Chapter Eleven

The next day went by fairly quickly, even though Mom was gone from five in the morning to ten at night. I wished I could have gone with her to the hospital, really. Dad was fun, but he did not know or understand most of Mom's and my traditions. I was up and dressed before him, having not really gone back to sleep when Mom kissed me good-bye. When he woke up it seemed to take him forever to be ready to do anything.

"Are you sure you're a surgeon?" I asked; when he came out of the bathroom, finally, dressed.

"I'm pretty sure," he replied, putting his shoes on. "I mean, I go to a hospital every day and operate on people, so I'm going to say yes. I'm a surgeon. Why?"

"Because, every other surgeon I know can be up and ready to go in like, two seconds."

"Oh. I can be. But I'm not working so it doesn't really matter."

"Sure it does. Just because you're not working doesn't mean there's nothing to do with the day."

Dad stared at me. "Are you sure that you're your mother's child?"

"Um… you tell me," I said. "Think about it. Let's get breakfast."

"All right," he conceded as we went down the hall, "But I happen to remember a time when your mother's whole life was work. She never knew what to do on her days off."

"Ah yes," I said wisely. "But that was in the era before Hannah. What do you want to do today?"

"Well there are some museums we can go see or--."

I cut him off. "Because I was thinking we could go shopping in Intercourse, Mom left the car right?"

"Yes she did—go shopping in where?" We were at the breakfast buffet, and Dad had paused with the tongs poised over a muffin that he wanted.

I laughed. "Intercourse, Pennsylvania. It's a town with some great little shops. Bores Mom to death, but I really like it. We don't have to buy anything, but it's fun to look."

"You guys aren't that big on souvenirs, are you?" Dad asked, as we sat down at a table.

I shrugged. "Not really. Mom says there's no real point to anything that's particularly without function. I mean, my grandmother's house is full of stuff that nobody ever used. The only things without dust in her attic are her surgical videos. And besides, our apartment is pretty small."

Dad nodded in agreement, but I could tell he was thinking about something that really did not have much to do with Mom's and my nonexistent souvenir buying habits.

We did have fun shopping, I was able to tell Dad some things about the Amish culture that he hadn't known, apart from the fact that the boys hit on Mom.

"I entered a paper on the Amish in the history fair," I explained. "They encourage homeschoolers to enter. I didn't win anything, but it was fun. Got a bunch of books from up here and didn't have to spend that much time in the library."

"That's cool. So tell me, by the way, Hannah, while you were awake last night, what'd you see?"

I stopped on the sidewalk where I'd been making a beeline for a shop that sold handmade quilts and turned back to Dad, sheepishly. "I don't know what you're talking about?" I tried, but Dad just raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, okay, fine. I heard you guys come in…. and maybe I saw you kiss, but that was it! I fell asleep…. But it was nice… I mean with both of you…. Anyway, you kissed! That's progress, right?"

Dad laughed. "It is," he agreed. "Does the playing opossum usually work well for you?"

"Not really," I admitted. "I'm not very good at it. I figured you were both too distracted. What with the kissing and all."

"You're pretty hung up on the kissing, aren't you?" Dad asked. "Me, I'm all for the kissing. And yes, I think it might just be progress."

"Cool." I linked my arm through Dad's, and we continued down the street.

We were polishing off dessert ordered from Room Service that night when Mom finally came into the hotel room. She opened the door, dropped her purse on the floor and stole my spoon from my hand without saying a word. It was only after she'd swallowed the bite of brownie sundae that she kissed my forehead and said, "Have a good day, kiddo?"

"Yeah. How'd the surgery go?"

"It went fine. Kid sailed through. The anesthesiologist was an ass, but what can you do?"

"Wait, haven't you worked with that one before? Was it the one with the huge mole--?"

"Right under his eye? Yeah, that one."

I wrinkled my nose. "He's the one that called me Princess and kept staring at my boobs, right? When I was, like, twelve? Yeah, he is an ass."

"Hannah!" Dad broke in. Mom and I both turned to him, having forgotten he was there.

"Honestly, Derek, give her a break. The man's an ass," Mom said, with a smile.

"Doesn't it bother you?" Dad asked Mom, with incredulity in his voice.

Mom shrugged. "It would bother me if she were standing on the hotel balcony yelling expletives at people on the street, but in here talking about an anesthesiologist with pedophilic tendencies? Not a bit."

"Oh damn," I said, resting my head on Mom's shoulder, "And here I was about to go stand on the balcony and cuss out taxi drivers."

"Mmm, read your mind did I? Get off for a sec, pigeon, I'm getting into my pajamas before I fall asleep right here," Mom said, standing up. "Someone kept me out late on the night before a ten hour surgery."

"Wish I knew who it was," Dad teased, coming up behind her and putting his arms around her waist. "I'd set Hannah and her swearing skills on him."

Mom wormed her way out of his grasp, and looked pointedly at me.

"It's okay," Dad said. "Hannah wasn't asleep."

Mom snorted. "I figured that out the second we came in the room last night, Derek. Hannah snores, after all."

"I do not!" I protested. "That's all you!"

"Oh no," Mom said, slipping her shirt off and then walking into the bathroom. "I can't hear myself snore. Ask your dad."

"Now that is true," Dad agreed. As he said this his cell phone rang. He walked over to pick it up off of the bedside table, and I went to lean on the doorway of the bathroom. "So," I said to Mom, raising an eyebrow.

"So what?" she asked, before putting her toothbrush in her mouth.

"So… I was awake last night. I saw you kiss him."

Mom paused in her tooth brushing and rolled her eyes at me. She spat and then turned. "Pigeon, that doesn't mean we're planning a wedding. Kissing happens. Especially with your father and I…."

I rolled my eyes at Mom's noncommittal statement and went back into the room with Dad. He was sitting on the balcony on his phone. Annoyed with both of them, I took the tray and put it outside the door, then threw on my own pajamas and crawled into the center of the bed. If they weren't 'planning a wedding', they didn't need to sleep next to each other.

Mom came back in and settled down next to me. "Who's he talking to?"

"No idea. I stole it from him when we went out to keep him from being on it constantly," I said, propping up on an elbow. "You've stopped coughing, by the way." She'd gotten to where it was so normal for her to be coughing that she didn't realize it was getting better.

"Good to know," Mom said. "So, speaking of kissing; hear from Alfie lately?"

"And on that note," I said. "I'm going to sleep."

"Oh what?" Mom asked, leaning over to look at me after I'd rolled over. "If you can't take the prying, then don't pry yourself…. Or whatever."

I snorted. "It's 'if you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen', actually."

"I like mine better."

"You're just jealous that I can actually remember idioms."

"Oh yeah, totally on my list of things to be jealous of."

"Of which."

"Go to sleep, smart aleck."

I smiled and rolled back over. "I love you, Mom."

"I love you too, my little pigeon."

Mom was snoring, and I was almost asleep by the time I felt Dad get into the bed. I wondered who he'd been talking too, but I was asleep before I could ask him.

The next day we started the drive home. We left the hotel after breakfast, with Mom driving. "What'll it be, kid?" she asked, looking in the rearview mirror.

I was about to rhapsodize about the merits of the trucking museum to annoy Dad, before deciding on the butterfly garden, but Dad spoke before I could open my mouth.

"Actually, girls," he said, putting a hand behind his head. "I may have to go back to Seattle tomorrow so…. Maybe it'd be best if we could get back early today?"

"Oh," Mom said, obviously surprised. "Okay, sure."

"Okay, kiddo?" Dad asked me.

I shrugged. "I guess, if we have to."

We drove in near silence for a long time. I watched my parents closely. Every once in a while Dad's hand would twitch and it looked as if he was going to take Mom's, but he kept losing his nerve. Mom kept looking at him quickly, and then turning her eyes back to the road. If I hadn't been such a considerate daughter I would have told her that she was going to cause an accident. As it was, I spent most of the ride reading, and mourning the loss of time spent with both of them.

We stopped to eat at a Cracker Barrel, and things got better over lunch. We spent a long time in the giftshop playing around with the stuffed animals and knickknacks that even Aunt Izzie would think were way too cutesy. We came out with me sucking on a peppermint stick and my parents walking behind me holding hands.

I saw an old lady who was sitting on a rocking chair out front smiling at us, and heard her say to her husband: "What a nice family." I smiled. That was us, a nice family

At home, Dad insisted on cooking again. When Mom and I complained that this would take too long, he reminded us that we had just had ice cream cones. I grinned, this time he had played hard at our cone game, but Mom still reigned champion.

"Hey Hannah, come over here and chop stuff for me."

I sighed, and got up off of the couch. "Aren't I too young for that or something?" Dad just laughed. "Why don't you make Mom chop stuff?"

"I'm not that dumb," Dad said.

"Hey! I can make grilled cheese!" Mom reminded us from her room where she was unpacking.

"Sometimes," I muttered. "It burns half the time."

"Hey, Hannah?"

"Yeah, Dad?"

"Try being nice for a while, it might make a nice change."

I turned to him, highly offended, but he was leaning against the counter and grinning. "You love me," I reminded him, sweetly.

"Do I now?" he said, teasingly.

"Why else are you hanging around here?"

Dad grinned at Mom, who had come into the kitchen. "I can think of a few reasons," he said. Mom didn't say anything, just smiled tightly.

I glanced at her for a minute after Dad turned back to his cooking. In the five minutes since I'd last seen her she seemed to have gotten more subdued. She had the look on her face that she got when she was humoring Dr. Weasel. I wanted to pull her aside and tell her to stop it, that things were okay, but I didn't get a chance to before we sat down for dinner.

We'd barely had a chance to start eating the baked chicken before Dad dropped the bombshell. "I was thinking," he said with a smile. "That some time, in the future, not within the next days or even months, but some time, you two might think about coming back to Seattle with me. For good."

We both stared at him, although I was pretty sure that my look was not one of abject horror as Mom's seemed to be. "That could be cool," I said amicably, not wanting to start some kind of massive blow up.

Too late.

"Seriously?" Mom said, putting her fork down.

"Mer, don't freak out, please."

"Oh, I'm not freaking out. I'm just wondering where you get the thought that from two weeks you can figure that anyone here is ready to think about that kind of…step."

"I don't see it as a step, exactly," Dad said. "I see it as fixing a mistake that happened a long time ago."

"See, that's the thing," Mom said slowly. "You still think my coming out here was a mistake. But Derek, we've been happy. Plus, it's been fifteen years. We're different people now."

I looked back and forth between them, my stomach sinking, and after a few more seconds I realized that I really did not want to listen to them hash it out. I stood up and went to my room, slamming the door. I didn't think they even noticed that I'd left.

A/N Thanks for all of the lovely reviews on the last chapter!!!! Keep it up, okay?