Ellen became certified in income tax preparation and related services that would allow her full-time employment. No longer was she working from instructions learned in high school or by blind obedience. Now she had all the relevant facts at her fingertips, complete with access to special databases.
Both Ellen and Emily had become accustomed to life in the smallish apartment they called home, and now both women searched for a hobby they could share to replace the space-consuming sewing activities they had previously enjoyed together. Mike Jaimeson’s baleful memory had cast a blight on that particular enterprise, anyway. An advertisement for spinning classes made by the arts and crafts community seemed heaven sent.
Instructions in both hand spindles and spinning wheels were offered, and there were multiple incentives for mother and daughter alike. This was a quiet, constructive hobby that did not take up much space. They could even spin yarn for Miss Araminta!
Araminta’s yarn products had even impressed Liam, who loved to finger them and feel the individual knots while he washed himself. Ellen still had to shave him, but anything he could do for his own self-care delighted him. All the years of being dependent on the community had weighed on him, and now he took a special joy in the smell of various soaps and hand creams. Smelling the normal household scents produced by living with two women almost made up for his lack of sight.
***
While the Jenkins family was prospering, Mike Jaimeson had finally been sentenced to an unbelievable number of years in federal prison. Mike bore no animosity toward either wife as he was borne in chains to his destination. Both, he knew, had at least given affidavits against him, but that was no more than he had expected. Women, after all, could not be held to the same standards as men. His simmering hatred was directed principally at Big Jake, who was the authority he believed had betrayed him.
Things like this, Mike explained at length to the disgruntled prisoners who made the out-of-state journey with him, were not supposed to happen to the scions of big men in county politics. It was only because of official animosity that he was going to do hard time, he assured them. He personally was in no way responsible, having done nothing more than imitated what other county figures had done before him. Mike’s fellow inmates just looked at him. They had heard it all before.
One thing that gladdened Mike’s heart was that his attorney had instructed him to file bankruptcy proceedings as soon as the charges were filed against him. That way, with any luck, the lawyers who argued the case would get most of the money – not that stringy, whiny girl from whose trust account he had taken from.
Actually, Mike reasoned, the whole affair was really the government’s fault. The federal government had decided to set safety standards – without consulting him. It had also instituted this downright socialist system of workers’ compensation, again without his knowledge or consent.
The end result was that Mike Jaimeson was considered unresponsive and was consigned to work in the prison laundry, where the guards could compel obedience.
***
Liam insisted that the moment he got his first paycheck, Ellen should drive him and Emily over to Carl’s garage to pay its owner the full price of the starter he had installed. Their arrival shook the little Melrose neighborhood out of its late afternoon stupor.
Carl accepted only the actual cost of the replacement part, then closed his shop and led the family over to the diner. “Hey, Billie Sue!” he called out when they entered. “Come and see who I’ve got here.”
Billie Sue simply stared from the kitchen doorway, then came out and addressed the lone patron who was still sitting on one of her corner bar stools. “Mr. Hamlin, this here diner is officially closed.” She stalked over to the front door and flipped its sign to ‘Closed.’ “Now get on that cell phone of yours and get Miss Araminta and that Mack character to come on over here. Our lost sheep just turned up, and we’re going to have us a private party. You folks just come over here and sit right down in this corner booth,” she invited, turning to the newcomers.
Soon Mack’s little sports car zipped into the small parking lot, with Araminta in the passenger seat. Billie Sue opened the door, and they both rushed in. “Hey, people!” Mack called cheerily. He showed Miss Araminta into the seat beside Emily, then pulled up a chair to the end of the table. “I’ve been hearing a lot about you folks.” Mack’s smile encompassed the whole booth. Then he peered under the table. “Fido, old friend! Long time, no see,” he sang out, shaking the dog’s paw, much to Emily’s amusement.
Mr. Hamlin, the grocer, abandoned his unfinished coffee and grabbed a chair, which he placed opposite the record producer’s. “Miss Araminta told me about her day in the country, but she’s clammed up ever since. I’m truly glad to see all you folks are well.”
Billie Sue came up with a tray load of coffee, plus a soft drink for Emily. “I’ll bring out some water for Fido in a second,” she told them. “One of my girls will take your orders in a minute, but don’t you dare start telling stories until I can get out here. I want to hear all the news that’s fit to print.”
“Thanksgiving is in a couple of weeks,” Araminta began while they waited. “I want all you folks who aren’t otherwise engaged to come over to my place for dinner. I’ve already started my holiday fruitcakes, and I’m just about ready to start on the pumpkin pies.”
Carl and Mr. Hamlin excused themselves, both having families of their own, but Mack and the Jenkins family accepted with alacrity. “You’ve got no idea how many Thanksgiving dinners I’ve had at Waffle House,” the record producer told them. “Usually I spend most of that day on the road, or else in some cramped little studio mixing tracks.”
***
Liam, who had endured far too many artificial Thanksgivings at various shelters, was startled to realize that Ellen and Emily were just as excited by the invitation as he.
“Holidays when you’re all just pretending to be family are really miserable,” Ellen told him as she guided the Dodge home from Melrose later that evening. “Mike apparently spent most of his Thanksgivings drinking until he passed out at the Smyrna Country Club. They used to put him up for the night until he was fit to drive home the next day. I learned to buy just a frozen turkey breast for Emily and me, with a can of cranberry sauce and some of that Stove Top Stuffing to let us know we’d had a holiday. We always baked some kind of dessert together to get Emily familiar with how to use a kitchen.”
“Mike wouldn’t tolerate my trying to cook anything,” Emily added angrily. “He told me that cooking was what he had a wife for, and I should go back and play with my dolls – even when I was already into video games.”
Liam felt a twinge for what his womenfolk had suffered when he had been trying to spare them. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “everything we’ve got right now we owe to Miss Araminta. We’d never have been reunited if she hadn’t insisted on sticking with a good deed until it was done. Whatever else we do, we’ve got to get her a great, big Christmas present. The poor woman doesn’t seem to have any family left to care about her.”
“Actually,” Emily scuffed her shoe against the back of her father’s seat, “Miss Araminta told me once that she considers me her surrogate granddaughter. I was awfully pleased, since I’ve never had a Nana of my own.” Rural women often didn’t live long enough for their grandchildren to remember them.
“We’ll give her the best present anybody ever saw,” Ellen promised. “I saw an advertisement last night for some of that washable wool roving that we can spin for her. You know how she insists that every item she makes has to be washable so she can give it to poor folks. Miss Araminta has never used real wool yarn for precisely that reason; she uses acrylic instead.”
“We’ll spin her some, then,” Emily decided. “And after that I want to learn to make socks. Miss Araminta won’t do those because you have to follow a pattern.”
“She does love her audiobooks while she’s working,” Liam agreed. “Maybe I ought to order her one of t
hose, too – a special book, one of her favorites.”
***
Thanksgiving Day at Miss Araminta’s was a holiday all her guests truly enjoyed. Mr. Hamblin had saved a ham bone with plenty of meat still attached for Fido’s pleasure, and Araminta had boiled it to make sure it was soft enough for his aging teeth.
For the humans, there was homemade cranberry sauce, succotash, and Chinese style green beans to go along with the turkey and dressing. Araminta topped off the meal with a latte coffee drink to go with the pumpkin pie. Each family also got a fruitcake to take home and enjoy throughout the holiday season.
Mack brought along his guitar and, after dinner, he sang his newly published song about the blind beggar who received a second chance. “I’ve written up a full band score, and I’ve got some big names interested in recording it. Nobody will ever know who the inspiration was behind this,” he added, beaming at Liam and Miss Araminta. “I just used initials on the dedication.”
“That’s a mighty nice song.” Liam’s face was a little flushed as he responded. “But it offers hope for better chances than most people will ever get.”
“Sometimes hope is all it takes to get a man started on the right track,” Mack replied, strumming softly as he spoke. “Hope’s a pretty powerful motivator if a man thinks about it enough.” Mack didn’t add that he himself had been sober for the last two months.
“It doesn’t have to be a male who does the hoping,” Ellen added softly. “Women can grasp at that same motivation – I know I have.”
Afterward, Mack paid for a limousine to take the Jenkins family home because the roads were getting icy.
***
As Christmas approached, Liam’s family decided to decorate their own apartment and invite Miss Araminta and her neighbor to have dinner with them. “Make sure you bring a big car over here,” Liam told Mack when he accepted the invitation. “This weather isn’t fit for man nor beast, and my ladies have fixed up a big present for Miss Araminta. I don’t want her lugging everything around in that little Ford all by herself.” He didn’t mention his own contribution to this effort, or how hard Ellen and Emily had worked to make a nice, warm pair of socks and a matching neck scarf for the producer.
When the guests entered the gaily bedecked apartment Christmas morning, Miss Araminta, remembering all this family had suffered, burst into tears. Mack hugged the older woman to him and hid his face in her bright hat to hide his own reaction. After a moment, he raised his head and quipped, “Auntie Araminta, I think we’ve finally got us a family.”
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