30
“Mama! Thane’s tearing up my homework! Make him stop!”
Milla stirred the spaghetti sauce and cast a harried eye toward the living room, where the shrieks were growing louder. “James! Get Thane away from Linnea.”
He was already on his way. The screams grew louder, evidently while he was in the process of peeling Thane away from his eight-year-old sister’s homework, but in just a few minutes blessed peace settled over the household, except for an occasional grumble from Linnea as she set about redoing her pages. Diaz appeared in the doorway with a giggling Thane draped around his neck. “What do I do with him now?”
“Play with him. Or tie him to a chair. Something.”
Six-year-old Zara was sitting at the kitchen table industriously practicing her letters, working to get them exactly right. Her dark eyes were serious as she said, “He won’t like being tied to a chair.”
“I was joking, honey.” Of their three children, Zara was the most like Diaz, with his somberness and intensity. Linnea was bustling and confident, meeting life head-on, while Zara stood back and watched. Milla took the time to give her youngest daughter a reassuring hug, while Diaz carried Thane outside to distract him with something energetic and, Milla hoped, nondestructive.
Thane was a surprise baby, born two days after her forty-first birthday. They hadn’t intended to have any more children, content with their two daughters, but a broken condom had resulted in a little boy that they should more accurately have named Hurricane. Even before he could crawl, Thane had been squirming to be put down so he could explore. When he learned to crawl, the entire household was off and running, trying to catch him before he could get into whatever mischief he’d found. Now that he was two, Milla was beginning to consider a straitjacket—for herself.
It was funny how things had worked out. She and Diaz—she still had to remind herself to refer to him as James—had been married for nine years now. She’d held out on marriage until some of their problems had been worked out, namely her own work and his. She was still executive director of Finders, but the day-to-day operation had been turned over to Joann Westfall, while Milla herself concentrated mostly on fund-raising, which never ended. She drew a salary now, her hours were more regulated, and she was never away from her children overnight.
Diaz field-tested weapons for a firearms manufacturer and did some consulting work with the El Paso police department, the sheriff’s department, and private security firms. She’d been relieved almost to the point of tears when he told her what he was doing, because she’d been worried to death there was no legitimate job where he could use his particular skills. They would never be rich, but they had enough money to support their children and afford a few luxuries, so that was fine.
Living in her condo, with so many close neighbors, had made him antsy. He hadn’t complained, but Milla had seen how restless he was, and increasingly jumpy. By the time she was five months pregnant with Linnea, he was getting on her nerves so much she knew they had to do something, so Diaz had scouted around and found a house far enough away from other people that he could relax, but not so far away that Milla felt isolated. It was an older house, pleasant, with shade trees in the yard and four roomy bedrooms. At the time, they hadn’t known they would need all four of them. They had bought the house, fenced in the yard for the baby’s safety, and settled in.
She’d been happy. Though she’d still had her doubts when they finally did get married, almost a year after he first asked her, she’d been almost deliriously happy with him.
Watching him with their children was a delight that still made her heart squeeze. He’d approached Linnea cautiously, as if she were a time bomb, but he’d doggedly learned how to change diapers and all the other things one needed to know with a baby. Discipline was a theory he hadn’t quite managed to understand; he’d explained to Milla, with complete and rather baffled seriousness, that the kids cried if he scolded them, so he’d had to stop. The situation had to be dire for him to get stern, with the result that all three children were shocked into instant obedience if he so much as raised his voice. It wasn’t fair; Milla sometimes felt she could scream her head off and the children wouldn’t pay the least bit of attention to her. That was an exaggeration, because they were normal, bright, inquisitive, generally obedient kids, which meant that some days they were a real pain.
She loved that she could be exasperated with them. One of her greatest fears, while she’d been pregnant, was that the tragedy of the past had turned her into an obsessive, overprotective, stifling sort of mother. She hadn’t been certain she was fit to be a mother. Thank God Linnea had been such a capable child; by the time Zara had arrived, Milla had relaxed. Then they’d had four peaceful, mostly idyllic years—until Thane. The two years since his birth had been joyous, but definitely not peaceful.
“Want to wash your hands and help me set the table?” she asked Zara, who obediently moved her homework off the table and ran off to wash her hands.
Linnea said, “I want to help,” and rushed out of the living room, following Zara to the downstairs bathroom to wash her hands, too.
Milla set the big bowl of salad on the table, then checked on the rolls in the oven. They were a nice golden brown, so she took them out and put them in the bread basket. Diaz came back in with Thane, and took him to wash the worst of the dirt from his face and hands while Milla poured the spaghetti in a colander to drain.
The girls were busy putting out the plates and flatware when the doorbell rang. Milla sighed. It never failed; if there was going to be an interruption, it invariably happened as they were sitting down to eat. “I’ll get it,” she said, passing Diaz as he came out of the bathroom with Thane tucked under his arm.