of him, because he could end up losing her. Who he was wasn’t anywhere near close to who he wanted to be, and he could be that for a little bit anyway.
But that wasn’t honest. He didn’t have a whole lot of good qualities to his name, but honesty was thankfully one of them.
“Let’s pray,” he said, bowing his own head and not looking at Athena. “Lord God, thank you for the food. Please bless the hands that prepared it. Thank you for the children sitting here and for their father. Heal his heart, and give him grace and strength to raise these little ones for you. I ask in the name of Jesus, Amen.”
He didn’t lift his head right away, because he had to bite his tongue over asking God to send Pastor Gus a wife. That’s what he needed. The idea of trying to take care of all these kids by oneself, the idea of trying to navigate life alone... More than any man should have to do alone.
He realized part of his trouble when Shane had died, and he’d fallen in with the bottle, was that he’d been lonely.
He hadn’t even seen that until he almost prayed for Pastor Gus’s loneliness.
He shook his thoughts away and raised his head. The kids had started chattering among themselves as soon as he said “amen,” but Athena still looked at him.
He couldn’t read the look on her face. Couldn’t tell whether he’d done a good job, or not, or if she was even thinking about that.
He figured she wasn’t.
She wouldn’t care. Not about that.
He picked up the spoon in the mashed potatoes and put a small scoop on the plates he could reach, while she served peas and meat gravy to the plates she could.
They exchanged serving pots and finished serving the kids.
Maybe six kids wasn’t too many.
Not if he had the right woman at the other end of the table.
Two hours later, when their reinforcements had texted them and said that they’d gotten through the tractor but Ivory’s mom had some kind of pain in her stomach and needed to be taken to the emergency room, he’d actually texted back and said they were doing okay.
Because it was true.
He felt like what was happening around them was controlled chaos anyway.
It was wild and crazy and loud, but they were having fun.
He’d never played games with his family growing up, but Athena had all the children, plus him and herself, playing Blind Man’s Bluff.
Somehow the kids really liked it when he was blindfolded and they were hiding from him, so he was “it” a lot.
Which was good, because they were very still while they were hiding, and quiet even, since if they moved, Athena made them sit out until the next round.
The kids loved it, and begged to play long after he was ready for bedtime, which was about six o’clock.
At eight, Athena insisted on giving everyone a bath, and he couldn’t disagree with that. They needed it. They weren’t completely filthy, but it looked like it been several days since they’d seen any type of water on their bodies.
A couple of them really didn’t want to get in the water, and he was almost convinced that they really would melt if they touched it, but no one did, and they’d gotten their jammies on and he’d invented another game, which had been an accident, since he’d been sitting in the living room and - the living room, dining room and kitchen made a big circle - one of the kids had gone by. Preston happened to be holding a pillow from the couch as he sat on the edge of the recliner, and he’d smacked the kid’s butt with it.
Pretty soon all six kids were making a loop around the rooms and he was expected to smack each butt with a pillow every time.
The Smack Their Butt With a Pillow Game, which he creatively called it, lasted for a good half an hour.
“Okay guys, it’s nine-thirty. I’m pretty sure it’s bedtime,” Athena said, looking as tired as he felt.
“At least they should all sleep good tonight, with all that running around.”
“Actually, I think it works the opposite way. They’re so wound up, I don’t think they’re going to go to bed. Want to go see if you can dig up some books somewhere?”
“We have books,” one of the older boys said.
Preston couldn’t keep the name straight. Still.
He kinda thought maybe the older boys were goofing off with their names,