30
I got home, only to realize I needed to buy more milk and ice cream because I had left in such a rush, and what I had bought was now lukewarm, sitting in wet brown paper shopping bags in the hall.
Annoyed, I slammed cabinets and the refrigerator as I put away the items that could be salvaged.
But then . . .
The piece of paper where my mother had written her phone number on the refrigerator for the kids caught my eye. The long-distance part was harder for them to remember than local numbers.
Mother knows best, Ruth said in my head.
My eyes narrowed. She certainly didn’t know best. But my mother on the other hand ...
I glanced out the front window, making sure Ruth’s car was nowhere in sight, then returned to the kitchen and picked up the phone.
My mother answered on the third ring. “Hello?” She sounded out of breath.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Barbara!” she said warmly. I checked the date on the calendar on the refrigerator and counted backward in my head. It had been a little long between calls. “How are you? How are the kids? Do they miss me?”
“The kids are good,” I said. “They miss you every day.” They hadn’t mentioned her all week. “And I—well, I need your help.”
“What can I do, darling?”
“It’s Ruth,” I said bluntly. “I need you to come back down for a visit and convince her to either find her own place to live or go stay with her sister.”
“Why can’t you do that?”
“Mom. You don’t understand how bad this has gotten. Please. She won’t stay if you’re here. And you’re the only one I know who can make her as miserable as she’s making me.”
“I’m not certain that’s a compliment. Just tell her she’s overstayed her welcome, and it’s time to go home.”
“I tried that! The first week.”
“Well, a week isn’t a very long visit with grandchildren. How long has she been there now?”
I counted up weeks on the calendar, looking for the date I had circled as my first day on my own. “Five weeks.”
“Well, considering I stayed two years, even five weeks doesn’t quite feel like a real visit, does it?”
“Mom, could you have handled Bubbie Cohen for five weeks?”
There was a long pause. “No.”
“Then you have to help me.”
My mother sighed. “It’s a bit complicated right now. Your father and I are going on a vacation next week.”
“A vacation?” My parents went to Atlantic City for a week every single summer.
That was it. Their entire vacation repertoire for the thirty-two years of my life, and the two years before I was born, if you didn’t count their honeymoon in Niagara Falls.
They didn’t even go to the Catskills when my aunt invited them to stay with her.
“Yes,” she said. “We booked a cruise.”
“A cruise? But you hate boats!”
“This is a ship, Barbara, not a boat. It even has a pool on board.”
“Great,” I said sarcastically.
“Darling,” she said, a warning tone in her voice.
“Be happy for me. I just spent two years helping you raise your children. Which I don’t begrudge you for a moment, but it took those two years for your father to realize he needed to expend more effort on me.
And I don’t intend to let that go to waste.
I’m happy to come for a little visit after that, but you wanted to do this on your own. That includes dealing with Ruth.”
I didn’t reply, and my mother eventually sighed.
“What’s she doing that’s so terrible?” she asked. “Aside from the fire—you did tell me about that.”
“I think she’s trying to marry me off. Or scare me out of ever getting married again.
I honestly can’t tell with the creeps she’s bringing around.
Mom, she faked nearly dying today to try to force me into going out with the doctor who harasses every single woman—and some married ones—at the hospital.
She never remarried and is fine. Why do I have to have a man to survive suddenly? ”
There was a long pause.
“Maybe that wasn’t by choice,” she mused. “Maybe she doesn’t want you to be as lonely as she is.”
“Ruth isn’t lonely. I tried setting her up and she kicked the poor man.
” Okay, calling Mr. Moskowitz “poor” was being hyperbolic.
He likely deserved that and more. And that wasn’t entirely truthful, considering why I had decided to fix her up in the first place.
But I wasn’t letting my mother talk me out of getting rid of Ruth. Not after what she had pulled today.
“Are you lonely?” she asked.
The question caught me off guard. “I haven’t had time to be.”
“That isn’t what I mean, and you know it. You can be just as lonely with someone else in your house.”
I hadn’t let myself think about it because I didn’t want to.
But yes, I was. I missed Harry enough that I talked to the ceiling pretending he could hear me.
I still rolled over in the night expecting to feel the warmth of his body next to mine, only to wake myself up when I realized he wasn’t there.
But it also wasn’t the same. I had the kids, who filled my non-working hours, and work at the hospital to fill the holes while they were at school.
And I had yet to go even twenty-four hours without a mother or mother-in-law occupying my house since he had died.
But there was truth in what she said. I could be lonely without being alone.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“I couldn’t quite hear you,” she trilled.
“Don’t make me say it again.”
She conceded the point.
“If you’re lonely after two years, I don’t care what Ruth says. She wouldn’t be trying to fix you up if she didn’t know something you don’t about living your life as a widow.”
This call wasn’t going how I wanted it to at all.
“So maybe agree to date, but you get to pick the man. I think that would placate her.”
“I don’t want to pick a man,” I said, realizing I sounded like a petulant teenager but unable to stop myself.
“Then I’m afraid you’re stuck,” she said. “Back to packing I go. I’ll send you a postcard from the Bahamas. And if you want me to visit when we get back, I’m happy to. Though I won’t be rude to Ruth for you. She can be frustrating, but she means well. Now tell me to have a nice trip.”
“Have a nice trip,” I said sullenly.
“Thank you, darling. I plan to. Ciao.”
“Ciao?” I said out loud, even though she had already hung up. Who was that person and what did she do with my mother?
It wasn’t quite time to go get the kids yet, but if Ruth came home and I was there alone with her, a fight was definitely going to erupt, so I scribbled a note telling her to go buy more milk and ice cream because she ruined mine, then slipped Pepper’s leash on and walked to Janet’s house, the cardinal from the backyard following us for a block while Pepper jumped and tried to fly after it.
“What did Ruth do to my father?” Janet asked by way of greeting.
“I have no idea. He’s clearly losing his mind if he sees any redeeming qualities in her.”
Janet peered at me, then pulled a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from a drawer. “Paula’s still sleeping. Let’s go out on the patio, so George doesn’t get mad that I smoked in the house again.”
To be fair, George thought Janet had quit, not just quit in the house. And he never questioned why she kept a bottle of perfume by the back door. Men.
“So,” she asked around the cigarette as she lit it outside, “what happened?”
I plucked the cigarette from her mouth and took a long drag myself.
“Must be bad if you’re smoking,” Janet observed, starting to pull another from the pack. I had quit when Bobby was two.
“No, take this one back,” I said, handing it to her. “I don’t actually want it. Just needed that for fortification.”
Janet raised her eyebrows but said nothing, and I launched into the whole hospital saga. When I had finished, Janet stubbed out the butt of her cigarette and lit another. “Wow,” she said. “I’ve got to hand it to her. She’s persistent. Is the doctor good-looking at least?”
“Sure. For a demon.”
Janet shrugged. “Demons are good for keeping you warm at night.”
“Janet!”
“Okay, okay. But I’ve got a toddler in my bed every night, so let me at least imagine a handsome doctor.”
I’d take a toddler over no one, I thought. Then I shook my head suddenly. Where did that thought even come from?
“And then I called my mother, because I thought she would come and send Ruth packing, and do you know that woman convinced my father to go on a cruise?”
Janet’s face darkened, but she took another drag of her cigarette and it passed. “Your father leaves his armchair?”
“Apparently now he does!”
“Wow,” Janet said again. “Wonders never cease.” She checked her watch, then stubbed out her cigarette and stood up. “I’ve got to get Paula so we can pick up the kids.”
I stayed on the patio, deep in thought. Would Ruth even leave if I did get married? I had no desire to find someone new, though if it got rid of her it was worth considering. But if she was going to stay ...
To hell with it, I thought. She had said no to dinner with Mr. Greene. Well, she was going to get a taste of her own medicine. If it worked, great. She could focus on him instead of me. If it didn’t, then she was going to learn that I could play dirty too.
I just hoped she didn’t try to foist him on me. The thought of Janet and Eddie’s father in bed ... That was the one image possibly worse than Dr. Howe.
A small figure came barreling out onto the patio. “Auntie Bawba! You bwing me cake?”
I shook my head and Paula pouted. But I opened my arms and she crawled onto my lap, snuggling in, her thumb in her mouth. “I’ll bring cake next time, sweetheart. I promise.”
Bobby and Susie were too big to climb onto my lap anymore. I breathed in the soft, baby scent of Paula’s hair. I thought again about how if Harry were still here, we would have had a third baby.
And then there would be no spare bedroom for Ruth.
“What is that look on your face?” Janet asked.
I grinned. “Can I borrow Paula for a week or so?”
“Keep her,” Janet deadpanned.
Paula’s little face screwed up, and Janet plucked her from my lap, kissing her nose. “Mama’s kidding, you silly goose. I would never give you away.”
Comforted, Paula leaned into Janet, then wrinkled her nose. “I tell Daddy you smoke.”
“Take her,” Janet said, holding her out to me.
I laughed. I could always count on Janet to restore my good humor.