“Don’t move.”
I froze. When you get in trouble as much as I do, a phrase like don’t move could mean a lot of things. When the guy who says it to you is used to you getting into trouble, and he’s a detective, you tend to listen to him. Add to it the fact that I attract felons and I didn’t know what was coming.
Rusty looked cautiously around me and darted back.
This was strange. Usually if he wanted to observe someone inconspicuously he moved as little as possible. He watched with his eyes, acting as normal as possible. He glanced over my other shoulder.
Usually I was the one who spotted suspicious characters. It got to the point where I was afraid to go to a restaurant. I’d been approached by drug dealers, con men, and murderers, so I never knew what to expect.
Rusty took a drink of his beer and set it down still watching over my shoulder, then quickly switched to the other shoulder. Something happened behind me and he relaxed for a bit.
The waitress arrived with our food. Rusty took a plate of ribs and mashed potatoes, set it down and smiled broadly over my left shoulder. His expression changed to one of disappointment. The waitress set down my pasta.
“Does everything look okay?” she asked. “Can I get you anything else?”
“Everything looks great,” I answered. “Rusty?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine,” he answered, distracted. He hadn’t even looked at his food.
“Okay,” the waitress said. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
As the waitress left Rusty’s eyebrows shot up and he shot a surprised look over my shoulder. The disappointed look came back. Then the surprised look. This was very odd.
A sticky hand appeared over my shoulder. It grasped a soggy animal cracker. A squeal and the hand moved quickly hitting me in the eye with mushy cookie. I jumped. Rusty laughed at the baby, a big hearty laugh that filled the restaurant. I wiped cookie mush off my face and scooted over.
Rusty was flirting with a baby! Why hadn’t I thought of that before? He wasn’t watching felons. He was playing as inconspicuously as he could. That big old softy! I looked over my shoulder and big brown eyes looked back, curly black hair encircling a cute half-toothless smile. The little girl scrunched down in her seat and Rusty looked disappointed. She popped up and Rusty looked surprised. I smiled. Rusty looked embarrassed.
“You never flirt with me like that,” I said.
“You don’t play peek-a-boo,” he countered.
I watched in quiet amusement as Rusty played games over the booth with the little girl behind me. It progressed from peek-a-boo to hide and seek. The little girl was a notorious flirt and Rusty flirted back. She offered the cookie to Rusty. He shook his head no.
“That’s baby’s cookie. This is Rusty’s cookie,” he said, holding up a half eaten rib.
The little girl turned around, selected a different item of food and offered it to Rusty.
“That’s Mommy’s French fry,” he said.
Mommy turned around, got a glimpse of Rusty, turned scarlet and made the little girl sit down. Rusty looked disappointed and not for the baby’s sake.
Things got very quiet at our table. He knew not to mention kids and I knew not to mention kids but the subject hung in the air between us. It wasn’t a point of conflict, just disagreement. I wasn’t ready to settle down and be a mom and he loved kids. He teased me saying that I was enough like a kid for him, but I knew. He wanted a family. And I wanted time without being tied to the house. But how much time was enough? How much time did we have left? And what about searches? I was the area tracker for search and rescue. I needed to be able to take off at a moment’s notice. How could I do that with kids? And what was more important, staying home with the kid or finding someone in trouble? I didn’t have any answers so I didn’t want to bring up the questions.
The little girl peeked over the booth and Rusty smiled back. She batted her eyelashes at him and he gave her a one finger wave. The peek-a-boo game resumed. I heard giggles behind me. Rusty’s eyes were laughing. He was having fun. It was good to see him having fun even if it brought questions to mind that I’d rather not deal with.
Rusty would make a great dad. He loved to play and interact. He would be an effective disciplinarian. I would not. I tended to see the kid’s point of view and justify what they did. I did it with my nephew, Patrick. I’d do it with my own kids, too.
The family in the next booth finished their meal and packed up all the paraphernalia associated with small children. In addition to the little girl they had a very young baby. They packed up toys, rattles, bottles, little plastic cups, a blanket, car seat, and a diaper bag bigger than my backpack. My backpack could hold a week’s worth of camping supplies. They looked like modern day nomads except they only carried baby supplies.
The little girl climbed down from the booth and toddled over to our table. She batted her eyelashes at Rusty and waved bye-bye. Rusty waved bye-bye back. The mom blushed again as she retrieved the little girl. The dad gathered up the car seat and diaper bag in one hand, the baby in the other and walked out. The mom followed leading the little girl, patiently helping her walk.
Rusty sighed and got back to the business of eating ribs.
At the same time that I battled with myself over the subject of kids, I thought I was missing out, and that feeling is what I thought Rusty felt as long as I put it off. It felt a bit empty. As long as I had a trail to follow, a job to do, and people counting on me I could put away the empty feeling. There was a world out there just waiting for me to get out in it.
Rusty smiled. He knew what was in my head. It was all the things we never said to each other.
“What would we do when Strict calls? You can’t just drop your job and put it on hold for a few days. Especially the first year. A lot of searches happen in a year. What would we do? I wouldn’t impose on our parents even if they were in town. I could be trapped at home for eighteen years!”
“Babe, you’re exaggerating.”
“Okay, so just think in terms of the first year, can you imagine me sitting at home for a year when Strict needs me? I can’t leave someone out there if I could find them. A search is no place for a kid. Even if I went out on my own, without SAR, a search is no place for a kid. It’s a strenuous, nerve wracking time. A kid doesn’t need to be exposed to that kind of intense urgency. They shouldn’t. Sure, I want to take my kid tracking but not during searches.”
Rusty just let me talk wanting to see what was in my heart. He didn’t have any answers.
“These things just have a way of working out,” he finally said.
“No magically wonderful babysitters are going to float down out of the sky and tell me to go on the search. There is no fairy godmother for search and rescue.”
“We prioritize.”
“So what’s more important, the kid or the search?”
“Hon, I don’t know. All I know is there are plenty of families involved in law enforcement. My mom and dad did it. If you had any other job we’d have the same problem.”
“No, if I had a regular, paying job we would just do day care. But it’s not that kind of job. It’s a drop everything and run for the hills job. I think of Stella and Marcel. Stella was an eleven year old girl with epilepsy. By the time I found here she was covered with scratches and bruises from having seizures out in the woods. We made camp and after dark I did a circuit of camp with a flashlight. She saw the lights and came running. She was scared. She didn’t know if she’d ever get home. I sat up with her all night while she had seizures. When I think of the time she was out there, every minute counted. It’s things like that that push me. Marcel lay under a dead tree. It took a hike in, carefully following track to track to find him. No plane would have found him. No amount of tromping through the woods would have worked. He had to be airlifted out. I never heard if he made it. Rusty… every time I go out it could be like that. I can’t turn my back on them. I can’t. I can find them, so I have to.”
“Strict has other resources.”
“Yeah, the erase-all-the-tracks method. That’s what happens in field searches. The searchers erase all the information I need to do it the easy way.”
“People were found before you came along. They will be found if you have to stay home with a baby.”
“In time?”
Sigh, “I don’t know.”
The first problem was a big one. Kids would keep me from searches. But the issue had personal effects, too. Was I depriving Rusty, selfishly, from something I knew he wanted? When I got right down to it I had to say yes. And then I felt guilty for putting others before Rusty. I felt guilty for making myself less available to Strict and I felt guilty for not giving Rusty something he truly desired. So no matter what I did, I was the one in the wrong. Then my selfish side would kick in and say, “Hey wait a minute, you have a life too, you know. Do you want to spend the rest of it being a mom?” and I had to say, “No,” and then I felt guilty for that too.