CHAPTER 6
“T his is the last trip, I swear,” Elisa said.
“You said that last time,” Archie replied. “And I can’t help it; I need more stuff.”
“The room you will be living in is the equivalent of a prison cell when you add in the fact that it’s only half yours. How do you need more stuff?” she asked.
“Mom, it’s college. It’s not like we’re just getting stuff for a few months. It’s for four years.”
“So, you won’t be asking for anything else for the next four years?”
“Not what I meant,” he replied. “The bed is an extra-long twin. I didn’t know that.”
“I told you to read the details. You swore to me that it was regular, even when I asked you to check when I found out that Adele’s would be extra-long.”
“I know. I did. I thought I read it right,” he replied. “It said standard, but I guess I read the wrong line in the email.”
“I guess so,” she said.
They were standing in line at the department store, and Archie was holding a giant white bag filled with the bedding set they’d bought for him just last week.
He had wanted it in plain blue, and that had been pretty easy to find, so Elisa had been happy to have one more thing off this monster supply list checked off, but that hadn’t lasted long as they were now returning that very purchase because of the dimensions.
And to think about it, she had thought she was done with school supplies after their senior year.
She hadn’t anticipated needing to buy the twins basically a full apartment worth of stuff, despite the fact that they’d be living in dorms. She had failed to think about the fact that they borrowed supplies at home or had whatever they needed in their classrooms, but college was different.
She should’ve remembered that, but she had only been in school for a couple of years, one of them being during her pregnancy, so she had been a little preoccupied with planning a life with twins and a guy she knew she could never fully love.
“Is there anything else we haven’t gotten yet, Arch? I’m not making another trip to the store. When I drop you off, if we realize then that there’s something we forgot, we can get it on campus or nearby, at least.”
“Is Dad going to drop me off, too?” he asked as they moved up one spot in the return line.
“I don’t know. Have you asked him?”
“Yeah. He said he didn’t think he could.”
Archie shrugged a shoulder, but Elisa knew her son.
“Have you told him that it’s important to you for him to be there?” she asked.
“It’s not a big deal. It’s just driving me there since I can’t have a car on campus and, like, helping me unpack. He has more important things to do.” Archie seemed to have realized his mistake then and turned to her with wide eyes. “Sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean–”
“I know. It’s okay,” she replied, offering him a motherly smile.
It was true, though: she didn’t exactly have other, more important things to do.
Her kids were the most important things in her life, so dropping them off at college would always be more important than anything else she had on her schedule.
She’d been happy to find out earlier that summer that they were leaving on different days, so she would be able to drop them both off and enjoy her time with them on this next life step they were about to take.
“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s going to be weird,” Archie said.
“What is?”
“Being without Adele.”
She rubbed his back and asked, “Being away from her, you mean?”
“Yeah. Can you not tell her I said that, though? ”
“Sure, honey,” she replied with a little laugh.
“It’s just that we’ve always kind of been together. We had different activities and stuff, yeah, but we’ve always gone to the same school and had a lot of the same classes besides her nerdy AP things. We’ll be far away now, and it’s weird.”
“I’m sure she’s feeling the same way, Arch.”
“No, she’s not. Adele is, like, perfect.
” He took a step forward, and Elisa joined him.
“She’s, like, a super genius and an athlete, all in one.
She could’ve easily gotten a scholarship for tennis; she just didn’t want to play anymore.
And she likes all the extra things at school.
I was struggling to keep up on top of having soccer. ”
“Honey, you’re playing soccer in college. That’s a big deal. You had to put a lot of time and effort into it these past four years.”
“Yeah, but I only made it to a Division-II school. That’s not a big deal.
I didn’t get any D-I offers. And my school is so lame; we’re not even practicing yet.
We should’ve started a month ago, but they don’t want us there until right before school starts because they haven’t found a new coach yet. ”
“I know it may be weird, but it’s their season, so they make the rules,” she replied, still not understanding anything about soccer despite the fact that she had been watching her son play since he was four years old.
“You’ve got an athletic scholarship, though, and if you do well here and you want to transfer to another school after this year, maybe you’ll be in the position to do that,” she suggested, having no idea how that worked and worrying she shouldn’t have said anything.
“If they don’t want me now, why would they want me then?”
“Arch, maybe they just need to see you at the collegiate level, kicking some soccer butt.”
“Mom, you don’t kick soccer butt. What does that even mean?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they just need to see you scoring more goals at that level.”
“I’m a right back. ”
“Okay.”
“That’s defense, Mom,” he said as he rolled his eyes at her.
“I know that.”
Elisa did know that, but whenever there were those corner kick things, he was always in the goal box thingy with all the other players, so she assumed they’d expect him to score some goals, and he had only scored one penalty kick for the team his senior year.
“Your high school was small, honey. It’s not like there were scouts there all the time. The few that showed up to your games were interested.”
“Two D-I scouts were there this year, and I didn’t get a scholarship to either school.”
“I thought you said they didn’t need any players in your position. It’s not just about how good you are, Arch. It’s about what they need, too.”
“Yeah, I know. I just want to play soccer, Mom. I know Adele doesn’t care. She played tennis because it was an activity and looked good. I play soccer because I love it.”
“I know, honey,” she replied as they moved up another spot in line.
“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“Am I weird because I’m going to miss my sister when I go to college?”
Elisa laughed a little and said, “No, honey. You’re twins.
It’s a little different than just a brother missing his sister.
I know in the past few years, things have been different, and you’ve grown apart a bit, but that’s normal because you’re teenagers.
I know your sister. I’m sure she’s going to miss you, too. ”
“Has she said anything to you about it?” he asked.
“No, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel it. Maybe you should tell her how you’re feeling.”
“Yeah, right,” he said and laughed. “She’d just make fun of me. She’s always calling me her younger brother. ”
“Because she can. You’d call her your younger sister if you’d been born first.”
“Probably,” he agreed as they reached the counter.
“Hi. I need to return this. I have a receipt,” Elisa said and handed it to the woman at the counter.
“This item isn’t returnable.”
“Sorry?” she asked. “It’s within the thirty-day window.”
“But the item’s receipt says, ‘No returns.’” The cashier held it up for Elisa to see. “If opened, no returns.”
“If opened ? We didn’t open it,” Elisa said as she looked at the plastic bag her son had placed on the counter.
“The zipper is open,” the woman pointed out.
“Because it’s a zipper . I didn’t open this. It’s bedding for my son’s dorm, but we’re getting something else because this won’t fit. He’s never even pulled it out of the bag.”
“Yeah,” Archie added in his attempt to help.
“I would have to get my manager to approve this,” the woman replied.
“Yes, please do,” Elisa said.
The cashier just rolled her eyes as if she hadn’t expected Elisa to take her up on the manager offer and picked up the phone by the register.
“I need a manager,” she said into it and waited. “It’ll be a few minutes,” she added to Elisa. “Do you want to wait?”
“Yes, I do,” Elisa replied.
Seven minutes later, the manager approached and processed the return.
“Mom, you were a Karen back there,” Archie said.
“I was not,” she replied as they left the return area.
“You asked for her manager.”
“She offered to get the manager. I didn’t ask for them,” Elisa said as she laughed.
“Still, it was pretty cool,” he replied. “Can we go find what I need now?”
“Yes, but that’s it, Arch. I mean it.”
“I know. I know. Just the bed stuff. We can get the rest when I get there. I heard you. ”
“Good. Are you going to talk to your sister?”
“No,” he said. “Mom, I just don’t know when we’ll talk and stuff. Like, we’ll both have classes, and I’ll have soccer. You know she’s going to be all over the activities there. And we’ll see each other on school breaks, but I see her every day now, and we were always in the same school before.”
“Maybe tell her that you want to talk regularly. Pick a night that works for both of you.”
“Yeah, I guess. What about Dad?”
“What about him?” Elisa asked as they arrived at the bedding section of the store.
“You’re here now, and he’s there. Where do we go for breaks? And what if Adele comes here and I go there or vice versa? I wouldn’t see her for months.”
Elisa hadn’t thought about the fact that they would be on school breaks and might choose to spend them with their father, which would mean she wouldn’t see them.
“We’ll figure that out. Just tell your sister that you want to talk to her at least once a week or whatever you want and that you want to text or something.”
“She’ll think I’m, like, attached to her.”
“No, she won’t. And she’s attached to you, too. You’re twins. That’s how it works. You know your aunt Annabelle and your father were inseparable when they were younger.”
“Yeah, but Aunt Annabelle lives in France now. They haven’t seen each other in, like, three years, I think.”
“Your aunt has her own life now, but that doesn’t mean they’re not close,” she said.
“Close? I don’t think Dad has mentioned her in at least a year, and they’re twins, too.”
“Honey, your dad has a lot on his plate. So does Annabelle.”
“So does Adele,” he argued. “And so do I. I have things, too.”
“I know you do,” Elisa said as she laughed again.
She watched her son take in the giant wall of bedding options until he found three different options in blue.
Only one of them had been an extra-long twin size, and it was fifty dollars more than the one he’d picked out initially.
Elisa could afford it, but if she didn’t find a job soon, she’d have to start cutting back on expenses after the kids left the house and hope they wouldn’t notice.
“Hey, Mom?”
“Yes, Arch?” she said after they got into the car.
“Have you ever thought about going back to school? Everything’s online now, so you could even do it from home. I know you had to drop out because of us.”
“No, I chose to drop out because of you two,” she said.
“I could’ve stayed, or I could’ve gone back once you and your sister were in school, but I had a job, and outside of having the usual college experience at eighteen through twenty-two, which I can’t have now, the main point of college is to get a job, right? ”
“Yeah, but you don’t have a job now.”
“Because we moved, and I’ve been getting us settled. I’ll get something soon.”
“Okay. If you did want to go back, though, Adele and I would think that’s cool. We could help you study when we’re home, if you want.”
“Oh, you could, huh?” she asked as she put the car in drive.
“Yeah. We talked about it when we were driving to Dad’s house. We feel bad.”
“Why?”
“Because Dad knocked you up, and you left school. He got to keep going, though, and you had to take care of us.”
Elisa put the car back in park and said, “Archie, I don’t regret any part of being your mom. Not one thing. I didn’t have to take care of you. I got to be your mom. It’s true that your father and I didn’t exactly plan to have you when we did, but I don’t regret anything. You hear me?”
He nodded and said, “Yeah, I hear you.”
“Good. Now, let’s go pick up some lunch on the way home. You can get ice cream, and I won’t tell Adele. ”
“Cool.” He laughed a little.
Driving home and watching her son eat an ice cream cone in about three bites was entertaining, but it also made Elisa think about the fact that this would be one of the last car rides like this that they would have together before her only son went to college.
Sure, there would be school breaks and summers, but soon, he would meet a girl he liked, and he would want to spend a holiday with her instead of back home, just like his father had done with her and she had done with him.
He would get a job near campus or an internship somewhere, and the summers at home would shorten before disappearing altogether.
Soccer was only different this year because the school was in between coaches after the coach left for another university, and they had yet to hire a replacement.
Next year, though, Archie would be at school starting in July.
She only had so many more days like this with him before things would change, and that was true for Adele, too.
Her life had been about her children for almost two decades, and now, all of that was about to change.
She would be left by herself in this house that was half-falling apart but was all she had been able to afford, with no hobbies, aside from her running, and no real friends who weren’t her thirty-two-year-old ex-sister-in-law, who had been living in New Orleans for a while now and was much more established here than Elisa.
So, yes, she had Gwen, but that was it. Well, unless she counted Myra, whom she was paying to fix her house and who had turned her down for drinks and dinner twice now, so Elisa probably needed to take the damn hint.
Myra wanted a client, not a new friend. Or maybe just a client and a neighbor.
Either way, Elisa would need to find something more than just running, cleaning the house, and her job search to occupy her time soon.