Vacation in Greece - Chapter 1 of 9

Vacation in Greece

Chapter 1: Merlot

“Mom!!! Mommy!!”
Dana set down her glass of wine with a sigh and moved in the direction of her youngest, Caleb, who was probably even now gearing up for an encore shriek of her name.
“Coming, sweetheart! Mommy is coming!”
I need to get to him and settle him before he wakes up Asher and Bethany. One kid awake is enough right now, I don’t need all three of them up again, she thought.
Scooping up her two year-old and moving to the rocker, she crooned in his ear and told him all would be okay, Mommy was there now, and all the things doting mommies whisper to their babies to soothe them. Her wine, a glass of inexpensive merlot she had picked up at the grocery store that day, was something she’d been looking forward to all day. And what a day it had been! She wasn’t even sure a glass of wine, even if it had been from an actual wine and spirits store and of a decent vintage, was going to be enough to diffuse her.
Her day had started early, when the 5am alarm clock sounded in the bedroom she shared with her husband, Jim. Moments later, she could smell the wafting aroma of coffee and silently thanked all that is holy for remembering to set the automatic timer on the coffee pot the night before. Jim had come in late the night before, so she tip-toed quietly to the bathroom in the morning, trying to not to wake him.
The day ahead was already promising to be a busy one, so she had skipped the cream in her coffee mug, leaving more room for strong, hot, dark, liquid energy, showered quickly with her coffee cup balanced precariously on the shower’s only shelf, and tried to think through the best way to sequence all she had to get done that day.
Asher to school by 8. Bethany to pre-school by 9. Stop at the grocery store in between drop-offs and hope the dinner gods are good to me and I can find quick inspiration for something to pick up for dinner. Go home. Throw in a load of laundry. Caleb to the pediatrician by 10:30. Don’t forget to pray the office isn’t backed up and the appointment runs on time. Go home. Change the laundry. Feed Caleb. Put him down for a nap. Clean the living room. Do the breakfast dishes. Try to find that Yoga DVD from Janet and do at least 15 minutes of yoga and RELAX before Caleb wakes up. Go pick up Caleb’s allergy medicine at the pharmacy. God, I hope the pediatrician remembered to call it in and it’s ready for me; they said they would call it in last night, didn’t they? Or was it tonight…? Pick up Bethany from pre-school. Don’t forget to bring a snack for her to have in the car. She gets cranky when she’s hungry. Make it to Asher’s school early, by 2:30pm, for his Hungriest Caterpillar play. Remember to sit in the back, but not too far back for decent pictures, in case Caleb starts getting fussy and I need to make a quick escape. Avoid Melissa. She’s probably still upset that we couldn’t make it to her son’s birthday party last weekend when we lost the invitation and got the day wrong and completely forgot to show up. Pick up the dry cleaning on the way home, drop off the library books, stop into the florist and order flowers for Janet’s birthday, run into the post office and get stamps and don’t forget to mail the stack of bills Jim paid when he got home late last night. Soccer game at 5:00pm. What I wouldn’t give for it to be rained out… No, on second thought, we don’t need any more rain; it’ll just make the grass grow like crazy and then I’ll have to mow again. I don’t have time for that. So, go to the soccer game, don’t forget to ask when it’s Asher’s and Bethany’s turn to bring snack and when you hear the day, don’t forget it this time. Make it home by 5:30, feed the kids, cook something for Jim, baths and Asher’s homework, story time, and off to bed for all three. And then, THEN! Then I will put my feet up, maybe read for a few minutes or watch some TV, and take a hot bath before bed.

Satisfied that the day was planned with all the precision of a mom who’d been doing this for seven years, Dana turned off the shower and stepped onto the bath mat, a fuzzy purple rug that had been part of a complete bathroom set that was on the wedding registry she and Jim had put together for their wedding guests ten years ago. The rug was all that was left, the towels had long been discarded as too thin to use anymore. One of the kids had used the matching toothbrush cup and soap holder to play bakery in the mud in the backyard and both had been promptly broken.
Stuff happens in ten years, doesn’t it, Dana thought to herself. And then she stopped, her towel half on and half off, dangling somewhere in between, revealing slender, tan legs beaded with water. Ten years. Oh crud! Our anniversary! It’s…tomorrow? How did that slip by me?
She wondered if Jim had forgotten too. As far as she knew, neither of them had made any plans or reservations to celebrate their special day. But then again, even if he had, would she have known about it? Quite often he came home after she was in bed, asleep, and more often than not, he was up early and out the door before 5. They were like ships passing in the night and she couldn’t recall the last time they’d sat down to dinner together.
As she rummaged quietly in her bureau, digging deep for a pair of clean panties because most of the clean laundry was still in the laundry room in a basket, unfolded and waiting for her as usual, she looked at her sleeping man. Sandy brown hair, shirtless, tan, strong. Even now, ten years later, she still appreciated her hot husband. Her girlfriends called him her “lifeguard” and teased her about how she had landed such a hottie.
A hottie. Yep, that’s my husband. Too bad I can’t even remember the last time we made love, it has been so long. Was it at Christmas?
Dana studied Jim, wondering at how he could sleep so peacefully. She never could. Always she kept one ear open and an eye half-cracked, or so it felt, in case one of the kids needed her in the night. But Jim, as soon as his head hit the pillow, fell into deep sleep. Even if she had wanted to touch him and try to invite him over to her side of the bed, it would have been like trying to wake the dead.
Maybe I will try to schedule something for our anniversary. It’s on a Friday after all, so the kids don’t have school the next day and Jim shouldn’t have to work. Maybe Janet could come over and stay with them and we could slip out for a quiet dinner, maybe find a jazz club with some live music, and perhaps we could even stay the night at that one place…what was it called? Oh yes, La Tremoille, the French five-star downtown where we started our honeymoon…
She was disrupted from her thoughts by Jim rolling over and she realized she’d been standing there naked, staring at him for who knew how long, lost in a daydream of their first nights together as man and wife. Jim caught a glance of her through one half-open eye, and mumbled something she couldn’t understand.
“What’s that, honey? What did you say?”
“Mmmm…just…oh, I don’t know. How are you, sugar?” His use of a pet name for her made her blush, it was one he hadn’t spoken to her in quite some time. Her heart swelled with love for him and she immediately decided in that moment that, in and amongst the busyness of her day, she would definitely work on scheduling something special for their anniversary. She even had the perfect dress in mind, the backless red one that showed off her firm, soft skin and long legs and made her blond hair shine.
She sat on the bed next to Jim, letting him take her in. Her firm breasts were soft and hung right at his eye level. He looked at her, she blushed again. Do we have time for…? She wondered if she should make a move, let him know how much she’d been missing him as her lover.
He sat up suddenly, nearly sending her flying off the bed from the precarious perch she held next to him on the edge of the mattress.
“Shit! I forgot to tell you last night!”
“Tell me what? I was asleep when you got home!”
He ran his long fingers through his messy bed head and she admired the strength of his hands. She had always loved his hands.
“Something has come up at the jobsite in Three Rivers. You know, the school project I told you about?”
She nodded.
“Yeah,” he continued, “I need to get out there and handle some things or we might just find ourselves in a lawsuit. The owner is saying we didn’t pour the concrete right and the school has been flooding every damn time it rains.”

“Oh, well, I know these things happen and I’m sure it’s nothing you can’t handle.”
“Yeah. So, I’ll be heading out there for a few days.”
“A few days? You mean, like to work out there next week?”
“No, I can’t wait that long. We need to get some contingency in place before next week. The school district is getting a little annoyed that classes have to be cancelled every time it rains and the school floods and they have to spend days pumping out water… The superintendent called me last night and told me if it’s not fixed by next week, they’re going to take us to court for breach of contract.”
Dana looked at Jim. She knew his job came with a good deal of pressure, but she also knew he always handled it well. In fact, for years she had been impressed by how cool and collected he was in spite of work pressure. His strength inspired her to do her own job as mom and wife to the best of her ability.
“So, you need to go out there today then,” she said, fast forwarding to her thoughts about their anniversary at the end of the week.
“Yeah, I better shove off everything else today and get myself out there. It’s just, well, I didn’t want to leave town this week, you know?”
Dana caught her breath. Had he remembered their anniversary? Did he have plans for them that were a surprise, maybe? She smiled, thinking of what he might have up his sleeve, and then he interrupted her thoughts.
“It’s just that I wanted to have the guys over Saturday for some beers, the weather is supposed to be nice so maybe we can grill something. I’ll try to get back by first thing Saturday morning so I can help set things up. Would you mind if we did that? It’s been so long since I’ve seen Jake and Trent.”
If he’d been looking in her eyes instead of at his phone, he surely would have seen the disappointment, even though she hid it well from years of practice. Jim’s job always came first, and she understood it was important both to him and to their family. The success of his company meant she got to stay home with their kids and not have to juggle a career of her own with mommy duties, though sometimes the thought having an office to go to seemed like a kind of heaven compared to the endless stream of toddler rants and sippy cup spills. There are things we understand and there are things we feel, and they don’t always agree, she thought. I understand his job, but I feel our family and our marriage misses out on a lot because of how much he works.
Jim was hunched over his tiny screen, typing furiously on an equally tiny keyboard, when the second of his two work phones started vibrating on the bedside table. She looked at him reach for it without even missing a beat, still thumbing his way through a message on his first phone.
“Jim here. Talk to me,” came his cheery reply to the caller.
Dana knew how these first-morning calls always went. There was some issue from the night that needed to be resolved, some complaint that Jim needed to address with a client first thing, or some strategy that needed to be discussed prior to meeting with an important potential customer. First-morning calls never ended quickly.
I guess we’re not going to talk any more about the weekend, she thought and headed for the closet. Slipping on a pair of black leggings and a royal blue tunic pullover, and pulling her hair into a messy bun, she knew it was time to start kitchen duty. The kids would be up soon and the day had begun. There was a dishwasher to unload, lunches to pack, a diaper to change, a preschooler to dress – never her favorite job as Bethany was as picky as a princess on coronation day when it came time to dress – and Jim would be looking for a take-it-to-go breakfast to walk out the door with.
“Mommy, I had a nightmere,” came Asher’s sleepy voice from the hallway as Dana bounced around the kitchen pouring cereal and prepping lunchboxes.
“You mean, a nightmare?”
“It was a bad dream,” he said with a pout, dejected that his try at using a big word hadn’t been impressive to his mommy.
“What happened in your dream, punkin?”
“I couldn’t find my Avengers t-shirt and it was Super Hero day at school. Then I woke up. I got dressed and my nightmare came true! I couldn’t find that shirt anywhere! Where is it, Mommy? Where?”
Stooping to wipe up the milk she’d spilled on the floor in haste, Dana sighed. “I’ll get it, baby boy. Sit down and start eating. I think your t-shirt is in the laundry room. I’ll go get it in a sec.”
“This t-shirt?” came Jim’s cheery voice as he entered the kitchen.
“Daddy! You found it!” Asher slopped his spoon in his bowl, spilling milk all over the table, and rushed to great his dad.
Dana rung out the dishrag in the sink and headed for Asher’s mess. Dad the hero, she thought. Where is he when there’s too much else to do to be able to save the day? She instantly felt guilty for the twinge of annoyance she felt. She knew Jim was a good father, it would just be nice to have him around when things weren’t so easy to handle, like bath time and green bean night and when the kids fought over whose turn it was to pick up the mail.
Jim smiled at her over the bear hug of their oldest son and she warmed slightly at his lop-sided grin. I guess it’s not so bad, being married to a hunk who makes a good living for us. She smiled in return, noticing his red shirt and thinking how amazing he looked in red. But then it reminded her of her red dress, the one she thought she would wear to a surprise anniversary date that wouldn’t happen now, and her smile faded a bit. And then there was the clincher.
“Sugar, I just got a text from the guys and they’re on for Saturday. Could you pick up a few t-bones and a package of bratwurst at the store for us please, if you go? And maybe a bag of chips and, oh, if it’s not too much trouble, a case of beer?”
Dana’s smiled turned to a full-blown frown, and then a scowl.
“And can you call my mom? Tell her what I’m up to this week? She keeps calling me and I don’t have time to call her back. Tell her I’ll call her Sunday.”
And with that, he scooped up Asher and deposited him into his chair, pecked Dana on the cheek while she held out his high protein breakfast to go and his travel mug filled with coffee, and kissed the sleepy heads of Bethany and Caleb. Then he was gone, out the door and on his way into what felt in that moment like the big, wonderful world of adults to Dana, where kids didn’t constantly spill milk and preschools didn’t start so early.
Dana added steaks, bratwurst, chips and beer to her growing grocery list, made a mental note to call Janet for Jim, finished the lunches and made herself another cup of coffee for the road. Only then did it occur to her that she needed to add more to her grocery list. I’m buying wine tonight, she thought. This day feels like it should already be over, and it’s barely just begun. By tonight, I’m going to need a glass, and maybe a bubble bath too.
“Uh-oh, Mommy.”
Dana whirled around to see Caleb dumping his cereal on his head, milk and O’s spilling down his head onto the floor.
As she reached for the dishrag for the third time in fifteen minutes, she thought, Scratch that. Make it two bottles of wine and a chocolate bar.