Chapter Four
Every time I drive home, I’m fine until I get off the interstate. I see the big green sign, I take a deep breath, and it sits heavily in my chest. I know, rationally, that I could turn back, but I also know that I’d never do it.
I passed the elementary school and the post office, my heart pounding harder every second.
By the time I turned onto Ash Street, I could feel it in my ears.
The third house from the corner was a ranch with tan siding and dark green shutters, and a picture window in the front, behind painstakingly manicured bushes.
Unlike the Sutherlands, my parents had a company do their landscaping.
The driveway led to a two-car garage, and from there, a walk bordered to the left by large, craggy boulders ended at the front porch.
I remembered the argument my parents had when my mother decided she wanted to add them.
My father was doing the yard work at that point and he fought hard, telling her they would look awful and it’d take forever to place them, but as usual, my mother won the fight and two weeks later, she sent me photos of Dad and Kevin in sweat-soaked T-shirts hoisting the rocks in place.
I actually thought they looked nice, but I wasn’t about to say it in front of Dad.
I parked on the side of the road, making sure to stay clear of the mailbox.
I let my head fall back on the seat for a moment, gathering myself.
I knew my mother had been staring out the kitchen window, looking for me to arrive, and I knew she was waiting at the door.
I still just wanted one more minute, to think, to breathe, to be alone.
Okay. I finally threw the car door open, gathered my phone and charger, and dug in the trunk for my bags.
I was right; I was barely halfway up the walk when the front door opened.
Instead of coming out to help carry things, she stood just inside, one hand on her hip.
She was gracious enough to open the storm door when I got up on the step so I wouldn’t have to actually set something down to get in, but she didn’t step out of my way.
“Samantha.” It was the same tone she always used, somewhere between unable to believe I was there and pissed that I’d ever dared to leave.
She hugged me close for too long, especially since I was still holding three bags, then held me away from her.
Her eyes were critical. How many pounds had I gained or lost since the last time she’d seen me?
Did my shirt hang right? Were my pants too tight?
Was I lucky enough to be wearing a decent bra?
I tried to ignore it and slid my suitcase out of the way so we could close the door.
“Dinner’s ready.” Mom hurried back into the kitchen. “Come on in. You can deal with your things later.”
“Let her breathe, Helen,” Dad said from the other room. I could hear the La-Z-Boy click back into an upright position and the television noise stopped.
“We don’t want it to get cold,” Mom said. I was sure all of it had been in the oven on keep warm anyway.
“Let me run to the bathroom and I’ll be right there,” I said.
Mom didn’t leave my side. “I have a dress for you.”
Oh Jesus Christ. I didn’t want to know what size she thought I wore. I held my garment bag higher. “I brought clothes for the wedding, Mom.”
“Did you bring pants?” Her tone was disapproving. “I have a dress.”
“I brought a dress.” I left everything in a pile in the hallway and edged into the bathroom like I was trying to slip through without letting Ollie out.
Once in the bathroom, I breathed all the way out for the first time since I walked in the door.
I’d made it through the initial once-over.
After peeing and washing up, I stared at myself in the mirror, trying to figure out what she saw.
I’d had my hair cut recently, and I noticed the gray more when it was really short.
My eyes were bloodshot after the drive. My bra wasn’t my best one, but my shirt and jeans looked okay.
I shook my head and gave up. The moment I stepped over the threshold I was thirteen years old again, chubby and awkward with zits on my face and braces on my teeth.
I was forty-five years old and I was still a fucking child in her eyes.
I wanted to climb out the window and run, but dinner was waiting, so I opened the door and headed back into the kitchen, holding my head as high as I could.
There were only three places set. “Just us tonight.”
“Asher and Seth have soccer tonight,” Mom said, as if she was reminding me.
“They’re on separate teams this year,” Dad said. “It’s a pain in the ass. What can I get you to drink?”
“Just water is fine.” The only thing worse than feeling like a kid again was the awkward first dinner, when I was treated like a guest, at least until I offered to do the dishes.
“I have tea, too,” Mom said. I’d come up with the wrong answer. “I’ll get you a cup.”
I saw Dad’s eyebrows jump, but he just set down my water without saying anything and sat at the end of the table.
She’d made a corned beef and mashed potatoes; one of her few really good meals.
I never knew whether anything else was going to be edible or how often we’d be offered food.
Sometimes someone was shoving cookies or snack mix or sandwiches at me constantly, but other times, there were only two meals a day, and my mother complained about how full and bloated she was.
“This looks wonderful.” I helped myself to a couple strips of meat when she passed me the plate, not too little to look disinterested, not too much so as to get a disapproving scowl for overeating.
“Have you heard from Kevin lately?” Mom asked.
“It’s been a few weeks I guess.”
“Rachel just got tubes in her ears. All five of them so far, and I’m sure Jeremiah’s not far behind.”
“It helps, though, doesn’t it? Keeps them from having ear infections?”
“Well, yes, but I hate that they need to have surgery when they’re so young.”
“It’s a good thing,” Dad said. “You kids were sick all the time. All winter long, every winter.”
“I remember a lot of penicillin,” I said.
“No, Kevin’s allergic,” Mom reminded me.
I wasn’t, but that didn’t matter. I smiled and cut another piece of corned beef.
“So did you have a good trip? Car working fine?”
I nodded at Dad. “Weather was good. Got two new tires on the back.”
“What kind?”
“No idea. You can look at them all you want tomorrow.”
He grinned. “I might do that.”
“Oh, Samantha. Mary Margaret got her ears pierced.”
I looked back to Mom. “That’s nice. I bet she looks very pretty.”
“She’s kind of young.”
“She’s what, six?” I asked. “It’s fine.”
“You were thirteen before you got yours pierced.”
Yeah, because you wouldn’t let me before that. I wanted to know how big a gasket Mom would blow if Asher decided he wanted his pierced. “Where’d she get it done?”
Mom’s eyes went huge. “Missy took her to a tattoo parlor! I couldn’t believe it.”
“Good for her.”
“Good?”
“Piercers are licensed. At the mall you get some sixteen-year-old who may or may not know how to operate the gun.”
Mom stared at me, obviously wondering how I knew that and deciding whether or not to challenge said knowledge. Dad grinned, set his elbows on the table, and propped his chin on his hands, watching the exchange.
“When I got my helix done the room was cleaner than a hospital.” I didn’t mention that my piercer had horns.
Mom wrinkled her nose the slightest bit. I knew exactly what she thought about my piercings, and she still gave Kevin dirty looks about his ears. “I guess. She’s over the moon happy, so I guess it doesn’t matter where she got it done.”
“I’m glad.”
We were quiet for a long time then. I should have reveled in the silence, but it just made the food sit heavily in my gut. It felt like we should be talking, and I tried to think of something, anything to say.
Fortunately, Dad nodded at me. “When do classes start?”
“This Monday.”
“What’re you teaching this semester?”
“A few sections of Comp One and Comp Two, Women’s Lit, and Creative Writing.”
“Daytime or evening?”
“Two mornings a week, two evenings, one afternoon, and Saturday.”
“Evenings and Saturdays still better?”
“The students are older,” I said. “They really want to be there. Most of them work full time.”
“Is Creative Writing—”
“Missy is taking courses twice a week toward her master’s,” Mom said. “Her mother takes Jeremiah and she has the younger girls in Mother’s Day Out.”
Dad eyed her, but I ignored the fact that she didn’t give a shit about our conversation and turned to her politely. What I really wanted to know was if that meant they weren’t going to have any more kids, but I just nodded. “In nursing?”
“Yes. She’s looking to specialize in…John, what is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you’ll have to talk to her about it tomorrow. Does anyone want any more? I’ll start clearing, then.”
“I’ve got it.” I got up and started to stack dishes.
“Well, thank you,” Mom said.
“Dinner was wonderful. Thank you.”
“You want coffee? I’ve got some Bailey’s,” Dad said.
“Decaf?”
Dad laughed at me and began to dig through the fridge. “You’re old.”
I did the dishes while Mom put away the leftovers and Dad prepared decaf with Irish cream. What I really wanted to do was hole up in my bedroom and see if I could spit out a page or two, but the moment I started the dishwasher, Mom nudged me toward the living room. “I have something to show you.”
My father had settled back in his La-Z-Boy with a crossword puzzle. He didn’t even look up. “Helen, leave her alone.”
“No, no, you’ll want to see this.” Mom turned on the television and clicked around in the recordings.
I clutched my mug and didn’t sit down. “What is it?”
“We would’ve seen it, you know… We watch every day, but I wouldn’t have known to record it if Charlotte hadn’t called. I was just floored, you know, after all these years.”
I blinked at my mother and tried hard to keep my tone from betraying my frustration. “You would’ve seen what?”
“Gerald on Championship Trivia. He went home with fourteen thousand dollars.”
“Spoiler alert,” my father said.
“Who?” I asked.
“You remember Gerald. He was on for six days. We’ve got them all right here.”
My father glanced up to acknowledge my exasperation. “Gerald Sandridge.”
Mom nodded. “You remember Gerald. Of course you do. You were in swimming lessons with him at the Y. Always such a handsome, well-behaved boy. Graduated with highest honors from Northwestern. He’s very successful.”
I sat on the sofa, reluctantly resigning myself to three full hours of game show hell. “Yet he somehow has time to win fourteen thousand dollars on Championship Trivia.”
“He thought nothing would come of it, but he spent months studying, and just look what happened. He’s still single,” Mom added.
“I’m still gay.”
My father’s puzzle book twitched and I was fairly certain I heard a snicker.
“Well.” Mom nodded once as if she was merely conceding until I got my head out of my ass. “Look, here he is!”
Fortunately, the episodes were only thirty minutes and Mom knew how to zap through the commercials. The Baileys at least took the edge off of things, and by the time we were finally done watching, it was late enough that I could yawn and say it had been a long day and slip away toward bed.
Sitting in my room was always a surreal experience.
All the furniture was in the same places I’d had them my senior year of high school before moving out.
I had a hard time sitting at the foot of my bed without seeing my walls covered in posters of “acceptable” bands that didn’t use any profanity, sing about sex, or dress provocatively, and fully-clothed actors from wholesome TV shows and PG movies.
My friend Cameron had some posters of Madonna I would have liked to look at as I fell asleep, but I wasn’t technically allowed to even listen to her music, let alone be a lesbian or anything like that.
I had owned three of her albums on cassette tape which had lived behind my suitcase under my bed along with George Michael, Def Leppard, and other abominations.
The last wall calendar I’d had was a Christmas gift from my mother and featured kittens and inspirational bible verses.
My bookcase had been full to spilling over with everything from mysteries to Tolstoy to Shakespeare.
My desk drawers had contained a collection of fountain pens housing various colors of ink, and about twenty recent notebooks.
Most of my sheets and pillowcases had been stained with ink from falling asleep writing.
Now, the carpet was mauve instead of worn, shaggy gray.
The walls were lighter mauve with a flowered border just below the ceiling.
A fairly decent painting of a river scene my father had done in an art class hung over the bed, and photos of Kevin’s kids sat atop the dresser.
Three different translations of the Bible, a stack of Good Housekeeping magazines, and a smattering of knickknacks were in the bookcase in place of novels.
During the summer, winter coats hung in the closet, and light blue Rubbermaids full of holiday decorations lived where my notebooks used to.
It was like staying in an oddly familiar hotel.
I tried to write for a few minutes, but nothing worth anything wanted to come out. I was about to change into my pajamas when there was a firm knock on my door. “Brunch with Kevin’s at ten thirty.”
I was just thankful Mom hadn’t opened the door. It didn’t lock. “I’ll be up. Good night.”