The Only Best Place by Carolyne Aarsen

And your mother wants to maintain control.” I enunciated each word as if I were
     talking to Nicholas instead of to my husband. “If we are going to stay, we need to do an assessment and draw up an agreement
     with your mother so we're covered for the time you put in.”
    Dan tapped the knife on the table as if preparing for battle. I wished the battle weren't with me. I thought I'd get some
     momentum from the warm and tender moment we'd shared the other night, but my insistence had precipitated a cooling trend.
    “What is your problem with my mother?” he asked. “She's not trying to cheat us.”
    “I didn't say that. You just need to get compensated for the work you do while you're here.” Nicholas jerked his head to the
     side, his little sausage hands flailing at the spoon as he spat out his mouthful of porridge. Telling me in his usual diplomatic
     way that he'd had enough of breakfast.
    “It looks like we don't trust her,” Dan continued, dropping the knife with a clatter.
    “It's not a matter of trust or greed,” I shot back, wiping Nicholas's mouth, then his hands, then everything within reaching
     and spitting distance. I knew I was being practical. My voice was quiet, my body language nonthreatening. I was a living,
     breathing ad for Reasonable and Practical Female. So why was Dan drumming his fingers on the table, telegraphing in a stuttering
     Morse code his disapproval of what I had said?
    “Daddy, you cut my toast too small.” Anneke shoved her plate back toward him. “Make it bigger.”
    “Daddy can't make it bigger,” he grunted, rearranging the pieces into a bread shape and pushing the plate back at her. “It
     makes it look like money is more important than helping my mother out.”
    “Money is important.” I lifted the tray up and unbuckled Nicholas from the harness anchoring him to his high chair. “It's
     the lack of it that got us here in the first place.”
    “When are you going to get past it? The garage is gone. It's over. We're not going back.” Dan stared me down but I couldn't
     give way.
    “Maybe not to the garage, but we are going back to Seattle,” I said slowly, clinging to Nicholas like a lifeline. “We decided
     that.”
    “Maybe.”
    Funny how that simple word could send my heart rate into coronary territory. “You don't really mean
maybe,
do you? You mean
when.
”
    “We were barely hanging on there, Leslie,” Dan continued. “Money was tight, and neither of us was happy at work.”
    I wasn't liking this. Moving to the farm was supposed to give us a reprieve from talking about money. From stressing about
     how we were going to spend it and where. I watched reruns of
Little House on the Prairie
—I knew how this worked. I made the sacrifice of not going back to work so we could spend our mornings talking farmer talk.
     Cows and crops and being all close to the land. Facing the elements together as a family and coming out stronger. United. With
     one purpose. Strong in our relationship and ready to take on our future.
    In Seattle.
    Instead we were covering the same ground we had for the past two years. Our location had changed, but the view stayed the
     same.
    I lowered my voice, willed my heart to slow, and pressed on. “When we were dating, you told me you could hardly wait to leave
     this place.” I smiled at him, hoping it softened my words. I really didn't want this confrontation. I wanted us to be husband
     and wife again, not business partners. “In all the times we've moved, you never talked about coming back here.”
    Dan ran his hands through his hair. He needed it cut, but there hadn't been time. Truth was, I kind of liked the shaggier
     Dan. Made him look more like an Eddie Bauer model. When he was mechanicking he kept his hair short. He said it was easier
     to wash.
    I'm sure his bilingual secretary would feel the same about his new look. Which made me hold back and temper my words instead
     of pushing hard and fast. A fragile relationship