He said. She closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them, he was still looking at her with that same exhausted steadiness. "Mr. Callahan," she said, "I came here for a housekeeping position.
I want to be clear with you about that. "You've been clear," he said. ""I am not a nursemaid. I am not a substitute for—" "I'm not asking you to be."" ""Then what are you asking?"" He was quiet for a moment. He looked at the porch and something moved across his face. Not sentiment exactly, but something close to it.
The way a man looks at a problem he has no good solution to. "I'm asking you," he said finally, "to cook and clean and manage the house. The children." He stopped. ""They'll manage themselves."" Clara almost said something sharp. She bit it back because the boy on the porch, the oldest, the one with his arms crossed and his jaw set, had just flinched at his father's words.
Just slightly. Just enough that she caught it and wondered if his father had. She looked at Thomas Callahan and she looked at the porch and she looked at the enormous Texas sky overhead. And she made the least sensible decision of her life. "I will stay through the end of the week," she said.
"I will assess whether the position is workable. If it is, we will discuss terms. If it is not, you will arrange transportation back to Red Valley and we will consider the matter settled." Thomas Callahan studied her for a moment. Then he nodded once like a man accepting terms he hadn't expected.
"Fair enough," he said. He turned toward the porch. "Children," he said. ""This is Miss Bennett. She'll be staying for a time."" The oldest boy's jaw tightened. He said nothing.
The girl gave a small solemn nod. The 6-year-old said, ""Are you going to cook supper?"" "Luke," his father said. ""It's a fair question."" The boy said without any particular apology. Clara found herself fighting back something that was not quite a smile. "If there's something to cook with," she said, "then yes." "There's beans," Luke said.
"There's always beans." "Luke." Thomas Callahan's voice carried more exhaustion than authority. Clara picked up her carpet bag from where Thomas had set it by the porch steps. "Beans will do for tonight," she said, and she walked up the steps and into the house without waiting to be shown the way.
The kitchen was worse than she'd expected and better than she feared. The dishes were stacked but not washed. The floor had been swept at some point in the recent past. The stove needed blacking and the wood box was half empty. The pantry held beans, cornmeal, some dried beef, a jar of what appeared to be preserves that were probably last autumn's and three onions that were still good.
Clara stood in the kitchen doorway and took stock. Behind her, she heard footsteps on the stairs. Small ones. One set tentative, stopping at the bottom of the kitchen steps. She didn't turn around.