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Saturday
afternoon trip worked well because she was scheduled for the early morning breakfast
shift at the pancake house, one of the busiest times for the restaurant.
    “I have to
run,” Annie said.
    She wasn’t as
nervous as she’d been the day before, but she hoped Nathan wouldn’t come home
at noon to check on her. When he was around, she didn’t feel like
herself—although she wasn’t sure why she had such a strange reaction to
him. Maybe she just wasn’t used to men with movie-star good looks. He made her
feel awkward and inadequate, although he was never anything but courteous.
    When she got
to the Sawyer mansion, Mattie was alone in the kitchen.
    “You just
missed Nathan,” she said by way of greeting. “He ran off with a granola bar for
breakfast. My Tom would’ve been skinny as a stick without a good farm
breakfast. His favorite was buckwheat pancakes with fried eggs and bacon.”
    “Sounds
delicious. How are you this morning, Mrs. Hayward?” Annie asked.
    “I told you to
call me Mattie. No point in being formal if we’re stuck with each other all
summer.” She’d put the round box of cereal on the counter and had water
simmering on the stove. “Now I’m going to show you how to make oatmeal.”
    Annie watched
carefully, but the lesson wasn’t much help. Mattie added oats by the handful,
scorning the use of measuring cups.
    “I make the
best biscuits in Polk County, and it’s all in the eye. Either a person knows
when dough looks right, or she doesn’t.” Mattie balanced on one foot to stir
the bubbling oatmeal and pronounced it ready without using the timer on the
stove. She put  a cover on the kettle with a loud clank and pushed it off
the burner.
    “There, now do
you think you can make coffee the right way?”
    “I’ll try,”
Annie said mildly, resigned to doing things Mattie’s way all day—and
everyday until she was no longer needed. Hopefully that wouldn’t be until the
end of the summer.
    At least she
didn’t have time to be bored. Unlike her time at the restaurant where things
were sometimes so slow she ended up folding napkins and scrubbing tables and
chairs, the day went fast. Mattie had a list of jobs for the two of them to do together,
which meant Annie worked and the older woman supervised. Whenever she was out
of sight for more than a few minutes, she could count on Mattie calling her
with the volume of a foghorn on Lake Erie.
    Mattie was the
planner; Annie was the doer. When the older woman had a yen for homemade
vegetable soup, Annie peeled potatoes, chopped carrots, onions, and parsnips,
and rummaged in the cupboards for a carton of chicken stock.
    “It’s a shame
to use ready-made stock. On the farm I stewed our range chickens and kept a
supply of broth in the freezer. Of course, that was when I had Tom to cook
for.”
    She sounded
nostalgic, arousing Annie’s sympathy. But a minute later Mattie roundly
criticized the peeled potatoes because she could still see some eyes.
    Nathan didn’t
come home for lunch.
    The afternoon
went much faster when Mattie insisted on walking through the garden, pointing
out things the once-a-week gardener hadn’t done to her standards.
    “Careful,”
Annie warned her when she thumped off the flagstone path to examine a clump of
ornamental grass.
    She had
visions of the older woman falling and doing even more damage to her slender
frame. What would she say to Nathan if his aunt fell and broke a hip or injured
her good ankle?
    Mattie finally
settled down in the shade on the patio to supervise Annie from a distance.
    “Fetch my
straw hat from my bedroom,” she said as Annie prepared to do some weeding. “I
don’t want you getting heat stroke on my watch.”
    Annie smiled
to herself as Mattie gave her directions on how to tie the wide-brimmed hat
under her chin and advised her to drink a lot of water in the hot sun. In spite
of the heat, gardening was more fun than housework, and Annie tackled the
weeding with