Part 19 (1/2)

”I know. It's awful timing.”

”It's the worst timing imaginable!”

”I know, and she was all torn up about the decision, but I told her to go. I told her that you'd want her to go.”

”Why would you tell her a crazy thing like that?”

”Sarah-”

”Why didn't you tell me about this?”

”I knew it would stress you out.”

”c.r.a.p!” I say, completely stressed out.

”Right. So with no Abby and no time to find a replacement and your mother always hinting around that she's in no rush to leave, I asked her to stay. We need her, Sarah.”

I continue to look out the window, the landscape whizzing by, as we fast approach home. Almost home. Almost home with my mother and soon no Abby. The sun is now directly at eye level in the western sky, hanging just below where the visor would block it out, blinding me. Its rays through the wind-s.h.i.+eld, which felt gloriously warm on my face at the beginning of the ride, are now uncomfortably hot, and I feel like an ant under a magnifying gla.s.s about to be incinerated.

”Can I please have control over my own window?”

I press the b.u.t.ton and hold it there, ”rolling” my window all the way down. Cold air whips into the car. It feels great for a few seconds, but then it's way too cold and way too windy, but I leave the window where it is, determined to have my way about something.

Bob turns onto our exit, and then we turn right onto Main Street in Welmont. The center of town is all dolled up for Christmas. Wreaths are hung on the streetlamps, garland and white lights line the windows of the storefronts, and, although not lit up at this hour, the magnificent two-hundred-year-old spruce tree in front of the town hall is strung to the top with colored lights. The sun is low now, no longer blinding. It'll be dark any minute, and Main Street will be aglow with postcard-perfect holiday cheer. Nearing the shortest day of the year, it changes from day to night in the blink of an eye, reminding me of how everything can change in an unnoticed moment.

Bob turns onto Sycamore Street. We drive up the hill, around the bend, and onto Pilgrim Lane. He pulls into our driveway, and there it is.

Home.

CHAPTER 20.

I remember coming home after Charlie was born, stepping through the front door into the mudroom, looking into the kitchen and the living room beyond that and thinking that everything had changed. Of course, I was seeing the same kitchen table and chairs, the same brown couch and matching love seat, the same Yankee candle centered on the same coffee table, our shoes on the floor, our pictures on the walls, the stack of newspapers by the fireplace, all exactly as we had left them two days before. Even the bananas in the bowl on the kitchen counter were still yellow. The only thing that had really changed was me. I'd left the house forty-eight hours ago an enormous pregnant woman and returned (only slightly less enormous) a mother. Yet somehow, the home I'd lived in for almost a year felt strange, like we were acquaintances being formally introduced for the first time.

I have that same feeling today. Only this time, it's not just me who's changed. As I inch my way through the mudroom, granny cane in my right hand, Bob guiding me on the left, an overwhelming but nonspecific sense that something is different washes over me. Then, one by one, each something reveals itself.

The first change that registers is orange. Streaks of bright orange are splattered all over the kitchen. The walls, the doorframes, the table, the cabinets, the floors are all covered with bright orange graffiti, like the ghost of Jackson Pollock paid us an inspired visit. Or, more likely, someone gave Charlie a tub of orange paint and ignored him for the afternoon. But before I scream for someone to fetch paper towels and a bottle of Clorox, it dawns on me. The streaks aren't paint, and they're not haphazard. Bright orange tape lines the left side of the doorframe. It runs the left edge of the cabinets, the left side of the refrigerator. It covers the doork.n.o.b on the door leading to the backyard. And who knows how many more orange strips of tape are stuck to surfaces I'm not even noticing? Probably many, many more.

Then I notice the handrail drilled into the stairwell wall, which is stainless steel like the grab bars at Baldwin and not at all like the handsome oak banister on its other side. I guess that was necessary. The handsome oak banister is on the right when going up the stairs, but then it's on the left, and therefore not really there at all, when going down. There's also a new, more industrial-grade baby gate installed at the bottom of the stairs and another one at the top, which I first a.s.sume are for our now toddling Linus, but then I think they might also be for me. We're not allowed up or down without adult supervision. My house has been baby-proofed and Sarah-proofed.

My granny cane and right foot take their first steps into the living room and land on a floor that feels completely foreign.

”Where are the rugs?” I ask.

”In the attic,” says Bob.

”Oh yeah,” I say, remembering Heidi telling us that we'd need to get rid of them.

Three handmade, expensive Oriental carpets. Tripping hazards. Rolled up and gone. At least the hardwood floors are in good shape. In fact, they're gleaming, pristine. I scan the length of the room. Unless they're all cl.u.s.tered somewhere to my left, there are no Matchbox cars, tiaras, puzzle pieces, b.a.l.l.s, Legos, crayons, Cheerios, Goldfish crackers, sippy cups, and nukies strewn all over the floor.

”Do the kids still live here?” I ask.

”Huh?”

”Where's all their stuff?”

”Oh, your mother keeps the place really neat. All their things are in their rooms or down in the playroom. We can't have you tripping over toys.”

”Oh.”

”Let's sit you down on the couch.”

Bob replaces my granny cane with his forearm, tucks his other hand under my armpit, and performs what the therapists at Baldwin would call a moderate upper-body a.s.sist. I sink deep into the plush cus.h.i.+on and exhale. It took us probably fifteen minutes to walk from the driveway to the living room, and I'm wiped out. I try not to think of how easily, how unconsciously, I used to whip into the house and how much I used to get done in the span of fifteen minutes. I'd normally already have booted up my laptop, I'd have listened to the phone messages on the machine, gone through the mail, I'd have the TV on, coffee brewing, and at least one of the kids at my feet or on my hip.

”Where is everyone?” I ask.

”Abby's picking up Charlie from basketball, and Linus and Lucy should be here somewhere with your mother. I asked your mother to keep them out of the living room until I got you settled. Let me go find them.”

Now that I'm facing the way I came in, the other side of the living room and the sunroom beyond that, which were hiding in the shadows of my Neglect during the journey in, show themselves. Our Christmas tree is up and decorated, colored lights strung and aglow, angel spinning on the top. It's a big tree this year, even bigger than our usual big, well over ten feet. Our living room ceiling is vaulted and at least twenty feet high, and we always buy the biggest tree on the lot. But every year, just before we do, I always hesitate. Do you think it's a little too big? And Bob always says, Bigger is better, babe.

I'm more than a little unnerved by the fact that I didn't notice the tree as I entered the living room. It's one thing to ignore a piece of chicken on the left side of my plate or words printed on the left side of a page, but I just missed a ten-foot-tall evergreen covered in blinking colored lights and s.h.i.+ny ornaments. Even the fresh pine smell, which I love and did notice, didn't tip me off. Whenever I think my deficit might actually be subtle and not that big of a deal, I experience something like this, indisputable evidence to the contrary. The extent of my Neglect is always bigger than I think. Sorry, Bob, sometimes bigger isn't better.

The French doors to the sunroom are closed, which is unusual if no one is in there. Bob or I will go in and close the doors if we take a work call and need to m.u.f.fle out the madness of the rest of the house, but otherwise, we keep them open. I love spending time alone in there on Sunday mornings in my pajamas, drinking coffee out of my deepest Harvard mug, reading the New York Times in my favorite chair, soaking in the warmth of the coffee through the palms of my hands and the warmth of the sun on my face. In my fantasy life, I spend an entire Sunday morning in this sanctuary undisturbed until I finish both my coffee and the paper, and then, in my ultimate dream world, I close my eyes and take a luxurious catnap.

This never happens. I probably get only about fifteen minutes at a time before Linus cries or Lucy screams or Charlie asks a question, before someone needs something to eat or something to do, before my cell phone vibrates or my laptop announces an incoming email, before I hear something break or something spill or the most attention-grabbing of all-the eerie sound of everything gone suddenly too quiet. But still, even fifteen minutes can be bliss.

It occurs to me that I should now be able to fulfill this fantasy quite easily. Monday through Friday, the kids will be at school and day care, and I won't be at work. I'll have six whole hours each day of uninterrupted time. And it just might take me six hours a day for five days to read every word of the entire Sunday paper, but I don't care. I'm excited about the challenge. Today's Thursday. I'll try my first day in my sunroom retreat tomorrow.

I peek through the windowpanes of the French doors from where I sit on the couch and notice that the sunroom appears to have been redecorated. My favorite reading chair has been turned and pushed up against the wall, and I don't see the coffee table at all. I see some sort of green-leaved potted floor plant that looks like it requires watering, in which case, if I'm at all responsible for this, it will be dead within the week. I wonder where that came from. And is that a dresser?

”Mommy!” yells Lucy, running to the top of the stairs.

”Slow down,” says my mother, walking behind her and holding Linus.

My breath catches for a second, and I swear my heart stalls. Hearing my mother mother Lucy, watching my baby boy at home on her hip, seeing my mother here, living in my house. Living in my life. I don't think I can handle this.

Lucy works both gates open, barely breaking stride, bounds through the living room, and dives onto my lap.

”Easy, Goose,” says Bob.

”She's okay,” I say.

She's barefoot and smiling and giddy in her eyes as she bounces up and down on my lap. She's more than okay.