9
Janet laughed over her coffee as I told her about my new roommate. I had stopped by to see her after work on Wednesday both because I needed to vent and because I needed a break before I faced Ruth again.
“Kick her to the curb,” she said, shaking her head as she offered me a refill. I declined because I drank two cups at work. Another and I would be up until four in the morning scrubbing the ceilings.
“I can’t do that.”
“Sure you can. It’s what I finally did with George’s mother.” Janet’s mother-in-law moved in to “help” for three months when Janet had her first baby. And apparently by “help,” she meant care for George, Janet’s husband, not Janet and the baby.
“You did not kick her out.”
Janet grinned wickedly. “Okay, I made her life miserable until she left. It was all very Shakespearean.”
I felt the corners of my mouth twitching into a smile at the idea of Ruth as the shrew. Then I felt guilty. “This is different,” I said. “She’s a widow who lost her son.”
“And you’re a widow who has to raise yours,” Janet said.
“She’s never going to leave if you don’t make it clear that she has to.
” She took another slice of the coffee cake I had brought over.
I seldom had time to bake anymore now that I was working, but it helped that Eddie had added a bakery to the store and provided some of his and Janet’s mother’s recipes for the baker to use.
“I think she genuinely wants to help. She’s not a bad person. It just ...”
“Is grating having someone else living in your house,” Janet finished. I nodded. “What if you marry her off?”
I choked slightly on my water. “What if I what ?”
“It’d get her out of your house,” she said with another wicked grin.
I made a wry face. “With my luck, she’d just have the husband move into my house too. Besides, she hasn’t so much as gone on a date in ...” I did the math in my head. “Forty years.”
“So? There are plenty of widowers out there who would love someone to cook—”
“I’m going to stop you right there,” I said. “Ruth is the most atrocious cook on the planet. And she has the nerve to complain about my cooking.”
“She’s got to be better than what they’re making on their own,” Janet continued, unfazed. “You should see what my father lives on when he doesn’t come to my house for dinner. Anything would be an upgrade. Besides, she’s clearly lonely, or she wouldn’t be at your house.”
I tried to imagine Ruth going on a date. It felt as foreign as the idea of me trying to date again.
“Easier said than done,” I said lightly.
Janet shrugged. “It’s an idea. Or I can just come over and bang two pots together in the middle of the night and tell her it’s time to go home. It’s not like Paula lets me sleep anyway.”
“Mama?” a sleepy voice called from upstairs, right on cue. Janet groaned, and the voice came more insistently. “ Mama !”
“She still won’t sleep if you’re not in the bed with her?” I asked.
Janet shook her head as the wailing started upstairs. “No. And this is what I get when she wakes up and realizes I snuck out.” She went to the doorway of the kitchen and called upstairs. “Mama is in the kitchen with Auntie Barbara. Go back to sleep.”
“I scared,” came a sniffly voice.
“Oh, for the love of—” Janet huffed quietly so that Paula wouldn’t hear her. “It’s the middle of the day.” Then louder, “I’m coming, hang on.”
I brushed some crumbs off the table into my hand and deposited them in the trash while I waited for Janet to return, then got a cup of milk for Paula and cut a small piece of cake for her as well.
When Janet came back into the kitchen, Paula on her hip, the little girl’s eyes lit up, not at me, but at the cake on the table.
“Cake!” she screeched, leaning so far off Janet that I was briefly worried she’d tumble to the floor.
Janet rolled her eyes and set Paula down. The little girl then made a beeline for the cake. “Thank your Auntie Barbara,” Janet said. “She’s nicer than me.”
“Tank ew, ’Tee Bawba,” Paula said through a mouthful of cake.
“Bites,” Janet said. “We take bites in this house.”
Three gigantic bites later, the slice of cake was demolished, and Paula ran off to play with her toys in the living room.
“On the plus side,” Janet said, “with how much time I’m spending in her bed, there’s no chance of a fourth baby. This one is going to be the death of me.”
“Oh shush,” I said, gazing fondly toward Paula. A third baby hadn’t been ruled out yet when we lost Harry, but that door was firmly shut, locked, and the key thrown away now.
Janet’s face softened and she put a hand over mine, not needing to say anything.
For a few moments, we sat in companionable silence.
It’s a rare friendship that can do that comfortably, and I appreciated Janet for it.
She could be blunt and brutal to anyone she didn’t like—which was a long list—but she would take that same ferocity out on anyone who slighted me, be it a stranger or my own mother-in-law.
Finally, she stood. “Do you need to get home?”
I shook my head.
“Let’s take Paula to the park, then go get the kids from there. Give you a break from the old lady.”
At almost sixty, she wasn’t that old, but I’d take the respite. So I cleared the table while Janet got Paula ready to leave.