by Arlene James
* * *
Don and Walt got to see a little of the baseball game after dinner, while Dale took the girls upstairs to play for a bit, and Sudie and Petra helped Hallie clean up after a tasty, traditional dinner of pot roast, potatoes, green beans, cabbage and carrots. Then Sudie put the girls down for naps, and Don queued up the movie. Surprisingly, it was an action flick that the guys all liked. Walt and Don occupied identical recliners, while Hallie claimed an upholstered rocker that sat in front of the fireplace, and Sudie draped herself across an overstuffed armchair in a corner. That left the couch for Dale and Petra.
Dale plopped down in the center and stretched out a long arm across the back, crossing his legs so one ankle balanced atop the opposite knee. Petra sat primly beside him until he slid to the corner and suggested that she kick off her sandals and put up her feet to prevent swelling in her ankle. The ankle was a bit puffy still, so she scooted over next to him and turned to lift her bare feet onto the cushions. His arm just naturally dropped down to cradle her against his side. The movie ended for Petra at that point. Compared to that arm holding her snugly and the shoulder against which she pillowed her head, everything else was just background noise.
The rational part of her brain told her that she should get up and run as fast as she could, lest all her plans be destroyed, but her heart kept whispering, “What if…what if…what if you could have a career and this, too?”
Chapter Ten
As soon as the credits started rolling, his mother launched out of her chair. “Who wants peach cobbler?”
Dale mentally sighed. He’d have preferred to sit right where he was with Petra snuggled against him, but his dad and brother-in-law already had their hands in the air, and he heard sounds of movement from the girls upstairs. While Sudie moved toward the staircase tucked into the hallway behind the dining room, Don started scrolling through the DVR list in search of his ball game. The idyll had ended.
Might as well have cobbler.
“I’ll have a bowl, Mama,” Dale said, looking to Petra as she swung her feet down to the floor.
“Not me, Mrs. Bowen,” she said regretfully. “I’m still stuffed from dinner.”
Sudie returned with the girls and plopped Callie down in her father’s lap, while she went off with Nell, returning moments later with huge bowls of steaming peach cobbler topped with melting ice cream. Don fed Callie from his bowl, while she lounged sleepily against him and Sudie shared with Nell, who seemed mainly interested in the ice cream. Dale sat back and enjoyed himself.
“Sure you don’t want some?” he asked Petra.
“I’ll explode if I do, and I can’t imagine where you’re putting it. I have never seen anyone eat as much as you.”
“And stay so thin,” Don complained.
“Pound some nails, you’ll slim down,” Sudie commented.
“What? You saying I’m losing my girlish figure?” Don teased, patting his mounded middle.
“No, honey,” Sudie shot back. “Why, you look just like I did when I was pregnant with Callie.”
Dale laughed. “You asked for that one, bro.”
Petra shook her head, smiling at their antics.
As soon as he polished off his dessert, Walt closed his eyes and, predictably, went to sleep in his chair. Heedless of his father-in-law napping beside him, Don shouted encouragement to his team. Walt never stirred.
Hallie bustled back into the room with a glass of iced tea in hand. “These girls need to get outside for a while,” she declared.
Dale volunteered to take them out to the backyard, hoping Petra would accompany him for a few minutes of relative privacy. Encouraged when she slid her feet into her sandals, he deflated again when she offered to take his dessert bowl to the kitchen. Handing it over, he tried to tell her with his eyes that he’d like her to join him.
He needn’t have worried. He’d helped Nell into the swing that dangled from the limb of the oak tree that sheltered the play area and was making sure that the sandbox was safe for Callie when Petra slipped out the back door and came to ask what he was doing. After plopping Callie down on her bottom and handing her a tiny plastic shovel, he straightened and tossed aside the large, slotted spoon he’d been using.
“We sieve the sand to be sure nothing’s gotten into it.”
“Oh,” Petra said. “Like what?”
“Scorpions, lizards. Squirrels sometimes bury acorns in there. They go right into the mouth.”
“Ugh,” Petra said, frowning down at Callie.
Dale chuckled. “All kids put things in their mouths until they learn better.”
“I’ve never heard that,” she replied slowly, “and my mother’s a pediatrician, but then I’ve never really been around many kids.”
“Your mother’s a pediatrician and you’ve never been around kids?” he asked in surprise.
Petra shrugged. “Not really. I mean, other than my brothers and sister.”
“Don’t any of your friends have kids?”
She gave him the oddest look. “I suppose some of them must. I just…haven’t kept up very well.”
He tried not to let his dismay show. He’d known, of course, that she was focused on her career, but not even to know if her friends had children! Did she even have friends? he wondered. He repositioned a pair of painted metal lawn chairs that his mother and sister used when watching the kids while they played. Waving Petra toward one of them, he went to push Nell again before settling down in the other chair.
“You must think I’m awful,” Petra commented softly.
“No, I don’t think you’re awful,” he told her. “I do think you’ve missed out on a lot.”
Just then, Callie sent sand flying, sprinkling her hair and pelting Dale and Petra.
Embarrassed, Dale hurried to correct her. “No, no, don’t throw it.” Leaning forward, he propped up the plastic pail that went with the spade. “Fill that. It’s all empty. Look. It needs to be filled.” Callie complacently began dumping sand into the little bucket.
Nell cried, “Push me, Unca Dale!”
He twisted around and reached back just in time to connect the palm of his hand with the soles of her feet as she swung forward, giving her a mighty shove in the opposite direction.
“Whee!”
When he turned back to settle into his chair again, he saw that Petra was grinning. “What?”
“You’re just so good with them,” she said.
He smiled, pleased. “I’ve been with them since they were born.”
“I don’t know if I could do what you do,” she told him with a shake of her head.
“Watch the kids, you mean?”
“I mean all of it,” she said, spreading her hands. “I can’t imagine living in the same house with my family now. We all went our separate ways and never looked back.”
“That’s not true,” Dale refuted. “You see Asher and Dallas fairly often, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course, but we don’t live together.”
“Well, I won’t always live with my folks, either. One of these days, after I marry, I’ll build my own house. This house will go to Sudie and Don, and in return we’ll never have to worry that Mom and Dad won’t have a place or be cared for when the time comes that they can’t care for themselves. Meanwhile, why should I live alone elsewhere when the people I love best are here? It’s not like there isn’t room or I don’t have any privacy.”
“I see.” She thought for a minute then haltingly said, “When my family did all live together, the best times were Wednesday evenings. My parents worked half days on Wednesday, unless there was a real emergency. We kids would come home from school, and the help would all be gone, and Mom and Dad would be there. We’d go out to dinner and then to church. We had a rule abo
ut no TV on Wednesdays, so we’d play games or just sit around and talk.”
“You say ‘the help’ like it’s a normal, everyday thing to have staff around the house,” he noted, frowning at this proof of the differences in their lives.
“For us, it was,” she said, “but not on Wednesdays or Sundays. After church on Sunday was a quiet time for us, but Wednesdays were really all about talk.”
“What did you talk about?” Dale asked idly, sensing that she wanted to tell him.
“Lots of things,” she said, “but mostly about the future. Asher would say he was going to play professional soccer or maybe be a lawyer.”
“We know which goal he went after,” Dale noted.
She nodded. “Phillip would talk about Mount Everest and Sir Edmund Hillary. He’d name all the highest peaks in the world and talk about designing gear so he could climb them.”
“Interesting.”
“And Dallas,” Petra went on, rolling her eyes. “All she ever wanted to do when we were kids was play school.”
“Of course, she was always the teacher,” Dale surmised, smiling.
Petra nodded. Then she sighed. “And me…I was all over the place. Never could settle on a single goal. One week it was dancing and theater. The next it was the stock market. One time I became enamored of working on a cruise ship. Later, I got it into my head that I wanted to coach college-level volleyball. Then I lost interest in the sport and didn’t even go out for the team the next year. That’s the way it’s been my whole life,” she complained miserably. “My parents despaired of me. They even had me tested for Attention Deficit Disorder!”
“Oh, Pet,” Dale said, taking her hand in his. “Don’t you know that the vast majority of the world is just like you?”
“Not you. You’ve always known what you would do,” she pointed out.
“Honey, if my family was in meat processing, I’d be a butcher!” he told her. “Most of the world thinks in term of jobs, not career. We just want to keep the bills paid and food on the table. Most of those don’t even care how they do it, so long as it’s honest work and not too dangerous or stressful.”
“My parents have always stressed the importance of finding your passion,” she said.
“That’s because they’re passionate about their own work,” Dale pointed out. “They’d have to be in order to be doctors, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it doesn’t mean that everyone has to work at their passion. My grandma has a passion for ceramic figurines. Her house is stuffed with them. But she worked in a dry cleaner most of her life. My grandpa was a meter reader, and the only passion in his life is Grandma. They’re two of the happiest people I know.”
Petra shook her head. “If you only knew how many different jobs I’ve had!”
“But you didn’t get fired from any of them, did you?” he asked pointedly.
“No, of course not. I just realized I didn’t like what I was doing or that the advancement opportunities were nonexistent. A few times, I left because something that seemed more promising came along.”
“That tells me you’re a capable, desirable employee,” he said, squeezing her hand. “I already know you’re an excellent manager.”
“How can you say that,” she demanded, “when you’ve bailed me out so many times?”
He fixed a level look on her. “Ninety percent of solving a problem is knowing where to find the solutions. And you didn’t even let your egotistical, overbearing boss keep you from coming to me when you knew I had the answers. That’s what I call good management. I don’t know why you are so determined to call it failure.”
She stared at him for a good ten seconds. “Oh,” she said. “I never thought of it like that.”
“Well, start thinking of it like that,” he advised.
Just then, he realized that Nell was calling him. He got up to go to her. Callie also stood—and promptly fell face forward into the sand. She howled as if she’d been shot. Dale yanked her up and plopped her down again in Petra’s lap, swiping at her sandy face as he turned toward Nell, who was trying to climb out of the safety swing. He got Nell out of the hard, rubber shell seat and turned back toward Callie in time to see her literally spit sand in Petra’s face. He closed his eyes.
Oh, that was all this day needed. He’d be surprised if Petra would even speak to him after that. He reminded himself that they had a date for the Renaissance Fair on Saturday and wondered just how soon she’d call it off. Well, the sooner the better, he supposed, before he lost his heart completely.
* * *
Her afternoon with the Bowen family gave Petra lots to ponder. She had to consider that she might have been concentrating on the wrong thing, namely her so-called career, to the exclusion of more important matters, like her family and friends. Even worse, she feared that she’d failed some important test. It should be obvious to Dale by now that she was the least domestic woman on the face of the earth.
Petra hated to admit even to herself that she’d never cooked a full meal, never cared for an elderly grandparent, never even changed a diaper! When Dale had dropped his wailing, dirty little niece in her lap, Petra hadn’t had the foggiest idea what to do. She hadn’t even realized that the child’s mouth was full of sand—until Callie had spit it at her. No wonder the poor baby had cried!
Dale had seemed uncharacteristically subdued after that, and Petra had felt a certain sense of panic about it, which was why she had impulsively proposed on the drive home that they take the girls to the park. Dale actually stammered in shock.
“The p-park? Really? When?”
“How about Wednesday?” she’d heard herself say. That, after all, had been the best day of the week when she’d been growing up at home with her parents.
“You mean, like, during the day?” he’d asked. “Because they go to sleep right after church on Wednesday evening.”
“Lunch!” she’d proposed brightly, thinking that Hilda wouldn’t mind packing a picnic for them.
And that was how she wound up waiting on the sidewalk in front of the hotel on what had to be the hottest day of the summer thus far. She’d had sense enough to wear a light brown pantsuit and comfortable flat shoes, her hair caught in a spiky knot at the nape of her neck—but the perspiration misting her skin belied her cool, calm appearance.
Dale pulled up to the curb, not in his double-cab truck but in Sudie’s minivan, with the girls belted into safety seats in the back. Petra lugged the picnic basket that Hilda had packed for them that morning over to the van and said hello to the girls while Dale stowed their meal behind the driver’s seat. The girls looked right through her, their attention focused on the basket. Petra walked around and let herself into the passenger side. Dale drove them to the Chataugua Park. There Dale and the girls chased around the graveled playground and climbed over the jungle gym in the ninety-plus heat, until a little boy about five years old joined them. Displaced by the newcomer in Nell’s eyes, Dale carried Callie over to the shaded table from where Petra watched the action.
She’d covered the table with a checked cloth and laid out plastic containers of food. Dale dropped down beside her, the baby on his lap, and peeked under the lids, stealing a hard-boiled egg and gobbling down half of it before sharing the rest with Callie. They had slices of cold chicken and green beans to offer her, too, along with crackers and a bowl each of strawberries and grapes.
Dale fixed a plate for Nell, then called her over and parked her next to Petra before carrying Callie around the table to the other bench. Nell dove into her food with both hands before Petra could manage to clean them with the antibacterial wipes that Hilda had included. Dale just chuckled.
“I’ve seen these kids eat out of the dog’s bowl. She’ll live.”
Petra cleaned Nell’s hands anyway. She didn’t want the girls getting sick o
n her watch.
After she’d eaten, Callie became drowsy. Dale cuddled her against his chest and patted her back until she drifted off to sleep, while Nell “helped” Petra repack the picnic basket, turning over one dish in the process and stepping on the lid of another. She ran off to play as soon as Petra closed the lid on the basket.
Dale turned his back to the table so he could watch Nell as she played. Petra walked around and sat down beside him. He smiled with what looked like utter contentment. He was happy, Petra realized, truly happy. This was the life he wanted, the life he would have with whatever woman he would choose for a wife and the children they would have together. This was his world, and he wanted no other. She wasn’t sure that it was a world she could inhabit on a daily basis. How did a career woman fit into the Bowen/Baker domestic scene?
“Can I ask you something?” she said.
He removed his aviator-style sunglasses, wiped his forehead with his wrist and smiled down on her. “Sure.”
“You said your mother never worked outside the home, right?”
“Never,” he confirmed, sliding the dark glasses back into place.
“And your sister only worked for a short while?”
“She helped out at the office until she got pregnant with Nell.”
“I see. What does Don do?”
“He’s a mechanic, works at a local auto dealership.”
“And they live with your parents because…”
He pressed the glasses to the bridge of his nose then swept his finger down the length of it. “That’s the way everyone likes it. Same with me. No sense paying rent elsewhere when Mom and Dad can use the money.”
“I imagine the rent is quite reasonable, too,” Petra said, smiling in case he’d thought she was criticizing.
“Very. And once the mortgage on the house is paid off, Dad can afford to retire.”
“He’s young for that, isn’t he?”
“Fifty-four,” Dale said, looking down. “His heart’s not what it should be, though, and the doctors say he ought to be taking it easy.”