July 5, Sunday
SUNDAY MORNINGS in my house used to mean pancakes, cartoons, and at least one child crying.
Now they mean me, a mug of coffee gone lukewarm on the side table, and the soft click of knitting needles in an otherwise silent den.
Because given the choice between sleep and existing, my teenagers will always choose sleep.
Tucker and I had already done our loop around the block and now he was sprawled across my feet, snoring.
I picked up the knitting project I'd been working on and let the rhythm take over.
Knit, knit, purl. My mother taught me this stitch the summer I turned twelve, sitting on her bed with a basket of yarn between us, patiently untangling my knots without ever once making me feel stupid for tying them.
When I knit, I feel close to her in a way I don't anywhere else—which is either lovely or slightly haunted, depending on the day.
Today it tipped toward haunted. I found myself thinking about her last weeks—how small she got, how the nurses were kind in that particular hospice way that somehow makes everything worse, how my father sat in the hallway because he said he couldn't watch.
He remarried fourteen months later. A woman from the church choir named Sandra, who I'm told makes an excellent seven-layer dip and has strong opinions about Tupperware organization.
Fourteen months. I used to think that number meant something was wrong with him.
Now I wondered if it just meant something was different about him—about men, maybe—like grief was a room they could walk out of, while the rest of us kept adding furniture.
Knit, knit, purl.
I thought about Warren, too, because apparently that's where my brain goes now when left unsupervised.
I tried to remember the last time I'd made a decision—a real one, not "paper or plastic"—that didn't somehow orbit around him.
His job. His schedule. His preferred brand of coffee, which I still buy, out of habit.
When had I become a moon?
And if I wasn't that anymore—if I peeled off Wife and Keeper of His Coffee—was there an actual person underneath?
I was still chewing on that uncomfortable question when Lily shuffled into the den, hair in a messy topknot, wearing the expression of someone who'd been personally wronged by sunlight.
"Morning," I said. "You got in pretty late last night."
"Mmm." She flopped onto the couch.
"Later than curfew, actually. Don't let that become a habit.
" I kept my eyes on my stitches, which is a trick I've learned—easier to have hard conversations when you're not making eye contact, like therapy, but with yarn.
"Also—and I say this with love—you and Scott at the fireworks were a lot for an audience that included small children. "
Lily sat up fast. "Oh my god. I'm allowed to have a life, Mom."
"You are. I just want you to be careful. With your body, I mean. That's all I'm saying."
"You don't get to lecture me about relationships." Her voice cracked, sharp and sudden. "Maybe if you weren't so boring, Dad wouldn't have needed someone else."
The needles stopped.
She was already up, already grabbing her running shoes by the door, already gone in a blur of slammed door before I could find a single word.
My skin tingled as hurt rolled over me.
Then I picked up the needles. Knit, knit, purl.
The worst part wasn't that Lily had said what she'd said.
The worst part was that, lying awake more nights than I'd ever admit, I'd told myself the same thing.