she knew she’d be asking herself the instant they left the office. What now?

She grabbed her briefcase, stuffing inside it the files she knew she ought to be working on that very moment, and returned to the small reception area. “Let’s go,” she announced to no one in particular, thinking she might convince Carrie this unexpected turn of events was no big deal.

“Have fun,” Carrie said, adding to the children, “maybe you can persuade your sister to treat you to something more exciting than videos and pizza.”

Your sister? For a second Tess wondered who Carrie was talking about. Then it hit her all over again. She felt the air whoosh out of her, but covered up by asking, “What’s wrong with videos and pizza?”

Carrie shrugged, winking at the other two. “If you weren’t such a workaholic, you’d know. Anyway, I’ll take your messages. See you on Monday—maybe,” she said, giving the postscript a significant tone.

No one spoke all the way down to the ground floor. When they reached it, Molly said, “Carrie showed us the water fountain under the ground.”

Tess had to think for a second. “Oh? When she took you to get something to eat?” She led them through the lobby onto the sidewalk.

Catching up, Molly said breathlessly, “I had french fries, too.”

“Uh-huh,” Tess murmured, scanning the street for a taxi.

“With ketchup.”

“Molly, no one cares what you ate, okay?” Nick said.

“I’m just telling her,” she protested. There was a hint of a whine in her voice.

Tess glanced sharply at Nick. “What’s going on?” she asked, just clueing in to the tone of their voices.

He scowled. “We’re just arguing, that’s all. Don’t you know anything about kids?”

“No, frankly, I don’t. Anyway, what does arguing solve?”

“Jeez,” he muttered.

Tess frowned. He looked tired, too, she thought. Maybe that’s what the arguing was about. “Look, I know you two have been through a lot so we’ll just hop in a taxi and get to my place as soon as possible. Then you can shower and have a nap or something.”

“I’m six now. I don’t have naps,” Molly piped up.

Tess blew a strand of hair away from her mouth. “Whatever,” she mumbled and waved briskly to a taxi about to pull away from the curb. “Damn,” she muttered as the taxi kept on going. “Okay, want to take the subway?”

“What’s that?”

“A train, stupid. Underground.”

“Don’t call me stupid, Nick!”

Tess grit her teeth. Twenty-four hours of this? “Your case worker will be here tomorrow, hopefully right after lunch. So can we all agree to do our best to get along with each other until he arrives and…” she paused, noticing Molly’s stricken face, “well…you know.”

Two pairs of solemn eyes stared up at her. Tess noticed for the first time the cowlick poking up from the crown of Nick’s head. He was just about shoulder level with her and his slender frame, weighed down by his backpack, made him appear frail and vulnerable. They were both just kids, she thought. Though not just any kids. The reminder was sobering.

“Okay, so follow me and no more arguing. In fact, no more talking until we get home and you can tell me how you managed to get all the way from Boulder, Colorado, to Chicago without attracting any attention.” Tess turned sharply and led the way to the underground.

No one uttered a word until the train was halfway to Tess’s stop in Lincoln Park. Then Molly, her dark eyes wide with wonder, exclaimed, “I’ve never been on a train before,” and clamped a hand over her mouth when she realized she’d just broken the silence edict. Tess impulsively smiled but saw that Nick’s glower couldn’t be shifted. He sat half-turned toward the window and stared through it the whole way. Every once in a while, Tess caught his reflection in the glass and once, their eyes met. He lowered his first, but not before a hint of a sneer twisted his upper lip.

Inexplicably, that bothered Tess. Wasn’t it enough that she was giving up most of a weekend to look after two children who, in spite of biology, were basically strangers? Miffed, she averted her own face to stare out the other window and was soon so lost in thought she almost missed her stop. She realized at the last instant, jumping to her feet and hustling the kids from the car seconds before the doors closed. On the platform, Tess laughingly cried, “That was close!” and Molly laughed, too.