Chapter 4 #2
Wasn’t Pete at all bothered? Probably not.
He didn’t seem to feel the passage of time the way she did, and maybe that was because his life wasn’t about to change as dramatically as hers.
Their family and their children were her whole world, whereas they were one part of his world.
He still commuted into his office in Manhattan three days a week, and on the other two days he worked from home, closeted away in his office.
She poked at the food on her plate.
She was being ridiculous, she knew that.
At some point her children were going to leave home.
That was the way of things. She’d always known the day would come, but it had been a distant worry.
Now that day was fast approaching. She almost wished she hadn’t had twins.
If there had been a gap between her children at least then she could have let go of them one at a time and gradually eased herself into a child-free life, instead of losing both at the same time.
She was dreading the moment she dropped them at college, no matter where that turned out to be. She’d promised herself that she wasn’t going to cry, but it was going to be hard. And harder still would be arriving home after.
The house was going to feel empty. Her life would feel empty. She was going to miss them so much. The chat, the chaos, even the bickering.
Suddenly, she envied Erica, who wasn’t facing major change. Yes, she’d turned forty but her life would be the same. She would still be doing the same job. Enjoying the same glamorous, exciting lifestyle. Anna’s was going to change dramatically, and she had no choice about that.
She loved her life. She wanted to freeze time. She wanted to hold on to life the way it was now.
Claudia was right. She had the perfect life. What Claudia probably didn’t appreciate was that Anna was about to lose it.
Panic engulfed her.
“Mom?” Daniel sounded worried and more than a little guilty. “Are you okay?”
No, she wasn’t okay, but the first rule of motherhood was to be calm and steady and always look in control.
She produced her brightest smile. “I’m fine.
Just planning where Dad and I can go to dinner.
It will be a treat.” She had to stop thinking and worrying about the day when they would leave home, or she’d ruin the remaining days they had at home.
She didn’t want to make that classic mistake of ruining today because she was worrying about tomorrow.
She needed to make the most of the time she had left before they left home.
Erica would tell her to focus on the positives. The fact that her children would be going off to college as independent adults meant that she’d done a good job. She should be patting herself on the back for getting this far.
Her relationship with her children was inevitably going to change as they grew.
She’d read a parenting book recently, about how to be a good parent to teenagers.
Apparently, her job was to give them what they needed, not what she needed.
And right now it seemed Daniel needed her not to go to the concert.
It didn’t matter if it felt as if someone had stabbed her in the chest; she had to accept it.
She sat up a little straighter.
Maybe she couldn’t go to the concert, but there were other things they could enjoy as a family and this was the right time of year for it.
“So who is excited about Christmas? I know we normally go to the forest to get our tree second weekend of December, but how would you feel about doing it sooner than that?” She ignored Pete’s look of surprise.
“Does ten o’clock Saturday work for you?
I can bake our favorite cinnamon cookies to eat while we’re decorating the tree.
We could play games. I’ll make a special family dinner in the evening. It will be fun.”
Meg smothered a yawn. “I’m at a sleepover with Dana on Friday. It’s her birthday. I did tell you.”
“I know. Pizza and a movie. I have it on the calendar.” The photo calendar had been her Christmas gift to herself the year before.
Each month was heralded by another family photo from her archives.
Meg, aged ten, playing on her sled in the snow.
Daniel with his guitar. A family holiday at the beach where they’d all squeezed into the shot and smiled for the camera.
Treasured memories layered one upon another, like bricks in a house.
That was how a family was built, wasn’t it?
“But you’ll be back Saturday morning so I could make a stack of pancakes for breakfast and then we could go and choose the tree.
We always do the tree together. It’s a family tradition. ”
“Dana’s mom is taking us ice-skating on Saturday morning.” Meg saw her mother’s expression and sighed. “I guess I could miss it.”
“I have band practice at school in the morning,” Daniel said. “But we could do a different weekend.”
“No, we couldn’t. I have something on every weekend until Christmas,” Meg said. “My life is madness.”
Every weekend?
Anna felt a pressure in her chest. “Even our usual weekend?”
“Yes. And I did tell you.” Meg was defensive, a sure sign that she’d forgotten to mention it. “It’s Maya’s party on that Friday and I can’t not go because I’ve already said yes to Dana’s party so I have to say yes to Maya, too. I can’t appear to have favorites.”
Had her teenage friendships been as complicated as her daughter’s?
“But when were you thinking we’d get the tree?”
Meg squirmed. “I was thinking that maybe you and Dad could get the tree this year. I mean it’s not as if the choosing part is that big a deal. It’s having the tree that matters.”
Not that big a deal?
Remembering how Meg used to make a chart to count down the days until they bought the tree, Anna felt inexplicably like crying.
The child’s excitement had been infectious.
When are we going to the forest? Can we go right now?
She’d been telling herself that there was plenty of time before they left home, but there wasn’t, was there?
The conversation tonight had made her feel as if they were already halfway through the door.
She wished it were possible to grip tightly to time to stop it disappearing.
Were the lovely family Christmases she cherished so much now a thing of the past? Was that part of their lives gone forever?
“You don’t want to choose the tree?”
“I mean, obviously I’d love to if life wasn’t so busy,” Meg said in a bright voice.
“But let’s be honest. You usually decide anyway.
Dad says too tall, get a smaller one, and you say no, I want a big one.
If Daniel and I pick one it’s always lopsided, or not bushy enough—you know what you want and you get it.
Same outcome, every year. Cut out the middleman, I say. We don’t need to be part of it.”
But wasn’t that the whole point? Being part of it? Arguing over the tree was part of tradition, but it seemed she was the only one who saw it that way.
She imagined picking up the tree herself when she went to the farmers’ market.
No input from anyone else. No smiles and anticipation because the whole thing, from the scent of pine to the prick of the needles, was about creating a festive atmosphere.
Just another item on her shopping list. Carrots, potatoes, bag of apples—tree. Nothing special about it.
“It’s something we’ve always done together. I don’t want you to miss out.”
“Don’t worry about that.” Meg waved a hand. “We’ll love whatever you get.”
Anna searched for a flicker of regret in her daughter’s face and failed to find even a glimmer.
It seemed Anna was holding on to something that everyone else had already let go.
And right then and there she made the decision she’d been struggling to make.
“Right. Dad and I will buy the tree. We’ll need to do it this weekend because I’m going away in the middle of December, with Claudia and Erica.” Even saying it felt wrong and she waited, half hoping for appalled looks and a chorus of What? Don’t go, Mom!
That was the week they did all their Christmas shopping, wrapped gifts, decorated the house.
No one said anything, so she tried again. “I’ll be away for the whole week. The full seven days. But don’t panic.”
No one appeared to be panicking although Pete sent her a quizzical look.
Although she’d mentioned rearranging the book club when her usual summer trip with her friends had been canceled back in the summer, he’d obviously forgotten that Christmas had been mentioned as a possible date.
Or maybe he hadn’t thought she’d actually choose to go away at Christmas.
The kids didn’t react at all, and for a wild moment she wondered what would happen if she didn’t come back for Christmas.
If she didn’t arrange all the food, and string lights and winter wreaths and garlands around the house, and help everyone hang stockings above the fireplace for Santa.
Would they even bother doing it themselves, or would they just treat it like another day of the week?
She gritted her teeth. “Are you hearing me? I’m going to be away for a week.”
Meg helped herself to garlic bread. “Sounds great, Mom. I think it’s great that people of your age still have friends.”
People of her age?
“Friendship isn’t just for the young, Meg.” If anything, you needed your friends more as the years passed; at least she did.
“I know. That’s what I tell Dana and Maya.
Don’t sweat the small things because we’re in this for the long haul and we’re still going to support each other when we have wrinkles and no teeth.
Although I don’t intend to ever have wrinkles, which is why I asked Santa for high-factor sunscreen.
Have fun, Mom. And say hi to Erica. Lucky you spending a week with her. She is so cool.”
Erica was cool, it seemed, whereas Anna was boring old Mom whose mere presence at a school concert was an embarrassment.
Hurt gnawed behind her ribs.