Sing for Their Supper - 28

Jolie was still giggling when she stepped into the girls' cabin. "Uh-oh. I think we have some work to do. There's hardly any room to move in here because of the beds. Guys? Help!"

Everyone pitched in and, sooner than Tuck expected, they had things set up properly in each cabin.

"You do realize there are only four of us in a four-bedroom cabin, with two beds in each room," Sam pointed out when they finished. "Are you planning on finding more of us?"

"Not right this moment," Tuck told him, "but who knows?"

By that time it was well after noon. Since the only edibles at the moment were what Tuck and Brent had bought for them the previous evening—bread, butter, peanut butter, cereal, milk, and lunch meats—Tuck called a pizza place a couple of miles away to order enough to feed seven hungry teens and four adults. Then, while the kids emptied the two coolers and the bags holding the food, and then unpacked, he took Roma aside to talk with her.

He wondered if she was a mind reader when she said, before he could even broach the subject, "You'd like it if I played den mother."

"More or less, yes. Not a disciplinarian. That's for me and Brent to do, if it becomes necessary. Just be there when they need to talk. This is all new to them, from sharing space to living in the country to everything they're going to be involved with as far as the show is concerned. I know it's new for you, too, but you've got more experience under your belt than they do."

"Not when it comes to dealing with kids," she said, sounding sad. "I never had that chance."

"Did you want to?"

She nodded. "I could have, too, if I hadn't…" She went quiet, staring across the lake.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked softly.

"No. Yes. No, but I should, so you know why I ended up homeless and living on the streets." She looked down at her hands, clenching and unclenching them. "I got married when I was eighteen, because I was four months pregnant. Oh, I loved the guy, but still…" She shook her head. "That is not the way to start a marriage. It wasn't until the day after the wedding that I found out what he was really like—now that I belonged to him, as he put it. We were going to live in his apartment. The place, the building, looked like a cheap motel. I knew that, of course. I'd spent a lot of time there with him." She smiled wryly. "I wouldn't have been pregnant if I hadn't."

Tuck took an educated guess. "He was abusive?"

"Yes. At first he was only controlling. I couldn't go anywhere unless it was with him. I had to have dinner on the table when he came home and keep the place spotless. That, I could handle. Then he began drinking. It was the typical story. A slap, once or twice. Being yelled at. It got worse the bigger I got." She ran her hand over her belly. "He started saying it was someone else's baby. The more I denied it, the worse it got. I was eight months along when he came home one night, staggering drunk. I knew what would happen, so I tried to leave. I ended up on the concrete at the foot of the stairs leading up to the apartment." She began rocking, her arms wrapped around her. "I lost the baby. But…he came to the hospital, all apologies and swearing to change. I told him to get out."

"Did he?"

"Yeah. I was released two days later, battered and bruised but with nothing broken other than my"—she took a sobbing breath—"nothing broken but my heart. I thought… He was supposed to be at work, so I thought it would be safe to go back and get my stuff. It wasn't. He was waiting inside with a couple of his friends. I knew what was supposed to happen next, in his mind. He'd told me the night I lost my baby, that if I ever tried to leave him, he'd find me and he and his friends would take turns showing me what fucking him around meant. There's not much more to the story. I walked in. They were there, half drunk and stoned. I managed to get my coat from the hook by the front door. My wallet was in it, thank God. I made it back to the cab and told the driver to get me away from there. I had him take me to my bank. I closed out the savings account I'd had before we got married, used half the money to buy a bus ticket to…well, here, as it turned out."

"Damn, Roma," Tuck said, taking her hands. He wanted to hug her, to show her someone cared about her. He had the feeling that would scare her more than help, since he was male.

"It's okay. I'm… I've survived." She smiled. "Just like the kids, I've survived, in spite of everything. And now, if things work out right, we'll all have new lives."

"If I have anything to say about it, you will," Tuck replied emphatically, squeezing her hands. "Right now, though, I think it's time to eat." He nodded at the car with a pizza sign on the roof that was coming up the road.

"And I'm starving. Maybe finally telling someone…" She hugged him quickly. "Thank you for listening. Now, let's get over there before the kids take it all."