Vital Signs. Bobby Hutchinson
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add him to my prayers, and when I’m at St. Joe’s, I’ll come up and visit him if you’re on.”
“That would be great. How’s Sam?” Hailey adored her step grandpa, who openly admitted he had trouble keeping up with his madcap wife. He was sixty-three, Ingrid seventy-two. They’d married five years before, to the utter horror of Sam’s grown family, who considered Ingrid totally unsuitable.
“He’s sound asleep. He just finished a catalog shoot for one of those hoity-toity men’s stores. He says it was exhausting holding his gut in for so long, so finally he’s joining my gym. I told him a long time ago he should. Lifting weights counteracts the force of gravity. It’s helped keep my boobs firm, what there is of them, and that’s a not-so-minor miracle.”
Hailey giggled. Sam and Ingrid were her favorite people. They were also one of the few married couples she knew who were deliriously happy and had fun together every single day. She also strongly suspected they had sex every single day.
“I wanna be you when I grow up, Gran.”
“Just be yourself, darlin’. You’re perfect just the way you are.”
It was a litany Ingrid had repeated to Hailey ever since she was a little girl. It had helped deflect Jean’s disappointment in a daughter who lacked the physical beauty and graces that Jean believed were essential to a woman’s success.
“So how’s about brunch tomorrow? Can you make it?”
“I’d love to.”
“Come over when you get up. I want to try this new recipe for soy muffins.”
“You sure you don’t want to go out somewhere? My treat.” Ingrid wasn’t the world’s best cook. In fact, she just might be the worlds worst. No one had died from her cooking yet, but sometimes Hailey thought it was a strong possibility.
“Nope. There’s way too much sugar and fat in restaurant food.”
There was, but it was also edible.
“Okay, Gran, I’ll be there about ten-thirty. Can I bring anything?” She added in a hopeful tone, “I can stop and get some of those cinnamon rolls from that little bakery on Fourth.”
“Nope, just bring your appetite. I’ll make everything. See you in the morning. Sleep well, honey.”
“You too, Gran.” Hailey hung up. Talking to Ingrid made her feel as though everything was right with the world, and the feeling persisted as she showered in her decrepit bathroom and climbed into bed.
Her last thought was always for the children in her care at work, and she sent up a prayer for each and every one before she slipped into sleep, adding a special PS for David.
THE FOLLOWING MORNING Hailey took one bite of Ingrid’s soy muffins and tried her best to swallow, but it was a challenge. It was truly awful. Across the breakfast table she saw Sam smoothly transferring his own mouthful into his napkin. He raised an eyebrow and crossed his eyes when Ingrid wasn’t looking, and Hailey had to stifle a giggle.
“Take another muffin and put some jam on it,” Ingrid suggested. “Maybe they need a bit of sweetening.”
Nothing was going to improve those babies, Hailey thought. “I’ll just have more of the fruit salad, thanks, Gran.” She loaded her bowl.
“So what’s going to happen to this little David, then? Will he go into foster care?” Ingrid took a bite of her own muffin, chewed doggedly for several moments, swallowed with difficulty, then went to the cupboard and found a box of crackers.
“Maybe I should have put the eggs in,” she mused. “I figured the muffins would turn out just as good without, but they’re a bit on the heavy side.” She offered the crackers to Sam and Hailey. “I cut down on the butter, too. That’s probably what did it.”
“So what did you leave in, sweetheart?” Sam kept a straight face, but his brown eyes were dancing. His thick, white hair shone, his strong, craggy features were tanned a golden brown, and if he had a paunch, it certainly wasn’t evident beneath his navy tracksuit. It was easy to see why he was so much in demand as a mature male model.
“The soy flour, of course. I told you, they’re soy muffins.”
Hailey and Sam burst into laughter. Ingrid was infamous for changing recipes, and her experiments were always disastrous, but she never gave up. The wonderful thing about her was that she could laugh at herself, as she was doing now.
When Hailey looked at her grandmother, she saw her own face as it would be when she was seventy-two, filled with laugh lines and character. Ingrid was a handsome woman, and Hailey had inherited her tall, lanky body, her square face, even her red hair. Ingrid’s was nearly all white now, and what was left of the red had turned rusty, but it still stood out around her head in an incongruous halo of springy, incorrigible curls. The only features Hailey had inherited from her mother’s side were what she called her canine eyes.
Ingrid’s were a deep green, while Hailey had Jean’s toffee color.
“So forget the muffins. I’ll get it right the next time. What about this latest patient of yours, that little David you told me about?”
Sam and Ingrid listened closely as Hailey told them everything she knew about him, which wasn’t much. “The Department of Social Services and the courts will decide what eventually happens to him,” she explained. “He’ll probably go into foster care as soon as he’s released from St. Joe’s, unless some relative comes forward and offers to care for him.”
“And we all know that’s not very likely,” Ingrid said with a sigh. “There’s so many babies around that nobody seems to want I can’t see why they’re taking so long to find one for you, honey.”
Ingrid and Sam had eagerly offered to baby-sit their great-grandchild when Hailey finally became a mother. Like Hailey, Ingrid had had little opportunity to get to know Laura’s kids, and Hailey figured it probably had a lot to do with her mother. Jean was proprietary about Christopher and Samantha, and because she and Ingrid had never gotten along, it was a safe bet Jean would do her best to keep her beloved grandchildren out of the clutches of the person she’d long ago labeled her dipstick of a mother-in-law. It was easy to see why Frank and Jean got along so well, with vocabularies that contained labels like dipstick and whacko.
Although Sam had three grandchildren, there were problems in his family, too. His son and daughter had united in doing everything they could to keep him from marrying Ingrid, and they still hadn’t quite forgiven him for not bowing to their wishes.
He’d married his first wife in his early twenties. She died when he was fifty-five, and six months later he quit his job as an engineer and began a new career as a model, something he’d always wanted to try. When he began dating Ingrid, his children were aghast; she was the total opposite of what their mother had been.
“I could have a child immediately if I agreed to take one with severe mental or physical handicaps,” Hailey said. “I’ve really considered it, but I see kids like that at work and I know how much time, energy and money it takes to deal with their special needs. I’ve thought it over carefully, and I just don’t think I could manage alone.”
Ingrid nodded. “I think you’re wise to give it a lot of thought. A child isn’t something you can return to the store for a refund if it doesn’t work out.”
Sam reached across and put his hand over Hailey’s, his brown eyes brimming with kindness and affection. “When the time is right, exactly the right little girl or boy will be there for you.”
“And the right guy, too,” Ingrid said in a decisive voice. “Just remember, they take long enough to show up sometimes. After your grandfather died, I never dreamed I’d meet anyone I wanted to live with again. I certainly didn’t go out looking, but Sam came along, anyway. You recall, Hailey, I wouldn’t even let him get to first base for the longest time.”
Sam