A Father for Philip Read Free

lasting much longer. I wish you’d hurry up
and have that lump in your lap. It might not be playmate material for a few
years, but at least he’d have another small person to take an interest in. I’ll
try to talk him into coming up to visit Morning Glory’s baby in the meantime.”
    “Good luck with that.” Both women
laughed. Horses, probably even baby horses, were not high on Philip’s
like-list.
    “If said lump puts in an appearance before
the end of June it’s going to have to find some other family. We simply won’t
be ready for it.” Kathy refilled the cups. “But about Philip, Ellie, it can’t
hurt for him to have imaginary playmates. He gets along well at school with the
real kids, and lots of children have pretend friends. Not just only children,
either.”
    “No,” said Eleanor, her tone wry. “Just
lonely children. As a teacher, Kath, what do you think about sending kids away
to school? Is it good for them? Especially,” she added, “kids who have no one
at home to play with.”
    Kathy considered carefully before she
answered. “Maybe, but personally, I can’t think of one child from my teaching
days who would have been better off away from his family—except those who came
from awful situations with very bad families, which is not the case here. When
I apply that notion to Philip, think of him being sent away from here, away
from you, I can only see him being terribly unhappy. So maybe he is a little
bit lonely. Spring Break only lasts ten days and three of them are gone by.
It’s not going to kill him, Ellie, to have an imaginary friend for the next
week. Who is it this time? Spidey, or someone who turns green and bursts out of
his clothing, or changes from car to space-ship at the flip of a switch?”
    Eleanor laughed. “You’re way behind the
times! Super heroes are a whole different breed now. I can’t even begin to keep
up with the new ones. But this is just an ordinary kid, by the sound of it. His
name’s Jeff. They’re building a log cabin together. I suppose I could put a
stop to it, but it seems a shame to keep him out of the woods. He’s like his
father in that respect, loves the trees, the birdsong, the seclusion.” Her
mouth quirked into a wry smile. “Poor kid gets it from both sides. I loved the woods,
too, when I was a child. I wish he’d start taking an interest in the farm, in
that way, he’s like me again. I couldn’t have cared less about milk production
or anything of that nature.”
    She sighed. “Maybe Grant’s right when he
says Philip needs a man’s firm hand to give him some discipline.”
    “But,” Kathy pointed out dryly, “Grant,
for all that, is the one who advocates sending him away so some school can do
it. Why doesn’t he try himself, starting, of course, by using some of that
patience he expends on his precious horses?”
    Eleanor shrugged, not willing to discuss
Grant or his inability to relate to her son. “Oh,” she lamented, “where are the
days of coloring books, crayons, finger paints and pop-up books?”
    As she walked home Eleanor waded through
the long grass she really should get cut, and star-gazed, remembering the early
days of her son’s life, thinking back upon what it had been like as a new
mother, age twenty, alone save for her father and infant son, never giving up
the secret hope that somehow some time, David might come back.
    Where had he gone? Was he dead as her
father had maintained or was he simply gone from her, unable to face the
thought of being tied down by a wife and child? The David whom she had married
at the age of nineteen, whom she had loved so intensely, and who had loved her
enough to browbeat her stubborn old father into letting them marry, had not
been that kind of man.
    He must be dead, her mind told her,
while her heart denied it even after nearly eight years of silence from the
jungles of Ecuador.
    “Where are you?” she whispered to the
stars above. “Are you anywhere in this world? Should I have