Almost Twins

by Gail Sattler

“You’re acting like this is such a big deal. French toast is easy to make.”

  “Never tried it,” he mumbled around his mouthful. “But sometimes on the weekend I have waffles.”

  Her eyes widened. “Waffles? Waffles are harder to make than French toast. If you can make waffles, you can make this.”

  He tried not to choke and swallowed hard. “I hate to burst your bubble, but the waffles I’m referring to are the frozen toaster kind.”

  Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.

  “Yeah. I don’t even put them in the microwave.”

  “If the power ever went out, you’d starve in your own home. Do you know that?”

  “Naw. I’d just go out for a burger.”

  “I think you missed my point.”

  He shook his head. “No. I got your point. I think you missed mine. Men don’t need kitchens. We only need the closest fast food restaurant, and we’ll never go hungry.”

  She swished a piece of the French toast in a puddle of syrup on her plate and mumbled something he couldn’t hear. He didn’t dare ask her to repeat it.

  “To show you how much I appreciate this fine breakfast, how ’bout if I do the dishes?”

  “Nice try. Today was your turn to do them anyway.”

  Dennis smiled. He loved her quick wit and the resulting verbal banter. She did nothing to try to impress him, and she certainly didn’t try to stroke his ego.

  He hadn’t thought about Joanna for a long time, but he couldn’t help but compare. If this had happened at home, Joanna would have convinced him to go out. If they couldn’t go out, she wouldn’t have attempted to cook anything, although he would have. She would play helpless and let him do it, and even if he wasn’t good at it, she still would have told him he was perfect just to stroke his ego so she could get her own way.

  Dennis wondered when he’d become tired of it, and worse, when he’d become so complacent about it.

  “We’re starting to run low on wood. I’m going to have to dig some wood out of the pile this afternoon.”

  Instead of looking at Adelle, Dennis looked outside. He couldn’t see a cloud in the sky. The sun shining off the stark white snow was so bright it nearly hurt his eyes. He’d never seen so much snow in his entire life.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. It’s pretty deep out there. It might be over your head.”

  Her silence made him bite his lip and wonder if he should duck to avoid flying objects.

  “I’m not that short,” she finally said.

  “Then I think you’d better define ‘short.’ ”

  Her chin tilted up, and now it was even harder not to laugh, but somehow he managed.

  “Short is under five feet tall. I’m taller than that, so I’m not short.”

  Dennis knew exactly how tall she was. If he wanted to hug her, she would nestle nicely right under his chin. In order to kiss her properly, she would have to stand on her tiptoes and lean into him, and he would envelop her in his arms and hold her tight. They would be perfect together.

  “Dennis?”

  He tried to stop the heat from rising in his cheeks, and couldn’t. “Sorry, I was thinking about something else. You were saying?”

  “I said this would be a good time to bathe them, and then, while they’re sleeping, you could do the dishes and I’ll go outside and get more wood.”

  “But that doesn’t seem right.”

  She harrumphed, crossed her arms over her chest, and rolled her eyes. “Oh, you mean because you’re the big strong man, you should do the manual labor while the little woman stays inside doing the domestic chores?”

  “That’s not what I meant. Well, not really.”

  Her scowl told him she didn’t believe him.

  “It’s not that. I just hate to see you doing such hard work.”

  He realized he’d just said exactly what she had accused him of, that he should be doing the man’s work of the heavy lifting, and she should be doing the household chores.

  “Okay, it is that, but I don’t mean it that way.”

  She tapped her foot, which looked ridiculous when she was wearing those big fuzzy pink slippers, and since they were soft soled, he really didn’t hear any tapping.

  He dragged his palm over his face. “I meant that it would be easier for me, and I could carry more at a time simply because I’m bigger.”

  “But I’m the one with winter clothes.”

  Dennis turned his head and stared out the window. He hadn’t exactly frozen to death when he’d braved the cold and snow to get the pine branches for their Christmas tree, although it had taken him three hours to stop shivering once he’d finally made it back inside.

  “I really don’t mind, Dennis. Remember, I was born and raised in this area. I’m used to the cold. You’re not.”

  He sighed. “Okay, but I’m giving in under protest.”

  She patted him on the arm, and he wanted to give her a hug.

  “Let’s get busy.”

  Just as they were finished with the second bath, the lights came on.

  Adelle cheered. Dennis didn’t.

  Since Adelle was the first to be finished, she was the first to try the phone. “No dial tone yet, but I don’t imagine it will be long.”

  He didn’t care about the phone, he only cared that their time together was now almost at an end. Once the phone came back, he would have no excuse for not finding a way to go home. As unrealistic as it was, he wasn’t ready to go home.

  “When I’m outside, I’ll turn the fridge back to electricity. In fact, I should do it now. I don’t know how much propane is left, and I don’t want to waste it now that we have electricity again. Even with the electricity, we still need the propane for cooking.”

  He accepted Rachel and sat on the quilt, a spot he was becoming very accustomed to, while Adelle kicked off her slippers and headed to the closet for her coat and boots.

  In the background, a strange motorized hum sounded. Normally he wouldn’t have noticed something so slight, but in the total silence of the cabin, it was out of place. “What’s that noise? Is something wrong since we’ve got both the propane and electricity on at the same time?”

  She tilted her head as she also listened. “No, it doesn’t work like that. I have to physically switch the fridge over.” She listened as the noise grew louder.

  As suddenly as the lights had gone on, a wide smile lit Adelle’s face. She clapped her hands in front of her, dropped her coat on the floor, and ran to the window.

  “What is it?” Dennis asked.

  “I don’t believe this! It’s Uncle Bob and Aunt Min!”

  Dennis blinked, put Rachel down into her car seat, and walked toward the window to join Adelle. He didn’t see anything, but the noise was getting louder. “I thought the roads would be impassable for at least a day or two.”

  She laughed. The hum continued to grow louder, turning into a sound much like a lawnmower, which Dennis thought quite bizarre, considering the amount of snow outside.

  “The roads will still be impassable for at least a couple of days. But they’re not coming by car. They’ll be past the trees and into the clearing in a few seconds. They’re on the snowmobile.”

  “Snowmobile. . .” His voice trailed off as his heart sank. The French toast that he’d enjoyed not long ago turned into a lump in the pit of his stomach.

  If the snowmobile could get there with no trouble, he would have no trouble going back to Blue River, and from there, he would have no trouble finding transportation home. All he had to do was pack the few clothes he had into his one suitcase and bundle Raymond. They could be gone within half an hour.

  Adelle ran back to the closet, yanked on her boots, pulled on her coat without doing up the buttons, then ran back to the door.

  The noise grew to an annoying roar, then stopped.

  Adelle threw open the door and ran outside. “Aunt Min! Uncle Bob! I’m so glad to see you!”

  The door closed, cutting off whatever words
were being exchanged.

  Dennis didn’t rush to the door. He didn’t want to see her aunt and uncle, not because they wouldn’t be nice people, but because they brought with them the means for him to leave.

  Guilt for his selfish motivations roared through him. He should have been happy for Adelle, but he was too busy feeling sorry for himself. And it was wrong.

  He settled both babies into their car seats, plugged the pacifiers into their mouths, and stood. He smoothed the wrinkles in his pants, straightened his sleeves, and walked slowly to the window.

  An older man was unloading bags from something that looked like a combination between a sled and a miniature snowmobile. A tow bar attached the unit to a large and very sturdy snowmobile. An older woman and Adelle were wrapped together in a firm hug.

  As he watched, the uncle handed both women a number of bags, he grabbed a box out of the trailer and the three of them turned toward the door and started slogging through the snow. He hurried to the door to open it as they filed in caravan style, and closed it behind them when they were inside.

  Dennis forced himself to smile. “Hi,” he said as cheerfully as he could muster. “You must be Uncle Bob and Aunt Min. Thanks for the use of your cabin.”

  They dumped everything on the counter and approached him.

  “You must be Dennis, of course. Welcome. As you can see, we brought everything. We’re a few days late, but we finally made it.”

  The three of them scurried back outside to bring in the last of the contents of the trailer. Dennis was amazed at the volume being unloaded onto the counter. He didn’t want to snoop, but in the piles of things they’d brought, he could see two packages of diapers—both pink.

  Adelle’s uncle disappeared outside one more time for a couple of minutes, and Dennis assumed he was turning off the propane to the fridge.

  Instead of unpacking the bags on the counter, Adelle’s aunt scurried to the babies. “Oh, they’re so adorable together! How’s my little pumpkin?” She sank to her hands and knees and patted Rachel, then Raymond, on their little tummies. “You have a beautiful baby, Dennis. She’s almost as adorable as our little Rachel.”

  “Uh, he’s a boy. His name is Raymond. I ran out of blue sleepers.”

  The woman giggled and tickled their tummies again. “Oops. Sorry.”

  Adelle’s uncle wasn’t in such a rush to see the babies. The man never broke eye contact, making Dennis feel very much like a bug under a microscope.

  “You two been okay out here?”

  Dennis stiffened from head to toe. He shouldn’t have felt intimidated because he was at least two inches taller than Adelle’s uncle, but in this case he had a feeling that his size made him more suspect. If they hadn’t been worried, they wouldn’t have come all this way under the present conditions, snowmobile or not. He thought he knew the real question, but didn’t know how to answer. “Yes, sir, considering.”

  “Haven’t seen a snowfall like this for nigh on twenty years. And on Christmas, yet. So you’re from Vancouver. Don’t get much snow there, do you?”

  Dennis shook his head. He didn’t think her uncle really wanted to talk about the rain in Vancouver at this particular moment, although he couldn’t quite figure out what he was supposed to be saying. Dennis wondered if this was some kind of test and if he was passing. “No, and when we do, it’s nothing like this.”

  He could hear Adelle in the kitchen unpacking and putting away the fresh supplies. In the background, her aunt was chattering to the babies that she couldn’t decide which one of them to pick up, and explaining that she would stay on the quilt and tell them a story, as if they could understand what she was saying.

  “Dellie says you had an accident. We didn’t see a car anywhere.”

  Dennis nearly choked. Dellie? Her nickname was Dellie? He didn’t dare speak.

  “So where is it?”

  He tried to remember the original question. “The car’s probably covered in snow, that’s why you didn’t see it.” He also thought about the shirt covered with baby puke that he’d thrown into the snow shortly after his arrival. Like the car, it was well covered. The car was easy to explain, but he knew the shirt would be more difficult.

  “Guess it will turn up in the spring thaw, huh?”

  Dennis opened his mouth to warn him about finding the shirt, but Adelle distracted him when she clanked something on the counter. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “You brought formula! This is wonderful!”

  Dennis’s words caught in his throat. The thought of formula for Raymond pushed all else from his brain.

  Adelle’s aunt picked up Raymond, gave him a cuddle, and rubbed her cheek on his fuzzy head. “We know you won’t need it, Dellie, but when you said Dennis had a baby, we didn’t know how old the baby was, so we took a chance. You must be almost out of formula for this little darling now.”

  They had no idea, and he wasn’t going to tell them what they’d had to resort to, and how hard it had been on Adelle. The last few days had been a lesson in trust and relying on God unlike anything he’d ever experienced. “Yes, I could really use it. Thank you. I don’t know what to say.”

  The woman sighed when Raymond gurgled. “Think nothing of it. I just love babies. I’ll do anything for them. I wish I could have had one of my own.”

  Dennis again opened his mouth to speak, but her uncle spoke first.

  “It’s been a long morning. Auntie and I are hungry. You finished putting everything away yet?”

  “Yes. How about ham sandwiches? We had ham for dinner yesterday, and there’s enough leftover for lunch.”

  “Good, because for supper, we brought the rest of the turkey. We cooked it at home for Christmas dinner yesterday, and so we’ll still be eating leftovers until it’s gone. You won’t have to cook much for a few days. But I sure missed those delicious baked yams we have every Christmas. Right Min?

  “Whatever. I don’t care about cooking right now. Oh, Dennis, your little Raymond is so sweet. He’s talking to me. Can you hear him?”

  Adelle’s uncle responded with a grunt. “Babies don’t talk. That’s gas.”

  “You stop that. He’s a wonderful baby. How would you like to put on some music so we have something nice to listen to?”

  “Only if I can put on some Waylon.”

  “Just put on some Christmas carols, okay?”

  Dennis gave up trying to follow any part of the conversations going on around him. “I think I’ll help with lunch. Excuse me.”

  ❧

  Adelle tried not to let Dennis see her hands shaking. Part of her was happy to have her family arrive. Part of her was even happier that they had brought formula, just for the relief it would bring. But part of her suddenly realized their arrival meant Dennis and Raymond would soon be leaving.

  She didn’t know if she was ready for that. She’d finally gotten used to them; now she didn’t know if she was ready to let them go.

  “Want me to cut that tomato?”

  Her hands froze midway through a swipe of adding mayo to the bread. “You cut yourself peeling potatoes. What makes you think you’d be better at this?”

  “That was different. This time I’ll be using a knife.”

  That didn’t make it better. That made it worse. “I don’t think so.”

  She noticed he ignored her protests and did it anyway, and he didn’t do too badly. She completed the assembly of the sandwiches, Dennis set the table, and everyone sat for lunch.

  This time Uncle Bob prayed before they ate. His prayer was more formal than Dennis’s, and since it had been brought to her attention so many times, she noticed Uncle Bob’s prayer was much longer.

  During lunch, they talked about the snow and what the city was like as people started to dig their way out. With the Christmas season in mind, so far only the main roads had been cleared, and they had not finished clearing the main highway.

  However, the condition of the highway didn’t matter. Dennis didn’t need the highway. He would be leaving in th
e snowmobile. The only thing that would stop him from leaving would be if the snow suddenly melted and the snowmobile didn’t have enough snow base to drive safely. And if that happened, they would simply drive out in Adelle’s car.

  There was only one conclusion. He really was leaving.

  They agreed that it made the most sense for Adelle to stay at the cabin with Aunt Min. Uncle Bob would drive Dennis and Raymond into town, get them settled either onto the bus or into a motel, and then return.

  After lunch, Adelle stacked the dishes beside the sink and took Rachel into the bedroom to be fed. Dennis packed what few belongings he had while Aunt Min insisted on giving Raymond a bottle, not missing any chance to complain that she never got to feed her darling niece, since Rachel didn’t take a bottle.

  When Adelle came out of the bedroom, Uncle Bob was standing in the same place he had been before she went in, which was at the woodstove warming his hands. “Looks like we’re going to need to bring in more wood, Dellie. I think I’d better do that now, before we go.”

  Dennis set his suitcase by the door, ready to go. Its presence was a sad reminder that it was over.

  She didn’t know how it had happened, but in the few days since she picked him up, they’d developed a friendship unlike any other. She couldn’t see that letters or E-mail or even the occasional phone call would be satisfying after the lengthy and personal discussions they’d shared. More than likely, the time would grow longer between communications, until finally they never saw or heard from each other again. She didn’t want to think about it, but she could think of nothing else.

  Dennis joined her uncle in front of the woodstove.

  “I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to repay you for the use of your cabin these past few days. For now, since Raymond fell asleep, how about if I go get the wood? I really would like to let him sleep for a little while, because if he doesn’t, I think he’ll probably be cranky during the trip on the snowmobile.”

  Adelle clasped her hands tightly and stepped forward. “Don’t be silly, Dennis. You’ve only got that small leather jacket, and you don’t have boots. Uncle Bob can do it. He does it all the time.” For selfish reasons, she didn’t offer to be the person to get the wood, as she had been ready to do earlier. If Uncle Bob brought it in, that would give her more time to say a proper good-bye to Dennis while her uncle was busy.