Page 52 of Broken SEAL'S Secret Baby
Me: Yeah…guess we did.
Grace: Ok. Sure. I’ll come help – especially if there’s a paycheck.
Me: There is. I already talked it over with Charles. He thinks it’s a good idea.
She accepts. And just like that we go from being a household of three to being a household of four. l look forward to seeing Grace, but I mourn the loss of privacy. It is getting harder and harder to see Charles by himself. “Oh, I never see…” I sing softly to myself.
But I will never forgive myself if something happened to Cece.
Chapter twenty-one
Charles
I hate the loss of the warm intimacy of our little household, but the reality is that our arrangement isn’t fair to Kate or to Cece.
My daughter is precocious. I won’t say she lacks common sense, but she doesn’t have the experience or self-restraint to keep out of trouble. I know that Kate loves her and will do everything she can to keep her from harm. But an almost five-year-old with a lively imagination can come up with more than ten kinds of mischief in as many minutes.
Fortunately, Grace is both fun and competent. She and Kate take turns teaching Cece and have some sort of method for splitting up the housework. Their arrangements are functional, so I don’t ask.
Besides, it has side benefits. Finding moments for intimacy or even just holding hands had been difficult with Cece always around. With Grace available to pinch-hit for Kate, I can sneak my Household Manager out of the house for a little, er, personal business. All I have to do is come up with a face-saving excuse so we can have time alone.
September is upon us, and the local farmer’s market — now set up in the parking lot of the newly christened Spindizzy Municipal Center. James has been spot-on when he says that I’d put too much “me” in my ideas for the little town, and not nearly enough “them” and “they.” The citizens of the town show almost comical relief when the old market building is not called “The Emory Center,” or “Agri-oil.”
“Are we going to stop at the market?” Kate asks, as we drive toward it.
“Maybe later. Right now, I have something I want to show you. It was your brother’s idea. At first, I thought he was completely out of his gourd, but now…it’s kind of growing on me. I know you aren’t happy with the current house, so I wanted to show you this project.”
“It was James’ idea?” Kate lets suspicion tinge her voice.
“Yes, indeed. It seems he’s been wanting to do this for a long while. When several of the wheat fields failed, I bought the crops thinking we could at least salvage the straw. Just wait till you see this!” I glance over at Kate hopefully. I’d dispensed with having a driver for the day, on the chance that I might have Kate to myself.
As we draw near the construction site, I can see that a lot of progress has been made. Kate just stares at it, round-eyed. “What is this place?”
“It’s an experimental building site,” I explain. “Did James ever talk to you about the New Alchemists?”
Kate sighs. “James can talk some real nonsense sometimes. Weren’t they, like, a hippy colony on the east coast?”
“To hear him tell it, not exactly. They were a group of scientists, college students, and volunteers who were trying to work out more sustainable buildings. They still exist. They now call themselves ‘Green Way’, and they are still working toward what they call bio-shelters.”
“I think I remember something about that,” Kate says. “Dad put the ki-bosh on what he called new age nonsense. But James talked you into trying it?”
I sigh. This could be a mistake, but I make an attempt at justifying it. “Well, look at it this way, Kate. I bought up a lot of acres of wheat straw that isn’t good for much. The wheat kernels are destroyed, and there’s only a small market for animal bedding. James had this idea, and I thought maybe, just maybe, it might work.”
“All right,” she says. “Let’s go take a look at it.”
We get out of the car and begin a walking tour.
The first thing we come to is a work gang that is mixing what looks like mud. Square tarps are spread out, ten feet apart — gotta keep up the social distancing — and each tarp has a person stomping around on the tarp.
An oldster sits on a rickety folding chair pumping away at an accordion. Apparently a call and response song is in progress to the tune of “Over the hills and far away.” The melody is catchy, and Kate starts humming under her breath.
The oldster calls out a line, and the people stomping around on the tarps call back. Later, I got a copy of the words. They went like this:
“One part straw
Four parts sand,
One part clay,
