Page 20 of A Whim and a Prayer

“So, Charity, Luke wants to know …” Katie—Charity’s youngest sister at age thirty-five—paused to break a piece of thread off a spool with her teeth during their monthly sewing fest. Tongue peeking out, she focused on threading her needle and tying it off while she and her sisters and sisters-in-law surrounded the table in their mother’s sunny kitchen.

A hint of nutmeg and cinnamon lingered in the air from the snickerdoodles her mother made along with a heavy dose of humidity that dotted everyone’s forehead. Lacy white sheers fluttered with a faint breeze that did absolutely nothing for the late-summer heat that invaded the stifling kitchen, a fact that annoyed Charity as much as Katie’s prolonged pause.

“Luke wants to know what?” she asked a bit too sharply, stabbing her needle into a buttonhole on a rather thick waistband of a pair of men’s trousers. Which, in turn, pricked her finger. “Blast it all,” she hissed as she sucked on it, finally expelling a long, arduous sigh when everyone looked up in surprise. “Sorry for snapping, everyone, but I swear, this change of life is making me crazy.”

“Crazier than usual?” Katie said with a twinkle of tease in her blue eyes.

“Hush, Katie Rose, your turn is coming.” Their mother, Marcy O’Connor, reached to gently rub Charity’s back, tone soft with empathy. “It is enough to drive you up the wall as I recall, sweetheart, and everyone around you, but if you’re anything like me, it won’t last long.”

“Oh, sweet angels in heaven, Mother,” Charity said as she kneaded her temple, “I’m on my knees day and night praying for that.” She looked up with hope in her eyes. “How long did your mood swings and testiness last?”

Marcy bit the edge of her lip, obviously reluctant to say. “Oh, not long, really. From the time my periods began fluctuating to ceasing altogether? Let’s see …” She pressed a finger to her lip in thought before she answered with a tender hug. “All told, maybe a year or so?”

“What?” Charity sat straight up. “It’s already been two years now, Mother.”

“Well, it’s different for everybody, darling, and as you know, some women breeze right through.” Her gaze cautiously flicked to her oldest daughter with a teeth-tug of a smile. “That was Faith’s experience, I believe.”

“Of course it was,” Charity groused with a hint of a smile, at odds with her “saintly” sister during their teens, but now closer than air. She rolled her eyes as she bludgeoned the material once more. “Almighty payback, no doubt, for all the trouble I gave her growing up. Sweet mother of Job—you’d think Henry would’ve been enough”—her mouth went flat—“or Winnie, for mercy’s sake.”

Faith chuckled. “Evidently not, sis, but don’t worry”—she sent her sister a wink—“I’ll put a good word in with the Man upstairs.”

“Oh, I will too, Charity,” her sister-in-law Annie said in earnest, her sweet and serious tone marking her as the baby in the group at thirty-two.

Grinning, Katie commenced sewing a hem. “I started to say … Luke wants to know if Beck has decided on law school or not, so has he?”

Beck.

Charity’s ribcage expanded and released with a noisy bluster of air, wishing for all the world that Winnie could be more than just friends with her best friend down the street. They all loved Beck to pieces, and he was everything Charity wanted in a husband for her naïve daughter. Then she’d never have to fret over Winnie again.

A smile pulled at the edge of her lips. Because then she’d be Beckett’s problem.

“Yes, I think he has, although not in time for enrollment this semester, unfortunately. He’s talking about the spring semester now, and studying up a storm already according to Winnie, who’s none too happy about it, I can tell you that.”

“Oh, good! Luke thinks he would be absolutely perfect for the BCAS, and so do I.”

“Well, you two should know since Luke runs the place and you’re both lawyers,” Charity said with a grunt, fighting to pierce the thick material once again. “Beck’s a remarkable young man, and trust me, I’m on my knees every night thanking God for sending him into Winnie’s life because that boy watches over her like a hawk—and over Abby too.”

“Oh, I know!” Faith pushed a limp strand of auburn hair off her forehead, not a hint of gray to be found despite her age of forty-nine, which didn’t set well with Charity either. Obviously another perk from the Almighty, she thought with a slide of her mouth.

Faith tackled the school uniform she was mending. “As Abby’s mother, I’m beyond grateful too, because it seems it’s getting harder and harder to find decent young men for our girls, especially after the war, which I fear has changed many for the worse.”

“Amen to that!” Charity said with a shiver, using her thimble to push her needle through another particularly lumpy section. “Believe you me, I’m on my knees day and night thanking God that the war changed Henry and Bren for the better rather than the worse.”

Katie chuckled, her almost white-blond hair hiked up in a damp ponytail. “You seem to be on your knees a lot these days, sis.”

“Penance for all those past sins, no doubt.” Her best friend and sister-in-law, Emma, affectionately bumped her shoulder against Charity’s.

Charity’s mouth tipped. “No, that would be living with Mitch Dennehy all these years. Although I must admit”—she wiggled her brows—“there are amazing benefits to the man.” She leaned in. “Like the other night—”

“Nooooo!” Her sister Lizzie—always the shy and modest one in the family, even at age forty-two—squeezed her eyes shut and put her hands over her ears, plastering her normally full brunette waves flat against her head. Her high-pitched objection merged loudly with Emma’s and Faith’s. “For the love of decency, Charity—and for the millionth time—we’d rather not hear all the details of your love life, if you don’t mind.”

Chuckles rounded the table as Charity slumped back in her chair, the smile fading from her face. “I know and I’m sorry, but lately, with this awful change of life—other than Julia’s stellar behavior, of course—I don’t have a lot to crow about at home.”

“What do you mean?” Katie said, brows in a pinch as her sewing halted mid-air.

Charity peered up beneath dark lashes. “What do you think I mean?”—her mouth drooped into a pout—“Winnie.”

“Uh-oh … what’s she done this time?” Faith ceased her sewing as well, a fresh crease at the bridge of her nose.