well, I’m not like the other ladies who sit on boards and volunteer. I don’t belong.”
“Don’t belong?” Rita Sue set one hand on an ample hip. “Sugar, if you want to belong, you have to join.”
Leah’s mouth drifted open. She’d never thought of it that way.
Rita Sue retied the pale green ribbon at the end of one of Sally’s braids. “Some groups you’re born into, some you’re invited into, and some you have to worm your way in. You just received an invitation.”
“I—I did.”
“Yes, you did. I don’t want to hear any more talk about not belonging, you hear?”
“I hear.” Leah smiled at her daughter, asleep on her back in her ruffled white bonnet, her arms stretched out as if fencing. “I do enjoy reading to the little children and helping the older ones with homework. And Helen’s so good, I could bring her. Maybe in a few weeks. Yes, definitely.”
“That’s the way.”
“I wish I could do more. They really are having financial woes, but Miss King can’t ask for more donations without insulting the current donors. They think no one will help because the children are”—Leah swallowed a hot, hard lump—“a drain on society.”
One of Rita Sue’s eyebrows rose to the rim of her hat, challenging Leah. “Do you agree?”
Memories dragged on her heart . . . “Scram, you hooligans” . . . “dirty orphans” . . . “unwanted.”
But Mikey and Marty and the other children at the home were sweet and silly, same as Joey and Luella and Sally and Helen. They had great worth, and something hardened in Leah’s neck. “No child is a drain on society. Orphans can’t help it if they don’t belong . . . Rita Sue, you’re brilliant!”
“Hear that, girls?” Rita Sue tugged on Sally’s braid. “I’m brilliant.”
Luella and Sally giggled.
Rita Sue laughed. “Don’t you sass me, young ladies. Round up your father and brother and Mrs. Paxton.”
The girls scampered off.
The idea took shape in Leah’s mind. “You are—you’re brilliant. ‘If you want to belong, you have to join.’ The orphans don’t belong in town. They’re someone else’s unwanted children. So they have to join the community—by contributing. If they can be seen as assets . . .”
Rita Sue’s hazel eyes glimmered in the spring sunshine. “No, you’re the brilliant one. Keep going. What are you thinking?”
“Something for the war effort. Maybe they could collect scrap, plant victory gardens, sell war bonds.”
“I like it. Let’s talk tomorrow morning.”
Luella and Sally finished herding, and the Bellamy and Paxton clans walked up Washington.
Mrs. Paxton fell in beside Leah. “I like that Mrs. Sheridan. She hopes you can volunteer at the library again.”
Leah’s heart strained in that direction. But even good babies couldn’t spend an entire morning in a library, and Rita Sue was busy with her own home and volunteer duties. “Maybe I could find another mother to trade babysitting with.”
“That’s the spirit.” Mrs. Paxton stroked her corsage. “I’ve always loved Mother’s Day.”
“This is the first one I’ve enjoyed.” And she’d enjoyed it twofold—for being a mother and for having one. Mrs. Paxton had become dear to her over the past three weeks.
“Ah, mija.” Mrs. Paxton squeezed Leah’s arm. “Do you remember your mother?”
“A bit. I was four when my parents died. I remember they read to me and sang to me, and we spoke English and Greek. And I remember they loved the three of us girls so much.”
“You have sisters? I didn’t know that. Where do they live?”
“I don’t know. They were babies. Twins. The Jones family adopted me, but not them. Then they left me in Des Moines. All my life I’ve wanted to find my sisters. I just found out we came from Chicago, but I can’t do anything with that information.”
“Why not?”
Helen moved her arms, dragging the blanket up over her face. She fussed, and Leah tucked the blanket down. “You sound like Clay. He keeps telling me to go to Chicago.”
“Then go.”
Leah laughed. “Diapers to wash, nursing, baby baths—I can’t imagine traveling with a baby, staying at a hotel. Not to mention the expense. Besides, there must be dozens of orphanages in the Chicago area. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“That would be difficult.” Mrs. Paxton squinted one eye in the way she did when she was thinking.
Did Clay do that too? Leah couldn’t remember. It’d been so long since she’d seen him, and her heart folded in.
Back at the Bellamy property, Leah returned to her little house with her mother-in-law.
Mrs. Paxton pulled on the apron Leah had made