A Mom for Matthew

CHAPTER THREE

HIS BRAKES SQUEALED as Zeke rammed them to the floorboards seconds before he would’ve smashed into his garage door. He rubbed his face, hit the door opener, then proceeded. For Matthew’s sake, Zeke needed to shake off an anger that went nowhere, anyway.

Retrieving the sack of leftovers, Zeke climbed out and entered the house through the kitchen. Fresh-baked cookies cooled on the counter. He grabbed one out of habit, not because he was hungry. The house seemed awfully quiet. It’d be a miracle, but maybe his mom had gotten Matthew to bed early.

Zeke polished off the cookie and drank milk straight from the carton after he’d shoved his leftovers in the fridge.

He opened the vertical blind, automatically gravitating toward the light spilling from the living room.

Celia Rossetti slept on the couch, a paperback novel still open on her stomach. Zeke stood quietly a moment, simply observing his son, who sat at the center of a ring of Lincoln Logs.

Zeke’s heart tumbled. It killed him that Matthew hadn’t heard or apparently even sensed his approach. Closing his eyes, Zeke lowered his chin to his chest. He stifled a sigh, wishing his mom would try not to drift off like that when he wasn’t home. They’d spoken about it before. Zeke knew Celia worked hard. The work she used to do as a nurse’s aide had involved more standing and lifting than she did now. Granted, caring for a child took its toll. Still, she wasn’t old enough to be falling asleep at the switch. She hadn’t been quite seventeen when she’d had him.

A couple of weeks ago, she’d mentioned that her blood pressure pills made her fall asleep if she sat for any length of time. Celia slept like the dead, though. What if someone broke in? Or a fire started upstairs? Matthew couldn’t hear the smoke alarm. Or what if a young boy’s curiosity led him to try a dangerous stunt? Zeke recalled plenty of those he’d tackled as a kid.

Zeke circled his son carefully, not wanting to frighten him. The boy was so intent on fitting together his logs, he didn’t see his father until Zeke dropped to his knees on the carpet almost directly in front of Matt. Scrambling up, the boy made a series of toneless noises and flung his arms around his dad’s neck.

Maybe Matthew’s attempt to vocalize his joy woke his grandmother. Or perhaps it was Zeke’s laughter as he hugged his son and they fell backward on the carpet. Something jolted Celia awake so fast she sat up and the book flew off her lap and hit Zeke in the head.

“Goodness!” She hurried to inspect his head and retrieve her book. “I can’t believe I drifted off. What time is it? How long have you been home, Zeke?”

“I just got here, Ma. It’s still early. You look flushed. Are you getting sick?” Zeke worried that she appeared thinner and less energetic than she had when he and Matthew had moved to Galveston. Zeke didn’t know what he would’ve done without Celia, then or now. He didn’t tell her often enough how much he appreciated her putting her life on hold to help him raise his special needs son.

Zeke recognized her sacrifice. A lot of women Celia’s age launched second careers, or found second loves and a new lease on life. Was it unfair of him to depend on her? But when did he have time to make other arrangements? And what could he find that would be better? No one was going to love Matthew the way Celia did.

His ever-present nightmare was Bonnie Burnham. The social worker had been assigned the first time Trixie sicced her lawyer on Zeke to get more money. Ms. Burnham had decided Matt ought to attend a preschool out of state. She claimed it would better prepare Matthew to enter The Texas School for the Deaf at age five. If Zeke agreed to that, then his mom could reclaim her life. He understood the advantages. But the facility was in Florida.

“I could be coming down with whatever caused Matty’s latest ear infection.” Celia felt her face with both hands. “I think I’m fine. Just more tired than usual. I don’t know how you stay awake night after night when Matt’s ears flare up, and then go off to work. You tell me to sleep, but I worry. And I hate hearing Matty cry. Did you have any success with that Ms. Stafford, Zeke?”

“No.” His hands were busy showing Matt how to build a barn. Matthew loved the farm-animal set he got for Christmas, but he hadn’t yet learned which logs were needed to build the old-style barn.

“That’s too bad,” Celia said. “I hope Mr. Kemper doesn’t blame you.”

“He didn’t say so. On the other hand, he ordered me to help with her salvage to speed things up.”

“Oh, then that benefits your cause and hers. I’ll bet she’s happy to have an extra pair of hands. You said she was trying to raise an airplane by herself. This new breed of young women astound me. I can’t imagine anyone I grew up with doing that.”

“I didn’t talk to Pace and get the order until after I’d left Grace at her hotel. She doesn’t know yet that I’m expected to hasten her journey. I doubt she’ll be any happier at the news than I am.” He pressed a hand on Matt’s and forced the busy child to pause for a moment. Zeke caught his eye and showed him exactly how to attach roof pieces to the skeleton of the barn.

“I suppose you scowled at the poor girl all through dinner. Honey, may I remind you that every woman isn’t to blame for what Trixie Lee did to you.”

Zeke grew stony at the mention of his ex-wife.

As if sensing the tension swirling around him, Matthew whimpered, dropped his toys and crawled into his father’s lap. He buried his curly head against Zeke’s chest, and his thumb found its way into his mouth.

The man enfolded the boy carefully and willed himself to relax. “Ma,” he said in a milder tone, “You’ve gotta stop imagining every woman I meet is a potential mom for Matthew. Do you need a break? Have I placed too many expectations on you for too long?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s just that I hate seeing you this bitter.” Celia swung her legs off the couch. She wafted a hand through her recently styled hair. The move caused her son to study her the way another man might.

“It’s not so ridiculous,” Zeke muttered. “I’m not talking about me here, Ma. You inherited good genes. You could easily pass for a woman ten years younger.”

“Hardly,” she shot back. Nevertheless, she couldn’t hide her pleasure. “This doesn’t sound like you, Zeke. I’ve never known you to be chatty. You’ve always been so…so…”

“Selfish?” he supplied with a crooked grin.

Celia swatted his arm. “Never. No one would think that, Zeke. When the bad-luck chips fell for Matty, you handled everything like a real man.”

Now it was Zeke’s turn to flush. He ducked his head and felt the rasp of his afternoon beard against Matthew’s boyishly soft hair. “I am a man, Ma. Have been for long enough that I should’ve known better than to get involved with Trixie. It was my irresponsible—”

“Trixie should’ve told you her brother’s kids had measles,” Celia broke in, “and that her doctor was concerned enough to warn her. She knew she’d never had them. She could’ve gotten the shot.”

“Old ground,” Zeke responded, screwing up his face. “Tell me honestly, Ma, is keeping house for me and watching Matt every day getting you down? I tied you down when you were younger. You deserve to find a nice man who’ll treat you right. Here you insist I need a wife. Well, you have a right to male companionship that’s not your son.”

Celia jumped up. “I had chances after you left home, Zeke. I could’ve gotten married if I’d wanted. I didn’t, and I don’t now. End of this silly discussion.”

“Oh, it’s silly for me to suggest you might like a man in your life? But it’s perfectly okay for you to harp at me over any woman we meet that you decide would make me a good wife?”

“Yes, for Matt’s sake. I saw over the years how hurt and angry you were about your father walking out on us—on you, Zeke. Matty’s more fragile. I worry—what if something happens to me?”

Zeke’s eyes cut to his mother’s face. “Which brings me back to my original question. Are you sick? Is there something you’re not saying, Ma? I see you put a doctor’s appointment on the calendar for next week.”

“My yearly checkup. But there is something I’ve never told you….” Biting her lip, she picked at her nail polish. “In the past I’ve had cancer scares. They’ve removed fibrous cysts from my breasts three times. It’s why I stopped smoking.”

Zeke finally found his voice. “And…you have another of these cysts?”

“A lump. Dr. Collins has ordered a biopsy, but not to worry—I arranged with Doris Smith next door to watch Matthew for that appointment and whatever else may be needed.”

“Of course I’m worried,” Zeke snapped. “That has nothing to do with arranging a sitter for Matt. Why didn’t you tell me about your health problems when I phoned nearly four years ago asking for your help?”

“Because, tough guy, in all of your twenty-six years, you’d never asked me for anything. I wanted to help you, Zeke. I wanted to feel needed. Dammit, I still do.”

That rocked Zeke. Again he wrestled with the weight of what had surely been selfishness throughout the years of his hell-raising youth. He didn’t know how to put any of what he was feeling into words. He barely managed to muster a croak as his mom headed for the kitchen, saying she was going to make a pot of coffee. “I more than need you, Ma,” he called. “Having Matthew changed my life. I want to know what Doc Collins finds. Until this is settled, I’ll hire a high-school girl part-time to watch Matt. Give you a break a few hours every day.”

Celia turned at the door. “You’re ignoring almost everything I’ve said. Hire someone for a few evenings so you can date a nice young woman once in a while.”

“There you have me, Ma.” Zeke spread his hands. “I don’t know any nice young women.” He stressed the nice, which Celia flatly ignored by covering her ears.

Bouncing his son on his hip, a child who’d clearly grown anxious again, Zeke strode down the opposite hall. Matthew used to be frightened to death of baths. Now that he was older, he loved them. Zeke discovered that the time he spent performing the routine task allowed him to mull over problems that cropped up at work or elsewhere. Tonight he was faced with so many, Matt would shrivel like a raisin if he left the kid in the tub long enough to figure out answers. Tomorrow morning, not only would Zeke have a host of workmen and upset contractors to deal with, he was also expected to hasten Grace Stafford’s departure. Last, but far from least, there was his mother’s health. What if her cyst was malignant?

Not until he’d wound up Matt’s toy boat and sent rows of ripples spewing from underneath a plastic bridge, did Zeke decide to deal with the obstacles one at a time. First, he’d talk to the men. The contractors next. Maybe by then Pace would have good news from his D.C. connections. If not, Zeke might ask if his boss would allow hazard pay for helping Grace. Or there was Gavin, who could be persuaded to do almost any job for a few extra bucks a week.

As far as Celia’s checkup went, Zeke refused to buy trouble by thinking the worst.

THE NEXT DAY, Zeke arrived at work with his plans made. Again, Gavin met him at the door. “What happened to you yesterday, Zeke? I expected you to come back after your trip to the courthouse. Instead, you left me here to field calls from all our contractors, who want to know what the hell’s going on. Thanks heaps.”

“Sorry, Gav. I phoned Pace to tell him what I learned about Ms. Stafford’s permits. He asked me to try and negotiate her out of our hair.”

“It must not have gone well. She’s back in the same spot this morning.” Davis jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

Zeke shook his head. “She’s on a mission. Save me from women on a mission.” He shifted his lunch and thermos to the other hand and walked into his office. He set everything on his desk and grabbed the binoculars. Moving to the window, he brought the creaky old boat into focus. It swayed gently on the incoming tide, but he saw no signs of life. Zeke supposed that meant Grace had dived and Jorge was doing whatever the hell he did when she was down.

“So we’re twiddling our thumbs until she finds that relic?” Gavin crowded in behind Zeke and cupped his hands around his eyes to squint into the sun.

Zeke spun and looped the binoculars back on their hook. “Pace wants us to hurry her along.”

Gavin frowned. “You mean…like purposely jab a few extra holes in that leaky old tub?”

“Jeez, no.” Zeke threw himself into his swivel chair. He pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his shirt pocket. “Kemper thinks two divers will cut her search time in half. Here’s a list of scuba gear. Run down to the dive shop and have this put on the company account. I’ll stay here and try to buy time with the crew and subcontractors. Once you get the gear, take the runabout and offer to assist Ms. Stafford. Tell her your help is courtesy of Pace Kemper.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding!” Gavin’s jaw dropped and he turned five shades of red. “I can’t do that, Zeke.”

“Why not?” Zeke glanced up from rummaging in his desk drawer, hunting for a stack of contractors’ business cards.

Gavin sidled over and closed the door to Zeke’s makeshift office. Then he lowered his voice and said, “I wouldn’t want this to get out, but I can’t swim.”

Zeke’s eyes widened. “Now who’s kidding?”

“I’m not. I swear.” Gavin held up his hand, palm out in pledge fashion. “I’ve tried to learn a hundred times. I freeze up and sink like a stone.”

“Then how in hell can you work on offshore rigs? Or set marker buoys? What if you got swamped by a wave and fell in, Gav?”

“Unless somebody fished me out, I guess I’d drown. I try not to think about it. That’s why I don’t want anyone I work with to know. It’d be just like some smart-ass to toss me in to see if I’m telling the truth.”

“Holy catfish!” Zeke closed his eyes and rubbed at the lines forming between his brows. “Didn’t it occur to you that something like that could negate our broad policy insurance?”

“I’m careful out there.”

“Accidents happen.” Zeke leaned forward in his chair. Damn, he didn’t need this on top of everything else.

Gavin bellied up to the desk. “You thinking about firing me, Zeke? I don’t know any other kind of work. I’ve been doing this since I was sixteen. First down in Louisiana, then California, now here.”

“I’m not going to fire you. I came here only knowing land wells, for God’s sake. You taught me almost everything I know about offshore drilling.”

“So, you won’t tell Pace? ’Cause he’d have a fit over the insurance thing. I reckon he’d ax me, Zeke.”

“I won’t tell him. But I will insist that during this slow period you find a swim instructor in town and take private lessons. I refuse to believe you can’t learn. I want your promise that you’ll keep at it until you can swim twice the length of a pool.”

The crew chief didn’t look overjoyed, but he agreed.

Zeke didn’t like where that left him. Back at square one when it came to diving with Grace Stafford. “Go on,” he growled, “buy the stuff on that list. I’ll start making those calls.”

Gavin looked decidedly happier. So happy and relieved that Zeke didn’t have the heart to tell him it’d been his own assignment all along.

After Davis departed, Zeke rose and snatched up the binoculars again. He spent the next ten minutes panning the point where sky met bay until at last he saw Grace’s red-gold head surface. “Fool woman shouldn’t dive alone.”

Disgusted, and more irritated by the fact that he’d been grinding his back teeth because she’d stayed submerged for so long, he muttered a totally uncivilized remark and swung aside. This time he dumped the field glasses on his messy desk, poured a cup of strong black coffee and bent to his tasks.

The calls to his subcontractors made his head pound. David Decker, owner of the flatbed barges they needed to transport everything out to the site, was especially nasty. As was the steamfitters’ union rep. Both threatened Zeke with loss of body parts. In the old days of oil exploration in Texas, those would have been very real possibilities. Nowadays, it was saber rattling. Pace’s lawyer would probably be dragged into court to settle breach-of-contract issues, and Kemper would pay delay fines if Zeke didn’t fix the problem.

He ran some calculations, then signed correspondence and the time cards a part-time secretary had left on his desk. After sealing them in a larger envelope to send off to headquarters where the main bookkeeping was done, he grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair.

“Hey, Possum,” he called to the chunkier of the two men working at desks in the outer office. He was Ramon Trujillo the sixth or something, and everyone always called him Possum. “Are either you or Gramps certified to dive?”

“As in deep-sea?” Norm Steel, the old-timer of the crew, known as Gramps, asked as he exited the bathroom, hitching his saggy jeans up over skinny hips.

“Not deep-sea. Scuba, with fins and snorkel,” Zeke said, pausing in front of the two men to display a hopeful expression.

“Not me. Too much water inside or out will weaken a man,” Norm said with a laugh.

Trujillo was already shaking his head. “Why do we need an extra diver? Ain’t the union requiring our sonar specialist on Number Four?”

Zeke slung his jacket over his shoulder, hooking it with an index finger. “Pace thinks we oughta help our obstacle in the bay locate that WWII plane she thinks is under our buoys. I’ve got plenty on my plate here, but if I’m the only certified scuba diver, I’ll have no choice but to give her my time.”

Possum pulled his double chins down until it looked like he had no neck. “Gramps, what did I tell you when we found that woman out there? Told you Jorge Boudreaux shouldn’t have rented her his boat. Bad luck to let a woman on the deck of a shrimp boat. Her being there’s already causing trouble.”

The very last thing Zeke needed was to have his men spouting dire superstitions or warnings that might distract everyone and jeopardize the whole project. Oil crews were a superstitious lot, and offshore drillers some of the worst.

“The only trouble she’s causing, Possum, is a slight delay. I have Gavin otherwise occupied. If you can hold down the fort for a few days, our operation will be back on track in no time.”

Trujillo didn’t look convinced. He rocked back and forth in his chair, the squeak getting on Zeke’s frayed nerves. “Mark my words, Zeke, things is only gonna get worse.”

Zeke laughed, but it sounded hollow even to his ears as he left the two somber men who’d been the backbone of the team since he’d come on board with Kemper.

It took longer than expected to assemble what he needed for diving. He had to make a trip home to find his certification before the shop would rent him air tanks. Matthew thought he was home for the day, and sobbed uncontrollably when Zeke attempted to leave again.

“Stay and eat lunch, at least,” Celia suggested. “Matt’s favorite cartoon comes on right after that, and it’ll distract him.”

“I didn’t know he had a favorite cartoon.” Zeke frowned, wondering how much else he’d missed. Surely that was a positive step toward more focused awareness-development—an issue Ms. Burnham harangued him about constantly.

“Matt loves watching the children in the interactive shows, Zeke. I know I let him sit too close to the TV, but the other day I saw him bobbing and swinging his shoulders,” she said excitedly. “I think he might feel the beat of the music.”

“You do? Jeez, that’s great! I wonder if the library has a book that might tell us how to capitalize on that?” Zeke suddenly recalled a conversation with Grace, who’d said a person could learn virtually any skill on the Internet or by reading.

“Have you forgotten that we got books on Matty’s condition after you moved here? They were too technical for us to make heads or tails of.”

“Yeah, but the research assistant gave us medical texts used by students at the nursing college.”

“Right, Zeke. I wish you could go with me to Matt’s regular checkups sometime. The doc and his nurse talk over my head. I never finished high school, you know. Maybe they think I know more than I do because I was a nurse’s aide. Really, I was basically just a maid.”

“Ma, you have more common sense than those medical folks who should’ve explained a lot of stuff to me and Trixie Lee about our newborn.” Zeke’s bitterness at the system that, in his opinion, fell far short of helping scared, confused young parents reared its head as he patted his mom’s shoulder.

He glanced at his watch, then swung Matthew high in his arms. The boy had been clinging to Zeke’s leg practically since he’d entered the house. “I’ll stay for lunch, but then I’ve gotta take off. I’ll pick up my gear, then I guess I’ll be breaking the unpleasant news to Ms. Stafford that she’s gonna have a partner, like it or not.”

“It’d probably go a whole lot smoother, Zeke, if you’d start with a better attitude.”

He let the remark pass. He was the busy manager of a vital oil company, dammit. He didn’t have the time or inclination to babysit a schoolteacher on a fool’s mission.

Loading the equipment took a while. Gavin got too-small flippers, so Zeke had to exchange them. As he finally turned around, headed back to Kemper’s to collect the runabout, he noticed what looked like Boudreaux’s boat berthed at the pier. Squeezing into a parking space, he jogged to the boat. Sure enough, the leathery old Cajun was dozing in a deck chair. Zeke cupped his hands to his mouth and called, “Ahoy there, Jorge. Jorge Boudreaux.”

The old man came stiffly awake.

“It’s Zeke Rossetti.” He leaped from the dock to the deck. “Where’s Ms. Stafford? Isn’t this earlier than you normally knock off?”

“Miss Grace had trouble with an air tank. We be finished for today.”

“I just came from the dive shop. Didn’t see her. Was she going to her hotel?”

Jorge shrugged. “Maybe gone to see the sights. Hasn’t seen much of Galveston yet.”

Zeke’s anger surged. He’d put important work on hold and busted his balls so he could lend her a hand, and she went sightseeing? “If Grace comes back to the boat, tell her I’m looking for her,” he ground out.

Hell, if she and Jorge had free time on their hands, it’d be better spent patching holes in this leaky boat.

He decided to hike along the Strand. Last night she’d shown interest in the shops. Although quite a few tourists roamed the city’s best-known street, his sharp eyes spotted Grace crossing up ahead. She wore a pink sundress that clashed with her hair, and was making a beeline for the coffeehouse.

Zeke broke into a jog, smiling when he saw the coffeehouse door close off his view of Grace’s dress.

She was next in line, and Zeke was out of breath when he skidded to a stop behind her. “Isn’t this a coincidence?” he said near her ear, giving her an obvious jolt. “Our afternoon breaks coincide.”

“What do you want, Rossetti?”

“Caffeine,” he murmured, edging closer as if they’d planned to meet. Meeting the eyes of the harried clerk, he said, “I’ll have a double espresso. Grace, what’s your pleasure?” Zeke dug in his tight jeans and extracted a silver money clip. He peeled off a ten-dollar bill and dropped it on the counter.

Grace plunked down her own money. “I believe I was here first,” she said sweetly. “I’ll have a coffee latte with a double shot of almond extract.”

“Put hers on my ticket,” Zeke insisted. His irritation over her stubbornness barely controlled, he shoved her money back into her hand.

The clerk, who must’ve had a trying day, muttered, “So which is it, lady? Should I let him pay?”

“Why not?” Grace magnanimously gave in. Clearly, she was less happy when Zeke latched on to her elbow and steered her to an empty table for two. “I didn’t say I’d share a table,” she hissed.

“Truce?” Zeke said as they plopped down on opposite chairs. “I needed to talk to you anyway. I was on my way to the office to get the runabout so I could meet you in the bay when I saw Jorge’s boat tied up at the marina.”