“Should those children be eating that?” Charles asked.
’Ring looked at the three toddlers in the corner, two of them Kane Taggert’s kids, one of them the pig farmer’s. “A little dirt never hurt any kid as far as I can tell, but Hank,” he said to his twelve-year-old nephew, “see what those kids are eating.”
Hank grimaced at having to leave the side of his cousins, eighteen-year-old Zachary and the nearly-adult twenty-one-year-old Ian Taggert. Hank was at the age where he wasn’t quite adult and wasn’t quite a child. Dutifully, Hank took three bugs from the hands of the toddlers, and all three kids started wailing.
“Take them outside,” ’Ring said, making Hank groan.
“What are you two laughin’ at?” Kane said to his son Zachary and his cousin, Ian. “Get outside and take care of them kids.”
The boys stopped laughing at Hank, and each picked up a child and went outside.
“Now what were you saying?” ’Ring asked Charles.
“The house should be ready in a few months, but—” He broke off at a loud guffaw of laughter from Kane and Rafe Taggert and John Tyler, who were standing together by the foot of the stairs.
“Johnny, honey,” Terel said from a corner of the room where she sat lounging on an easy chair, “I believe I’m thirsty. Do fetch me a glass of lemonade.”
Charles watched as John Tyler and three of his dirty kids tripped over themselves to go to the kitchen to get Terel whatever she wanted. Terel’s marrying a penniless pig farmer had bewildered Charles until he saw them together. The poor, illiterate Tyler family felt honored and privileged to have Terel in their family and treated her as though she were royalty. She lounged about, eating what they cooked for her, wearing what their work paid for, and now and then bestowing a radiant smile upon one of them. It seemed to be enough to satisfy all of them. John and the kids didn’t seem to mind that they wore torn, worn-out clothing while Terel dressed exclusively in silk. Charles had seen Terel reward a child by letting him touch her skirt. It didn’t make sense to him, but the Tyler family seemed to be quite happy.
Charles gave ’Ring a bit of a smile as if to indicate that further talk was impossible.
“How’s that?” Jace called to his father when he’d finished another song.
“Still a little flat on the fourth bar, but better,” ’Ring said. He looked at his wife, his eyes, as always, full of love. “You, my dear, were perfection.”
Maddie blew him a kiss, then put her music down on the piano. “I believe my grandchild is crying,” she said to her tall, handsome son, nodding to the crib that held two babies, each only a few months old.
“That one’s mine,” Kane said, and he scooped up a baby and expertly nestled it on his shoulder.
“I think the one you took is mine,” Jace said as he picked up the other child, who had also started yelling.
Kane pulled the child from his shoulder and looked down the front of its diaper. His third child was a girl, and this one was a boy. He and Jace exchanged kids.
Maddie laughed, told Pam thanks for playing the piano, and went into the kitchen. Nellie, Houston, and a young girl, Tildy, were up to their elbows in flour and turkey dressing.
“Want to help?” Houston asked, smiling at her husband’s cousin’s wife.
“Absolutely not,” Maddie said, giving a delicate shudder. Maddie had cultivated the image of prima donna for so long that one could almost believe that she’d never seen the inside of a kitchen.
Nellie, looking radiant and as happy as she was, said, “Then you must sing for your supper.”
Maddie laughed. It hadn’t taken her but minutes to fall in love with her daughter-in-law. “All right. What shall it be? ‘Silent Night’? Or something less seasonal?” She took a cookie from a basket and ate it.
Nellie and Houston looked at each other w
ith liquid eyes. A woman with one of the greatest voices of all time was offering to sing just for them, anything they wanted.
Houston took a deep breath. “Lakmé’s Bell Song,’ ” she whispered, knowing that Delibes’s beautiful aria would best show off Maddie’s exquisite voice.
Maddie smiled at Houston, then softly said, “Jocelyn, I need you.”
Jace put his head into the kitchen, his eyebrows lifted in question to his mother.
“Houston and your wife would like to hear the ‘Bell Song.’ ”
Jace smiled. “Good choice.” He looked at his mother. “Where is it?”
“In my bag.”