No Deal Breakers (9 page)

She rinsed her dishes and put them in the
dishwasher with Brian’s. She decided to put away her new things and
then search for a cookbook and decide on what she would take to the
Erickson’s.

Just before noon she was frosting her second
pan of brownies when she heard the garage door open, she smiled to
herself, she hoped Brian would like them, she had found a box of
hand written recipe cards that she assumed were his mother’s and
used a brownie and frosting recipe from it. The chocolate frosting
was the best she had ever tasted, and she was proud to be able to
take credit for making it. She wanted to be the best wife in every
way she could to Brian.

"Are those brownies? Please say yes." His
eyes were bright and shining when he came into the kitchen. He
reminded her of a small child begging to lick the bowl, and she
couldn’t help but laugh.

"They are, I was hoping you would say that, I
made two batches, I thought we’d take one and a half with us this
afternoon and keep the rest here for us."

"Awe, why can’t we keep them all here," he
mock whined at her, "Kidding, I’m sure the kids will love them,
that was very thoughtful of you." He picked one up from the tray
she was putting together.

"These are amazing, better than my mom’s, but
don’t tell her that."

"I found the recipe in the box above the
refrigerator, I assume it’s her recipe."

"They are, she made copies of all of our
favorites for both me and Julia as graduation presents," he said
around a mouthful of brownie, and his hand snaked out to grab
another, she snatched the dish away and secured the lid.

"No more until dessert. That’s a sweet
present, I hope it’s okay I poked around your kitchen."

"Our kitchen, and of course it is, whatever
you need, just look around or ask. I have nothing to hide, what’s
mine is yours."

"Thank you. I made egg salad, I thought we’d
eat a light lunch since we have a couple of hours before
dinner."

"Sounds perfect, thank you," he moved to the
cupboard to get plates down, and she took that as her cue to get
the food. She moved to the refrigerator, taking out the salad she’d
prepared and a container of vegetables she’d cut up earlier and
took them to the table.

"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.