Lately, as if sensing her dissatisfaction with the situation, Hub had taken to regularly remarking that not all of God’s children were called to marriage, implying that she had been called to follow in the footsteps of her maiden aunts. He even quoted Paul on the subject, choosing selected verses from I Corinthians 7. Kaylie had heard them so often that she could recite them from memory.
Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried…. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit…
But hadn’t Paul also said that every man should have his own wife and every wife her own husband, that man should leave his parents and cleave unto his wife?
Kaylie shook her head. She knew that Scripture did not contradict itself, that it only appeared to when certain verses were taken out of context, but that did not help her determine what God intended for her specifically. She had dated little, too caught up in school and the demands of her family, faith and career to pay much attention to anything else, but she’d always assumed that one day she would marry and have children. Then two years ago, her mother had died at the age of fifty-six after a brief bout with cancer, and six months ago her twice-widowed father had suffered a massive heart attack. Kaylie’s father and three older brothers had all assumed that Kaylie would drop everything and take over Hubner’s care. So she had.
Now, she feared that had been a mistake for both her and her father. Perhaps God’s answer to that dilemma occupied the half tester bed upstairs. Unless presented very carefully, however, her father would see this job as her abandoning him. She did not wish to deceive or disrespect him, of course. He was her father, after all. She certainly did not want to go against his express wishes, but if God willed that she take this job, then she must. The question was, what did God will in this matter?
Kaylie heard the clink of a silver spoon stirring tea in a china cup. The aunties would be in the front parlor, taking tea after their lunch. The aunties “ate simple” on Sundays, so that the staff could have the day off, just as God commanded, but that did not keep them from indulging in their one great mutual joy: a hot cup of tea. Their parents, Hubner, Sr. and Augusta Ebenezer Chatam, had spent their honeymoon of several months duration in England back in 1932, returning as staunch Anglophiles, with a shipload of antiques and a mutual devotion to tea. They had passed on that passion to their eldest daughters.
Just the thought of her aunts made Kaylie smile. They were darlings, all three of them, each in her own inimitable fashion.
Kaylie turned and walked across the golden marble floor of the foyer toward the front parlor. The aunts called out an effusive welcome as she entered the room.
Though chock-full of antiques, Tiffany lamps, valuable bric-a-brac and large, beautiful flower arrangements, the parlor was a spacious chamber with a large, ornately plastered fireplace set against a wall of large, framed mirrors, including one over the mantel that faced the foyer door. The aunts sat gathered around a low, oblong piecrust table, its intricate doilies hidden beneath an elaborate tray covered with Limoges china. Odelia and Magnolia sat side by side on the Chesterfield settee that Grandmother Augusta had brought back from her honeymoon trip, while Hypatia occupied one of a pair of high-backed Victorian armchairs upholstered in butter-yellow silk.
Though triplets, they were anything but identical personality-wise. Hypatia had been the reigning belle of Buffalo Creek society in her day, as elegant and regal as royalty. It was largely thanks to her that Chatam House had endured into the twenty-first century and adapted to the modern era with its dignity and graceful ambience intact. That she had never married, or even apparently come close to doing so, puzzled all five of her siblings, including her unmarried sisters.
Magnolia, on the other hand, had never evinced the slightest interest in romance, at least according to Kaylie’s father Hub, Jr., their older brother. Mags had a passion for growing things and spent hours daily in her cavernous greenhouse out back. A tomboy as a girl, she still had little patience with the feminine frills that so entranced her sister Odelia.
Secretly, Kaylie was most fond of Odelia, who was affectionately known by the vast coterie of Chatam nieces and nephews as Auntie Od. With her silly outfits and outlandish jewelry, she always provided a chuckle, but it was her sweet, softhearted, optimistic, almost dreamy approach to life that made her the epitome of Christian love in Kaylie’s mind. Odelia also seemed to be the only one of the sisters who had ever come close to marriage.
“Kaylie, dear, how is the patient?” Hypatia wanted to know as soon as Kaylie sank down upon the chair opposite her.
“Handsome, isn’t he?” Odelia piped up. She’d still wore her Sunday best, a white shirtwaist dotted with pink polka dots. The dots easily measured two inches in diameter, as did the faceted, bright pink balls clipped to her earlobes. Her lipstick mimicked the pink of her dress, creating a somewhat startling display against the backdrop of her pale, plump face and stark white, softly curling hair. Like her sisters and the majority of the Chatams, including Kaylie herself, she had the cleft in her chin.
Kaylie chose to answer Hypatia’s question rather than Odelia’s. “He’s resting now and should do so until dinner. I’ve told Mr. Doolin that he’ll have to bring in something for his dinner. Please thank Hilda for the breakfast tray.”
“Of course, dear,” Odelia crooned. “You know that our Hilda is ever ready to perform charitable acts. Poor man.”
“You don’t have anything else to tell us?” Magnolia asked, eyes narrowing. As usual, Mags wore a dark, nondescript shirtwaist dress, her long, steel-gray braid curving against one shoulder. On any day but Sunday, she might well be shod in rubber boots. Instead, in deference to the Sabbath, she wore penny loafers.
Kaylie knew that she was asking if Kaylie would come to their rescue by agreeing to provide nursing care for their unfortunate guest, but Kaylie was not yet prepared to commit to that. She could not make any promises until she had prayed the matter through and discussed it with her father. The aunts had to understand that.
“It wouldn’t hurt if you checked in on him from time to time this evening,” Kaylie said softly, answering Magnolia’s question as deftly she was able.
“I’ll be glad to look in on the poor boy,” Odelia said brightly.
Hypatia, however, was not so sanguine. She even displayed a little annoyance. “Of course we’ll look in on him, but that young man requires nursing care.”
“He does,” Kaylie admitted, then she took pity on them, adding, “I’ve promised an answer by tomorrow morning.”
Hypatia dipped her chin. Slimmer than her sisters and still clad in the handsome gray silk suit that she’d worn to services that morning, her silver hair coiled into a smooth figure eight at the nape of her neck and pearls glowing softly at her throat, she might have been bestowing favors—or demerits—at court. Kaylie had to bite her tongue to keep from proclaiming that she would take on Stephen Gallow’s care at once, but she knew too well what her father’s reaction to that would be.
“I suppose we’ll see you in the morning, then,” Hypatia said primly.
“As soon as Dad sits down to his breakfast,” Kaylie confirmed with a nod.
“Your father used to make his own breakfast,” Magnolia pointed out with a sniff.
“Yes, I know.” Her father used to do a lot of things that he seemed determined no longer to do. “Now I must get home.” She rose and moved toward the door.
“Thank you for coming by, dear!” Odelia chirped. “Tell