Witch Clan: Matriarchs by John Stormm (best beach reads of all time TXT) 📖

no less than four helpings of pancakes and home fries. He hadn't seemed to want to talk about last night's dream, and that was puzzling. Perhaps he was just shy with Dave and Willard around, but it was good to have a family life for the lad. Gods knew they would fill his head with garbage of how big boys don't cry and had no idea how important it was for him to try to fit in. Even if it was only a mythic American male value, Johnny would die trying to live up to it before he let out so much as a peep. She would have to talk to them later and help him balance his values to a healthier degree. The image of him staring about blindly in his room, believing he was all alone in the world haunted her most of that day.

Johnny was entertaining himself in front of the television set with the usual early evening fair of Mickey Mouse, Davy Crocket and assorted cartoons. With the exception of the sounds of Donald Duck throwing a tantrum coming from the living room, one would never know there was a four year old boy in the house. He was enrapt when cartoons or his favorite heroes were on the set.

Dave and Lorry came in shortly after five and Lorry gave her son a kiss and patted his head before coming into the kitchen to help with dinner. There was something on their minds they wanted to discuss with her. So tangible, it hung in the air about them.

“Work went well today?” Emma coached them as she lay sliced potatoes in the baking pan for tonight’s dinner. Lorry and Dave looked to each other before responding.

“Dave has a line on a good factory job as a machinist, Mom,” Lorry replied.

“It sounds like a well paying job with a future. I’m glad to hear things are beginning to work out better for you than that bartender’s job. What are your plans now?” she asked.

“Well, with this job I’ll make enough where Lorry won’t have to work at the dry cleaners any more and it pays well in worker’s benefits and retirement. We can get our own house by this time next year.” Dave was positively beaming with pride.

“So much good news doesn’t come without a little bad mixed in,” she said, looking up from her scalloped potato dish. “You want to share the rest of the news or will I have to pry it out of you both over dinner?” She smiled her wicked smile at her daughter.

“The job is with Rohr Aircraft Company, and the bad news is that we’ll have to relocate to Riverside, California.” Dave continued, “The good news is that I have a sister out there that we can stay with until we can get our own place.”

Emma stopped cold in her tracks and looked at her daughter.

“And what of Johnny?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Mom, we wanted to ask you if you would take care of him for us,” Lorry pleaded. “It’s only until we can get a place and get settled in, and then we will send for him. It’s such an important move for Dave and me. Could you please?”

Relief washed over her like a cool shower until the realization hit her.

“He knows,” she murmured aloud.

“Who knows what, Mom?” Lorry asked. “You are the very first person we told, I swear. Who knows?”

“Johnny knows.” Emma sat down feeling light headed all of a sudden. “He doesn’t understand, but he knows you’re going to leave him. He dreamt about this very thing last night. I laid with him myself when he awoke crying.”

“It’s just a coincidence, Mom,” Lorry said. “Don’t think too much on it. Would you care for him until we can send for him?”

“Of course, I will,” she said, pulling herself together. “I wouldn’t have it any other way without a fight. We’re going to have to talk with him about this so it doesn’t hit him so hard later, you know.”

“What if we have a little party to celebrate,” Lorry suggested. “Just the five of us. You, Willard, Dave, Johnny and me and we include him in all the celebrating and explain it to him then.”

“I’ll go now and get some soda, ice cream and treats for after dinner,” Dave volunteered as he got up from the table and headed out the back door.

“Get some balloons too,” Lorry called to him.

But it wasn’t going to be quite so easy. Not for her, and not for Johnny. She’d have to comfort him through it all and make it so he didn’t feel deserted again. Still, she was glad she would have her grandson for a while longer. She had so much to teach him about who he was and what he could be. She didn’t want to think about the time she would have to part with him when Lorry and Dave settled in their new home. California was so far away. It might as well have been on the other side of the moon as the other side of the country.

Dinner that night was quiet with suppressed excitement. Dave had met Willard at the Arrow Market as he was picking up groceries and balloons for the party and explained the evening’s events to him. Lorry had to keep warning Johnny to save some room in his bottomless pit of a stomach for a big surprise after the dinner dishes were put away.

Johnny helped his mother put up balloons in the living room. Willard lifted him up to the ceiling and Johnny stuck the taped side of the balloon to the stamped tin. It was a family affair and the boy seemed to glory in the moment. Emma and Willard danced to The Penguins’ hit single ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’, playing on Lorry’s record player in the living room while Lorry and Dave talked with Johnny over some ice cream in the kitchen.

Willard, who had once tried his hand as a Golden Gloves boxer in his younger days had the rough exterior and the facial features of a bulldog, however friendly, and the muscle mass to show he was still a formidable specimen of a man. But for all these rough hewn features, it was tenderness, gentleness and an adoring love that radiated from him as they danced. Emma decided to herself that she would have to marry this man as no other could be expected to help her make the home that Johnny would so desperately need. These two men, both old and very young looked at her with a need that only a goddess could fill, and she was feeling very much up to the task.

“What was that on your mind, Willard?” she whispered in his ear as they danced.

“I was wondering what it would take to convince you to marry me, Emma,” he said, never wavering from her eyes.

“Are you prepared for a ready made family?” She looked hard into his own.

Willard sighed and looked toward the kitchen where Johnny was getting the news he would dread most.

“The boy needs a good man as much as you do, Emma,” he said. “I could do no less by him than by you. I’m thinking of taking on some more work besides, so I can be a man again and provide for a family. I think this is the best thing that could happen to me. Would you, Emma? Would you marry a man like me?”

“Do you love it, Willard?" She put her forehead to his and squeezed him tightly.

“I love it, Emma,” Willard replied, squeezing her gently as a doll he feared he might break.

“Let’s raise a family together, Willard dear,” she said as she kissed him squarely on the lips.

“That’s a ’yes’?” he queried.

“Of course, it is. You big, strong, wonderful man of mine.” Emma hugged him.

Lorry, Dave and Johnny came walking together back into the living room. Johnny was putting on a brave face, but a telltale sob made his little body shudder and gave away his broken heart. She stooped to hug her grandson as Willard knelt nearby.

“You understand--” she urged her grandson -- “that this is all really good news for everybody?”

“Yes, Gramma,” Johnny sobbed and dried his eyes on his sleeve. “But I’m still gonna miss Mommy and Dave.”

“Well, you always have Grandma. Now don’t you?” she asked. “And you know what else you will need while Mommy’s away?”

“More ice cream?” he asked, looking confused.

“No, silly.” She squeezed him close. “You’re going to need a Grandpa to help us have a real family.”

Johnny’s eyes lit up with wonder. He reached over and grabbed Willard by the face and pulled their foreheads to touch.

“Will you be my grampa, Willard?” he asked earnestly. “’Cause I don’t have one and Brother George likes you too.”

Willard choked for a moment and clearly had trouble finding his voice as his eyes brimmed with tears.

“You guys told me big boys don’t cry,” Johnny questioned the emotion he saw on their faces.

“Sometimes, even the biggest guys have to cry,” Willard whispered gruffly. “It’s what makes us into good men. I would be so happy to be your grandpa, Johnny. You and George are such good boys.”

Emma hugged them both as Lorry and Dave joined them on the floor together. This just might be just a little easier than I thought.