The Only Best Place

by Carolyne Aarsen

  By the time I had the kids settled and Nicholas changed, supper was on the table.

  Food trumped discussion, so we ate quietly, limiting our conversation to “pass the salt” tacking on belated “pleases” and admonitions to the kids to eat. The homemade casserole was hot, spicy, and creamily delicious. Nicholas decided to eat it by osmosis—mashing food into his face and hair.

  When we were done I got up, but Dan put his hand on my arm. “Gloria gave me this children's story Bible,” he continued. “I thought we could read to the kids at suppertime.”

  What could I say to that? Gloria had given, and Dan had taken. But Dan's comment about wanting control, though thrown out randomly had stuck as firmly as the pasta now decorating Nicholas's hair. This home was Dan's as much as mine. If he wanted to read some story Bible, then I could go along with it. Nothing wrong with teaching the kids morals, I figured.

  Dan beckoned to Anneke who scooted over to her father and his lap. Dan set a worn, dog-eared book on the table in front of them and opened it to the first page. “In the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth…”

  Once upon a time, I thought, irreverently. But in spite of my slightly cynical bent, I caught myself listening. Getting caught up in the simple language of the story that, I knew, was ages old. It was still around. It had lasted through generations. Might be worth paying attention to, I thought as Nicholas crawled out of his high chair and wiggled his way onto my lap.

  As Dan read, his voice grew softer and the Leslie-induced frown on his forehead slipped away. Anneke leaned forward, engrossed in the colored pictures.

  This must be what Dan's youth was like, I thought, glancing around the kitchen as the sun slipped below the horizon, drawing the dark across the sky. The kitchen growing cozy, safe, secure. His father reading, his sisters sitting around the table, his mother maybe holding Dan on her lap like I held Nicholas now.

  My baby rubbed his face with one hand but lay quietly in my arms, a warm package of little boy wrapped up in stained overalls and T-shirt. It didn't seem that long ago that he was just a tiny bundle of flannelette. Now his head lay pillowed on my shoulder, his dimpled feet, minus the socks he had pulled off, rested easily on my knees. I nuzzled Nicholas's head, inhaling the smells of little boy and food laced with a hint of dirty diaper. I glanced at Anneke pretending to read along, her bow-shaped lips forming the words after Dan.

  He closed the book, then moved directly into a short prayer. When he said “Amen,” Nicholas repeated it. I couldn't say anything, but I had lots to think about.

  C'mon, honey. Wake up.” I shook Nicholas gently, preparing myself for a full-scale onslaught. This early in the morning the only light came from the glow of a Winnie-the-Pooh night-light. I heard the hiss and spit of rain on the windows.

  Anneke sat on the bed across the room scratching her tummy. When we first moved into the house, I gave each of the kids their own room, thinking I was doing Anneke a huge favor. Anneke—who always complained that Nicholas was manhandling her Barbies, that Nicholas cried too loud, that Nicholas smelled bad, bad, bad—was now sharing with the same little brother because she couldn't handle the bounty of a room all to herself.

  “I'm tired, Mommy,” Anneke sniffed, letting her hands drop to her sides. “I don't want to go.”

  “I know you don't,” I said, gently commiserating with her like the parenting magazines told me to. “I understand that you're tired and that you would probably sooner stay here, but we have to get going or Mommy's going to be late for work.” Oh, very well done. Verbalize the child's frustration to show that you understand; then tell her what's going to happen anyway. This seemed like a lot of work but, apprentice that I was, I was always rooting around in parenting magazines. The magazines should come with a warning, “serving suggestion only,” just so a mother doesn't get fooled into thinking her children might actually resemble the perfection of the perfectly posed child on the cover.

  “I want you to stay home,” Anneke grumbled as Nicholas started twisting like a snake, his face scrunched into deep lines of disapproval.

  “Warning, warning. Move alert to code red. Boy is waking up,” I heard a voice still raspy with sleep say with a chuckle.

  I glanced over my shoulder at Dan, standing in the doorway scratching his stomach. Like father like daughter. His hair was a tangle of blond that still needed cutting, his chin shadowed with whiskers, and his ragged pajama bottoms hung just below his waist. He really needed new pj's.

  But it was his smile that caught my attention. That slightly crooked lift of his lips that signaled that all was well with his world. It was this smile that first attracted me to him the first time I saw him with his friends. It was the same smile he had when I walked down the aisle toward him. A smile I saw more frequently.

  I felt the low-level pull of attraction and in spite of Nicholas, now squirming under my restraining hand, grunting his displeasure, and preparing for a full-scale assault on our senses, I couldn't look away from my handsome husband.

  He moved toward me, lowered his head, and dropped a warm kiss on the nape of my neck. Guaranteed to create happy shivers down my spine. His warm hand caressed my back and rubbed a gentle circle. “How did you sleep?” he asked, brushing another kiss over my forehead.

  “I slept good.”

  A gust of wind threw raindrops against the window. “It's raining. Unbelievable,” he said, a trace of awe in his voice. He walked to the window and placed his hand against the cold pane, as if touching the water that now ran down the glass outside.

  He turned to me, his smile taking on a note of fun. “I have a great idea. Take the kids to our bed. We'll all cuddle together for a while.”

  I felt the pull of deep temptation and for a moment imagined myself and the kids curled up together, a little nest of a family all warm and cozy while outside the rain came down.

  He caught my hesitation and looked from Nicholas to Anneke, then blinked as if realization finally dawned. “You working today?”

  I nodded.

  “I thought you had it off.”

  “I did, but yesterday Roberta called, frantic. She needed to switch with someone and couldn't find a replacement.”

  Dan's face slipped into displeasure, taking with it my faint moment of happiness. “But we were going to Aunt Tenie and Uncle Jeff's open house today.”

  Surely I wasn't going that crazy? “I didn't know anything about that.” I barely knew anything about his Aunt Tenie and Uncle Jeff other than they were connected to him through the young couple we met at church.

  “They mailed us an invitation. I was looking forward to introducing you to more of the relatives.”

  “I don't remember getting an invitation.”

  He sighed, pressed his lips together, and nodded. A long-suffering nod. My least favorite nod. “Obviously not important, is it?”

  I turned away from the no-win discussion as my mind raced over the past few weeks. The junk mail consortium hadn't been alerted as to our whereabouts, so we hadn't received any offers for low-interest credit cards or Publishers Clearing House prizes. Yet.

  I wouldn't have missed addressed mail. Would I? Was I slowly going crazy living out here? But if I knew I was going crazy, then I wasn't crazy. Was I?

  I picked up the now-squirming boy throwing his head around in frustration. “No up, no up,” he grumped. I managed to make it to the bathroom, get the diaper off, and get the majority of the mess cleaned up before Nicholas started thrashing in earnest.

  While I performed my diaper-changing calisthenics, Dan silently hovered in the doorway, waves of disapproval crashing over me as his young son made his own similar disapproval clearly known. Nicholas flailed his arms, one little fist connecting solidly with my arm, a fat foot thumping me in the stomach as he screamed.

  “Leave those poor kids at home today,” Dan shouted. “I'll take them to the anniversary party myself.”

  I cringed as I thought of Dan showing up sans spouse. I imagined Wilma's and Glo
ria's surreptitiously exchanged glances, then sighs. That Leslie.

  As Nicholas's screams stabbed repeatedly through my Nicholas Defense System, I also imagined driving twenty minutes to Kathy's house with this thirty-five-pound bundle of fury and dropping him off. “You sure you don't mind?” I asked.

  Dan's long-suffering look normally would get my hackles up, but with Nicholas still screaming and the anniversary party coming up, I was at his mercy.

  “Just wanted to make sure.” I raised my voice so he could hear, then manhandled Nicholas back to his bed, his haven. But he wasn't that easily pacified. I had pulled him from his beloved sleeping place and he wasn't going to let me off without a fine.

  He screamed some more, but then grabbed his blankie and pulled it toward him, rubbing it over his face with jerky movements as his sobs decreased in intensity.

  “I'm going back to bed,” Dan said, still holding Anneke. “I'll hold the fort and keep the family intact. You go to work and make your money.” He yawned, a jaw-cracking, slow yawn, and then slouched back to our bed, Anneke's head tucked into his neck.

  His comment, delivered so casually, pierced me with its barbs. It wasn't just about the money. I worked so we could have a future. I worked so I could keep up my skills. I worked because it was as much a part of me as farming was for him.

  But neither he, nor his family, seemed to recognize or understand that.

  I heard Nicholas ramping down his anger, Anneke's muffled giggle, Dan's deep voice teasing her.

  A few moments ago, I had wanted to cuddle in bed with my husband and my daughter. Now all I wanted was to get to the hospital as soon as possible. Keep the family intact indeed. As if his one day of babysitting was worth more than the dozens of days I had already spent with the kids. Dan was the kind of man who would take out the garbage once and give the impression he had just cleaned the entire house.

  I slipped out and almost tripped over Sasha, who lay huddled against the door. She jumped up, her mouth open in a happy, doggy smile, her tail waving a welcome greeting. I took a moment to pet her. At least someone in this house loved me today.

  She followed me to the car looking hopeful, then, when she realized there was no trip in the offing, her tail slowed down, her head drooped, and disconsolate she trotted back to the house, dropped down in the lee of the overhang, and stared morosely at me.

  “I know how you feel,” I muttered as I shivered in the car, waiting for it to warm up.

  I glanced up at the house. The lone square of light from our bedroom winked out, cutting me off, and as I drove away, I imagined Dan and Anneke cocooned in a pile of blankets as they drifted off to sleep.

  And me? Well, I was off to work to make that money that Dan so quickly denigrated but didn't seem to mind when it showed up in our checking account. I didn't understand why going to work labeled me greedy and why holding on to the bank account simply labeled his mother cautious.

  I got angrier as I drove. Thankfully I didn't have to navigate past snail-paced tractors pulling huge implements or fuel trucks that took up half the road. The quiet roads still surprised me. In Seattle, driving to work meant scooting between hundreds of cars, wondering why all these people were on the road, juggling through radio stations to avoid depressing news, and worrying about what the owners of all these cars were going to do when the oil ran out.

  I've always been good at multitasking.

  But now my commute was quiet and, because my anger always manifested itself physically—in this case via my foot on the accelerator—short. Which meant I had almost an hour to kill before the sun came up and my shift started.

  I got some coffee at the staff cafeteria and picked up a muffin for breakfast, looking forward to a few moments of absolute peace. One other nurse dawdled over a newspaper and didn't even look up as I passed.

  An empty table called out to me and as I dropped into the chair, I yanked the paper off my muffin, anger with Dan battling with guilt that I would miss his family get-together. Other than Wilma and Gloria, the few members of the extended VandeKeere family I had met were friendly and pleasant. I hadn't met Dan's Grandma VandeKeere. She lived in Bozeman, over an hour's drive away. She would probably have attended the party, and I would have liked to meet her.

  I had a grandma of my own stashed away somewhere. My mother lost her when she turned eighteen and was pregnant with Terra and hadn't bothered to go looking for her again.

  Once in a while Dan would ask me about my family. I kept telling him there wasn't much to say, which was true. He never really understood. Now, as we were spending more and more time in the bosom of his family, I knew he never really would.

  As for our own family, I was getting nervous. Dan had taken to glaring at me each evening as I unwrapped another chocolate. One less chocolate, one less day on the farm. Every week created some new shift in our relationship. I wasn't sure if we were shifting closer together or if Dan was slowly being sucked into his family and away from me.

  Not thinking about that right now, I warned myself. I pulled a pen and notebook from my purse. My dream book had all the details of Dan and my dream home. The size, the number of rooms, the style of the cupboards, the brand of siding, the colors of the paint. Sometimes I rearranged the house plan, moved the rooms, added features that I found in home and gardening magazines.

  I flipped through the book, coming to the back section. The finances. I examined the final figure Dan and I had estimated our house would cost us. My heart sunk as the dream wavered. Was I being realistic? Would we ever be able to afford it? And if not, then what?

  Stay here. The phantom thought reared its head again.

  “You busy?”

  Dr. John. Yay. Distraction.

  “Do you live in the hospital?” I asked, closing my dream book. “Weren't you on call last night?”

  “Just finished and needed some down time. I don't like going home. House is too empty.”

  He sounded so lonely I felt a flash of pity. “How was last night?”

  “Steady, though I managed to get some sleep about four o'clock.” He brought me up to speed on a few of the cases even though Roberta would be giving me a rundown at changeover. “Amelia Castelman brought her baby in again. Poor thing is going downhill, but she won't let me refer her to either a pediatrician or a social worker. I was tempted to keep the baby in the hospital so we could feed her, but I didn't have a strong enough reason and Amelia wouldn't allow it.”

  Amelia's baby's chart was long and illustrious, as was Amelia's. Single mother, living on welfare. Her little girl was borderline malnourished and, we were sure, handicapped. But Amelia wouldn't let us refer her to a specialist. Social Services had gotten involved, but again, their hands were tied. Not enough evidence.

  It broke my heart. Each time that baby came in I wanted to kidnap her and bring her home.

  That's why I didn't read the papers. Why read about misery abroad when enough of it came through the doors of the hospital?

  “All in all another night in Harland.” Dr. John rubbed his chin, his whiskers dark against his skin. I thought of Dan's whiskers. Mentally compared the two. Then wondered why I did. Married women shouldn't be comparing their husbands to attractive men. It wasn't fair. I got to see Dan in sickness and in health, in dirty clothes with grease under his fingernails and first thing in the morning when both his hair and his mood stuck up in all directions.

  Dr. John's smile made his eyes crinkle with warmth. “You're looking lovely this morning.”

  After my fiasco this morning, his compliment was like gourmet chocolate. Smooth and soothing and easy to take. “Thanks,” I said, the kindness in his voice making me feel trembly. “Not feeling too lovely.”

  “Why not? Your in-laws making you feel inferior?” John covered my hand with his.

  I clung to the sympathetic connection, feeling like I had an ally. “I missed an anniversary party today that I knew nothing about. Big problem.”

  “Was it a VandeKeere function? Sorry, my de
ar, you are in it deep,” he teased.

  “I can just imagine what Wilma and Gloria will say,” I groaned, shaking my head. “Or look like.” I could picture perfect Gloria with her perfect figure, clothes, and hair. Which usually made me perfectly envious. Which I didn't want to be because envy of Gloria meant she had something I wanted, which meant she had something over me, which meant I was lacking.

  Jealousy. Not as easy as it looks.

  “You don't want their life,” Dr. John said quietly. “All that pressure to keep up the facade. I'm sure Gloria spends hours getting the eye shadow right.”

  This comment struck me as a little harsh, but at the same time I felt a niggling satisfaction that someone somewhere didn't see perfection in Gloria. “I guess I won't be asking her for makeup tips.”

  “You don't need makeup tips from anyone,” Dr. John said. He leaned a little closer, smiled just a little deeper, his hand squeezed just a little tighter. “Especially not from someone like Gloria. You are a very beautiful woman, in your own right.”

  He's coming on to you.

  I knew that, but I let myself linger in the light of his appreciation for a little longer. The insecure part of me welcomed his flattery, his attention. Like eating that extra piece of cake you know you shouldn't. This morning I needed the boost.

  He yawned, and rubbed his eyes with his other hand. Lines of weariness etched his face.

  “You'd better go home,” I said, feeling a moment's sympathy for him. “You look exhausted.”

  His smile warmed my heart. “I am tired. But it's nice to sit with you a minute.”

  You're playing with fire.

  This time I listened and slowly drew my hand away from his. Then I checked the clock. “Time to go.” I stood as Dr. John pushed himself up with a sigh. He was so tired, he almost swayed into me. I had to take a quick step to avoid him.

  “Sorry about that,” he said. “Exhaustion makes me clumsy.”

  “That's okay,” I assured him, but as I walked away, I couldn't resist a glance over my shoulder.