September 22, 2010
Family (Archer).
Naomi Whateley Archer settled down onto the sofa, stroking the cover of the book softly. Sometimes, a body just needed a break from grading all those silly essays, and she needed to remember why she taught literature in the first place.
She’d just settled back and cracked the cover when the door creaked open. “Mom?”
Naomi stifled a sigh and looked up as Roland shuffled in. Quick dark eyes took in the book and the steaming mug of special cocoa sitting by her elbow. “Sorry,” he said, backing out of the room.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Roland. Come here.” Naomi patted the cushion next to her.
Roland’s mouth jerked, but he obeyed, sitting down at the other end of the sofa and leaning forward so his neck didn’t brush the sofa back. Naomi took the opportunity to give him a once-over.
Only twenty-four, and already he’s getting stress lines. She pursed her lips. And he’s too skinny.
Roland was staring at her out of the corner of his eye, in that slantwise Whateley look he’d picked up from his grandpa. One corner of his mouth quirked up. “Done with the examination?” he teased.
“A mother’s work is never done,” Naomi replied, primly folding her hands over her book. “What’s bothering you, Roland?”
He exhaled explosively, and if his voice had been more directed, it would have been a snarl. “Nothing.” He clasped his hands together, and began picking at his gloves.
And Naomi, who was not his mother for nothing, knew exactly what was wrong. She laid her book carefully on the table next to her mug, wrapped one arm around her second child’s thin shoulders, and yanked him over sideways.
Roland yelped and instinctively struggled, but her bare hand on his face stilled him. “Kick your shoes off, Roland,” she said in that no-nonsense tone only mothers use, and he did, dangling his feet off the far end of the sofa.
Naomi aimlessly hummed a half-remembered lullaby and curled up around her boy, her quick dark child, the only one of her three children to inherit her own dark hair and her own slight frame and the Whateley eyes. She gently ran her hand through his hair, and over his cheek, and rubbed the back of his neck until he finally relaxed and fell asleep.
He didn’t snore, either, she thought. Truly a rarity in this house.
Michael poked his head in an hour or so later, back from the town hall. He raised an eyebrow at the sight of his son curled up in his mother’s lap, which turned into a soft grin at Naomi’s arch look.
“You can make yourself useful, man, and refill my mug,” she ordered softly, proffering the object in question. Roland fussed – exactly like he did as a baby, Mike thought, grinning wider – and stilled when Naomi raked her hand through his hair.
He took the mug. “Everything ok?” he whispered.
His wife nodded. “Just tired,” she said, nodding to Roland. And lonely, went unsaid; they had all come to recognize the peculiar neediness Roland had, that he himself had never noticed. “And I didn’t get to my book,” Naomi added, almost plaintively, eyeing the cover as if this was all its fault, for not being conveniently sized to fit in one hand.
God, but Mike loved his wife. “I’ll be right back with this,” he said, laughter lacing his tone, and at his wife’s slantwise glare he added, “And then I’ll read to you.”
Naomi, mollified, nodded. “Quietly, then. And the brandy’s in the other cupboard.”
And as Mike opened the door, Naomi’s quick eyes spotted two tall, fair figures in the hall beyond, and nodded at them both. Alice detached herself from the ceiling and skittered upstairs, but Beowulf hesitated, and Naomi smiled at him and blew him a kiss with a wink, just like he always demanded as a boy. He nodded in return, then, and grinned – so much like his father, Naomi thought – and followed his sister upstairs.
Roland twitched again, one hand curling in front of his nose, and Naomi laughed her own soft laugh and rubbed her thumb over his forehead and waited for her chocolate.
A mother’s work is never done.
