3 - Brie
Harder Than It Looks
~
Brie
I had tossed and turned through the long night.
It was quiet, too quiet out here. No doors opening and closing in neighboring apartments or the sounds of cars zooming past all night.
Just dead stillness. It was exactly what I had wanted, one of the reasons I had come out here at all.
But now that I had the tranquility, it was wasted on my first sleepless night.
I convinced myself I would get used to it, and that my time here would still be great.
I just had to figure out when the day actually started around here.
I sat up in bed to catch the sunrise through my window, soft rays filtering through the woods, and listened carefully for any signs that anyone else was awake.
Nothing. I got up, took a shower, got dressed, and still there were no signs that anyone else was awake.
It was almost 8 o’clock, and I always thought people who lived out in the country, the type of people who chose to live in a wooden cabin, would also be the type who chose to get an early start.
I sat on the edge of my bed and waited. I checked my phone, refreshed my emails, and still nothing.
I was nervous, and sitting in complete silence only made it worse.
All the possibilities ran through my head, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
I marched out of my suite and headed into the common area of the cabin.
Everyone was already awake. Gunner stood at the sink, washing the breakfast dishes while Tobias packed a backpack. They looked like something out of a Backcountry catalog, all rugged, determined, dressed up in well-worn jeans and plaid, complete with scuffed leather work boots.
“A late riser city girl?” Gunner smirked.
My face grew warm, and I forced a smile. “I... I just wasn’t sure how mornings worked around here.”
Tobias’s face was set in a cool, unreadable expression. Not angry or disappointed, just oddly neutral. “Well, Gunner and I are out for the day. There’s coffee in the pot, and Gideon and Lexi will be down in a minute. Lexi can’t find her purple headband.”
The words ‘purple headband’ sounded out of place here in this cabin, especially coming out of Tobias’s mouth, and in the same sentence that mentioned Gideon.
I nodded and poured myself a cup of coffee.
Being prepared was something I’d always prided myself on.
As a nurse working long hours and often unpredictable schedules, there was no choice but to have painstaking organization skills.
I had always known exactly what to expect and exactly what was expected of me, and then did it.
But here I was, a fish out of water. Flailing on my first day.
“Good morning!” Lexi squealed, running down the stairs.
She was dressed in what was looking like the uniform around here: jeans and a plaid shirt. The only thing setting her apart from the three men was the glittering purple headband peeking out from her unruly curls.
There was an unspoken system out here and I was beginning to latch onto that fact.
Everyone knew what to do and when, but I.
The men moved like a well-oiled machine around Lexi, their faces softening in her presence; the mood genuinely lifting every time she bounced into a room.
Gunner produced a handkerchief just as Lexi needed a smudge of jam wiped off her chin.
Tobias poured a glass of milk before she asked for one, and Gideon, well, it felt like every time I even looked in Lexi’s direction, Gideon was just a few steps away from her.
Ready to dote as needed. He pulled out her chair, moved the butter knife out of her reach for safety, and rolled up her sleeves when she washed her hands in the sink.
Everything and everyone had a place, except me.
“Princess,” Tobias said gently. The room was suddenly still. The machine’s moving parts were frozen in place. “Today you’re going to stay home with Lexi and Gideon.”
He crouched down to her level, bracing for her reaction. In fact, we were all waiting for her reaction.
Lexi tilted her head to the side thoughtfully and smiled. “And I get to show Brie around?”
Tobias nodded, relief settling on his face. “Exactly. Keep her out of trouble.”
It was settled. Tobias and Gunner grabbed their backpacks and headed out with little fuss or as much as a goodbye to me.
I stood for a moment, looking over the quiet room, Gideon standing at the bottom of the stairs as if on guard, and Lexi sitting in quiet expectation on the leather couch that made her look even smaller than she actually was.
“So, what do you usually do during the day?” I asked, trying to figure out what I was supposed to be doing.
Gideon stood unmoving as if I hadn’t spoken at all.
“Is there a specific curriculum Lexi uses?” I asked more directly.
Gideon blinked, his face creased with confusion. “A curriculum? As in school?”
I nodded and walked to the living room to sit next to Lexi. I hoped she would engage more and let me in.
“Well, she reads a lot, you know she’s into Narnia and magic and stuff. So she reads that and asks a lot of questions,” he said, flustered for the first time since I’d met him. “She’s smarter than most kids her age.”
Gideon sounded a little defensive on that last bit, but I didn’t dwell. Raising a little girl in such isolation came with a myriad of challenges, and I’d be the last person to judge them on how they did things.
Lexi looked healthy, well-cared for, and from what I’d seen, she really was a bright kid. I sure as hell wasn’t reading Narnia at six years old.
Besides, I was stuck with him and eager to impress, eager to fit in and belong here, even though I knew I didn’t.
I didn’t have many of the conveniences I had left behind in my apartment.
The comfort of noise from the street, a television, the radio in my car, a constant stream of sounds that were so glaringly absent here.
“Of course she is,” I smiled, touching Lexi’s arm.
She didn’t flinch or pull away, but she didn’t lean into my touch either. She was curious, but she didn’t need me, not in the way the children in the hospital did. There was a fierce independence in her that felt strange in a child as young as she was. Probably came with the mountain.
“Maybe we should formalize learning to give Lexi a bit of structure. Would you like that, Lexi?” I asked her directly.
“No,” her answer was definitive and clear.
“It might be fun to learn stuff, like math and spelling,” I offered.
Gideon walked over and sat on the single-seater couch in front of us.
He clenched his jaw in discomfort and scratched at the short stubble that dusted his face.
I was seeing him fully for the first time, noticing his features with nothing else to look at.
His short, dark hair was messy and ruffled, his thick forearms resting on his thighs as he leaned forward to plead my case to Lexi.
“Hey, I want to learn all this cool stuff too, Lex,” he said. Her name instantly made his face gentler, his demeanor warmer.
“Then you can do school,” Lexi said, blowing up her cheeks and folding her arms tightly across her body. “I want to go play outside.”
She hopped off the couch, stomped toward the door, and waited for us to give in and follow her. Clearly used to getting what she wanted, when she wanted it. My interference was unwelcome, and Lexi didn’t have the maturity to hide it.
“Sure, we’ll play outside,” I coaxed. “We can play outside after we do some math. Okay?”
Gideon looked at me sympathetically. He didn’t need to say it; he was on my side on this one.
“No. I want to play outside right now. I don’t want to do math,” Lexi said, stomping her feet.
Her voice was rising. I had worked with children every day as a nurse. They were scared, in pain, and they cried and threw up; they didn’t stomp their feet defiantly. I had worked with hundreds of children, but none of them were anything like Lexi.
“Let’s give it a try, Lexi. Something new. You might like it,” Gideon said.
He sat up straight, not moving, not giving in, and even while seated, he stood his ground.
Lexi turned to look at him. She was shocked, obviously feeling betrayed by the one person in the room she trusted to be on her side.
“Are there any notebooks and pencils? We can start with a short math lesson before we go outside to play,” I said.
Gideon stood up and walked to a cabinet to get some paper and pencils while Lexi looked first at him and then at me, her lips trembling and her eyes glazing over with tears.
Her little body was quickly filling up with a rage I knew she couldn’t contain much longer.
I felt powerless. There wasn’t a medication to prescribe, a test to suggest, or a soothing word to offer.
I just watched and braced myself for the inevitable tantrum.
“I won’t do it!” Lexi shouted, marching up to Gideon, easily snatching the book from his hand and throwing it to the ground before stomping on it. “I won’t, I won’t, I won’t! And you can’t make me!”
Gideon looked scared, panicked. Watching a big, burly man like him reduce to visible panic because of the tantrums of a little girl was strange, but I felt the same way. I knew what to do in life and death situations; I was trained to handle that. But tantrums were new to me.
Lexi shook the tumbled mop of curls on her head fiercely, her face red with rage and her little fists clenched with a ferocity I had never imagined a child could hold. She screamed and cried, tears flooding her cheeks.
“You said you wanted to be my friend, but you don’t. You’re so mean to me!” she cried.
Gideon couldn’t just stand there and watch anymore. He rushed to her while I sat frozen in my seat.
“Oh, don’t cry, Lexi,” he soothed. “Brie is only trying to help. She’s our guest here, so let’s do things her way a little bit, okay? Think of it as an adventure.”
I knew I had to say something, make it better somehow, and while it might not have been my best idea, I turned to bribery.
“We’ll learn something fun. We’ll learn how to cook,” I said brightly.
Lexi nodded her head, her face still buried in Gideon’s chest, little shoulders trembling.
“And we’ll make a cake,” she said softly, her sobs subsiding.
Lexi wriggled out of Gideon’s arms and took my hand as she pulled me toward the kitchen. Waiting a moment longer would’ve given me the chance to change my mind, making her sit down and do her math instead.
I followed her, nodding my gratitude to Gideon, and looked around the kitchen. Everything was unfamiliar.
Most of the pots in the cabinets looked new and unused. The pantry was stocked with rows of canned food, a small packet of flour, and not a measuring cup in sight.
This cabin was the ultimate bachelor pad. Every food they ate was labeled quick and easy, and far from what I had in mind for the first dinner I would make here.
It was going to have to be a meal of compromise: an unfrosted cake flavored with Lexi’s drinking cocoa, canned chili bolognese over macaroni, and a salad of mixed-and-matched veggies from the fridge.
Lexi counted and added the flour scoops. She happily spelled her name with macaroni and learned the food pyramid as we planned our menu. By the time the sun began to set, our dinner was ready to be set up on the dining room table.
Throughout the day, Gideon had somehow blended in with the furniture. I knew he was there somewhere and suspected he had been watching, but I didn’t see him or hear from him until the door flew open.
“Something smells incredible,” Gunner said, announcing his presence.
The cabin was suddenly filled with footsteps: Gunner’s, Gideon’s, and Tobias’s.
“We made dinner,” Lexi announced proudly. “We made macaroni and meat sauce, and we even baked a cake!”
“Really?” Tobias asked.
I stood in the kitchen, ready to report back that our first day was a success, when Tobias strode in, looking around the kitchen in horror.
“Don’t worry, I’ll clean up,” I apologized. “I used the dinner to coax Lexi into doing a bit of math, and she even learned about the food pyramid.”
“And it never occurred to you how much of our rationed food you were using for just one meal?” Tobias asked in a low voice.
“I… I, uh…” Of course I hadn’t considered it. Because it never occurred to me that the food in the pantry was rationed.
Gideon stepped into the kitchen in time to be a buffer between Tobias’s incredulity and my ignorance. “She didn’t know. She was just trying to make school fun for Lexi,” he explained with a steadying hand on Tobias’s shoulder.
“This isn’t the city,” Tobias said, his tone measured. The anger had gone from his voice. “We don’t have grocery stores on our doorstep. We have to go all the way to Salmon to get this stuff.”
He untied his hair and shook it until it lay loose on his shoulders, relieving himself of the tension caused by my thoughtless mistake.
“Just be careful next time. Ask before you use anything,” he said, walking away.
I stood in the kitchen with the threat of tears burning my eyes. This was a mistake. I didn’t know how things worked here, and I couldn’t think of dinner as rations. I walked slowly toward the hallway that led to my suite and sped up, almost running as soon as I was out of sight.
Inside my private space with the door closed, I couldn’t deny what was so obvious: I was qualified for this job, but I did not belong here. I was better off in my apartment, in my city, where I actually knew how things worked, doing a job I actually knew how to do. I never should’ve come out here.