Mrs. Miracle (3 page)

T
he doorbell jingled at the worst possible moment. Seth was doing his damnedest to get dinner on the table. Cooking had never been his forte. Try as he might, he couldn’t manage a simple casserole without forgetting one ingredient. It was already past seven, and everyone was cranky and hungry. The house was a disaster, which was no surprise, and he was in no frame of mind to deal with the Avon lady.

Jason had taken it upon himself to help him by pouring the milk. Seth had tried to tell him he was too small to manage a gallon container, but Jason wouldn’t listen. By the time he turned to stop him, it was too late.

“I’ll get it,” Judd shouted, tossing aside the Nintendo game as he rushed to the front door. Two seconds later he glanced over his shoulder and yelled at the top of his lungs, “It’s for you…. Some lady.”

Seth jerked off the apron, set aside the milk-soaked sponge, and stalked to the front door.

“Yes?” he muttered impatiently without looking. He never did understand why salespeople found it convenient to call during the dinner hour. Surely research would tell them how irritating it was to have a meal disrupted.

“Mr. Webster?” An older, grandmotherly type stood under the golden ray of the porch light. Her eyes were warm and kind, her smile wide and friendly. She carried a wicker basket under one arm and waited expectantly for him to respond.

Seth couldn’t take his eyes off her. The porch light appeared to enshrine her, as if she were the source of the light, which of course was ludicrous. She was the storybook image of—he hated to say it—Mother Goose. She was round and soft, her gray hair pinned into a loose bun, with dimples and the most loving eyes he could ever remember seeing.

“I’m Seth Webster,” he said after an awkward moment.

“I thought you must be. I’m Emily Merkle. The agency sent me.”

The agency.
Seth couldn’t believe his good fortune. There was a God, and He was willing to
overlook Seth’s bungling attempts at fatherhood. Willing to give him one last chance to redeem himself.

Before she could find an excuse to leave, he grabbed the new housekeeper by the arm and dragged her inside the house. Apparently Mrs. Hampston hadn’t had time to complete the complaint sheet against him. In the past week he’d telephoned the employment agency a dozen times, only to be told he’d already gone through every domestic employee the company handled. He wasn’t about to question his good fortune now.

“Welcome, welcome.” No truer words had ever been spoken.

She glanced about, a look of shock on her face. “Oh, my.”

Seth viewed the room with fresh eyes. A load of clean laundry littered the sofa. Jason had attempted to fold the towels and had decided to iron them first. Seth had discovered it just in time to prevent him from burning down the house. As a result, three fluffy yellow bath towels showed the charred black imprint of an iron. While Seth had been occupied cooking dinner, Judd decided to help his brother fold clothes. Unfortunately his assistance consisted of hauling out the drawers from every dresser in the house. By the time Seth had discovered what the two were doing, clothes cluttered the carpet and furniture until the room resembled Filene’s Basement during the biggest sale of the year.

“Dinner’s ready. You’ll join us, won’t you?” Seth said quickly, fearing his new housekeeper would turn tail and run before he could convince her to stay. On second thought, canned tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches would reveal exactly how desperate he was for help.

“I realize it’s inconvenient for me to arrive at the dinner hour….”

“Inconvenient? No way,” he countered swiftly. By now she must have guessed the truth. “You’re welcome any time.” Judd stood beside him, but Jason had wrapped his arms around his leg and held on with the strength of a boa constrictor.

Walking was a shade difficult with Jason attached to his thigh, but Seth managed to pretend nothing was amiss. He wanted it to look as though he often loped across the house with a six-year-old connected to his leg.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I decided to bring dinner along with me.”

Seth’s gaze dropped to the Red Riding Hood–style basket draped over her arm. A tantalizing scent of rosemary and sage wafted lazily toward him.

“It’s a specialty of mine, chicken pot pie.” She advanced into the kitchen and set the basket on the only clear spot available on eight feet of countertop.

If the living room was in mild disarray, the kitchen was in chaos. Spilled milk splashed across the tabletop looked like a work of modern
art. What had managed to seep through pooled on the floor beneath.

Dirty dishes filled the sink, and the groceries he’d purchased two days earlier cluttered the countertops, along with discarded remnants from breakfast. No one had bothered to tell him milk-soaked cereal that dried onto the sides of a bowl required a blow torch to remove.

“I’ll have this mess cleaned up before you know it,” he promised.

Mrs. Merkle dismissed his offer with a brisk hand gesture and turned her head, but Seth thought he might have seen her roll her eyes. “You’re Judd and this must be Jason,” she said, grinning at the children. She removed the hatpin from her no-nonsense hat and set it aside.

The children were either mesmerized or terrified, Seth couldn’t decide which. They stared up at her with their mouths hanging open.

“Children, you can help by setting the table,” Mrs. Merkle instructed as she casually unfastened the large round buttons of her dark wool coat. She slipped it from her arms and carried it into the living room along with her hat and purse and laid them over the back of the sofa.

While she was out of the room, Seth dumped the tomato-paste-consistency soup down the sink, watching it gurgle like thick toxic waste as the pipe sucked it down. He whirled around guiltily when Mrs. Merkle returned, forgetting for the moment that Jason was clamped to his leg.
His weight, although slight, nearly knocked him off-balance, and he caught himself by gripping hold of the edge of the counter.

Seeming not to notice either him or the twins, Mrs. Merkle went about readying dinner. She appeared to be grumbling under her breath. She placed the chicken pot pie in the oven to warm, wiped the table free of milk, and organized the kitchen with a skill and dexterity that left Seth astonished. He wanted to help, wanted to prove he wasn’t entirely worthless, but he couldn’t stop staring. The housekeeper moved with an effortless ease about the room while he stood with the children, watching her with his mouth gaping open in sheer wonder. After what seemed less than five minutes, she had dinner on a clean table, in a near spotless kitchen.

“Dinner’s ready,” she announced, turning to face him and the children.

“It’s a miracle,” Seth mused. It wasn’t until he heard the sound of his own voice that he realized he’d spoken aloud.

“Are you a miracle?” Judd asked the housekeeper outright.

Mrs. Merkle chuckled softly. “Now that, my fine fellow, is a matter of opinion.”

“Mrs. Miracle,” Jason announced, offering the new housekeeper a shy smile.

As far as Seth was concerned, the woman’s arrival couldn’t have been anything but divine providence. Mrs. Hampston had left a week ear
lier. Seven days, and as far as Seth was concerned the Middle Ages had passed faster.

He’d tried to work a regular forty-hour week, but his involvement with the Firecracker Project required far more of his time and effort than that allowed in a routine schedule. He’d been bringing what he could home with him and working until all hours of the morning, overdosing on caffeine and managing on four or five hours’ sleep a night. As a result he’d shortchanged his children and his employer, and he was killing himself in the process. Another week of this and he’d be a candidate for the loony bin.

Judd and Jason didn’t need to be encouraged to take their places at the table. His children weren’t fools. Dinner, especially one not cooked by their father, put them on their best behavior.

Once everyone was seated, Mrs. Merkle opened the oven door and brought out the hot, bubbling chicken pot pie. The crust was browned to perfection, and the tantalizing gravy leaked up through the sides. The scent all but made his knees go weak. Seth didn’t need to be urged to place his napkin in his lap and grip hold of his fork in eager anticipation.

“Wow,” Judd whispered, and looked to his dad. His tongue moistened his lips, and his eyes sparkled with eager anticipation.

Afterward Seth would have been hard-pressed to say when he’d enjoyed a meal more. He supposed he should be asking his new housekeeper
for references, but he was too busy enjoying his dinner to take the time. She had a kind, honest face, but he’d been fooled before. Then again, she could well be the good-hearted, generous soul he’d requested from the beginning.

Frankly, he wasn’t keen on the agency’s placement tactics. They’d waited until he was at his wits’ end before sending him a new housekeeper. Since he was paying top dollar, one would think they’d want to please him.

“This is good,” Seth said, and helped himself to seconds.

“It’s an old family recipe that I’ve updated.”

Seth would have polished off a third slice of the succulent pie, but he was already stuffed. Placing his hands on his stomach, he excused himself and scooted back his chair.

“I’ll help Mrs. Mirkl…Mrs. Meeraki…Mrs. Miracle,” Jason burst forth triumphantly.

“I’ll help, too,” Judd insisted. Always before, his chauvinistic sons had insisted dishes were woman’s work. Even when Seth was up to his armpits in suds, risking dishwater hands, they had refused to help. This attitude, Seth suspected, was the result of living with their grandparents for the last several years. Jerry Palmer’s outdated views of what was and wasn’t fitting work for the male population had unfortunately rubbed off on his grandsons.

“You can both help,” Mrs. Merkle decided, pushing up her sleeves.

“When we’re finished, will you read to us?”

One dinner after a week of his cooking was all it took to win over his children, Seth noticed.

“You read, too?” To hear Jason talk, the woman’s talents were unlimited.

Seth had tried reading to his children before bed, but the only one he put to sleep was himself. He’d get warm and comfortable, and before he knew it, his eyes would start to droop and his head would nod. The next thing he knew, the twins would slip away silently and decide to help him by rewiring the house or turning the washer into a breadmaking machine.

“Will you be taking your coffee in the family room, Mr. Webster?” she asked.

“Yes, please.” It wasn’t until he was seated on the leather recliner that Seth wondered how it was his new housekeeper knew he routinely drank a cup of coffee with the evening newspaper following dinner. But then, it wasn’t such an unusual habit. Seth suspected half the male population read the evening paper over a cup of freshly brewed coffee.

Mrs. Merkle carried a steaming mug in to him a few minutes later. “I imagine you have a number of questions you’d like me to answer,” she said as she set the mug on the coaster. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to wait until I’ve tidied up in the kitchen and gotten the children down for the night.”

“Of course.” She was right; he should have a
long list of questions, important ones. Naturally he’d want to read her references. These were his children, his own flesh and blood, his very reason for living. He’d need to be sure he wasn’t entrusting the twins to the care of a serial murderer.

Mrs. Merkle? Naw. A woman who could cook up a chicken pot pie that good was a gift from God. And who was he to question a miracle? Oh, he’d make a few basic inquiries, listen to her answers, but it would all be for show. The employment agency routinely screened their applicants. They would have already completed a background check and handled the necessary paperwork. Besides, any questions he might have about the suitability of a housekeeper concerned that old biddy Hampston. He never had cared for the woman, and it was all too apparent she’d been similarly inclined to dislike him. Although her leaving had been an inconvenience, it was for the best.

Seth dozed off while reading the sports section and woke to the sound of giggles and laughter. With his eyes closed he tried to picture what his life would have been like had Pamela lived. Surely he would feel this contented, this relaxed. Resting after a long day at the office, his stomach full, his wife at his side, with the sound of his children’s laughter echoing through the house.

The picture was almost complete, except that he felt so desperately alone. Pamela was forever gone. His mother-in-law was right: it had been
time to send the children back to him. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed the twins. For four years he’d buried his grief and his loss in his job and reaped large financial rewards. The time had come for him to break out of his shell, if not for his own sake, then for those of his children.

Seth straightened, shocked to see that the laundry fiasco had disappeared. Other than the newspaper, which had slipped out of his hands and onto the carpet while he napped, the area resembled a furniture showroom. Inviting, cozy, tempting.

How Emily Merkle and his two rambunctious children had managed to clear away a truckload of clothes without him hearing was short of another supernatural event. Either that or he was more tired than he’d realized.

His interlude was interrupted by the sound of footsteps racing down the hallway. Seth lowered the footrest and stood. He found Jason, cheeks rosy red from the bath, wrapped in a large towel.

“As soon as you’re into your pajamas, I’ll get my book,” the new housekeeper offered.

“You won’t fall asleep, will you?” The inquiry came from Judd, who glanced meaningfully toward Seth.

“Don’t be so hard on your father. He needs to catch up on his sleep.”

The woman was not only a marvel in the kitchen, she was also a born mind-reader.

“Isn’t that right, Mr. Webster?”

He managed a nod, wondering how she knew he’d been burning the candle at both ends.

“Did you need me to carry in your luggage?”