The Only Best Place (14 page)

“Close your mouth,” Kathy said with a quick laugh. “You look like a fish.”

“I feel like a fish. Out of water. Every time I want Anneke to do something, I feel like I have to convene a tribal council,
and even then I'm always afraid she'll vote me out of the house.”

“Show No Fear is the first rule of parenting.” Kathy pulled a kettle off the stove. “So, I heard that you're an RN.”

“Heard? From whom?”

“Wilma and Gloria were talking about it at Coffee Break. I was surprised when they said you didn't want to go back to work.”

When did I ever talk about not going back to work in front of Wilma and Gloria? The last conversation we had that even touched
upon me working had to do with them assuming I would sooner be digging in the garden than starting IV's.

“You look confused,” Kathy said.

I pulled myself away from thoughts of work and Wilma. “Sorry, I'm a little lost…”

“I should explain. Coffee Break is the women's Bible study that's held at the church. There's programs for the little ones
and a nursery that run while the moms are busy. You should come.”

“First major obstacles—Bible and study. Don't do either. And if Wilma and Gloria go…” I stopped myself just in time. Kathy
didn't need to know my struggles with my in-laws.

Kathy glanced over her shoulder at me while she arranged muffins on a plate. “I take it you don't get along with Wilma?” Her
tilted smile and saucy wink accompanied by the faint sparkle in her eyes were a clue that she knew precisely how I got along
with Wilma. Not. But I was trying to be charitable and discreet. I didn't need anything I said held against me at the next
convening of the VandeKeere family.

“We have our difficulties,” I said carefully. “But she's had hers, as well. What with Keith taking off and all.”

Kathy snorted. “Honey, that was the best thing that happened to her. Keith was a lazy no-good…” She stopped and tapped her
fingers on her lips. “And here I said I wasn't going to gossip.”

“But it still must be hard for her,” I said, determined to be compassionate.

“Not so hard now that her favorite child is back. And I'm sure she's happy about you toiling alongside Dan, supporting him
and keeping the home happy and healthy.”

Was she being sarcastic?

I didn't know Kathy that well and wasn't sure of her place in the community nor her position on the working mother/stay-at-home
mother debate. So I went with the ever-popular and seldom out of style, vague. “I'm sorry. What do you mean?”

“Don't worry, Leslie. I know exactly what you're up against with Wilma. She has an old-fashioned view of motherhood and marriage.”
Kathy turned back to the now-whistling kettle and poured the steaming water into a teapot and brought everything to the table.
“So, why don't you go back to work? And if I'm being way too nosy, you can tell me to back off,” Kathy said, suddenly serious
now. “My husband says I don't always know when to leave things be. And he's right, but my need to know outstrips my need to
be discreet.”

I laughed at her blunt honesty and then thought of my now sadly depleted DHF and the tractor that Dan and his uncle, even
as Kathy put cups in front of me, were fixing up.

“I've actually done that already,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “I'll be starting on Friday.”

Kathy sat back, her hands cradling her cup of tea. “But what are you going to do with the kids?”

“I thought about the day care in town.”

She pulled a face. “Don't do that, Leslie. If you need a babysitter, I'll gladly help out. My place is right on the way to
town.”

I waited, letting the words sink in. “I work shifts.”

“That's okay.”

I wanted to jump up and accept her generous offer right away but couldn't escape the guilt over not asking Wilma or Gloria
first.

I heard the kids playing and turned toward the window. Anneke and Carlene shrieking with laughter and running across the fenced-in
yard, Nicholas pouring sand over his feet in the sandbox, supervised by the cookie expert. My heart ached to see my kids playing
in a yard with other kids. The one friend I had, Josie, didn't have kids. I went on play-dates with other mothers, but didn't
get much advice from other women. Raising the kids was, to me, like driving a car with very, very dim headlights. I could
see only the next thing I had to do. Long term, much harder to figure out.

Ever since the kids were born, I'd felt as if Dan and I were two rank amateurs experimenting with fragile substances. My mother
was who knows where and Terra, a single woman, could only cheerlead from the sidelines. Friends at work offered advice, but
it never seemed applicable. Now, here was a person I barely knew but felt an inexplicable connection to, offering to help
me with the crucial job of raising my kids.

I'm not a sentimental person, but that was definitely a choked-throat moment.

“Thanks for the offer, Kathy. I might take you up on it,” I said.

“You do that.” She took a sip of tea. “Now, tell me all about Seattle. I've always wanted to go but never had the chance.”

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

U better tell Dan pretty quick about job or UR going to be in huge doo doo. Gotta run. Big date. Keep U posted.

Tra, la, la Terra

W
hy?”

The simple question hung between us, edged with anger.

“Because…” I could see him stiffen at my standard reply even as the words
tractor, tractor, tractor
echoed in my subconscious and buried even below that, Missssss Bilingual. Right as I might have been, I wasn't ready to play
that card yet. “I tried the cows thing, Dan. But I'm not a cow person, horses give me the screaming willies, the chickens
give me the creeps. The dog is the only animal I feel comfortable around. I don't know the difference between a cultivator
and a combine, and frankly, I don't care. I do know ACLS, how to deal with a stroke victim, and how to assess a burn. I'm
comfortable in a hospital emergency department, and there have been days since I've moved here that I wish I was back there. Where
I know what I'm doing.” I clamped my lips together to stem the tide of my run-on babbling. I wanted him to understand. Needed
him to understand.

“I want to go back to work because it's the only place I feel like I belong,” I said, stumbling my way through this new situation.
“I feel like I should have had my passport stamped before we came here.” I drew in a breath, juggling my words awkwardly.
I considered bringing up the tractor again and the money Dan had drained out of our house account and the way his mother controlled
each penny that came into this household. But that would take us nowhere. After all, technically half of our house money was
his. If honesty was my new tack, then I had to lay out the rest of my reasons. “I don't feel like I belong here.”

“We had farms in Washington, too, remember?” I could see he was trying to be patient, but he was using up his quota. Fast.

“I never had to live on them. Nor did I have to try to fit into a place that was unfamiliar to me. And there's another thing.
This Christian thing and going to church stuff you've been talking about lately. That's not us. It's not what I signed on for
when we got married.” I was gaining momentum and from the faintly sheepish look on his face, I knew I was also gaining ground.
And though I wasn't a farmer's wife, I remembered a few things I picked up from working with the cows. I kept my distance,
off and to the side, but maintained pressure. “If you're going to be honest with yourself and me, it's new for you, too. You
never went to church in Seattle.”

His silence underlined the rightness of my cause. But I knew I couldn't claim victory yet. I gently pushed on while I still
had his attention and while he was still in a good mood instead of on the run.

“So, here I am. Pagan. City person. And everything is new and different and confusing here.” When I saw Dan fidget I caught
myself. “So I walk into the hospital and I hear the clank of med carts and I get a whiff of hospital cafeteria and I hear
the bleep of monitors… and for the first time since I came here, I relax. I'm in a familiar place. I'm home.”

Dan screwed up his face, obviously trying hard to understand. “So, it's not just about the money?”

“That's part of it.” I looked him directly in the eye. “We were going to keep the Fund separate, but that changed, didn't
it?”

“Leslie, you know why…” Dan's lips became two white lines.

“I know you tried to tell me about cash flow and how you access the line of credit, but really it comes down to your mother
controlling the farm money, doesn't it?”

“She's had a rough couple of months. I can't expect her to just hand it all over to me. Especially if, as you keep saying,
we're only here for a year.”

Once again I was caught between the reality of Wilma's humiliating situation and what I had to deal with on a day-to-day basis
with her. Hard to feel sympathy when each comment directed my way reminded me that I wasn't really a part of this family.

“If she's going to hand over the cropping and the managing of the farm, I think she could go one step further. And partly
because she won't and because the fund is emptier than I like…” I hurried through that dreaded but necessary territory
of the discussion and plowed on, “I'm going back to work. But even more important, when I came into the hospital, I wasn't
reminded that I don't know the difference between hay and straw, between heifers and bulls…”

“Steers,” Dan corrected.

“See? That.”

“But you're learning.”

“I don't want to learn—” and then I clamped my mouth shut before I let myself trot down the—by now—old, tired road of “this
place isn't permanent.”

“That's the trouble. You don't even give it a chance.”

“What are you talking about? I'm giving it a year.”

“Give it time, Leslie,” Dan urged. “You'll come to love the animals, the wide open spaces. Don't you like being home with
the kids?”

Direct hit on the guilt zone. “I do. And I wouldn't be working full-time. But…” I dug down, searching for a word, a phrase
that would connect. “I don't want my kids to grow up like I did. They're going to have the best life I can give them and if
it means working, so be it.”

“You don't think I can provide for us?” The hurt in his voice was almost my undoing. I knew what losing the business had done
to his pride.

“I think you can. And you have.” I paused, trying to find the best way to say what I needed to say. “Dan, we were in Seattle
two years, before that Dallas for eighteen months. Before that it was Minneapolis. We've spent a lot of years moving from place
to place. This is just another stopover.”

Right then Anneke pushed Nicholas into the kitchen and abandoned him in the box while she climbed up on her father's lap.
Nicholas let out a wail of disapproval, which I responded to in record time.

“When do you want to start?” Dan asked, the faint tone of resignation in his voice showing me that while he had accepted it,
he still didn't like it.

Here came the next tricky part. I shifted Nicholas on my hip, holding him close to me like a chubby shield. “This Friday.”
I kept my response short and fast, like a quick needle jab, hoping the speed would eradicate the pain.

“What?” He stared at me, open-mouthed.

Or not.

“How did you get that so fast?” Dan asked, the anger in his voice vying with the puzzlement on his face. “Don't you have to
take tests?”

“I did that the day before. I wanted to be sure before I told you.” I could see him still puzzling this through and went on
the defensive. “I'm not a stay-at-home wife. You knew that all along. I wasn't in Seattle, and I'm not so sure I can be here.”
I conveniently left out the fact that I had come here willing to take a chance. It was the family meeting, his mother, his
sister, the cows, and of course, the tractor that had chipped away at those intentions.

“My sisters manage. My mother managed.”

Low blow.

He looked at me then, and I felt a chill begin deep in my being. “We moved here to help my mother out, to support her. The
family needed us. That's why we came.”

“My working won't change that.”

“What are you going to do with the kids? Obviously you haven't asked my sisters or they would have let me know.”

“I've got that covered already,” I said quickly. “Kathy Greidanus is going to be taking care of Anneke and Ben.”

“Why not my mother? Or Judy? Or Gloria?”

“Your mom has enough to deal with, and neither Judy nor Gloria are on the way to work.”

“Did you even ask them?”

“Kathy offered first. Plus she has young kids for Anneke and Ben to play with.”

“Mom isn't going to be happy about this.”

“Kathy is right on the way to work. Judy lives fifteen minutes the other way…”

“She's going to ask me why you didn't.”

“… And I don't want to add another three quarters of an hour of driving to the kids' day.”

“I could take care of the kids once in a while.”

“You'll be busy with the field work.”

Dan waited a beat, then ran his fingers through his hair. “And what about our marriage? Wasn't coming to the farm about that,
too?”

The chill spread to my hands and feet. Since that one major blowup back home when I had come back from work early and Dan
had shown up late smelling like perfume, Miss Bilingual remained She Who Must Not Be Named. To give her a name would be to
give her a place in our life. I wasn't going to cede one second of my time to her. When Dan started confessing, I cut him
off. I didn't want details. I didn't want my imagination creating pictures that would forever waver between us. So we referred
to her only obliquely.

“What about our marriage, Dan? What about sticking up for each other and putting each other first? When you used the money
from our fund for the tractor, you showed me pretty clearly where what I wanted stood in your life.” I clung to Nicholas and
thankfully, for once, he didn't protest. I needed an ally and wasn't fussy as to shape, size, or mental ability.