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“I’m hungry,” Eugene said as he held onto Alaska’s hand and they walked the short distance across the yard to the smaller house.
There were just two bedrooms in it, a small kitchen, and a dining room-living room combo. The bathroom was upstairs.
She hadn’t had a choice but to put Ezra’s clothes in the room that she had moved into. It was going to be a tight squeeze, and while the idea didn’t really make her nervous, she had plenty of experience with men in that regard, it was the idea of being a wife, of...doing whatever it was that wives did beyond the physical. Trying to be a good one. It was kind of like trying to be a good mother. She was just winging it.
She was deep in thought, but not so deep she wasn’t watching Eugene as he climbed up the steps on his hands and knees. The way Alaska had taught him when Alaska wasn’t able to help.
But as Eugene stood at the top of the steps, he hadn’t gotten quite far enough away from the steps, and when he lost his balance, he fell backward down the steps.
With the basket on one hip and Alice on the other, Alaska was unable to move quickly enough to catch him or even break his fall, and he tumbled to the bottom.
It was only four steps, but he did a full backward somersault.
“Eugene!” she said before she could stop herself. Someone had told her that children respond to their parents, that they see whether they should be upset or not from how their parents react, and a lot of times, things that children would just brush off were made into a big deal because of the reaction of the parents.
She clamped her mouth closed, but set the basket down, and hurried back down the steps.
To her relief, Eugene was moving. He hadn’t broken his neck at least.
Thank you, Lord.
That was an automatic reaction. She had been trying to train herself to thank God for the good things that happened. After all, she had been very quick to complain about the bad things.
Eugene had been quiet for just a moment, the way kids sometimes were before they let out a bloodcurdling scream.
That scream happened as Alaska reached the bottom.
She cradled Alice in one arm while she sat down on the ground next to Eugene and tried to scoop him in her lap.
Eugene clambered around until he had his arms gripping Alaska tightly as he screamed into her chest.
Alaska appreciated the screams; that meant he was okay. She sat on the step, holding Eugene, rocking him back and forth.
“Is everything okay, young lady?” an older woman’s voice said as Eugene’s screams started to die down. It had been five or ten minutes since Eugene had fallen, and Alaska hadn’t been sure whether he was ever going to stop crying.
“He fell down the steps.”
“Oh. That’s not good.”
The lady, who looked to be in her early seventies, or maybe slightly older, came over and sat down beside Alaska.
“Do you want me to take the little one so you have two hands?” she asked.
“If you don’t mind.” Alaska didn’t know the woman, but maybe that was a good thing, since all of her friends seemed to be slightly shady. While, if the woman was someone who knew Ezra, she was probably a good person. She hated to make that generalization, but it was pretty much true. Throughout her life, she had not cultivated good friendships but had a tendency to run with the wrong crowd. She sighed.
“Sometimes it’s hard when they get hurt.”
“Well, yeah. That happens. But I guess I was thinking that I wish I would have spent more time trying to do what was right when I was younger. It seems like I made bad decision after bad decision, and I feel like I’m in a pit with no way out.” Maybe that wasn’t exactly how she would explain her life, but close.
“Today’s the best day to turn that around,” the woman said easily, lifting Alice from Alaska’s arms and smiling at the little girl, who had cried for a bit because of her brother’s screams, but was generally happy, and had recovered quickly.
“I feel like it’s too late. I’m twenty-five.”
“My goodness. Twenty-five? You’re just a baby yet. You have plenty of time to turn your life around. Why, I didn’t get right with the Lord until I was in my thirties. And trust me, I made some pretty poor decisions before that.”
“I’m Alaska,” Alaska said, curious as to who this woman was.
“And I am Nelda. I was the nanny to the Clybourn children, and when their parents died, I came out with them.”
