Free The First Gardener by Denise Hildreth Jones

college. Gray was grateful it hadn’t changed.

 
Chapter 8
    Mackenzie drove through the six-foot scrolled-iron gates, then peered in her rearview mirror to see them creep toward each other like old lovers. Beyond them, she caught a glimpse of the stately mansion. It still amazed her this was home.
    She made the short mile drive to Maddie’s school and pulled into one of the pickup lanes. She had never been in a pickup lane. For so many years she had longed for this day, the day she’d get to be like every other mother and pick up her baby from kindergarten.
    She remembered all those years driving by schools, desperate for a child of her own, until she’d finally vowed never to go by a school at that time of the afternoon. It was just too painful a reminder of what she lacked. There had been so many of those reminders: kids’ clothing stores, Mother’s Day at church, diaper commercials, babies on playgrounds, jogging mothers pushing their babies in strollers—all of them feeling like slaps in the face.
    And the questions—those were the worst. “When are you going to have children? What are you and Gray waiting on? Don’t you want children? Don’t you know the risks of pregnancy over thirty-five?” She had promised herself she would never ask anyone those questions. If people didn’t have children, there was a reason—and she never wanted to add to their pain by pressing the issue.
    The ten years of trying to conceive Maddie had been so deeply painful. But something inside of her had held on to faith—faith that she would have a child, a child who looked like a piece of her and a piece of Gray. And it had finally happened. The day Maddie was born, she and Gray had cried tears from wells so deep she hadn’t known such depth could exist in the human soul. And when the nurse placed Maddie in her arms, she’d known what every pill, every shot, and every vial of blood had been for.
    It had all been for the miracle of this little girl. She reached over and straightened Lola in the passenger seat. “Now you tell her what good care I took of you today, okay?” Mackenzie reminded. “Tell her about all the people you met at the luncheon and how we drove Jessica crazy. But it would be nice to assume some discretion and keep my little rendezvous with her daddy just between the two of us.” She looked down and gave Lola a wink. Lola’s painted-on smile assured her she would. Mackenzie’s phone vibrated in the console between her seat and Lola’s.
    “Mrs. London?” Jessica’s voice sounded tight. Anything else would have surprised her more.
    “Yes, Jessica.”
    “Chandra told me the mission just called. They’ve had a father come in with his wife and eight children. They got evicted and need a place to stay until the mission can make room for them at the shelter.”
    Mackenzie shook her head. The economy had wrecked the lives of so many hardworking people in her state. She had never seen it like it was now.
    She didn’t hesitate. “Tell them yes. And tell her I’d do it at the mansion, but with the big dinner Wednesday night, I don’t think that would be a good idea. Too much commotion for those children.”
    “That’s good to hear.” Jessica hated it when she let families come stay at the mansion. She said you never knew who you were letting in and it wasn’t wise. Mackenzie had informed Jessica that the mansion belonged to the people of this state, and if they needed a place to lay their heads in an emergency, it was available. In the nearly three years she and Gray had lived there, almost a dozen different families had taken temporary residence there.
    “Have Chandra call one of those residence hotels that has the sitting rooms and the refrigerators and stovetops. Get as many rooms as they need and put it on my personal credit card. Tell Mary at the mission that we’ll pay for a week, and if she needs more time, to let us know. And be sure—”
    Just then Mackenzie spotted a dark head bobbing