My Darling Love
Chapter 44 – The Lost Boys
"A mother is she who can take the place of all others."
-Cardinal Mermillod
George Darling lay on his bed safely under the blankets on his back. His eyes were wide open, but without his glasses all he saw was the blur that was his bedroom ceiling. His lovely queen, his wife Mary slept beside him, peaceful he imagined, for without his spectacles she was nothing but a clouded vision of rest as well. All was quiet in the house and the first specks of dawn could be seen peeking over the horizon. Instead of pitch black, it was now a grayish blue haze with the soft pelting of raindrops hitting the window. "Time to get up." George said to himself and so he leaned over and grabbed his glasses, putting them square on his face. Funny, but with them on he felt a tad bit drowsy, so he nestled back into his fluffy pillow and closed his eyes. Had he checked Mary's peculiar facial expression as she slept, the sneers and jeers, he would have been prepared for her incoming attack and not kicked from the bed.
That is exactly what happened next. Mary jerked up screaming something incomprehensible and kicked George clear out of the bed and onto the floor below. Her ranting contained words such as, "I'LL CASTRATE YOU – YOU RAT!" and "YOU ARE A FOUL LOATHSOME MISCREANT, I'LL GUT YOU WITH MY BARE HANDS." George hid by the side of the bed and waited for his wife to realize she was now in fact awake, and whatever she was talking about had happened in her dream world. She did, and when she did she called for George, just not in the tone he had wished for. "GEORGE DARLING! YOU WAIT TILL I GET MY HANDS ON YOU! I'LL KILL YOU! BASTARD! Where are you? DON'T HIDE FROM ME!"
George slowly raised his head up as well as his hand to warn her of his place and not shock her more. "I think you were having the worst nightmare imaginable, I hope, Mary dear," he spoke softly, hoping to alleviate her nasty expression of pure and utter hatred.
"George?" Mary spoke up, a little shocked herself to see his innocent face cowering by the blankets. She wanted to tell him in great detail everything that had transpired, but the bell of the front door interrupted her.
George went to their bedroom window and looked down to the stoup. Mary peered over his shoulder and directed, "Don't let him in, George, it's a trap." George turned his head to his wife with a befuddled face, offering, "Sweetheart, it was just a dream. We can't let them stand outside in the rain."
Mary dressed as quickly as George, and hurriedly explained, "Please, George, plenty of real things happen in dreams. It's a warning for us to be careful." She leaned in closely to him and whispered, "My dreams always give me messages, just like Jane's. He wants our money, and he wants to steal you away from me. Think of Jane George, please. He wants to make you evil, George, listen to me..."
George shook his head, not heeding his wife's advice, and headed down the stairs with Mary still in hot pursuit. The bell rang once more, and before George could reach the door his wife of many years tackled him to the ground, "Let him leave, if no one answers he will think we are not here."
The doorknob of the front door turned, but unlike every other time John came calling in his life, he found the door locked tight. The shadows of their eldest son and his two children leaving the porch and heading down the stairs was seen by both Mary and George from the floor of the foyer.
"George." Mary bolted up to her feet and pulled George to his as well. "Go get him, in my dream he came alone and rang the bell, banging the door and shouting and never even once tried the knob. He has our grandchildren with him George, go save them!"
George was really shaking his head now and literally knocked Mary back to the floor when he shoved her out of his way. He opened the door and quickly descended the stairs after John and the two children he now carried, for they were too tired to walk themselves. It was only drizzling when George lay in bed, but now it was a torrential downpour and Mr. Darling, John and his two little boys came into the house soaked right through to their skin.
John carried his eldest son Joseph, George carried John's second son, Edmund. "I thought you named your other child Frederick? Or was it just Fred?" Mary asked, as George handed her a little boy too exhausted to keep his eyes open, but awake enough to be shivering with chattering teeth. "No, I named him Edmund, Margaret's favorite," John replied.
They took the boys to the washroom where they were stripped of their wet clothes. Mary ran her grandsons a warm bath to help soak the chill out of their skin. John waited outside the door as Mary soaped them up and rinsed them off, trying as best she could to keep them awake as the water seemed to relax them both deeper into slumber. She examined every inch of their bodies checking for any indication of the foul behavior she had dreamt about. She found none, and wrapped each boy in a cozy soft bath towel, then dressing them each in one of George's pajamas. The garments were oversized for the small children, and Mary rolled up the sleeves and pant legs before tucking them into what had been Grandpa Joe's bed in the spare room.
"Don't worry, John, I changed the sheets that morning, and put new pillows and a fresh blanket on the bed."
John watched his mother talk without the slightest clue to what she could mean. "Where's Grandpa Joe, Mother?"
Mary stopped halfway down the stairs and looked up to her son. "He died, John." She continued down the stairs and into the kitchen, John walking slowly behind her hanging his head as he began to weep. "I'm sorry, Mother, I didn't know," he offered when George pulled out a chair for him.
"Living under a rock?" Mary asked, as she poured him a cup of tea. John gave no response and sat silently with his head in his hands still crying.
He was not a monster, and now more than ever in his aged appearance, he looked identical to George. His hairline was receding, although George was sure it was from pulling his own hair out in frustration rather than by nature. "What happened, John?" George spoke first and hushed Mary when she expressed her sarcastic disdain with; "What do you think happened George?"
"Margaret left me and the boys."
Mary shrugged her shoulders and took a spot next to George, "Obviously," in a voice that made George reprimand, "Mary Elizabeth Baker Darling, if you don't have anything helpful to say, hold you tongue."
Upset, she rose from the table and whispered in her husband's ear, "If he asks for money, don't you give him one cent or I'll kill you myself."
George nodded in agreement, although not appreciating her threat, and then turned his full attention to John, "Tell me what happened."
"She just left. I don't know what happened. She was not the problem, Father, I was. I loved to spend money. I bought her everything she ever wanted and loads of stuff she didn't, and at first she was happy, but then she told me all she wanted was my love. But I didn't listen. I did love her, just not the way she wanted. It got so I couldn't even be near her. I left her alone, all by herself. She had no one. To make matter worse, I cheated on her, Father." Of this George was already well aware.
"I got involved with this woman named Caroline, she is a widow with two small boys, the same age as my boys. She was just a better mother than Margaret was. I would take the boys out to play with her boys, that's how it began. I met her when she was working for Uncle Harry. We fell in love. I told Margaret I was going to divorce her and marry Caroline because she made me happier, and yesterday evening when I returned home from work, she was gone. She left both boys by themselves and took off. Thank God the maid was there, and the cook, because God only knows what would have happened. They are so little and innocent, fending for themselves without their mother all day."
George tilted his head curiously, "So you don't need money?"
John shook his head, "I will have to tighten my belt a little, well a lot. I have enormous debts because of my spending, but once I dismiss the staff, sell the house and the automobile, I should be left with only a few loans I can gradually pay off. The reason I came, Father, is because I need Mother's help with the boys. I had to work a full time job and then another part time to keep up with the bills. I don't know the first thing about children; we had a nanny that handled everything. Margaret fired her several times because of the way she treated Martine, and she was scared about John and Edmund for some silly reason. Caroline found out what was happening when Margaret confronted her. I never told Caroline I was still married. I lied and said I was a widower, and Caroline left me too. I hurt for my sons, they are always so sad. I don't think they will miss me -- they never saw me anyway. I don't think they have been loved very much in their lives so far. Margaret was afraid to handle them, or let anyone else handle them."
George nodded and offered, "Do you want me to look over your books?" John gave his first smile in a very long time. "Would you? I was afraid to ask. But if you did that would really help me." John took a nap on the sofa in the parlor as George checked over his son's figures. Unlike Mary's dream, which she described to George upstairs leaving out the part of him molesting his own children in their room after father and son made their peace, John kept perfectly well balanced books.
They were full of overdrafts and unexplained withdraws marked in John's pen as Louie's pocket. George assumed these were advances given by a loan shark known in the seedy parts of the city, corrected later by Harry who informed, "Louie is the name of the gentleman who runs the boarding house Caroline and her sons lived in, John was paying their rent."
John was just as good as his father when it came to keeping a ledger, and George could find not one cent out of place. All the negative balances leaving poor John completely in the red mystified George. He had absolutely nothing saved for hard times, or for anything else for that matter. Every penny he made was spent well before it even appeared in his pay from the bank. And George knew John and his two sons were much worse off than predicted. Even after selling his home, car and everything else he had of value, he would still owe a considerable amount to several banks throughout Europe.
"Maybe I should give him some money, to help him out," George pleaded to deaf ears and as his wife cooked a late breakfast for all her houseguests after recounting John's story in its entirety ending with, "He would not even allow Margaret to come by here to visit with the children, even though she begged him every single day since the moment they were born. Margaret told him you were the only one she would trust her children with."
Mary shook her head and replied, "I knew it, George. I knew it. Did I not tell you I saw her several times in the park when I was with Jane and tried to talk to her? She told me John strictly forbade her, not wanting to have anything to do with us. Did I not tell you that she made me swear that I would not tell John that I had seen her out and about because John made her stay in the house at all times? And when I told you, you said it was Margaret's way of blaming him. I told you she apologized over and over again for being so rude to me that day in the kitchen and you just scoffed, 'She thinks we are stupid, Mary, and you always forgive too easily'," Mary said, doing her finest impression of her husband. "And now she is out on the streets with Martine because of John and his adultery. Damn! I hope she still thinks enough of us to come here."
George listened to his wife fume, and backed up from her when she swore by the stove. She fell silent and he put his best foot for John forward, changing the subject back to his original intention of aid, "I have all of Michael's money, sitting in an account just collecting interest."
Mary glared at him with a frying pan in her hand, "We agreed that money was to be for Jane."
George conceded her point and then offered another, "What about the money your father left for us? There is plenty to divide between Wendy, Jane and John."
Mary again reminded him, "He left specific instructions that the money was to be left to Jane and no other. George, he didn't even know my father died. Now I understand he has money problems, but he has no one to blame but himself. I find it hard to believe that, living in the lap of luxury on easy street in the swanky section of town, he does not receive the paper. People living twenty towns over knew of my father's death. It was in the church bulletin, not to mention posted at Harry's pub. Your brother hosted his own refreshments and special gathering the night after the funeral. Remember? And you know John goes there all the time, for Caroline." The mention of the mistress' name was catty and unpleasant.
George leaned toward Mary, touching her arm, "John said that woman was unaware he was married, and as soon as she found out he was not a widower stuck with two sons to raise by himself, she left him. Harry said she is a nice, respectable woman whose husband had been a constable killed in the line of duty."
Mary turned to George and without a word of response, pecked his cheek and went back to what was she was doing. George backed up and began to slowly stroll from the kitchen hoping his wife would not catch on to the plan he had in his head to aid his son in his financial woes. He got all the way to the staircase and had made his way up the first few steps as Mary caught up to him on the bottom landing, "George," he turned back around and gave her his full attention, "Please don't betray my trust in you and do something behind my back. If he does not receive the punishment for his mistakes, he will never learn from them. He already knows how to throw money at problems and hope they go away." George nodded his head and walked back down towards Mary. "If he sells everything, he will have nothing, not even a home for his children."
"They can stay here with us for a short time, and only for a short time." George smiled, and Mary held up her finger, "On one condition," George continued to smile and offered his own hands to encourage her participation. "Well, rather two, the first is he should not divorce Margaret nor keep her from their children. She left him only because he warned of it. You know as well as I do that it was your son's mistreatment of her that led to her leaving. Some women are not as strong as others when put on the defensive. Like father like son, I think the saying goes."
George's grin faded to a very straight face and he commented, "And the second?" Mary looked past George to the top of the stairs where Jane was rounding about heading down. She tugged on George, still sleepy eyed, and demanded, "Up!"
George obliged and Mary gazed upon her beautiful daughter, so much like her real mother in childhood, "Jane, who is your father?" She was not quite awake yet, but she knew enough to clutch George tightly around his neck and kiss his cheek. "And who is your mother?" Jane leapt from George to Mary and repeated the same actions.
Mary kept hold of Jane and gave her silent command to George in her eyes. He knew what she meant and nodded as she turned and made her way with Jane into the kitchen.
Jane had breakfast with her parents and Uncle Harry who had stopped over to check in on his family without the knowledge of the other houseguests. John, still asleep in the parlor with an afghan covering him, was unaware he was the topic of conversation in the house. Jane listened to her parents recount what details they knew, and watched their facial expressions as they speculated on the ones they didn't.
"She must have suspected something was going on but she never said anything to me. In fact, I haven't actually spoken to her directly in, well, years. John would not let me even see Martine after they were married," Uncle Harry told them with his mouth full of pancakes. "He told me best that she thinks him her father."
"He was working all the time, and when he wasn't working he was spending the rest of the time with the other woman," George responded, too annoyed that it was his affair that left Mary muttering "I told you so," to eat.
"Well, if Peter is back in town and he has Margaret, it's only a matter of time before he comes calling here. Best if John stays elsewhere," George said, making his wife jerk her head towards him.
"Why would you think Peter has Margaret, and why would you think Peter is still in town? Have you heard from him George?"
George looked like a deer caught in headlights from the wide eyes he got looking about at his wife and brother. "No, I just assumed if Margaret left, where else would she go? And you said it yourself, Mary, in your dream she was with Peter." Mary tilted her head forward searching George's face for some sign the he hid something behind his spectacles. "I also said in my dream she took her two sons with her."
A visible light seemed to go off inside Harry's head and his suggestion broke the tension that descended over the kitchen, "He can stay with me! And Mary, and you could look after his boys. Jane would like a playmate, wouldn't you, darling?" Jane smiled from ear to ear, and was eager to meet the children of whom Uncle Harry spoke.
Jane now pulled on her mother's arm, asking Mary to introduce her to the little boys sleeping upstairs. Mary got up, but leaned down to George's ear and whispered, "That was a dream, and very bad one at that with not one bit of truth in it. If you have heard from or seen Peter, George, you are to tell me right now."
George was still and looked up to his wife, not at all appreciating her threatening tone, and just to be spiteful at a time when it was not needed he replied, "He is my brother, Mary, and I can see him whenever I want."
Mary now released Jane's hand (Jane had been doing her best to drag her mother to the stairs) and glared at her husband in absolute anger. Harry did his best to cool off the situation by remarking, "Gracious, George, with that tone of voice and look on your face, you could pass for our father." Mary, whose look could have killed a moment before, looked at Harry in shock.
George's expression also snapped to one of shock, and he quickly turning to his wife and took her hand, rubbing it lovingly, "No, Mary, I haven't seen or heard from Peter in years. I just thought because Margaret ... Never mind, you were right, she would not chase after him, more so she would run from him. Hopefully she will run here."
It soothed Mary enough, and so, with Jane, she was free to creep up the stairs softly, as George and Harry continued their conversation in the kitchen. They peeked in through the bedroom door and saw both boys awake hiding under the blankets. Mary tiptoed over to them, and gently peeled back the blankets. Both boys jumped from the bed and quickly hid underneath it and would not come out. "Alright, you can stay there if you like, but I will leave you a hot breakfast on the table over there in a moment. Then I will take Jane to the nursery and we will be reading stories and playing games. You are welcome to join us, if you like."
As good as her word, she brought them a full breakfast tray. She took Jane leaving both the door to their room as well as the nursery wide open.
"Why did they hide, Mother?" Jane asked as she dressed her favorite doll in a pretty pink dress.
"I'm not really sure, Jane. Perhaps they were frightened to awake in a bed that was not their own."
Jane thought a moment, and then replied, "I hate to wake up in a different bed. Although I never was scared if I did."
Jane had never slept in any bed that wasn't her own (that her mother was aware of) and her words made Mary laugh. Mary dressed her favorite doll in blue, and together with their imaginary friends, set up the table in the nursery for a grand tea party. Mary and Jane wore their white gloves and fancy hats and sipped the tiny teacups gossiping back and forth about how fabulous the ball that King George had given to honor the fair maiden Gwendolyn the night before. When they were done, Jane yawned, and Mary began reading her stories.
"Which one?" Mary asked, and Jane pointed. She picked several and brought them to the rug centered in the room. Together they sat wrapped in a blanket and Mary told the story three little bears and one blonde headed girl who entered into their house uninvited. "The bears should have eaten her up, that's what they should have done," Jane answered when Mary asked, "What do you think happened next?" after the story had ended.
Mary always asked Jane what came next in hopes of developing her imagination, just like she had with Wendy. "If something happens after the story is over mother, why don't they write it down."
Mary gave it some thought and then answered, "So you can decide how it should end in your own mind. What if you read a story that had an ending that your didn't like, but the story was well up until the part. Then you wouldn't like the story. This way you can end it yourself. Me, I always prefer happy endings. I think the three bears invited Goldilocks over for tea and she apologized for being so rude. After they forgave her, they invited her over every Saturday for porridge and a nap in baby bear's bed."
Jane giggled, "Oh, Mother..."
They began the next fairy tale about a little girl dressed in red, dispatched to her grandmother's house to deliver some baked goods. When they got to the part where the wolf in grandmother's clothing told the child he would eat her, two little boys gasped from the doorway and ran back to their room, again taking shelter under the bed. Mary raised her voice to shouting as she finished with how the valiant woodcutter and Grandmother saved the day by defeating the big bad wolf. "WHAT DO YOU THINK HAPPENED NEXT?" Mary said loudly, as Jane yelled her own reply, "THEY HAD THE CAKES AND TREATS LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD BROUGHT WITH HER, AND THEN THE GRANDMOTHER MADE TEA, AND MADE EVERYONE DANCED A JIG TO THE MUSIC HER PIANO PLAYED."
The smaller boy, Edmund, peeked back into the room and asked quietly, "Who was playing the piano?"
Mary looked to Jane who looked back to her mother, and shrugged her shoulders. "Well, dearest, it's your story." Jane looked up to the ceiling and squinted her eyes, as though the answer was just there, and she just had to see it. When she did she replied proudly, "They had invited Goldilocks over because she too had eaten all of the grandmother's porridge and had to apologize. For being so bad they made her play the piano."
The two little boys stayed in the doorway and would come no closer, even though Mary asked them to. Finally, after Hansel and Gretel, Jane got up and dragged them both by their arms in and under the blankets alongside Mary. "It's rude to linger in the hall and listen to other people talk. Didn't your mother ever teach you manners? My father always says when he catches me listening when I shouldn't be; this is an A and B conversation, so C your way out of it. Then he pats me on my fanny, but it doesn't hurt, so don't be scared. I don't want no one's fanny's getting patted, so come in and sit down, consider yourselves invited."
Mary read yet another story, this one was much longer about a poor young girl who lost her father and got stuck being a maid for her stepmother and two sisters. As she recited the tale, the two boys, her grandsons, sat leaning against one another wide eyed as if this was the first time in their lives anyone had ever read anything to them. Jane rested on the bed above her mother lying on her belly already bored with Cinderella, having heard it one hundred and ten times. Each page Mary turned the two boys moved further and further away from one another and closer and closer to her. By the time she was finished and asked what happened next, each boy was nestled alongside of her watching her face and not the book she held in front of her. She glanced to Joseph first and he suspected, "They had lots of babies and made that mean old stepmother the court jester." Then she turned her attention to Edmund who added, "And the two stepsisters, they opened a dress shop, but Cinderella never went there."
Jane scoffed at their ideas, giving her own which, in her mind, were by far the best. "Jane, that's a fine idea, and Joseph and Edmund's ideas were just as fine as well. Remember, there is no one right answer, it's what our imaginations tell each of us, and each of us is different."
The boys wanted her to read on, but Jane insisted they play with her dollhouse. "That's okay, we will just watch," Joseph replied when Jane smacked his hand when he touched a delicate little person who resided inside.
"Martine never let us plays with her toys either," Edmund added, tugging on Mary's apron. Up until the boys came in and snuggled up with her, she had all intentions of telling her husband that their own son should take the boys with him when he left for Harry's flat.
"John and the children can live in Harry's flat and Harry can move in with us, I don't want those boys here. Think of the effect those spoiled brats will have on Jane," she had planned to say. But looking down into those deep blue eyes changed her mind instantly. Jane, she saw, was the one who was getting spoiled, and those two little boys were the best thing that could have happened.
"No, toys in this room belong to all the children in this house, including both you boys. And those toys should be shared and enjoyed by all. Jane, let Joseph and Edmund play with the dollhouse as well. Maybe even, play a game they will find amusing. What games do you like to play?" She directed her questions at her grandsons, and they shrugged their shoulders. "We don't know any games."
Jane took a stiff stance to her mother's attitude and stormed from the room, "I AM NOT PLAYING WITH BOYS!"
Mary showed Joseph and Edmund, Uncle Michael's old train set and then took off after Jane who was crying on the top steps.
"Jane, dearest, you should not be selfish. I am not only speaking of toys, games and books, those little boys need lots of love, and we have plenty to share with them. Just like the cookies I make on Sundays. It's not fair if you ate all of them and didn't leave any for Father or Uncle Harry." Mary wiped the angry tears from Jane's face and embraced her.
"What happens if there isn't enough for everybody, then I'll get none because you will want to give to them 'cause you feel sorry for them?" Jane sobbed.
Mary smiled and held her hands on Jane's face, drawing her attention. "There is and will always be enough in this house to go around. If there comes a time when we are lacking, we will make more. Do you remember Grandpa Joe's favorite story from the bible Jane?"
Jane closed her eyes tightly, thinking really hard on it. "I can't remember," she conceded. "It was the story about how God made enough food to feed all those people who came to hear his son's sermon."
Now Jane recalled the exact chapter and verse, and repeated it to her mother word for word. "Jesus soon saw a great crowd of people climbing the hill, looking for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, "Philip, where can we buy bread to feed all these people?" He was testing Philip, for he already knew what he was going to do. Philip replied, "It would take a small fortune to feed them!" Then Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up. There's a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?" "Tell everyone to sit down," Jesus ordered. So all of them – the men alone numbered five thousand – sat down on the grassy slopes. Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and passed them out to the people. Afterward he did the same with the fish. And they all ate until they were full. "Now gather the leftovers," Jesus told his disciples, "so that nothing is wasted." There were only five barley loaves to start with, but twelve baskets were filled with the pieces of bread the people did not eat!"
Mary smiled and continued on with her own sermon of sorts, "You see Jane, we will make enough love for everyone in this house and no one will go without. There will be enough to fill our hearts and leave leftovers. You must remember, they not only need your father and me, they need you, too. You will have to teach them to play games and read stories and have fun. You will be their teacher, but a nice teacher like I am to you. Your father and I always make everyone welcome in our home, which is this lesson I am bestowing on you. When someone needs help, and you can give it, you should."
Jane was not fully convinced her mother was correct, but she would be. For now, she conceded and slowly walked back to the nursery. Alone, without Mary's supervision, she played in her dollhouse and cast angry glares to the newcomers. They tried to make the train go as Mary had showed them, but could not, so they gave up and sat on the edge of Jane's bed and watched her play. She moved from the dollhouse to the toy soldiers to the block set she got for Christmas, each time the boys asked if they could play with her, each time she shrieked, "NO, YOU WILL BREAK IT!" Soon, as she began coloring, they stopped asking and moved back to the doorway, and then to Grandpa Joe's room where they waited to be called for supper.
Jane was deep in her doodling when she heard giggling coming from down the hall. Worried there was fun to be had without her -- on a rainy day trapped inside -- she ran from her room. The laughter was coming from the downstairs and she ran down them so fast she almost fell when she reached the bottom. Round the stair post, to the kitchen, she found the two little boys with faces covered in sugar and flour and warm cookies straight from the oven in shapes of little hearts cooling on the rack by the window.
Joseph and Edmund each had a cookie cutter and were hacking away at the dough Mary had rolled, placing their creations on the pans, ready to bake. "They are not as good as yours, Mama, but we're trying." Mary smiled as she removed her oven mitts and sat down beside them hard at work, "All I ask is that you try. And just by trying your hardest, you will always learn something."
She caught sight of Jane standing before her and like she had been taught by her father, she politely asked, "May I have a cookie, Mother?"
Mary stuck out her lower lip and tilted her head, "I don't know, they are not my cookies to share. They are Joseph and Edmund's and you will have to ask them." Mary rose from the table and began sweeping the kitchen floor.
Jane slowly approached Joseph and extended her right hand, "I'm Jane Darling, pleased to meet you."
It was Edmund she was making acquaintances with and he shook her hand back with a vigorous pump, "I'm Edmund Darling and this is my brother Joseph Darling." Joseph reached across and shook Jane's hand as well.
"My pop-pop's name was Joseph too, wow!" Jane hopped up onto the seat Mary vacated. "All of us have the same last name, too!" Edmund reiterated and continued, "Do you want to help us? We are learning to make cookies but we're not good at it yet."
Jane looked at her mother who grinned and wrapped an apron around the little girl to keep the doughy mess off her pretty dress. "Could I? Oh, they are glorious cookies, even if they are misshaped, they still taste wonderful." Both boys nodded and Jane was assigned the job of icing. "Look, you got aprons too!" Jane noticed, as the merry bunch began giggling and carrying on.
"After this, we should go to the nursery and eat our cookies and play hide and go seek, but only if you want to. James says I can be bossy sometimes, I don't mean to be." Jane added happily. Mary, hearing that name in particular, turned on her heel and looked directly at Jane, she only returning an adoring grin to her mother.
The somber attitude of the Darling boys was instantly lifted and before Mary could give voice they joyfully replied, "We don't mind you being bossy. But we don't know that game. "
Jane was taken aback and asked, "What games do you know how to play? We'll do that instead. Maybe that will be best." As Jane spoke, she again turned to her mother, who nodded that was in fact the best resolution. Mary wanted to ask Jane of the "James" she had spoken of, but again, she was interrupted by the boys who shrugged their shoulders and answered, "none, no one ever played with us."
Mary looked on with her own adoring grin as Jane told them, "It doesn't matter, I know lots of stuff to do, and we'll have so much fun together and be best friends forever."
They ate their cookies together, and as a united force of adolescence rained down mayhem on the house that day. It was all in good fun and not one adult in the house minded all the bliss that took place around them. "I've never seen them this happy before," John told his mother as she cleaned the supper dishes. "They know you are a mother, that's why they love you so already."
Mary turned to John who for the first time in many years offered her an olive branch of a kiss on the cheek and a strong embrace that she broke first, also a premier event. "They told me that you are their mother, and they were quite cross with me for not letting them see you sooner."
"They think I am their mother? Where ever would they get that idea?"
"I'm not sure, they said you just felt like a mama to them."