Love Is Where You Find It

Part 25

Loretta is now an engaged woman but she's not all too sure what that means exactly. They started throwing around dates and summer appeals to her the most. Doolittle's mother had offered for the children to come visit her when they are out of school, and Loretta feels like Cissie, who is now six, will be old enough to be away from her for the week Mrs. Lynn is proposing. Doolittle's mother doesn't have any children of her own in the home anymore and never did get to see her grandchildren as much as she might have liked. Now that her mother and father are seeing them at least every Saturday it seems only fair.

"July 13th," Henry throws out while Loretta is busy scrubbing tables.

"You wanna get married on a 13th?" She wrinkles her nose.

"I had no idea that you're superstitious."

"I'm not."

"Then why don't you wanna marry on a 13th?"

"It don't feel right. The day after maybe?"

"That's a Tuesday."

"You want a Monday?" She looks around, for customers, Myra or Norman.

"You don't?"

"I think Saturday would be real nice," Loretta says. "Or Friday."

"I wouldn't object to Friday."

"I wouldn't object to you working," Norman hollers, having appeared seemingly out of nowhere. "Henry, you don't want me to fire her before you're even married, do you?"

"Please don't," Loretta squeaks.

"She is working, Daddy," Henry argues. "And I'll leave her be for now." He smiles down at Loretta before making his way back to the kitchen. Norman follows, and Loretta cringes at the scolding he gives his son.

It's lunch time soon enough and like every day, Loretta and Henry eat together. Henry's got the newspaper with him and points out something he circled in red.

"We should take a look at this place. Three bedrooms, two baths, near the kids' school. They wouldn't have to take the bus anymore."

"They'd like that," Loretta agrees. "I never had no two bathrooms before. We always had one."

"It'll be a good thing when the kids get older, believe me. We had one growing up and it sure was a pain and there was only four of us."

"We didn't have a bathroom at all when I was growing up. Just an outhouse."

Henry makes a face, once again making Loretta aware of his middle class upbringing. Depression baby or not, his family had more money than hers did and they certainly did have a bathroom with a working toilet, even though his sister was wearing flour sack dresses and Henry walked to school barefoot.

"So we'll look at the place?" Henry asks.

"You bet. Maybe we'll take the kids?" It's a question more than anything, because she isn't certain if he would want to take them there.

"Sure," Henry says. "If you wanna show 'em what might be their future home."

"It ain't that easy to find a home, honey. It took me a long time to find the house we got now."

"Be a little optimistic, Loretta. You never know."

"Alright, I will."

It's so nice to be able to eat outdoors again. It's not that she doesn't like the break room - it's nice enough, as good as any other room but when it comes to any room or the outdoors, Loretta prefers to be outside. It all goes back to her rural upbringing and the nature she was surrounded by in those years. It sticks with you. She rarely got much further than the back yard in Washington. She's never been to the children's school there. Doo registered them and from the first grade on they walked to school and back home with the other children. Any communication with the teachers was by way of notes. She didn't even go shopping regularly. Usually Doo got some things on the way home from work- he controlled the budget anyway. When he left them for weeks at a time there was no point in going because there wasn't enough money to buy anything.