All in One Place

by Carolyne Aarsen

  The frown made another brief appearance.

  “It's not a ‘thing,’ as you so blandly put it.” Underneath Leslie's quiet voice I caught a hint of firm resolve. “I've seen and experienced a lot lately with Nicholas…”

  The hurt in her voice hit me as hard as her words. I had been a lousy sister and a poor aunt. But I didn't have space in my mind to dwell on that.

  “How far do you live from town?” I asked, striking out blindly into the foreign territory that had become conversation with my sister.

  “Half an hour. Unless I'm stuck behind some slowpoke driver whose mission in life is to be Keeper of the Speed.”

  I hadn't heard that term since Leslie and I were young, and I clung to the narrow opening. “Like that lady who used to drive us to school when we lived in that apartment in Pittsburgh? What was her name again?”

  “I'm sure her name wasn't Sally Slowpoke, like we christened her.” Leslie's smile enlarged the opening.

  “I used to be able to finish half my homework on the way to school when she drove” I added.

  “I still don't know how Mom conned her into doing that for the six months we lived there.”

  “Mom had her ways.” I had never told her that I was the one conning Sally Slowpoke by promising we would keep Mom's behavior acceptable in return for the ride.

  “Have you heard from Mom in the past year?”

  I shook my head.

  “Me neither.”

  Our silence made us allies in our disappointment.

  “Do you have any idea where she might be?” Leslie asked. “I thought she might want to at least make some kind of connection with her grandchildren.”

  “I don't know. I was actually hoping we could try to find her.”

  Leslie tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “I'm not really interested in trying, Terra.”

  “Don't you ever wonder if she has any regrets?”

  “I would hope so.” Leslie shot me a quick, jabbing look. “Why do you ask?”

  “I just think she could be pretty lonely.”

  “That's her choice. And since when have you started sticking up for her?”

  I had been critical of our mother in the past. But now? Condemnation didn't come as easily as it used to. My life's choices gave me no ground from which to throw stones.

  “I hope she doesn't decide to suddenly show up here as well,” Leslie said.

  The “as well” tacked onto her complaint piled guilt upon guilt.

  Moving right along…

  “And what about you, Terra? What have you been doing? Anything come of that guy you told me about in your e-mail? Eric something or other?”

  “No. Nothing. Nothing at all. I moved out after—”

  “Please don't tell me you were living with him?” Leslie's question was like a shot to the heart.

  “Okay. I won't.” If you wanted to call what we did living.

  “Terra—”

  I held up a hand, forestalling the lecture that I should have known would be coming. As young girls we'd always laid out the order of our relationships. Boyfriend. Marriage. Sex. Babies. No deviation.

  My sister, Miss Leslie, had managed to follow the formula to a T. Then there was me. The only T in my life's formula was the initial of my first name.

  “Okay. I don't want to lecture you…”

  “Thank you.”

  “But I do worry about you and your lifestyle. Didn't we always say we weren't going to turn out like Mom?”

  “I give up. Did we?” I added a forced laugh.

  Leslie's poke reassured me that she understood the old joke. “Terra, you know I love you.”

  Her words dove deep into my heart and dislodged the doubts I'd had about coming here. “I love you, too, Leslie.”

  “I just want you to be happy.”

  “I am, now that I'm here.”

  “I'm happy you're here, too. And now, my dear sister, if you look to the left…”

  “You'll miss the scenery on the right,” I quipped.

  “Actually, you'll see the farm.”

  I obediently looked left, catching a glimpse of a yellow house and a cluster of barns before the house disappeared behind another grove of trees.

  “Home.” The word sifted out on a light sigh of contentment.

  A finger of envy wriggled in my heart. She seemed settled. Secure.

  She didn't need or miss me at all.

  Chapter Three

  Before turning into the driveway, Leslie unexpectedly slowed the car down, pulled over to the side of the road, stopped, and rested her wrists on the steering wheel.

  Sensing she was about to make an announcement, I pushed down a shiver of apprehension. There'd been enough seriousness between us to last a lifetime. I was ready for jokes, a few laughs, and shared memories to cement our relationship.

  “Do you remember what happened between you and Wilma at my wedding?”

  Oh, yes. Another inebriated moment drawn from the archives. “I remember she was pretty ticked at me,” I said, avoiding the obvious.

  “Because you had too much to drink and you insulted her.” Leslie wasn't above stating the obvious.

  “I remember that you were glad I did.”

  “At the time, Dan and I were in a different place in our life.”

  “Yeah. Minneapolis.”

  Leslie caught the corner of her lip between her teeth and gave me a worried look. “I'm serious, Terra. Wilma and I are part of the same family and the same community now. What she thinks matters a bit more than it used to. And Wilma's at the house now, and… well… what with you getting arrested this morning…”

  “Don't worry, Sis. I'm not about to become a career criminal.” I bit back my protestations of innocence, knowing that I was beating a dead horse. The whole situation still had me fuming, but right now I was not operating from a position of strength. Truth to tell, I was getting tired of not operating from a position of strength. Tired of having my life's choices made for me by my circumstances.

  It's just for now. Just relax. Breathe. Just get through this little glitch.

  Leslie laid a hand on my shoulder. “It's just… I'm trying to make a new life here. I want it to work.”

  “I'll behave.” I tried not to resent the fact that she saw me as a potential liability.

  “Thanks. That's all I ask.”

  And now that she had dealt with her troublesome sister, she put the car back in gear.

  A few minutes later, we pulled up behind a small brown car and a large white pickup. As we came to a stop, the screen door slapped open and Anneke came bounding down the wooden steps of the veranda, Nicholas a few steps behind her.

  “Auntie Terra! Auntie Terra!” Her blond hair slapped her cheeks as she ran.

  She remembers me, I thought with satisfaction as I crouched down to greet my niece.

  Anneke threw herself at me, a solid bundle of enthusiastic acceptance. She had a little more heft to her than the last time I'd seen her, and she threw me off balance.

  A dog barked, the door of the house opened, and another pair of arms grabbed on to me, joining the fray.

  I teetered on my stiletto-clad feet, then turned to Nicholas.

  His hair, thick as ever, lay like a carpet on his head. Bright blue eyes blinked back at me, then widened as he seemed to realize he didn't know me.

  “My mommy! My mommy!” He pushed me away, his head swiveling in panic.

  “Gimme a piggyback,” Anneke shouted in my ear, her sticky fingers tangling in my hair as the dog's barking rose against the background of Nicholas's crying.

  “Sasha, down,” Leslie called out, swinging Nicholas easily onto her hip and catching Anneke by one arm. “Anneke, please don't be so loud.”

  And in seconds, bedlam was banished, and all I could hear was the sound of Nicholas sniffling and the dog breathing down my neck.

  How did she get to be this capable mommy? The last time I had come for a visit, Anneke had Dan and Leslie wound around he
r little pinky.

  “But I wanna piggyback,” Anneke whined halfheartedly. A single lift of Leslie's eyebrow and Anneke lowered her head, scuffing the ground with the toe of her sneaker.

  “Maybe later,” I said, ruffling her hair in an effort to appease her.

  She slapped my hand away and I heard Leslie's light sigh. “Anneke, you can say you're sorry to Auntie Terra or you can go to your room. Which one do you want?”

  Anneke looked up at me as if gauging my effectiveness in the discipline department, then mumbled a quick “Sorry.”

  “Sorry about that,” Leslie said as Anneke slouched back to the house. “She really picks up on people's moods and tends to get wound up when things get tense.”

  And things get tense when Mommy has to go to Harland to pick up her sister from the sheriff's office.

  “She's just young,” I said airily, as if I had any clue how a child Anneke's age would behave.

  The door opened again, and Wilma VandeKeere stepped out. She had the same high cheekbones Dan had, the same intensely blue eyes. I supposed that the frown puckering her forehead would be similar to Dan's once I saw him again as well.

  Her fashionably streaked hair was styled in a bob. Eye shadow dusted her eyelids; earrings glinted from her ear lobes. Her tailored shirt was tucked into a pair of khaki pants holding a crease that looked like it could cut.

  Wilma looked as scary as the day I'd literally run into her during the rehearsal dinner for Dan and Leslie's wedding.

  Nicholas pulled away from Leslie, leaning toward Wilma. “Want Nana!” he called out, his voice filled with surprising joy.

  Wilma's features softened as she leaned down to pick up her grandson. He grabbed her around the neck, mussing her hair, but she didn't seem to mind. “You didn't finish your cookie, Nicholas.”

  Nicholas grabbed her face between his hands. “No cookie.”

  Wilma's smile transformed her features. “But Mommy made them just for you.” She rubbed her nose over his face, brushed a kiss over his cheeks, then turned to me.

  “Hello, Terra. It's good to see you again.”

  If I hadn't seen how her expression softened when she was with Nicholas, I might have missed the slight stiffening when she turned to me.

  “I'm glad to be here.” Unoriginal and feeble, but what else could I say under the circumstances?

  “Leslie, I was wondering if you had any more cream,” Wilma asked. “The pitcher is empty, and I couldn't find another container in the fridge.”

  Leslie smacked herself on the side of the head. “I was going to pick some up when I ran into town. Sorry, Mom. No.”

  “Don't worry. It's not a problem.” Once again, Wilma's smile held a warmth markedly missing from her little encounter with me. She paused. “Will you be long?”

  “Just a few more minutes.”

  “I'll keep our company entertained. They were hoping to walk over the property in a few minutes.” As the door fell shut behind Wilma, I shot Leslie a puzzled glance.

  “I thought we had a mom.” I dug into my little bag of tricks, trying to find a tone that came closer to teasing than the faint betrayal I felt.

  “Wilma is a mom to me,” Leslie said, folding her arms over her chest. “She's supportive and helpful. She has her quirks, but she's around. Dependable.”

  “And our mom isn't.”

  Leslie gave me a tired look, as if unwilling to go back to this worn, talked-out topic.

  Next item.

  “Thanks again for picking me up. I didn't know you were so busy.”

  “And if you had, would you have decided not to get into a fight?”

  Apologizing would have been redundant. “I'll pay you back.”

  The pity on her face bothered me more than her previous request for me to behave myself. “With what?”

  I stifled a riffle of panic at the thought that all my available cash now resided in the hands of the sheriff's office of Harland County, Montana.

  “Maybe I could help you out on the farm? I could gather eggs, babysit, slop hogs, muck out stalls.” I lifted my hands in a gesture of supplication. “I'll do my best Little House on the Prairie imitation.”

  “Except we live in the mountains,” Leslie said.

  “Little House in the Rockies?”

  “For now, you can promise not to get Wilma worked up.”

  When we were younger, I was the one who made her lunches, who made sure she had clean clothes, who got her out the door and to school on time. My moment of irresponsibility was a glitch in the matrix, not an ongoing problem that needed her firm and somewhat motherly hand.

  “I'll lay low and not make eye contact,” I promised, stifling a flare of irritation. I knew I was far from perfect, but I was house-trained.

  “Just be friendly and ordinary, like I know you can be,” she said.

  Inside the house, a cacophony of voices in two different languages washed over us, and I knew it would be some time before I had enough quiet time with my sister to make up the ground I had lost this morning and over the past nine months.

  An older woman with short, spiky hair, a younger woman with a man beside her, then Wilma and a young girl were perched around the kitchen table. The room held the welcome scent of coffee and cinnamon.

  “Femmelies, Siem, Karl, Elsa? I'd like you to meet my sister, Terra.” Leslie made appropriate introductions as another teenage girl entered the room. She sauntered over, her eyes wide with anticipation, her hands strung up in the pockets of a pair of gravity-defying low-rise jeans, topped with a bright pink tube top that exposed a generous amount of seventeen-year-old tummy.

  Enjoy that smooth, taut skin, I thought, sucking in my own slightly pooching stomach, remembering the twenty minutes my own stomach was as flat.

  “Tabitha, this is Terra, my sister,” Leslie said. “Terra, this is Tabitha, Gloria's daughter. She's staying with us to help keep our guests' daughter company.” As she spoke, Leslie reached over and discreetly pulled Tabitha's hands out of her pockets. “Honey, please pull your jeans up a bit?”

  Tabitha sighed but did as she was told. I guessed I wasn't the only wayward person Leslie was setting on the straight and narrow.

  “Leslie told me you've lived all over the place,” Tabitha said, slipping her hands back into her pants pockets.

  “I've been around.”

  “I've got to serve coffee,” Leslie said. “Terra, do you want some?”

  I shook my head.

  “I thought that was your preferred post-maudlin-mood enhancer?” she asked, letting me catch the faintest twinkle in her eye.

  That small moment, that tiny glimpse into our shared past, gave me hope for the rest of my stay here.

  “Maybe later. Can I help?” I asked, eager to start my indentured service.

  Leslie handed me a carafe. “You can draw on your extensive waitressing experience and refill cups.”

  “At last, something within my realm of expertise.” I took the carafe, but as I walked to the table, Tabitha was hot on my heels.

  “Leslie says you went backpacking in Europe,” she said. “I'd kill to do that.”

  “That's hardly an appropriate comment,” Wilma said quietly, raising one eyebrow the smallest of millimeters, moving aside so I could fill her cup.

  “Sorry, Gramma,” Tabitha said, sliding her grandmother a quick smile.

  Wilma inclined her head to the empty space beside the young teenage guest, and Tabitha scuttled away. I saw Wilma give me a worried glance, and I sensed her concern over this jailbird leading her granddaughter astray.

  “Leslie, this is lovely,” Wilma said approvingly at the tray of cookies and brownies Leslie set on the table. “You've been working hard.”

  Her endorsement pulled a genuine smile out of Leslie, as did the appreciative comments from the guests.

  I had to confess, I was impressed as well. The last cookies Leslie served me were some stale Oreos that she had stashed away in the darkened recesses of the pantry of her house in
Seattle.

  The porch door swung open and a tuneless whistle preceded the person coming in.

  “Daddy! Daddy!” I heard from a hallway off the kitchen, and Anneke came barreling in, veering right just as Dan entered the room.

  He scooped her up and swung her into the air. “Did ya miss me, princess?” he asked, lowering her and dropping a kiss on her head.

  “So, so much, Daddy,” she said, clinging to his hand as if she hadn't seen her father for months.

  Dan's hair was blonder than before, his eyes bluer in a tanned face. A spray of wrinkles fanned out from his eyes. His shirt, softened from repeated washings, hung on his broad shoulders like an old friend. He'd lost that intensity I remembered seeing on his face. In spite of the frown now creasing his forehead, his body seemed more at home here in this old farmhouse. More relaxed.

  “Hello, Terra,” he said, his hand still resting on Anneke's head. “It's been a while. Good to see you again.”

  Polite words enhanced with a polite upward slide of his lips. Like mother, like son.

  “Sorry about dropping in like this.” I hoped contrition would cover my misdeeds. “You've got a lovely place here.”

  “Thanks. We like it.” He ruffled Anneke's hair.

  If I knew anything about farming, I could have asked him how things were going with the cows or the crops or whatever kept him occupied right now.

  As it was, awkwardness and my nine-month absence from his and his family's lives stood between us like an unwelcome guest.

  The sound of a chair scraping back broke into the unwieldy silence. “Dan. Hoe gaat het, met je jongen?” The younger male relative hurried over to Dan, then hugged him with great enthusiasm.

  “I'm doing just fine, Karl. Good to see you,” Dan replied.

  Karl said something back in Dutch, and the other visitors all laughed.

  I gave Leslie a puzzled look, and she lifted a shoulder in a vague shrug. Obviously, she was out of the language loop as well.

  Leslie made more coffee, and I poured and smiled and refilled the plate with more squares and cookies and in general tried to make myself useful and unobtrusive.

  The guests, Karl, Femmelies, Siem, and Elsa, were friendly, but I thought they caught a hint of the underlying tension. They kept looking from me to Leslie, as if trying to put the two of us together in a family album.