No Place I'd Rather Be

by Cathy Lamb

  “Cougars.” My chest was tight. Blizzards equal anxiety attacks.

  “Breathe, Olivia,” my mother drawled. “You must kick your fears in the butt. You must put steel in your sternum and victory in your vertebrae.”

  Francois was polite enough to have their date that night in Dorene’s hospital room. I cooked the ribs the rest of the way through and brought them up to the hospital that night with the girls.

  Francois was a handsome gentleman. He devoured the ribs. I saw him wink at Dorene.

  Francois was a man who would come through when the going got tough.

  Just like Jace.

  * * *

  “I know you’re coming to the meeting,” my attorney, Claudine, confirmed.

  “Yes.” I clutched my phone, the heat from the kitchen in Larry’s Diner stifling. The meeting, about the girls, was in April.

  “You don’t bring the girls to this meeting.”

  “I know. When I return to Montana after the meeting, that’s when I make my plans to leave for Australia.”

  “You do know that you can’t do that, right?”

  “I do.” Australia beckoned. Australia had beaches. Clean air. And no Devlin.

  “Olivia, I don’t like the tone you’re using. You cannot leave with the girls. Regardless of what happens with this meeting, do not take off with the girls. Do not refuse to give them up. Do not hide the girls. You have to comply with the court’s order.”

  “I know.”

  “Say you will.”

  “I will.”

  “Olivia, when we meet the judge, later, when Devlin is out of jail, she will review everything. The judge could decide to leave the girls with you permanently and allow visitation from Devlin only if she attends parenting classes, stays sober, goes to counseling, and shows that she’s complying with the court’s orders.”

  “Or, she could flat-out win, and then the girls will be given back to her. Until some neighbor calls the police because of the neglect, starvation, or rampant drug use, or the schools call another ambulance because the girls are critically ill.”

  “I think we have a huge chance of success. Devlin’s record is alarming.”

  “And my part in the meeting?”

  “You will answer all questions put to you by Devlin’s attorney and any other attorney in there and Children’s Services and anyone else who asks questions. The meeting is not to decide if you or Devlin would make the better parent. You would win. That’s not the question. The question is, is Devlin able to become a reasonably competent parent in future, and what would that involve, and what support does she need.”

  No! I wanted to scream. No, she isn’t competent.

  We talked further, and Claudine told me her strategy, her arguments.

  I was exhausted when we were done. I could not imagine handing over Lucy and Stephi to Devlin. Anyone who hands over kids to a woman like that should be arrested.

  I should arrest myself.

  * * *

  Lucy and Stephi and I talk about their past when they bring it up. They know that I want to raise them, and they know that their mother wants them to live with her when she’s out of jail. I will not lie to those children, nor will I divulge every detail of what’s going on.

  I will not excuse their parents, though, for the hitting, the severe neglect, the drugs, and an unsafe home when they bring it up. I will not gloss over what they experienced, make them feel that their feelings are invalid or incorrect, or that they should simply forget about what happened. I will not minimalize what their parents did to them because it denies the girls the truth and reality of their own lives. They need someone to listen to them and to acknowledge that what happened was wrong and scary.

  However, I will balance that truth with love and hugs and their favorite cookies.

  * * *

  “Kyle got in a fight.”

  “What?” I paused. Chloe loves my Bam Bam Burritos, so I was stirring ground beef on my stove and adding grilled onions and green peppers. The kids were outside on the back deck in coats. Kyle had brought a telescope to show the girls.

  “It was the three orangutans. Eric, Jason, and Juan. They pushed him in the hallway, told him he was a dick and a psycho. Kyle tried to change the conversation. He read online that you’re supposed to walk away or make a joke or change the conversation when you’re being bullied. He didn’t want to walk away and he doesn’t know how to make a joke, so he tried to change the conversation. He told me he said, ‘Instead of talking about how I’m a dick, which is anatomically impossible, or a psycho, which would require a medical diagnosis from a professional, let’s discuss the advances at NASA this year. The James Webb telescope is of interest to me because . . .’ and he told them how NASA’s astronomy and cosmology would advance in the future.”

  “Those boys would have been clueless.” I had to have a little fun with her. “Can you hand me a wooden spoon?”

  She opened a drawer and handed me salad tongs, her brown ponytail swinging.

  “They didn’t even understand what my brainiac was saying. He told me they said, ‘What the hell are you talking about, freak boy?’ and he said, and this is what made the orangutans truly lose their dumb minds, ‘I am correct. You three don’t have a broad-enough intellectual platform to understand the advancements that this telescope will bring, nor do you have the capacity to assimilate new scientific information and learn. I am concerned that you are also missing a basic component of curiosity. ’ It was Kyle’s honest assessment.”

  “What did they do? Can you hand me oregano?”

  She grabbed a banana. She peeled it as she talked.

  I didn’t laugh!

  “They’re stupid, but they got the gist. They pushed Kyle against the lockers, the three of them, hard.”

  “And he?”

  She raised her fists in victory, the banana high in the air. “He fought back. That’s my boy. I have told Kyle, repeatedly over the years, to fight back with his karate skills. The kid’s an advanced karate chopper, plus he’s over six feet tall. One time he said to me, ‘With respect, Mother, karate is peaceful. It is only to be used for self-defense,’ and I said, ‘Dude, what the heck do you think this is? You’re defending yourself from three monsters left over from prehistoric times who trudged across the land underneath our feet,’ and he said, ‘I, too, am interested in paleontology in Montana and how the weather and topography have changed over billions of years, but I told my karate teacher that I would not use my hands as weapons,’ and I said, ‘Use them to defend yourself, son, or I will beat you up myself.’”

  “So he karate chopped them?” Impressive!

  “Yep. Cut. Swish. Kick. Hiya! All the kids on the floor moaning like stuck pigs on a spit. He told me that when they were on the floor, other kids clapped. He said he didn’t know what to do, so he bowed, then collected his glasses, his notebooks, and his technology project and went to class. He told me, ‘Very unfortunately, and distressingly, I was one minute twelve seconds late, and apologized to the teacher for my lateness. The teacher said, ‘You’re never late, it’s okay, Kyle,’ and Kyle said, ‘I appreciate your kindness.’”

  “I love it. Hopefully that will stop the bullying.”

  “He had many questions written down in his Questions Notebook that night. Most of them about the morality and ethics of fighting.”

  “Would you pass me three avocadoes?”

  “Sure.” Chloe opened the fridge, took out three eggs, cracked them in a bowl, and handed them to me. I said “Thank you,” and she said, “You’re very welcome, Olivia,” and I got the avocadoes.

  Watching your kids be hurt, or bullied, like Kyle or, in my case, knowing what was done to my girls when they were younger, stabs a mother’s heart. It’s a pain that radiates out until you feel like you can’t breathe. I hugged my sister. We were breathing easier tonight.

  * * *

  Later that night I tried to think of something Kyle could say, or do, to alleviate some of the isolation he f
elt at school. His loneliness and aloneness made my stomach churn. I know what loneliness and aloneness feels like, and I so didn’t want it for him.

  What could he do?

  * * *

  Stephi and Lucy were each invited to birthday parties that weekend.

  The invitations came in the mail because no invitations are allowed at school, thank heavens, as it makes things worse for the poor kids who aren’t invited.

  They brandished them in the air like trophies. Stephi was so excited she cried and clutched her rock collection together with both hands. Lucy said, pointing her finger straight up to the sky, “We have to go shopping for the presents right now! I’m going to a birthday party! I have a friend! A friend!”

  Before I was a mother I never knew how a child’s joy could laser focus me in on that one moment, while everything else went away, and I would stand in that joy with them, as if I were in the middle of a golden, happy light.

  * * *

  Larry was intolerable, but I couldn’t work for Jace.

  How could I be around that hard, tough face with the dark eyes that softened up for me? How could I be around that smile, that quiet, strong, reserved, smart man without jumping on him? We had been best friends. We laughed all the time. Hiked. Skied. Walked. Talked. We read books together, for heaven’s sakes. He listened to me as if everything I said was interesting, which it so wasn’t.

  Did I want to work for him?

  I did.

  I didn’t.

  I so did.

  Could I do it?

  What else did I want from him?

  Nothing. Only a job.

  That was a lie. I wanted so much. Everything. Hugs. Nakedness.

  I couldn’t have everything. We had a problem that was not fixable.

  I am totally screwed up when it comes to that man.

  * * *

  When my mother read us fairy tales when Chloe and I were little girls, she always changed the endings. Instead of Snow White running off with the prince after a single kiss from her glass coffin in the woods, my mother said, “When Snow White woke up, she saw the prince leaning over her. She smiled at him. He smiled back. She thought he seemed like a friendly, intelligent young man. He helped her up and they visited with the talking animals for a while because they both loved animals.

  “They went horseback riding together into the mountains, which is what you see in this picture here. He was in college studying biology, and she was studying chemistry. They both wanted to become surgeons. They had a lot to talk about because they both loved medicine and nature. They became true friends.

  “But they both knew they were way, way too young to get serious about each other so they stayed friends throughout college. Both of them traveled abroad to different countries and volunteered on medical missions. They studied all they could about medicine, operations, diseases, and treatments, and they made other friends. They hiked, canoed, and discovered that they both liked volunteering in their local hospital, rescue puppies, archery, camping, and learning more about becoming doctors. They started dating and went to the same medical school. Both became surgeons who helped the poor. They had four children because they knew their mothers wanted grandchildren.

  “But do you see, Olivia and Chloe, they didn’t get married right away after that first kiss. How could they? They weren’t stupid. They didn’t even know each other. Don’t believe your other friends when they say that Snow White got married when she went off with the Prince that day to live in the castle. It didn’t happen like that at all, lucky for heart surgeon Dr. Snow White.”

  And she could prove it. The last page of the book was ripped out and she wrote the “real” story on paper and stapled it in.

  My mother taught us, through fairy tales, to be independent and strong. To have our own lives and our own jobs, and to rescue ourselves.

  So I didn’t need Jace rescuing me by taking the job he offered.

  I didn’t.

  But was Jace rescuing me if I went and worked at the ranch and made the most yummy food I could imagine?

  * * *

  She called again.

  She had found out through her attorney that I was no longer at my apartment in Portland.

  “Where the hell are you?” she said, so quietly, softly. Then she giggled, high-pitched. “I’ll find you. You stupid bitch. I will find you no matter where you are. You. Will. Lose. See you soon.”

  I felt ill. Ill because of what could happen, not to me, but to them.

  I called my attorney. She did what I paid her to do.

  * * *

  Kyle sat at my dining room table, Stephi and Lucy on either side of him. Kyle did not like to be touched much, but for some reason he allowed the girls to hang on him. I had bought poster board because the girls wanted Kyle to draw them fairies with sparkling wings.

  “Smart fairies,” Lucy said. “With muscles.”

  “Brave fairies,” Stephi said, “who save men fairies.”

  “I have never drawn a fairy before,” Kyle told the girls. “But I will give this artistic challenge my best effort. I studied fairies for forty-two minutes before coming today after I received your request through Aunt Olivia and Mother.” He glanced at his watch. “I have eighty-two minutes. Ninety-seven minutes if I run home instead of walk.”

  Kyle drew each of the girls a fairy with a face exactly like theirs. They giggled and laughed. Then Lucy and Stephi both wanted their sister’s face on another fairy, and he drew that. The two sisters, as fairies. They jumped up and down, then Stephi crawled into his lap.

  When the girls were coloring the fairies I said, “Kyle, have you ever thought about asking kids at school if you could draw them?”

  “No.” He peered at me through his glasses. His hands flapped, then stilled. “That has not occurred to me.”

  “Think about it.”

  “I am confounded by your idea, Aunt Olivia. Is this a joke? You know I don’t understand humor. Mother says I understand humor ‘as well as a cow knows how to salsa dance,’ her words, not mine. This means that she doesn’t believe I understand humor.”

  “It’s not a joke. It would be a way for you to make kids feel special, to show your talent as an artist but also to have a conversation with the kids you’re drawing. They could talk to you, get to know you.”

  “As far as I can determine, they wish to have little to no contact with me. They do not wish to get to know me. I have been called retard. Spaceman. Freak and Freakoid. Scary kid. Weird One. Frankenstein and Abnormal. No one appears to want to sit by me at lunch, and they often move away when I do sit down with my lunch sack. I am not chosen for teams at PE despite the fact that I run faster than most of them due to the longer than average length of my legs and my lower than average BMI, which allows for speed. I don’t think they want me to draw pictures of them.” He peered up at the ceiling. “Also, if I drew pictures of them, I would have to look at them in the eye. That’s difficult for me.” He looked me in the eye, then down, then appeared to reevaluate. “Although, I would not have to look at them in the eye for long, as I have a photographic memory.”

  “You could use that photographic memory and your drawing skills to talk to people.” Kyle broke my heart, he did. Lunch every day alone. No friends at school. Isolated.

  “I don’t think I was clear, Aunt Olivia.” He blinked his eyes many times, took a ragged breath. “My fellow students do not wish to have a conversation with me.”

  “Kyle, ask one kid, a nice kid, if you can draw them and see what they say.”

  “I’m confused as to the goal of this project.”

  “Socializing. Meeting people. Making them happy.”

  “I’ll evaluate your idea further, weighing the negatives and the positives. The negatives being I’m called Frankenstein again, or pervert, the positives being I could talk to one person at school.”

  That comment put another split in my heart. He wanted to talk to one person. That was it. One.

  Stephi said, �
��I want to play bad dinosaur and brave girls now, Kyle.”

  “Me too!” Lucy said. “I’m a brave girl. You’re the bad dinosaur.”

  Kyle stood up. “I pretend that I am a Dilophosaurus,” he told me. He opened his hands and put them on the side of his head. “This is the best I can do to re-create this dinosaur’s interesting physique.”

  “Have fun.”

  “Stephi and Lucy seem to find it quite entertaining to have to outrace this reptile.” He smiled, ever so slightly. “I do have physics homework to attend to, and a paper on Shakespeare, and tonight the carpets all need to be vacuumed and the garbage must be taken out. I have promised my online chess partner a challenging game. But I believe I have time for one game of Brave Girls versus Dilophosaurus.” He turned to the girls, bowed. “Let the game begin,” he said, in all seriousness. He paused, and roared, loud and scary. They squealed and ran.

  I hugged him. He allowed it, patted my back three times.

  * * *

  Chloe was mentioned in an article in our state’s newspaper. She had gone up in a near blizzard to rescue two teenage snowboarding brothers who had gone out of bounds. Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous, but she did it. She was quoted in the article. “Look, folks. Do not go out of bounds on the mountain. These two (expletive) yahoos broke the rules and me, and my copilot, Dunn Silverman, had to go up and rescue their sorry (expletive) and almost died ourselves. Don’t do it. Don’t tick me off like that again.”

  Everyone agreed with her.

  The brothers’ parents’ praise was endless. They were seen on TV crying, thanking Chloe and Dunn for “risking their own lives for our sons.”

  What a hero.

  * * *

  “Let’s set a cake on fire.”

  I smiled at my grandma, sitting beside me on Saturday evening, our family gathered in the log cabin in front of the fire, candles lit. It was cold outside but clear, the stars white and sparkling. I had been daydreaming about Jace naked. The man was lustfully endowed. “Okay. Let’s do it.” I knew what cake Grandma wanted to set on fire, but the girls didn’t. I winked at her.

  “What do you mean set a cake on fire?” Lucy said.