Chapter 4 #2
“Of course,” she said, feeling a rush of relief… and a rush of gratitude for her community. “I’ll get you set up and then get to work.”
June worked busily throughout the morning, taking extra care to get into all the nooks and crannies that she knew were hard for Mrs. Richards to reach. When she finally finished up the well-practiced series of task on her mental list, she was surprised to see that it was already early afternoon.
She went back to the kitchen, where she found Mrs. Richards placing two plates on the table, each with a sandwich on top that looked so good that June’s stomach began to rumble on instinct. She pressed a hand to her belly and gave her client a sheepish look.
“Sorry about that,” she said.
The other woman laughed. “Oh, please. I don’t get up to much cooking these days, so it’s nice to hear a little bit of flattery about the few things I do make. This is for you. Take a load off for a few, sweetie.”
June hesitated. “I should check on Benjamin…”
“He’s reading some book about a dog that lives in outer space,” Mrs. Richards assured her. “He read some of it out loud to me, and it seemed like nonsense, but he seemed happy enough. He also ate a sandwich a while ago, said his stomach was feeling better too. No coughing or sneezing all morning.”
June collapsed into a kitchen chair. “Goodness, thank you, Mrs. Richards. I appreciate you keeping an eye on him and letting me bring him in with me today.”
Mrs. Richards smiled and reached out to give June’s hand a squeeze.
“There’s no need to thank me. I remember how hard those years were when your kids were young…
and I had my husband, and I didn’t have another job outside the house.
You’re doing all of that at once. It’s hard.
I can’t imagine how hard. But I am very, very impressed with you, June Caldwell.
You work so hard and that boy of yours is such a happy, kind little thing.
You did good. Take a break and eat your sandwich, huh? Let me help you a little bit.”
June was left with two choices: she could either eat her sandwich or break down in tears right here at this time-worn kitchen table.
She decided to eat the sandwich. It was delicious, with whole grain mustard, crisp vegetables, and a healthy pile of deli meat. It was the kind of sandwich you made when you weren’t rushing off, trying to slap a lunch together before you dashed off to the next obligation.
Or maybe June was reading into it too much. Little acts of kindness meant so much to her that it was hard not to put a heavy burden of meaning on them.
For a little while, the two women ate in silence. Then, when they’d polished off their last bites, June looked at Mrs. Richards.
“Thank you,” she said simply. “Your kindness means a lot.”
Mrs. Richards beamed like June was giving her a gift by saying so.
“Thank you, honey. Bring that little boy of yours back any time, okay?”
June finished up a few last-minute tasks, then loaded her cleaning supplies back into her car before rousing Benjamin, who was almost on the last pages of his book.
Fortunately, June had packed the next volume in the series about a dog astronaut that Benjamin and Izzy had been obsessed with recently.
Thank goodness for the library, she thought for the millionth time. Eleanor really could not open that bookstore soon enough either.
“Ready to go, baby?” she asked her son.
He smiled up at her. He looked a little more tired than usual, but not the way he got when he felt really sick. And if he wasn’t coughing or sneezing or otherwise spreading germs, she really couldn’t afford to give up her shift at the diner.
“I’m going to bring you to work with me to the diner too, okay?” she told him.
Benjamin brightened. “Can I have French fries?”
She laughed. Okay, so he was definitely feeling better, then.
“Deal,” she told him.
At the diner, June set Benjamin up in the break room with plenty of water, a cup of orange juice and, yes, the promised French fries.
He read his book, snacked, and played on a handheld game console while she worked.
In the brief minutes she had to catch her breath between dashing to and fro, she could only be grateful that Benjamin was such a good sport when it came to getting dragged along like this.
She was so lucky that she could trust him to be safe and smart while she delivered what felt like a thousand orders.
Eventually though, the hustle and bustle died down, the dining room no longer loud and crowded.
June urged Benjamin to come out and sit in one of the empty booths and brought him some chicken tenders for dinner.
It wasn’t the most balanced meal in the world, she supposed, but Benjamin’s happiness as he dunked them into a puddle of ketchup was just the thing she needed to see at the end of a hectic day.
Eventually, the only people in the diner were June, Benjamin, and Micah Peterson, a local old-timer who often came in for, as he put it, a slice of pie and a cup of joe.
June got started with her regular closing-up duties.
Micah wouldn’t mind, especially not when he had a battered paperback in front of him.
“Hey, I love this song!” Benjamin’s voice drew June out of the meditative cleaning tasks she performed at the end of each shift. She perked up her ears and heard the upbeat pop tunes of “Lollipop.”
Without looking up from his book, Micah called out, “You heard the boy, June! Turn up the tunes!”
Benjamin’s eyes lit up at the suggestion.
Well, June couldn’t argue with that, now could she? She darted behind the counter, turned the volume up on the speaker system, and grabbed a bottle of disinfectant as a makeshift microphone. Then she performed her heart out for an audience of one.
Not that any size audience could have served her better, given the way Benjamin laughed and clapped and copied her dance moves.
When she finished, however, her son wasn’t the only one clapping. June whirled in surprise at the sound behind her, then gave Eleanor a sweeping bow.
“My goodness, June,” her friend said as June went to turn the speaker’s volume back down to a more manageable level, “I never knew you could sing like that!”
June felt herself flush. She loved singing, and she knew she wasn’t terrible, but it always put her on the back foot when people praised her for what felt like a hobby from another lifetime.
Still though, she wanted to model for Benjamin how to graciously accept a compliment.
“Well, thank you, Eleanor,” she said modestly.
The twinkle in her friend’s eye said that Eleanor new that June was feeling bashful and intended to tease her about it.
“No, truly,” she said. “That’s quite good. Have you had training?”
June shot Eleanor a sardonic look. The older woman gave her an innocent look back.
“I sang in choir as a child, but I’m afraid I wasn’t that good of a team player. I didn’t ‘blend’ right, according to our director.”
“That must have been because you’re so talented,” Eleanor responded at once.
June blushed more, but she didn’t really mind. There was something to be said for friends who teased you by building you up and never by tearing you down. It made June feel very open to being the so-called butt of the joke, since it actually made her feel pretty good about herself.
“Have you ever considered doing something with it?” Eleanor prodded. “Like… Oh, I don’t know, joining a group for adults?”
June shrugged. “Before Keith died, I took lessons, but I’ve been busy ever since.
” She kept her voice quiet. She didn’t shy away from talking about her late husband with her son, since she wanted Benjamin to know that he was free to express his sadness about losing his father, about not being able to clearly remember the father he’d lost. She had spoken to a grief counselor after losing her husband, and the counselor had advised making conversation about Keith commonplace rather than taboo, as this would model for Benjamin that it was perfectly normal to have lingering pain over the untimely death.
Even with that in mind, June tried to be careful about how she spoke about her time as a single mom compared to that when she’d had her husband with her. Especially with Benjamin getting older, she didn’t want him to overhear something that made him feel like he was a burden.
Being a single mom was hard, but she would never, ever call her son a burden.
“Well, I know time is still tight these days… I remember what it was like having a little kid, and I had my husband around, even if he wasn’t that active in the day-to-day parenting.
But don’t treat the dream like it’s totally dead, huh?
I mean, I never pictured myself opening a bookstore, and look at me now! ”
“Okay, okay, Susie Sunshine,” June teased. “Tell me all about your amazing life.”
“Oh, I would,” Eleanor said with a joking gush, “but I’m actually off to go meet with my gentleman caller again. I actually just stopped by to get some pickup because we got carried away working on a project and totally forgot dinner.”
“Whoops, you mean you actually came here so I can do my job?” June joked back. “Let me go back to the kitchen and see if they’re almost ready for you.”
“Thanks, sweetie,” Eleanor said.
June hurried through the rest of her evening, finishing up at the diner before hurrying home to get Benjamin bathed and in bed. All the while though, she couldn’t stop thinking about how good it had felt to really sing again.