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Wendell and Monica Wilkins were living the perfect life. Married happily for nearly 19 years, the two shared everything from profession to pipe dream. They were economically stable, healthy, and now, they had their dream home in what was perhaps the most beautiful place on Earth: Australia. The two had wanted to move to the island-continent for what seemed to be their entire lives, and in August of 1997, they finally fulfilled that very goal. No one should have been happier than the Wilkins.
Most of the time, they slipped into the routine of their beautiful lives and could believe the very same thing. They woke up with smiles on their faces, opened their new practice at promptly 9am, received a steady stream of patients, and closed at 4pm. It was only once they returned home that something began to feel out of place. Neither of them said a word about it, for surely the other would think they were mad, but it quietly nagged in the back of their heads that something was wrong.
In attempts to cure themselves of this sensation, the Wilkins threw themselves avidly into their new lives. They went to couples night at a local dance hall and bought themselves an expensive new car, repainted the kitchen in their favorite colors, and Monica even started her own garden. It was here, perhaps, she could dissipate the feeling the most, tending for living beings and watching them grow. But when the two of them huddled together on the couch for an evening film, or went out to treat themselves to ice cream, or (most strangely) drove past the local library, in their hearts neither could ignore the distinctive tug that there was something missing.
Finally, after a particularly traumatic episode in which Monica Wilkins was brought to tears by a patient’s mention of her daughter’s witch costume for a school play, the two both privately realized they could no longer ignore the situation. They closed the practice early and returned home, Wendell preparing his sniffling wife a nice cup of tea before settling in beside her in the living room. Neither of them spoke for a long while, until Monica’s eyes had dried, her mug was half empty, and her voice returned.
“Something is wrong, Wendell,” she admitted finally. “Ever since the move I’ve felt…”
“Empty?” Mr. Wilkins suggested. Monica nodded, relieved it wasn’t only her suffering from the feeling. “I quite agree. Australia is a wonderful place, and I have no intention of leaving now that we’ve finally settled in, but it’s this house. It feels empty.”
“I knew we shouldn’t have gotten a three bedroom,” Monica complained, shaking her head. She still wasn’t sure what it was that had compelled her to buy a house that had two guest rooms, but she hadn’t felt right without them. Wendell put a reassuring arm around his wife, who snuggled into his shoulder with a disquieted sigh.
“We have to do something about this,” she told him, staring at the pictures on the walls of the two of them throughout their shared life. Even those now felt lacking, though she didn’t love her husband any less. “Would you want to get a cat?” she asked, considering the concept of having a feline companion roaming about the house.
Wendell nodded as he too visualized it. “I’d feel bad leaving the thing home alone for seven hours, though,” he answered. He patted Monica’s shoulder and rose from his seat, holding out his hand to pull up his wife as well. “Let’s go out to dinner, somewhere nice. The change of scenery will be good for you.”
**********
Monica’s first impression of Agatha was rather amusing. The woman was clearly the feisty old lady type, refusing to sit in the waiting room when she could stand and chatting up everyone else who walked through the door. When Monica finally called her back to be seen, she learned within the ten steps to the examining chair the name of every one of Agatha’s children and how she was only there upon their insistence. She hadn’t been to a dentist in over 8 years, you see, and her last one had dated Agatha’s middle daughter for three months. Monica merely smiled and nodded at the appropriate times as she got the old woman settled into her chair and started filling out the preliminary paperwork.
“Do you have any children?” Agatha asked her, finally moving the conversation in a direction that forced Monica to pay attention. The question made her heart do an odd little flip in her chest.
“No,” Monica replied simply, shaking her head. Agatha tutted at her.
“Shame,” the elderly woman said, crossing her legs underneath the dress she wore, oddly reminiscent of a patchwork quilt. She must have been at least 75, with the thick lines around her mouth and eyes creasing every time she spoke. “It’s so often the people that can best take of children end up without them and the ones that aren’t fit end up with six of them.” She shook her head at the injustice of it.
“What makes you say that?” Monica asked, pulling up the tray of tools next to the chair and heading to the back of the room for gloves.
“My daughter is a foster mother,” the woman explained, a touch of pride in her voice. “She takes in all kinds of kids, ones that have either lost their parents or, more frequently, been abandoned by them. We see all types and hear all kinds of sad stories. Often the older ones never get adopted, and they get the worst of it.”
A most unusual occurrence happened then. Monica felt something tickle the back of her throat, a familiar emotion she’d last experienced when her husband purchased the tickets for their flight to Australia: excitement.
“Does she enjoy it?” Monica questioned, taking a seat beside the woman. The actual appointment could wait.
“It isn’t easy,” Agatha replied, furrowing her gray brows. “A lot of those children have all sorts of behavioral problems. I often wonder why she does it, myself. But she says she finds if fulfilling, and I won’t question it.”
Monica nodded as if the woman had been preaching to her in church. Fulfilling was exactly the word she had been looking for. She finally started examining Agatha after that, who had surprisingly healthy teeth given her age and lack of frequent dental exams, but in her mind all sorts of possibilities were sprouting. It took her until the very end, when Agatha was spitting into the small bowl attached to the chair and Monica was cleaning up for the next patient, for her to finally muster up the courage to ask, “Mrs. Karlo, about your daughter… might I have her number? I’d like to talk to her about being a foster parent.”