“You think that’ll stop her?” Celia asked with a laugh.
“No, you’re right,” Theresa agreed. “Probably not.”
“Play!” Maizie ordered, doing her best to keep a straight face.
“Stevi?” Steve called up the stairs to his ten-going-on-eleven-year-old daughter, as she was apt to remind him any number of times in a week. “Get a move on. You don’t want to be late for class and I don’t want to be late to work.”
The petite, dark-haired girl frowned as she came down. “Dad, I told you to call me Stephanie,” she stated, stepping into the living room. “And I also told you that I’m perfectly able to walk to school. You don’t have to risk being late to work just to take me there.”
They’d been over this ground a dozen times in the last six weeks, ever since Stevi had decided that she had outgrown practically everything. Next, she’d decide that she’d outgrown him.
“Maybe I like taking you to school,” Steve told his daughter. “Did you ever think of that?”
A tired, sympathetic look passed over her face. “Dad, I’m growing up,” she said wearily. “You’re going to have to get used to that.”
She hardly looked any older than she had six months ago, or even a year ago, but he knew she was. It was inevitable, just as she maintained.
But he didn’t have to like it.
Stifling a sigh, Steve put a hand on her shoulder and hustled his only child out the door. “Don’t be in such an all-fired hurry to grow up, Stephanie. Enjoy being a kid a little while longer.” He closed the door and locked it. “Trust me, it goes by fast.”
“I’ve been a kid, Dad,” Stephanie pointed out, sounding a great deal older than her actual years. She got into the car on the passenger side and buckled up. “And it’s not going by nearly fast enough. At least, it isn’t for me.”
Steve started up the car. He knew he was losing this argument.
“Well, it is for me,” he told her. “Anyway, I wanted to let you know that we’re going to be getting another housekeeper. I talked to Mrs. Parnell and she called back this morning to tell me that she has the perfect match for us. She’s going to be bringing her by this afternoon, right after I drive you home from school.”
Steve stifled another sigh, knowing that his next words were going to be useless, but he said them anyway. “I want you to be on your best behavior, Stephanie. That means that I don’t want you to do anything to scare this one away, understand?”
“I didn’t do anything to scare Mrs. Pritchett away,” Stevi protested. “She left us because she was going to be a grandma.”
“She left because she had already become a grandmother,” Steve corrected, wanting Stevi to get the details right.
She maintained a bored expression on her face. “What’s the difference?”
He made it through the next light just before it turned red. He didn’t think the topic was worth getting into now. “I’ll explain it later.”
Stevi sighed, sinking lower in her seat and crossing her arms indignantly. “That’s what you always say when you don’t want to explain something.”
He decided that the best thing for now was to ignore his daughter’s rather salient point. “Mrs. Parnell is bringing the new housekeeper by this afternoon—”
“You already said that,” Stevi pointed out impatiently.
“And I’m saying it again,” he told her. “I’ve rearranged my schedule so that I can pick you up from school and then we will meet this new housekeeper together.”
Stevi raised her small chin, a bantam rooster just itching for a fight. “What if I don’t like this one? What if she’s like Mrs. Applegate? Or Mrs. Kelly?”
“Please like this one,” he implored. He was torn between begging and telling his daughter that she was going to like the new housekeeper or else. He resigned himself to trying to reason with Stevi—again. “And for your information, there was nothing wrong with Mrs. Applegate or Mrs. Kelly.”
Stevi sniffed. “They were both jumpy and nervous.”
Caught at another red light, he spared his daughter a penetrating glance. “And who made them that way?”
The expression on his daughter’s face was nothing short of angelic as she replied, “I don’t know.”
Right. “I’ve got a feeling that you do. And never mind them, anyway,” he said dismissively. “We’ve got a chance for a fresh start here, so let’s both try to make a go of it.” When his daughter made no response, he added, “Please, Stevi? For me?”
“It’s Stephanie,” she stressed pointedly.
“Please, whoever you are,” he said through almost clenched teeth, as he pulled up at the school where Stevi was taking summer school classes, “do it for me.”
Stevi released a sigh that seemed twice as large as she was. Getting out of the car, she nodded. “Okay, Dad, if it means that much to you, I’ll try.”
“Do more than try,” Steve called after her. “Do.”
It was half an order, half a plea, both parts addressed to his daughter’s back as she walked away, heading toward the building.
He hoped that this new housekeeper Mrs. Parnell had found came with an infinite supply of patience. Otherwise, he thought glumly as he pulled away, he was going to have to start looking into boarding schools in earnest.
* * *
Moving his lunch hour so that he was able to pick Stevi up from summer school, Steve arrived at the school yard to find that most of the cars that had been there earlier were now gone. It was a sure sign that everyone had already picked up their child and gone home. Steve really hated being late, hated the message it sent his daughter: that she was an afterthought, even though that was in no way true.
She was the center of his universe, but he seemed to have lost the ability to get that across to her.
Scanning the immediate area, he saw Stevi standing at the curb, a resigned, somewhat forlorn look on her face.
“I could have walked home,” she told him by way of a greeting when he pulled up beside her. “You didn’t have to come running back for me.”
Leaning over, he opened the door for her, then waited for her to get in. “I didn’t run. I drove.”
Stevi glared at him in a way that told him he knew what she meant.
There were times when it was really difficult to remember that she was only ten years old. It seemed more like she was ten going on thirty—and he didn’t know how to handle either one of those stages.
Not for the first time, he wondered why kids didn’t come with instruction manuals.
“Anyway, you forget,” he told her, pulling away from the curb, “I had to bring you home so that we could meet the new housekeeper.”
“Housekeeper,” she repeated in a mocking tone. “You know that you’re really getting her so you have someone to watch over me,” she accused.
“In part,” Steve allowed, unwilling to lie to his daughter. He had always been honest with Stevi, and until a little while ago, that had been enough. It was the reason they had a bond. But these days, it seemed as if nothing was working, and he felt, rightly or wrongly, that it was his fault.
“I don’t