by Amanda
"I hope it’s good, I’ve never made or had it before, but I found the recipe in your box and it looked simple enough," she shrugged.
"If it’s half as good as those brownies, I love it already," he smiled and made his way to the refrigerator as she sat down. "It’s good on bread, but I prefer it in romaine leaves," he said, setting the lettuce on the table. He sat down across from her and bowed his head, and she followed suit.
"Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You for this meal that You have blessed us with. We ask that You bless it into our bodies for Your benefit and Your glory. In the precious and holy name of Your son, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen."
It was almost identical to the prayer he prayed over dinner the night before. It was evident that his faith really was a part of who he was, in public and in private. It wasn’t just for show, it was genuine belief, and even though she didn’t agree, she had to respect that kind of commitment.
"They aren’t too far away at all, this wouldn’t be a bad walk-when it warms up." They were pulling into the Erickson’s drive, it was a big white farmhouse, not as well kept as Brian’s. The white paint was chipped and weathered, the roof was bowed and patched in places, and the wrap around porch was littered with bikes, trikes, and other wheeled toys.
They parked next to a large van that she assumed was what one needed to transport such a large family.
"There’s a path between the two properties, it’s only about a ten minute walk," she had forgotten her comment to Brian until he had answered her, she had been caught up in her surroundings trying to imagine the chaos they were about to encounter, life with ten kids! She couldn’t imagine.
"I thought Brian said you had ten children?" She asked Anna as the two sat chatting in the living room after the best chicken and noodles she’d ever tasted.
"Well, technically eleven," she laughed and rubbed her round stomach, "Adam is thirty-two, with a wife and three kids of his own." Aria felt her eyes go wide, it wasn’t possible for them to have a son older than she was, neither Todd nor Anna looked like they were old enough, and she was pregnant! She couldn’t be that old.
Sensing her confusion, Anna explained, "Adam was sixteen when we adopted him. I know it’s crazy, we got a lot of flack from, well, everyone, but we both saw that he just needed a good, loving home, and since we were already foster parents so that we could adopt Megan we were able to become his foster and then adoptive parents. He lived most of his life being bounced from home to home, and even though it took sixteen years for us to find him, he’s ours just as much as any of our others," Aria felt her eyes beginning to sting with emotion.
Anna spoke with such conviction, there was no denying that she truly was his mother in every way that counted, she couldn’t help but wish that people like Todd and Anna had been the ones to take her in, or even that they could have become parents to her baby.
"Megan is at the University of Iowa, this is her first year, she’s eighteen. We only have eight left at home, well nine here soon."
"Wow, I don’t know how you do it. Your children are all so well behaved, I couldn’t believe how polite and helpful they were during and after dinner. Joey and Johnna even laid down without a fight! I thought kids were supposed to hate naps," Anna let out a long laugh.
"They’re great kids, we’ve been immensely blessed with good kids. Don’t let them fool you, though, sometimes they make me want to rip my hair out, usually when they’re trying to rip each other’s out," the women laughed together before she continued. "No matter how good or how rotten they’re being, we love them just the same, and I wouldn’t trade a single one of them for the world. God has blessed us with more than we could have imagined. We thought we’d never have kids, and look, we have eleven!"
"I can’t imagine keeping up with that many, I’m sure you’re relived when it’s school time." Anna laughed again, and motioned to the maps and bookcases lining the dining room.
"We home school, and I wouldn’t have it any other way."
"If you think eight kids running around all day is bad, you’ll think she’s lost her mind when you find out she keeps me around in the afternoons, too." Aria looked up to see a teenaged girl, about sixteen, she assumed. The girl had short blonde hair that was shaved on one side of her head, with the rest pulled across on the other side, hanging just below her chin. With her lip, nose, and several ear piercings she stood in stark comparison to the group of clean cut, simply dressed Erickson children she had met.
"Sam, this is Aria, Brian’s wife, Aria, this is Sam, she’s learning household management, cooking, and sewing from me…during the week," she added with a raised eyebrow, clearly asking the girl what she was doing here on a Sunday.
"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Harris, I heard Brian came back with a wife," she smiled mischievously at her.
"Sam, do your mothers know you’re here?"
"Well, um…." She stammered back, watching the toes of her mismatched socks dig into the worn beige carpet. "They didn’t ask where I was going, so I didn’t tell them. I just need to talk to Christian for a few minutes, and I wanted to apologize about him missing curfew last night, it’s my fault," she finally looked up and Aria could see her eyes pleading with Anna’s.
"Chris said you needed to talk last night, that’s fine, as long as it doesn’t happen again. Look, Sam, you know you’re always welcome here, but your moms only tolerate you coming here during the week because it’s for a class, I don’t want you to get in trouble for hanging out around here more than you have to."
"Please, I just need to talk to him, just for a few minutes, please?" She was begging now, the desperation was rolling off her in waves.
Anna sighed, "He’s the barn with Todd and Brian, you have ten minutes and I’m not lying for you if they ask."
"Thank you! Ten minutes, I promise," and she nearly skipped out of the room. Anna chuckled and shook her head.
"She seems….interesting, not exactly the type of girl I would have pictured Christian with." She tried imagining the quiet, well-mannered, clean cut, straight laced, curly haired boy she’d met earlier with the pierced, wild haired, Black Sabbath shirt wearing, rough around the edges, girl she just met, she couldn’t picture it.
"Oh, they aren’t a couple, at least not yet," she smiled a knowing smile. "They couldn’t stand each other when she first started coming out here. Chris started doing all of his schoolwork in the mornings so he could go out and work in the afternoons, and now he’s back to work in the morning, and school in the afternoon, when she’s here."
"She doesn’t seem like the house management type, was she forced to take the class?"
She laughed, "No, there are several people around town that volunteer to take a junior or senior under their wing for the school year as part of a life skills class. The idea is to show them different career options, they get to choose their top five options, and from there the teacher assigns each kid to a mentor. Sam is pretty rebellious, her parents have been trying to get myself and the other stay at home mom mentor taken off the list since they started the program five years ago. Sam accused them of indoctrinating her with their beliefs and claimed she wanted to see how the ‘oppressed’ live," she shook her head. "Really she just wanted to rebel, and they are the epitome of tolerance, anything and everything she did they supported, so she came to me."
"That’s an interesting rebellion," Aria laughed, it was one of the craziest things she’d ever heard, and that was saying something.
"She’s a good girl, as much as her moms hate me, we sure do like having her around. She’s the most interesting student we’ve had, that’s for certain, the others I’ve had wanted to follow in my footsteps, and genuinely wanted to know how to run and manage a home. But, Sam, she’s hard to read. She really loves it some days, and I see the light in her eyes when she learns to make a new dish or when she made out our monthly budget, but other times she acts like this is the worst life possible.
"I know she’s going through something right now, but she
won’t talk to me about it, I’m glad she’s found a friend in Christian."
"I just have to ask, you said she has moms?" This was something she couldn’t wrap her head around, as far as she knew all Christians hated gay people, so why would devout, home schooling Christians have someone around their kids everyday that they hated? It just didn’t make sense.
Anna nodded, "Yeah, they adopted Sam when she was a few months old, and then about a year later they adopted her brother, Trinity—"
"Mom! Mikey’s hurt!" She was cut off by one of the older children yelling, and cries coming from the kitchen, immediately both women were on their feet and headed into the kitchen.
Aria stopped at the doorway to the kitchen and watched as Anna strode over to the little boy with blood running down his face and left leg. She immediately recognized him as one of the twins. His right arm was already wrapped in a green cast, covered in signatures and drawings.
She watched in amazement as Anna calmly crouched down next to her son, and started soothing him with comforting words as she examined his face, and then pulled his pant leg up to look at the gash there. She helped Mikey out of his coat and directed Clara, the child that had called for her, to grab the first aid kit and a rag, she nodded and ran off immediately. Aria was amazed at how calm everyone stayed, she was worried sick for the little boy and wondered if they shouldn’t take him to the hospital, but Anna just stayed next to him, drying his tears and making jokes until Clara came back in with the requested supplies.
Anna went to work, wiping away the blood and cleaning the cut, once Mikey had finally stopped crying and his breathing returned to normal she asked him what happened.
"I didn’t wanna build the snowman no more, so I took my bike to the top of the hill—"
"In the snow? With a broken arm? Child, you do have a death wish."
"Nuh-uh, I was just wantn’ somethin’ new to do, but I crashed."
"I see that. You know we don’t ride bikes with broken arms, or in the snow. You promised to take it easy and just help with the snowman. Because you didn’t keep your word you need to head on upstairs, change out of these clothes, and bring them right back down so I can soak them, and then you may read in your room until Joey and Johnna are ready to wake up."
The little boy’s head drooped, but he agreed and slid past Aria, still rooted in the doorway.
"That child knows no fear. About a month ago he fell out of a tree that we told him not to climb in, and broke his arm, he’s lucky all he got this time was a few good gashes, he’s only six and has already had a broken rib, a sprained ankle, a broken arm and more cuts and bruises than I can count."
"You handled it better than I would have, I would have been rushing him to the ER."
"Nah, when you’re a mom you’ll understand. You can usually tell right away by looking at them and listening to their cries how serious it is. He was able to put full weight on both legs, and all head wounds bleed more, they weren’t bad enough for stitches. You just know, I guess," she shrugged and turned at the sound of the door opening.
Todd and Brian walked in, kicking snow off their boots, followed by Christian and three of the younger Erickson children, whose names she was having a hard time remembering. She knew Christian was the oldest at home, and the youngest two were Johnna and Joey, at one and three, and of course after the incident she knew Mikey and Clara, but the names of the three trailing in now eluded her.
"Emma and David told us what happened to Michael, he going to be alright?" Todd asked as he made his way across the room to his wife.
"Just a few cuts and scrapes, he’s had worse. Did Sam find you, she said it was important?" She looked past Todd to Christian, who was clearly trying to sneak past the adults without answering any questions, he visibly cringed before answering.
"Uh, yeah, she found me. She just needed to talk for a few minutes, that’s all."
Brian gave Aria a meaningful look, and she nodded in answer to his silent question, it was time for them to go. Brian cleared his throat, cutting some of the tension that was palpable between mother and son.
"Thank you guys for having us, we both really enjoyed it, but we should probably get going, I think my parents want to Skype with their new daughter in law." Aria cringed, they said call, not video chat.
"Of course! Aria, it was so good to meet you, you’re welcome to come over any time, I’m looking forward to getting to know you better."
They exchanged goodbyes, and made their way home. The rest of the day was calm and relaxing, Brian showed her around the farm and introduced her to Thunder. It was warm enough that they could walk around to look at the various buildings scattered throughout the property, Jax came along and stayed right on their heels. It was the most comfortable she had ever been with a man, she couldn’t believe how easily Brian was tearing down her walls.
She still couldn’t stand to have him touch her, and thankfully he didn’t try, she was afraid that when she held his hand at the restaurant that he would take that as a pass to touch her whenever he liked, thankfully he seemed to pick up on her need for distance and her unease with being alone with him. He kept a comfortable distance, except for the brief Skype conversation with his parents where they sat a little too close for comfort, but that had been her idea. His parents were so kind and giving, she didn’t want to do anything to hurt them, and she knew that if they found out the truth of their marriage they would be deeply hurt.
His parents had kept talking about how they had prayed for Brian to find a good wife and partner, and how they needed more grandkids. She knew she had to do everything in her power to keep them from finding out what their marriage was really like. The demands she was making of their beloved son would surely crush them.
She swallowed hard, and tried to ignore the guilt bubbling up inside of her as she got ready for bed.
6
"Good morning sleepy head," Brian turned to offer her a smile as she made her way downstairs Friday morning.
"Hey, cooking’s my job, if you beat me to it how am I supposed to earn my keep?" She had made a point to beat him to all of the cooking and cleaning in order to earn her own way. It was painfully obvious that she wouldn’t be getting a job anytime soon, with not knowing how to drive, and a serious lack of public transit; she was stuck. Brian didn’t seem to mind at all, but had offered to teach her drive several times anyway, he made it clear that he just wanted her to be happy.
For the first time in her life she was starting to feel happy. She could feel the ice around her heart slowly thawing, and the walls she had built were getting more and more holes in them as each day wore on.
"How many times do I have to tell you, you don’t have to ‘earn your keep’ you do that just by putting up with me," he flashed a dimpled smile, that had quickly become her favorite of his smiles. "Besides, I like to cook, and you never let me do it, I had to get up early just to make pancakes."
"Oh, yes, you’re so mistreated," she teased with an overly dramatic eye roll as she perched on one of the stools in the corner of the kitchen.
"Glad you see things my way. It’s our one week anniversary; I had to do something special to surprise you." Her heart picked up its pace, something that she had never felt before, and it scared her.
"Are you going to celebrate every week of our marriage?"
"No," she sighed with relief, she didn’t know if she could handle extra spoiling every week in addition to everything he had done for her every day. They were so uneven already it was too much for him to do even more for her.
Brian flipped the last pancake on top of the stack he had been making, and strode over to her, stopping just inches from her, closer than he normally got, but still respecting her space, that was just one more thing to add to her list of things to admire about him.
"I don’t plan to celebrate every week of our marriage; I plan to celebrate every day, every hour, and every second of our marriage. Whether you like it or not I plan to cherish you, and take care of you, and
spoil you rotten. I plan to honor the vows I made before you, God, and everyone at that little wedding chapel. Marriage is a beautiful covenant ordained by God Himself, and I plan to cherish every second of it, even with as crazy as ours started out. It’s a gift, and I want to celebrate it. I know you still don’t trust me, and that’s okay, I understand that. I pray one day you can, and one day we can have a real marriage, but until that day comes and every day after, I’m going to do everything in my power to make this work, I want this to work."
Her heart was in her mouth and the breath caught in her lungs, his blue eyes shining bright, full of sincerity, and determination bore into hers, and she couldn’t form a reply, her mind was blank, and her mouth suddenly dry.
What did you say to that? She wanted to be cherished by him, she wanted to have a real marriage with him, she wanted to trust him completely, she wanted to love him, she wanted a happily ever after with Brian. She knew that she could never have those things, she didn’t deserve those things, not with who she was and what she had done, and she knew that when Brian found out about her past he wouldn’t want her. She didn’t deserve him; he was too good for someone like her.
She swallowed hard and held back the tears, demanding the stinging to stop, her gaze dropped to the floor, she let out a deep breath and responded as honestly as she could; "I want to trust you, I do, I’m just…I can’t, and I hate that I can’t. You are the best man I’ve ever known, and I don’t deserve you." She finished in a whisper that she wasn’t even sure he heard.
"You are an amazing woman, Aria, I don’t know who hurt you or why, but seeing you like this, with your walls up, defensive and scared breaks my heart and makes me want nothing more than to hunt whomever it was down and teach them some manners. I know you can’t trust me yet, it’s only been a week, I know whatever happened to you, whatever wounds you have are going to take time to heal, when you’re ready, I’m here, and I want to help you heal. We have our entire lives ahead of us to get to know and trust each other. I never want to push you. I’m sorry if what I said upset you, I just want to always be honest with you." She was shocked by how well he read her, he was more perceptive than any man she had ever known. She was careful not to let on about her past, yet he knew, well, he didn’t know the worst of it, but he knew that she’d been hurt, he knew she had a lot of healing to do.