Chapter Three
Few things are watched as much as a house for sale in Greenwood Estates.
We had all seen potential buyers come and go over the last six months. Nora hoped the older couple with the wood-paneled Ford would move in, thinking that perhaps the woman would offer to watch our kids. Hatti wanted the family with the twins, but Mrs. Reilly countered that those kids might be too loud, like too many others who were already in the neighborhood. I held out hope for a nice couple with a son Wesley’s age. And a friend for me.
None of the comings and goings kept me from imagining the place as my own. During Wesley’s quiet time, my mind would wander about the house, filling it with a crescent-shaped sofa with olive-green upholstery and tapered wooden legs that faced the console television, and with a walnut-veneered elliptical coffee table nestled in its center. Don’t forget the bookcase room dividers and telephone bench in the hall. I would hang artwork, trying different pieces in different places, considering what my own photographs might look like, my own memories on display for all to see. I made sure to remove the bathroom carpet, add a few more cabinets in the kitchen, and plant more trees throughout the yard. I played with the dollhouse of my mind when I couldn’t sleep at night, and sometimes I would visit it in my dreams.
The day of Wesley’s birthday party, yet another car pulled into the driveway with yet another couple ready to take a look. And of course we all watched with interest, but perhaps I was the only one who secretly hoped it remained vacant, a place for my imagination. Even though I knew the house
would never be mine, with each month it remained empty, it seemed to belong to me a little bit more.
Other than for Wesley’s first birthday, we had never made it a point to invite others to celebrate, but that year I thought we should do something special before he was no longer the only child. A mother like Hatti would’ve planned ahead, but I called our parents on Wednesday and asked them to come for a visit Saturday afternoon, along with Nora and her son, James, who would stop over for cake.
With swollen ankles and a taut belly, I fought through the exhaustion and discomfort for Wesley. When I asked him what he’d like at his party, he requested a “tall cake.” So I baked, stacked, and frosted a four-tier chocolate sponge—one layer for every year he had been with us.
“That’s a lot of cake,” Mama said when she saw it, shaking her head at the wastefulness in front of her. She had come in her Sunday best, the same floral dress she had worn to our wedding, the same black oxford lace-up shoes she wore every day. The same short haircut she’d had since Daddy got sick and she couldn’t be bothered to fuss with her hair any longer.
“There was a special,” I told her, though it wasn’t the truth.
On the other hand, Marian—in my mind, I referred to my mother-in-law by her first name—had asked what bakery I had bought it from.
“Lulu baked it herself,” Henry informed his mother as he put an arm around me and drew me in to him.
“How nice!” she quipped as she touched her index finger to the whipped chocolate frosting. She squinted a smile in my direction as she licked her finger clean.
“Grandma!” Wesley protested. “Mama said we have to wait!”
“I won’t tell if you won’t.” She winked at her grandson as if sharing a secret. Though we all saw her do it—everyone except Hank, my father-in- law, who dozed on the davenport that she had picked out and he had paid for.
“You’re right,” I said to Wesley. I didn’t crouch to his level or speak in a child’s voice like she did. “How about we get this fixed, and then you don’t have to wait any longer.”
As I walked into the kitchen to grab a spatula to fix the slash she had cut into the icing, I wondered if she had ever asked her son to keep secrets, too.
Maybe that’s how she endeared him to her. I couldn’t help but wonder… If they hadn’t been placed together as mother and son, would they have found each other as friends, as if their connection would’ve brought them together in some way?
As I fixed the cake, Mama walked back into the living room and sat next to Georgie. He had changed in the months since I had last seen him. The stubble along his chin made him look more like a man, but the faint freckles across his cheeks reminded us that he was still a boy.
It had been a struggle to get him there that day, according to her. When I had called to invite them, she warned me that it would be hard. She told Henry it had been an exhausting morning when she knocked on the door and asked him to help get Georgie into the house. “It’s not easy,” she said as my brother’s crutches clicked across the sidewalk. Nothing for her was ever easy.
And she reminded us of that often. But I still hoped that being there to celebrate her only grandchild might make it worthwhile.
I watched as Mama straightened Georgie’s shirt and he reminded her that he was fine. I don’t know that she would’ve found me had she not been my mother, but I had no doubt that she would’ve searched far and wide for him.
“How about we light this thing up?” Nora pulled out the lighter I had given her for Christmas (imitation ostrich with gold finish, one book). I nodded my approval, and she flicked the flame to life. Once the candles were lit, I carried the cake to the coffee table so we could all sing to Wesley.
Henry’s mother held Wesley on her lap, singing directly into his ear as the rest of us acted as background chorus. She kissed him on the cheek before
she told him to go on and make a wish. He didn’t rush to extinguish the flames. He squeezed his eyes shut, and a closed smile grew across his face as he concentrated on his wish, taking this opportunity seriously.
As I watched him concentrate, the baby jolted inside me, as if wedging a foot under my rib cage. This one had been less active than Wesley, but it still had its moments of stretching and shifting. I hadn’t anticipated how differently they would feel even before birth. All I had known were Wesley’s quick flutters. How some days it felt as if he was taking after his father, an athlete in frequent motion. Yet, as active as Wesley was, he hadn’t hurt me; he simply wiggled with enthusiasm.
This one didn’t move often, but when it did, it felt different. Harsher.
Sometimes poking outward and inward, as if trying to break free, as if needing more room, tired of feeling constrained, never fully comfortable. As Wesley made his wish, I did, too: for the baby to curl up and go to sleep.
After Nora snapped a few family pictures for us, everyone except Georgie and me went outside to watch Wesley throw his new football. The house quieted so that the only sound left was the ticking clock on the wall. Finally able to get off my feet for the first time in hours, I feared I would fall asleep if I sat for too long. The empty house across the street had never looked quieter, better, a place where I could curl up and nap as long as I wanted to.
I inhaled with a yawn and swore Georgie smelled just like Daddy used to. I wondered if he remembered that, but I doubted he did. Thanks to age and circumstances, he had spent less time with our father. While I could go to the barn to find him or sit alongside him as the tractor made pass after pass tilling the field, Georgie couldn’t, not since he had needed those leg braces when he was just older than Wesley. What if Wesley had only a couple more years to walk and run without any hindrances?
I shook the thought from my mind and stretched my arm across the back of
the davenport. Reaching for Georgie’s hair, I took a curl into my hand and elongated it, only to release it and watch it bounce back to its original shape.
“I was always jealous of these curls,” I told him.
“You can have them.”
“I’ll take them,” I said, but the truth was, I wanted to take more than just his curls. Not that I wanted to trade places with him, but I wished I could take it all away. Redo that day entirely.
“How’s Mama doing?” I asked.
“Same as always.” He shrugged. “She’s got it in her mind that she’s taking me to another hot spring once school ends.”
I shifted, trying to get comfortable. “Those places are expensive.” Of course Georgie knew that. I had no doubt that Mama would drive herself into the poorhouse in pursuit of fixing him.
I’d never thought of Mama as a hopeful one. She was practical. She knew when to plant the garden after the last frost, despite false starts to summer.
She made sure the chores were done before sitting, resting, reading, or any other sort of dillydallying was permitted. She also knew Daddy needed a doctor even when he protested, even as he struggled to walk but insisted he didn’t have time to take a break, especially not during harvest season. She planned his funeral and greeted the guests when I was too shattered by grief to help in any way. Hope hadn’t saved her husband, nor her son, but hope was exactly what she sought in those hot springs.
“Does she have the money?”
“Enough,” he said. “She’s still renting out the farmland and just sold off the last of the orchard.”
I didn’t love the fact that the orchard no longer belonged to us, but Mama was resourceful, and that land was the only resource she had at the moment.
Georgie reached for his legs and repositioned them with his hands. He
rubbed at his knee for a moment. I knew his braces weren’t comfortable and that’s part of why Mama didn’t like going places. She knew that too much time in his braces put him at risk of sores, but I also knew that Georgie would run that risk if it meant getting out of the house and seeing people other than his mother.
Just then, a blue Chevy sedan pulled into the driveway across the street. I watched the driver’s-side door open and a man emerge. I sat up a bit straighter, no longer reaching for Georgie’s curls, no longer tired.
“What’s going on?” Georgie asked.
“Potential buyers across the street.”
Georgie reached for his legs and repositioned himself to better see out the window.
The man was already walking around the car, stretching his back and arms as the wind waved the flap of hair on top of his head. “He better hang on to that hair of his.” Georgie laughed. “He doesn’t have much more to lose.”
“You know, that could be you someday,” I teased.
“Nah, I don’t plan to ever lose this.” He ran his hand through his hair and flashed a smile of confidence, but we both knew fate would deliver whatever outcome it so wished.
I shushed my brother so we could watch in silence as the passenger door opened. I waited to see who would emerge. Would this person be someone who I could play cards alongside, share recipes with, borrow clothes from?
Someone I could talk to. I leaned in closer, as if a few inches would give me a better view.
A gloved hand reached from the open door. I didn’t know if house hunting was an occasion for glove wearing, but my mother-in-law would agree with this woman. Then a black oxford, much like my mother’s, touched the concrete driveway. Again, not my particular taste, so perhaps we wouldn’t be exchanging clothing. The woman emerged in true Harriet Nelson style, her
blouse tucked into her high-waisted skirt, giving her an hourglass shape without revealing too much. Brown curls formed a nest for a half bonnet that, unlike her husband’s hair, seemed unbothered by the breeze.
The woman turned toward our house, a smile spread across her tightly closed lips. Though her husband waved in our direction, apparently spotting Henry and the others in our front yard, the woman offered only a subtle nod, all the while holding the same unflinching grin.
“Hi ya!” the man called across the street before he reached for his belt and tugged his pants up high along his midsection, so high that his socks showed below his slacks.
From the front yard, Henry offered a hello and a wave before the man turned to the house and paused to spit into one of Emily’s rosebushes. His wife remained standing in the same spot, a statue gripping her pearl-strapped handbag as her ankles wobbled in her oxfords.
“He forgot his wife,” Georgie said as the man walked into the house. The husband caught the storm door before it fully latched and called to the woman, who finally broke her pose but not her smile. As I watched her stroll toward the front door, I wanted to stop them from going in, from exploring what had been Emily’s house, what I imagined as my own.
“Is this what you do for fun all day?” Georgie teased. “Watch people out your window?”
“Sometimes.” I shrugged, then ruffled his curls.
“Is it some sort of suburban hobby?” Like Mama, he didn’t know why we would choose to live so close to other people, where we could look out our windows and see each other’s business.
“How else are we supposed to entertain ourselves?”
“Well,” Georgie started, “maybe it’s time we finally do it. You know, sell the farm once and for all and move in across the street from you.”
I saw the mischief sparkling in his eyes, and I surprised him with my reply.
“I wish you were closer.”
“No, you don’t.” He laughed. “You wish I was closer, but not her.”
He was right. I did wish he could be nearby. But I wished a lot of things for Georgie: that he didn’t need those crutches, that his legs worked like they used to, that he could be running for the football on our front lawn, that he could play sports and walk the school halls like others his age, that everyone could see him as capable regardless of what his legs looked like.
“I just wish—” I started to say, but Georgie interrupted.
“Here’s what I say about wishing.” He reached for both of my hands, repositioning them so my palms faced upward. He tapped on one hand and said, “Wish into this one.” Then he tapped my other hand. “And shit into this one and see which one fills up first.”
“George Alan Oscuro!” His full name escaped me, along with a laugh that shook every part of me. “The mouth on you!”
Georgie laughed along with me, his shoulders shaking just like Daddy’s would do. “Don’t tell Mama.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.”
As our laughter quieted, we sat together, watching the others through the window. We saw Henry show his son how to throw a spiral and everyone cheer when Wesley threw a wobbly pass. We could hear him as he giggled each time he ran. As much as I wondered what Georgie thought as we took in the scene together, I didn’t ask. He never wanted me to feel sorry for him, but that never stopped me from doing it anyway. So instead, I pulled my attention to the house again, to the man and woman exploring the inside. To light after light flickering on and off, testing the soul of the place.
Mama and Georgie were the first to leave, as was usual, and Henry’s parents followed closely behind.
“Remember, just four weeks until we leave for the summer,” Marian said as she hugged Wesley goodbye.
“What?” I asked.
“I thought I told you,” Henry said as we stood together in the foyer, his arm around my ever-growing waist.
“Yes,” Marian joined in as she pulled her long hair from inside the jacket and draped it over her shoulders. Her hair was still as sandy brown as her son’s, not streaked urine-gray like my mother’s, who happened to be a few years younger than her. “Henry and I spoke. I know it’s not ideal, but if we don’t go, we could lose the cottage for next year. Not to worry. We’ll be back soon enough, and we’ll spoil that baby rotten! Plus, this is your second. You know what to do now. You don’t need me getting in the way.”
For once, we agreed on something.
Mrs. Mayfield walked toward me and kissed me on both cheeks before putting a hand on my stomach. I swear I felt the baby jolt from the touch.
“Do you know what it is yet?”
“We can’t know those things,” Henry reminded her.
Marian looked at me, her eyes the same cocoa brown as Henry’s gazing into mine, searching for truth. “Oh, we can tell, can’t we?” She called for Hank and then walked to the door. “I knew you were a boy from the first time I felt you kick.” She pinched his cheek and kissed him on the lips. “A mother always knows her baby. It’s our intuition. Right, Lulu?”
I smiled and nodded, playing along instead of admitting that I thought the day mother’s intuition was being handed out, I must’ve been absent. I swore Wesley would be a girl, but look at him. This pregnancy did feel different, so maybe this one was a girl, but I didn’t trust myself enough to make a prediction.
Hank kissed my forehead and told me to rest. Then he shook Henry’s hand and said, “Good luck with the promotion. The pay increase is good. Maybe
the travel will be, too.”
“Travel?” I asked.
“I told you that,” Henry muttered in a tone that said we could talk about it later. I remembered him telling me about the possible new job title and pay raise, but he had said nothing about travel. I would’ve remembered that. I would’ve remembered wondering how I would manage two kids without him in the house. I may have been the one to feed, clothe, bathe, and change them, but I still needed those hours when he was there, another adult presence in the house. “It won’t be much, but I may need to travel some.”
I wanted a better understanding of what “some” meant, but we could discuss that later, after his parents left. But how many times had we said to each other that we could talk later and then we never did? We still hadn’t decided on baby names. One had come to me, and even though it wasn’t a family name, something about it still felt right. Maybe this was intuition. If this baby was a girl, then her name would be Esther. Of course, Henry would have to agree, but first we would need to discuss it.
I couldn’t help but think of how different we were then as opposed to when we were first together. When we first started dating, it took a while for me to get used to how Henry wanted to hear about my day, what I was working on for the school paper, how classes were going, if I had spoken to my mother.
Admittedly, I was typically better at listening than talking, especially after we got married, when he had plenty of tales to tell about the office, what Mr.
Ellis had said about his proposed floor plans, which secretary was leaving for matrimony or motherhood. I could tell him about the clang of the washing machine, the article I had read about Dr. Spock’s child-rearing advice, or how Nora had told us that she saw Mr. Reilly sneak an empty vodka bottle into the trash bin early one morning. As the years progressed, our conversations grew fewer, our time interrupted and distracted. I suppose change likes to be subtle, sneaking in even when we think we’re paying attention.
Even after everyone left, we didn’t talk about anything. Henry sat down to read the newspaper as I cleaned up after the party and kept an eye on the couple across the street.
“Do you think they’ll be the ones?” Henry asked from behind the paper.
“I don’t know. They’ve been there a long time. But I hope not.”
Henry lowered the paper. “Why’s that?”
I don’t have a good feeling, I wanted to say, for no reason other than it was true. But instead I told him, “I was hoping maybe there’d be a friend for Wesley.” Or me.
“Who’s to say they didn’t leave the kids behind?”
“Maybe, but they seem older, too old for a child Wes’s age.”
Henry straightened the paper and turned the page. “You never know.”
He was right. There was a lot we didn’t know, but something about that couple—the balding man and his hiked-up pants, his wife with the stale smile… I knew enough to hope that the soul of the house showed them the door before they could move in.
