Pleasing Mindy

Pleasing Mindy - Chapter 4

As her bones began to thaw, Mindy unzipped her jacket and began picking up toys and books and clothes strewn around the room and placing them into a pile to take to her bedroom later. Her mother had bought the modest two-bedroom house with her lump sum pension from Andretti Industries, and since there was no mortgage, she didn't take rent from Mindy. It was a kind of quid pro quo for Mindy nursing her mother back to health. All she had to do was help with the utilities and of course buy food for her and her kids.

The storm door creaked. A moment later, a key rattled in the door before it swung open and her mother walked in carrying a black canvas tote in one hand and a white paper bag in the other. "Hey, Mom."

"What are you doing home? Weren't you supposed to go out tonight?" her mother asked.

Mindy dropped a Barbie doll on the pile and walked over to close and lock the door, and slide the security chain and the dead bolt into place. "The question should be, where have you been?" She turned to critically survey the still attractive, average-size sixty-six-year-old woman with soft brown eyes and thinning blonde hair, peppered with silvery gray strands.

Like Mindy, Pamela Marshall had been a single mother, who'd worked two jobs to take care of her children. When Billy and Mindy were young, Pamela had worked at Andretti Industries as a kitchen employee during the day and a custodian at night. They'd lived in a trailer park in Evergreen, and although things had been rough, Mindy had never heard her mother complain once. She was never overly affectionate with Billy and her, but she'd taken care of them.

When sixteen-year-old Mindy had gotten pregnant with Kyle, Pamela had thrown her out, forcing her and Kyle to move into an apartment with his friends. Looking back now, Mindy realized that her mother had expected better from her.

Every mother wanted her child to have a better and easier life than she had. Mindy's getting pregnant at sixteen was a huge disappointment for Pamela. But, truth be told, as hard as Mindy had had it—still had it—she would not trade Kyle nor Brittany for anything in this world. She refused to believe that she, or her children were mistakes. They were surprises! Serendipitous surprises. She felt blessed for giving birth to two of the world's smartest and most beautiful children, and she would never turn her back on them no matter what kind of trouble they got into, especially her sweet little Britt.

"You didn't tell me you were going out tonight." She scanned her mother's attire—a pair of black slacks and blue, turtleneck sweater under a charcoal sheepskin jacket that sported a fur-trimmed collar. Mindy had used her employee discount at Arabella to purchase the ensemble last Christmas—a gift her mother thoroughly loved.

"You were out with Phin, weren't you?" Phineas O'Henry was a therapist and co-owner of Optimum Result, the physical therapy center where Pamela had gone for healing after her fall. She and Phin had been "going steady" as Pamela called it, ever since. "I didn't even know you had a date," Mindy added, as she shrugged out of her jacket and laid it over the back of the sofa, the only place to sit in the tiny living room.

Pamela walked over to a card table that functioned as a dining table in the corner of the living room and placed her tote and the paper bag on it. "Since Virginia apologized for her past behavior toward you, I didn't have to watch the kids tonight," she said, unbuttoning her coat and laying it over one of the four folding chairs around the table. "So Phin and I made plans for takeout at his house."

"Where's Bacon?" Mindy asked, just realizing that the children's brown lab hadn't come out to greet her when she'd gotten home. She'd been too busy concentrating on getting warm.

"The kids took him to Virginia's. I wouldn't have minded taking him with me, though. Phin loves him."

"As do you," Mindy said with a gentle smile. That was another good thing that had grown out of moving in with her mom. Pamela, who hadn't been keen on dogs before, had learned to love Bacon. He'd been a constant companion during the months she'd been confined to her bed. And when she got better, the first thing she'd done was hire some neighborhood kids to rig a fence around her yard so Bacon could run free outside—something he hadn't been able to do when they'd lived with Billy and in her apartment in Granite Falls.