Sisterchicks in Wooden Shoes! by Robin Jones Gunn Read Free Book Online

into a fresh blouse.
    I took the stairs carefully and found the living room dotted with a dozen lit votive candles along with a grouping of sized candles arranged in the center of the glass coffee table. Classical music played softly. A plate of triangular-shaped crackers, topped with a shrimp spread, waited on the coffee table. Each cracker was adorned with a tiny sprig of some sort of herb that looked like a tiny feather and transformed the appetizers into miniature works of art. Next to the plate were three small cut-crystal glasses. Several beverage options awaited us in tall, chilled bottles.
    “This is beautiful, Noelle. Thank you for going to all this trouble.”
    Noelle had changed into a freshly pressed blouse as well, making me glad I had taken the time to do the same.
    “It’s a treat, not a trouble.”
    Jelle offered me the plate of appetizers. Evidently he had brushed off my faux pas earlier in his upstairs office. If he wasn’t going to bring it up, neither would I.
    He and Noelle sat back on the couch, and I settled comfortably into the matching leather chair that faced them. In hushed voices we entered into a lilting conversation.
    So this is the purpose of appetizers. They aren’t merely for keeping the kids out of the kitchen when I’m preparing the meal
.
    Jelle asked about my children and husband and said, “Please greet them for me.”
    “I will.”
    At his gentle questioning I ended up telling how we came to take in two foster children. After adopting our two daughters, Iunexpectedly carried two babies—a daughter and then a son—to full term. Content and blessed with our four children, we weren’t looking for more. But then we met Micah, and Micah had an older brother.
    “We didn’t want the brothers to end up in different homes, so we became foster parents for Micah and Derrick, who was nine at the time.”
    I kept going with a few more details of our unusual, combined family. Our life sounded out of the ordinary when I described it, but all the years I had been in the middle of just living it, it seemed normal to me.
    “I thought our home was full with two daughters,” Jelle said. “You had three daughters and three sons. I honestly cannot imagine.”
    “I loved it. Well, most of the time. We had a lot of noisy, crazy, busy years, but Wayne and I both came from large families and wanted a large family. This may sound old-fashioned, but my life goal was to be a wife and a mother. A good wife and a good mother.”
    Jelle tilted his head. “This is not a goal one hears so much these days. Although, good wives and mothers do receive congratulations. In the Netherlands, when someone has a birthday, it is for the family members that the congratulations are given.”
    I looked to Noelle for an explanation.
    “It’s true. On my birthday, if you lived here and you saw Jelle, you would shake his hand and say, ‘Congratulations on your wife’s birthday’”
    “I’ve never heard of anyone doing that before,” I said.
    “That’s what we do,” Jelle said.
    Noelle nodded. “A few years after I moved here, one of Jelle’s sisters gave me a sign in Dutch that said, ‘Don’t try to understand. It’s Dutch.’ The sign had a double meaning, of course, because I was trying to learn Dutch, and there was much I didn’t understand. But it also was meant as a reminder that even if I didn’t understand one of the family traditions, I should go along as if it made perfect sense. His family members still shake their heads at me and some of my deeply rooted American ways.”
    Jelle raised his glass and offered a toast. “Congratulations to your husband for your accomplishing your goal to be a good wife and mother. A good mother.”
    Taking my cue from Noelle, I went along with the toast and tipped back the last of the juice I had selected from one of the chilled bottles. “This is so good. What kind of juice is it?”
    “It’s a blend of several fruits. Highly concentrated. It’s healthy.