Chapter 6
Chapter 6
Ten years after the death of Elizabeth Mary Pritchard
It didn’t take her long to get into the groove of teaching. Lexy had been a teacher before, of course, but with the things that she had at this school, all the up-to-date things that made her job easier, she thought for sure that she could go on forever. Lexy smiled to herself. She didn’t want to be a teacher forever. Having money made her think that there was more in life than working. She wanted to play, and hang out with Jeremiah. Get to know his family too.
“Mrs. Lexy Tate?” She smiled and turned to Josh. He was the only student that she couldn’t get to stop calling her Mrs. Lexy Tate. She sometimes wondered if he referred to her that way to his parents, too. “Mrs. Lexy Tate, I don’t remember how to spell my last name. It’s a big one.”
“You do have a long last name, Josh. Here, let me write it out for you so that you can copy it. And you can just call me Mrs. Tate.” He nodded as he did every time she asked him about her name. “There you go. Windermere. Can you copy that now?”
“Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Lexy Tate.” He made his way back to his table and sat down. The little guy would make her smile every time he sat down to work. The way he stuck his tongue out to concentrate would make her smile no matter the mood she was in. He was the highlight of the day to her.
When it was nearly break time, the kids got an extra thirty minutes outside today. She bundled them up and made sure that everyone had gloves. Just last week, she’d gone to the dollar store and had picked up two cases of little gloves. She and her dad had been sharing them when the students seemed to lose them every couple of days.
Her dad was out with the little ones, and today, she went out too. She was supposed to take a break in the offices, but Jeremiah wasn’t in today, having a meeting across town he had to go to, so she didn’t have anyone to eat with. Dad was forever happy to see her.
“I have three absent today. How about you?” She told him just the one. “I thought for sure, with the colds going around, that we’d have a lot more out. I guess they’re used to the cold weather. I’m certainly not.” Lexy laughed. He said the same thing every year, like it was some kind of contest with him. She loved him for it.
She and her dad were closer than most daughter-to-dad families. She supposed it was because they were all they had while she was growing up, but she dearly loved him. Thinking about the holidays that were coming up, knowing that they would be spending Christmas with the Tates, she asked him if he had asked Joyce.
Dad had been the man about town when they arrived. She’d not realized that there was a major difference in the man to women ratio in this town. For every man, there were a dozen single women who were ready to pounce. And that is what it looked like, too, when he was caught unawares as he’d been that first week.
He had had a difficult time even going out to dinner by himself until he made it clear that he wasn’t going to be dating all that much. Joyce Martin had made an impression on her father that had outlasted the others. They’d been seeing each other now for about five years.
“Darling daughter, you look ready to pop that little girl out there. When did the doctor tell you that you’d have her?” She told him, like Josh, she told him every day, that his first grandchild would be born in late January. “I think it will be sooner. Like the end of the year. Mark my words, she’s going to be a handful, too.”
Jeremiah said that too. That their daughter was going to be a handful. She didn’t understand that. She’d been an all right child, and according to Jeremiah’s family, he’d been a quiet and good boy, too. Lexy thought that they wanted her to have a naughty child so that they could say that she was a handful.
“I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. Are you still going with me?” He nodded and ran ahead of her to see what the fuss was about by the swings. Watching her dad take care of the boo-boo and the tears, Lexy smiled with her husband. She loved the sound of that even after all this time reached out to her.
“You’ll be thrilled to know that I’m not going to have to stay tonight. They’ve decided to wrap things up so that I won’t have to travel in the bad weather. They said it was supposed to snow tonight. I wonder if they ever look outside? It’s been snowing for four days now.” She asked him, again, if there was ever a time when Ohioans didn’t ask about the weather. “Nope. It’s a topic highly thought of. What are you doing right now?”
“Watching my dad bandage up a knee. One of the Adler twins knocked the other one off the swing when she was taking too long. Do you think they fight at home as much as they do in the classroom?” He said that he hoped not. Their parents are saints if they did. “No kidding. I have noticed that they don’t like it when other kids pick fights with the other one, either. They’ll kill each other over a swing but fight to the death together when someone picks on the other twin. Are you really coming home tonight?”
“I’m actually on my way now. I’m nervous if you want to know the truth. The snow really is blowing hard, and there are slick places all along the roads. Don’t you drive anywhere you don’t have to, love. I’d worry about you more.” She nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see her. Telling him that she was just going to go home and stay there, he told her she was right. “You didn’t ask, but I’ll tell you. They’re going to use your model for the teaching program for new kindergarten teachers. They were so happy with the curriculum that they have decided to have copies made and hand out to all the teachers so that they can see what is being taught at the lower levels and what they can expect from the kids. I think it’s a great idea, and I’m so very proud of you and your dad.”
“Dad and I thought it was about time that someone let the other teachers know so that they didn’t reteach things that the kids had already gone over. A lot of them do very well on the state tests, and I think this is going to look good for us in the new testing.” Jeremiah agreed with her and told her that all of the board members had agreed as well. “Thank you for that. I just can’t wait for this child to be born so that I can stop feeling like the side of a barn. If I had known how…I would have done it anyway. I cannot wait, can you?”
“No. But you have to hang on for a bit longer. I have to get the bed put together and the clothing that we got for her put upstairs.” She didn’t tell him that she’d gotten both done while he’d been gone. But, of course, he guessed. “You did it, didn’t you?”
“I was bored. Dad helped. And he said that with all the things you have going on, it might be better if someone else took over some of the items that you have in the works. Dad also got the rocking chair fixed, as well as the changing table put together. I don’t know if I’ll use it, but it’s in the bedroom now.” While standing in line with the kids who were due to go back to class, she felt the first twinge of something that she knew was going to be the baby. “Do you have any idea when you’ll be home? I might have to have you pick up some food so we don’t have to eat at any particular time.”
Not paying attention to Jeremiah, she held onto the fence that surrounded the playground and held on tightly. The pain was nearly unbearable, and she didn’t know if this was labor or growing pains. What her dad called Braxton hicks. Not having any idea what to expect, only being able to hang out at the zoo when elephant babies were born, Lexy decided to just let things go until Jeremiah came home and they could figure this out together. However, she thought that the baby had other plans and wasn’t afraid to voice her opinion.
It didn’t take her long to realize that she wasn’t going to be able to stay at school. She’d been told when she went into labor that walking was the best thing she could do. It was painful for her, yet it did seem to slow things down. As she made her way home, peeling off her coat on the way because she was suddenly roasting, Lexy was dizzy with pain when she reached out for the other women in the pack. The first person who contacted her was Hanna, and all she could do when she asked her if she was all right was to scream.
Not knowing what had happened when she woke up in a stranger’s bed, she looked around the beautiful room and saw that not only was Jeremiah there but her father as well. They were both sleeping. There was an older woman, whom she didn’t know, sitting there too, and it took her sitting up before she felt like she could figure out where the hell she was.
“My name is Peabody.” The elderly woman never stopped to look at her but continued clicking her knitting needles together in time with the clock that was ticking somewhere in the house. “You don’t know me. I’m sure that I never heard of you, but you’re my great-granddaughter.”
“My family is all gone but for my dad.” Peabody told her that was obviously not true as she was sitting right there. “I don’t mean to be rude, but…where is my child? I didn’t hurt her, did I? I mean, I was trying to make it home when…I don’t know what happened.”
“You did fine, Lexy. Just fine, indeed. There was a hiccup or two when they brought you here, but you gave birth to the young one without any trouble at all.” She asked Peabody what the hiccups were. “Oh, I guess then things didn’t go all that fine.”
She put down her knitting and moved closer to the bed. When she sat down, taking her hands into hers, Lexy felt like she didn’t want to know what had happened. Telling the elderly woman that she’d been a teacher before coming here and that she’d met her one true love, she closed her mouth when Peabody said her name.
“Do you have a name for your daughter? I bet it’s a lovely one.” She told her. “Alexandra is a lovely name. Does it mean anything? I mean, are you naming her after someone?”
“My grandmother. Please tell me where my daughter is.” Peabody told her that she was with the faeries and entertaining them quite delightfully. “And she’s all right then? She’s not been harmed because of me?”
“Good heavens, no. She’s just fine. Such a lovely little thing. Well, not little. She came in at about eleven pounds but was perfect in every way. You’ll get to see her soon. I promise.” Nodding, she looked at her dad and husband. “They’re sleeping. I had to make them rest so that you could. They were hovering. You know how they can be. They want to be your hero and make things perfect for you.”
“You have something to tell me.” Peabody said that she did. “It’s about…not the baby. You said she was perfect. So it’s me. Something happened to me.”
“Yes. That husband of yours he told me that you’d get it right away. That there was no fooling you at all. Yes, you had some complications that made it so that you can only have the one child.” Nodding, she waited for the bad news, and Peabody smiled. “He also said that you’d not care one with that you could only have the one so long as she was healthy and happy. That husband of yours, Jeremiah, he’s a good man. He loves you so very much. Did you know that?”
“I do. Yes.” Peabody patted her hands before putting them under the blanket. “Did he also tell you that I’m not much into being pampered? That I like my news like I take off a band-aid?”
“He did at that.” The two of them laughed as exhaustion nearly had her closing her eyes. “You sleep now, child. You and I have a great deal to catch up on, and we’ll bond over that little girl of yours. She’s a beauty, I will tell you that.”
Lexy was sure that she should have insisted that she see her daughter. But with knowing that Jeremiah was sleeping comfortably, as was her dad, she thought that she could sleep too. Having one child was hurtful and sad, but she had her, and that, she knew, was more than she had ever hoped for when she’d been growing up. Closing her eyes, Lexy let sleep take her under and smiled. She had a little girl. Her very own child with the best man in the world.
~*~
Enjoying the afternoon, Jeremiah watched his family as they made their way across the paths that had been set up by the faeries. They had been made so that his little girl, already walking, could make her way back home without getting lost. He’d not thought that Alex would be born as an elephant. He supposed that he should have, being that everyone kept telling him that she’d be big when she was born.
Alex tumbled over and was helped up by the unicorn. She had to spend her first year of life here so that magic could help her grow into a shifter elephant. He’d not realized that either. That she’d have to have special magic to keep her from staying as an elephant when it was time for her to learn to shift into a girl. He would learn something every day about his special daughter and was thrilled beyond words that she was doing very well while they were in the magical world. He looked at Hanna when she joined him on the bench. She’d been popping in and out for the last several days, checking up on them and Alex.
“She’s about accomplished all that she’s been taught. I bet you’re very proud of her. I know that Lexy is.” He just grinned at her. “I don’t do sappy. Use your words before I smack you around. Are you happy?”
“More than I think that I’ve ever been since meeting Lexy. Does that answer your question?” She nodded this time. “I’m not going to point out to you that you didn’t use your own words. I’m in too good of a mood to let you take away some of my happiness. Now, tell me what it is that brought you here.”
“Peabody is having trouble with her circus.” He told her that he’d figured that out. “So, tell me what you’ve done to help her out so that I can go back to your family and tell them. They, for whatever reason, think that I should have it all figured out and not have someone come and tell you. I would have just fixed it myself, but your family doesn’t like to step on anyone’s toes.”
“I wonder where they got the notion that they might be stepping on my toes.” She glared at him, and he really was in such a good mood that he laughed. “I sent money to cover her payroll. Also, I sent some people that I know, shifters, that will be a big showcase for her and had them working for her. They’re retired from whatever job they had and seem to think that they owe me something. This is a good way for me to clean up my books, so to speak, and bring her out of debt. We are going to go there in a couple of weeks and perform for her. She’s been training Lexy and her dad on some of the things that will help her out. Anything else?”
“Can I help her out?” Jeremiah told her that would be up to her and Peabody. “I’m glad that you said that. I’ve already spoken to her, and I’m going to be a headline for her in a month. I can be several animals that she doesn’t have, and that will bring in a good deal of ready cash for her to end off the year. You didn’t come to me. Why is that? I would have given them permission.”
“Loren was with me when I got the information about her circus. It was the first thing that he said, that if I needed some exotic shifters, he would allow anyone who was in good standing with you two to be able to go. I didn’t know that I had to have your permission, but he was happy to give it. However, they do have to be in good standing. I’m not sure what that entailed, but he assured me that the few that went are.” She told him. “Okay, that makes sense. I wouldn’t have thought about dues as a crime. Joel was able to get me in touch with the area leaders for a few more shifters, so that couldn’t have worked out better. Are you all right with Loren allowing that to happen?”
“He’s a big boy and able to make decisions on his own.” He asked Hanna if there was a ‘but’ to that. “No. I wish he would have told me about it so that I knew, but nothing bad will come of it. The others are a little pissy because they didn’t get to help. It’s nice when I can do something before they can. I like that feeling.” They both laughed.
“When I contacted her, I had no idea that she’d come to the birthing. In fact, I had no idea that she was related to Lexy and her dad at all. Well, not so much Larry, but she is great grandmother to Lexy. She is from Larry’s wife’s side of the family. Did you ever meet her?” She said that she’d not. “I don’t think I would have liked her. She seemed pretty much a bitch when I was asking about her.”
“That’s what I got when I talked to Peabody. How long do you plan on being with her? Through the rest of the summer, I’m guessing?” He said that he would leave when Lexy had enough. “Do you think that will happen? Her having enough of the circus life? I saw her practicing. She really is enjoying herself.”
“I saw that too. They’re going to dress me up in a suit and tie as my wolf and have me run around the feet of the elephants that are walking around. It sounds really dangerous, but it is easy. Once they start walking, I just make sure that I’m not going to be crushed. Works every time.” Hanna, of course, didn’t find any humor in that. Like she fully expected him to be crushed the first time he was around them. After a few minutes of her thinking, she told him that she was only joking. He didn’t believe that either. She had no sense of humor that he’d ever noticed.
After putting Alex down for a nap, something that he had never thought of doing before with an elephant, he found himself looking for Peabody. The others who had been practicing had left the area, and he thought that he’d sit down a little bit and talk to her about the rest of his family joining the troop to have some downtime from working so hard. It was Dad who had asked, and he fully believed that his father would be with the circus for the rest of his days if allowed.
Last night, his family had joined him in the magical kingdom. Loren and Hanna had been making it their home for a while now, at least the last few years. They had four children between adopting and their own child and, for the most part, ran their kingdom well. There were a couple of issues that were nipped in the bud right away, and that seemed to satisfy everyone. Hanna’s dad had passed away some time ago, so there wasn’t a threat about him anymore that kept them up at night.
His dad was right where he thought he’d be. Hanging out with Peabody and her doing most of the talking. It was rare that his dad could be out-talked by someone, so the rest of them thanked Peabody every day for the quiet time. Dad didn’t think that was so funny, but they laughed every time it was brought up. His poor dad had been the butt of jokes for a while now.
“I was just going to find you. Did you know that once it was put out there that I have a bald eagle in my troop, people started buying up tickets right away? The next three shows are sold out, thanks to that queen friend of yours.” Hanna, he figured and told Peabody that he was happy that she could help. “Your daddy here is going to be my barker. Yelling at people to tell them what a show they’re missing. I think he’ll do a good job of it, don’t you?”
“Dad has always been able to talk up a big game. He’ll be perfect.” Dad patted him on the back and walked away. “Is everything all right with you two?”
“Oh yes. He’s a little down in the dumps that he’s not going to be able to stick it out with me for the rest of my days. Being in the circus, I mean.” Jeremiah asked her why not. “He’s been thinking about his grandbabies and all and realized that he’d not be able to see them all that much if he’s with the circus. I’m sort of sad about that. I do love a good man who can talk like he does. Are you still going to join us?”
“Yes. Lexy has been talking about it, too. She loves the fact that she can get to know you as well. And I don’t mind leaving her when I have to go home. I still have a job to do, and since she was going to retire after Alex was born, things are working out for her, too.” He watched his beautiful mate as she played with the other animals that were a part of this world. “I do have some things that I’d like to talk to you about.”
“I’m going to pay you back, Jeremiah. I hope you don’t think that I was going to run out on you.” That wasn’t what he wanted to say, but he was glad that she brought it up. “I don’t know that I would have been able to if not for the extra animals that will be helping out.”
“I don’t want you to pay me back, Peabody. You’re family. We help each other.” She said that he’d not known that she was when he leant it to her. “Be that as it be, you are family, and I was glad to help out. It’s going to be fun watching the circus now. It’s even better that I get to learn firsthand…I mean, what kid in the world hasn’t dreamed of joining the circus. I know that I thought about it when I was younger. You’ve given a great many people now a chance to fulfill their dreams like this. I know that my dad was one of those kids, too.”
The two of them spoke a bit more about the circus, and the money kept coming back around. It had been a heavy amount, he was sure that she’d been cutting corners for some time now, and even that wasn’t going to make it so that she could hit payroll this time. But he’d been thrilled to help out a fellow shifter. When he figured out that she was related to Lexy, it was like they had been friends forever. It was the best thing that he’d invested in for more years than he could count.
“Jeremiah, I want you to know that I was going to stop this as soon as I got to the last stop. You didn’t have to invest all these other people into helping me. I’m not saying that I wanted to quit so much as I was forced to, but I have to tell you, this is great for the others in the troop. So many of the men and women that are there, they don’t have anywhere else to turn. Most of them have been with me from the beginning. It’s not a fun way to make some money for us. It’s our only income. A lot of them don’t have any family left either.” He told her that he’d found that out when he’d been looking into their lives. “I’m sure you found a lot of them are in trouble with one state or the other. Lack of paying taxes and such. If you turn them in, they said they’d understand, but what good will it do for the government to jail a bunch of old shifters that don’t have a pot to piss in? Nothing, I tell you. Not a single thing.”
“There isn’t any reason for them to worry.” She said that they would because they were like that. “Their debt has been wiped clean. No back taxes. Nothing to keep them from buying themselves a home and living out the rest of their days there. Joel, my oldest brother, only had to make a couple of calls, and that was all it took. Then, Larry…it’s funny that. He was the kindergarten teacher for five of the last twelve presidents. So he made another call, and there will be people to help them get loans when they decide to settle down.”
She just stared at him, and he reached over to close her mouth. As soon as she stood up, he did as well and nearly passed out when she hugged him tightly. Peabody was crying and thanking him at the same time. He was happy that he’d been able to make so many people happy. Especially this woman who had come to mean the world to him and his little family.
When Peabody made her way across the fields to tell the others about the good news, he leaned back and thought of what sort of things he’d be getting into over the next hundred years or so. Jeremiah knew, for as long as he lived, he’d have to keep on his toes, or he’d get behind. And behind in this family would mean he’d be picking up the shit left behind.
Laughing, he went to find his mate. Life right now seemed to be on the swing up, and he couldn’t wait to be able to look back on this and smile. Jeremiah had a great deal to smile about, too.