If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Now

by Claire Lazebnik

  Andrew didn’t come back in. I was watching for him.

  I was still watching for him when Melanie and Gabriel found us. “I think we’re going to head home,” Melanie said. Her face was bright and happy above her fringed black bodice.

  “Okay.” I wanted to ask if she’d be coming back to my parents’ place later that night, but Gabriel was right there, so instead I just said good night, and they walked off, arm in arm.

  “Oh, god,” I said, watching them go. “This is either a really good thing or a really bad thing.”

  “Huh?” said my father, who wasn’t much use at moments like these.

  Fortunately, my mother was coming toward us. “What a lovely evening!” she said. Her mascara had slightly smeared under one eye.

  “Mel and Gabriel just left together,” I told her.

  She pulled up short. “Really? That’s not a good idea.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine,” I said. Now that she was worried about it, I was free to take the opposite view. “I mean, the worst that happens is they have a nice evening together, right?”

  “No,” she said. “The worst that happens is the kids get their hopes up about having a reunited family and have an emotional breakdown when it doesn’t work out.”

  Yeah, that was worse. “Melanie won’t let that happen.”

  “She’s as likely to end up crushed as they are,” Mom said. She held out both her hands to my father and hauled him up to his feet. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go.” We headed back toward the door that led out to the parking lot.

  I didn’t take my eyes off of the exit as we moved closer to it. Was there a chance Andrew would come rushing back in just as we were leaving? How long did it take to say “This isn’t working out”? Was that even what he was saying? Or were he and Gracie tangled up together in the car at this very moment, kissing passionately, promising they’d never leave each other?

  In the dark parking lot, my mother grabbed at me because I was so busy scanning the shadows for Andrew’s silhouette that I had wandered behind a car that was starting to back up. “Pay attention!” she barked, sounding like me when I was with Noah.

  I didn’t see Andrew anywhere.

  My father opened the back door of our car for me and I slid in, tucking my full red skirt around me. Once we were out on the street I let my head fall against the seat back and just gazed up at the windshield, letting the sky and the road ahead turn into a dark meaningless blur, a little girl in the backseat whose parents were driving her home so she could go to sleep in her narrow trundle bed.

  24.

  Among the e-mails waiting for me when I turned on my computer the next morning was one that made my heart race with sudden hope—which reading it quickly dashed.

  “Have to cancel this morning’s session. Tell Noah I’m really sorry. I’ll see you at the big game. Andrew.”

  I sat there staring at the screen, wondering if he and Gracie were having fun eating tacos in Santa Barbara.

  Noah came into the room then. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “You look sad.”

  “Nothing.” I roused myself and forced a smile as I quickly deleted Andrew’s e-mail.

  Noah came closer and put his arm around my shoulders, which he could reach because I was sitting and he was standing. “If you need anything, Mom, I can get it for you. Just tell me.”

  “It’s nice just having you here,” I said and we stayed like that for a moment or two, his arm across my shoulders.

  Then, “Mom?” he said.

  “What, Noey?”

  “If you want me to sleep with you tonight, I can. If you’re sad or scared, I mean.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I might take you up on that.”

  “Mom?” he said again.

  “What?”

  “I kind of came in here to see if you could make me a smoothie. But you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

  I got to my feet. “Sure. Let’s go down.”

  I might not have had a boyfriend, or the slightest prospect of one, but at least I wasn’t alone.

  I took Eleanor Roosevelt for a long walk that afternoon.

  She jumped and waggled ecstatically as we left the house. “Don’t you ever get tired of being so happy?” I asked her. She just thumped her tail harder and increased her pace.

  Walking fast felt good: I had been feeling slightly hungover all day, and the cool air and movement helped to clear my head. I was depressed, but being out and active was better than sitting around.

  I was gone a half hour or so and when I got back Gabriel’s car was pulled up to the curb. I could hear his deep, booming voice and laugh as soon as I entered the house. Nicole and Cameron came racing toward me, followed at a slower pace by Noah. “Eleanor Roosevelt!” Nicole cried out. “There you are!” She and Cameron threw themselves on the dog, hugging and petting her as if they hadn’t seen her in years, not just a couple of days. I undid her leash so she could run off with the kids, then made my way to the kitchen, where I found Mom and Gabriel having a companionable cup of tea together.

  Gabriel beamed at me as I entered and greeted him. “Rickie!”

  “Hi,” I said. “Where’s Mel?”

  “Upstairs. She was hoping she’d see you before we left.” Both the pronoun and the way he used it so confidently told me the weekend was going well for them.

  I ran up and found Melanie in her bedroom, tossing a book and some other stuff into a tote bag. “Hi,” I said.

  “Oh, there you are. Hi.” She didn’t meet my eyes, just kept sorting through stuff on the night table with exaggerated casualness, but her face betrayed her by turning bright red.

  “Well?” I said, sitting down on her bed and leaning back on my elbows so I could peer up at her. “You going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “You know what’s going on.”

  “I know you both stayed together at your house last night. But I don’t know what that means.”

  “Does it have to mean something?”

  I just snorted and waited.

  She gazed absently at a glass of water on the nightstand then shook her head like she needed to clear it. “It feels so good,” she said finally. “Us all being together. I just want to let it happen, let everything else go, just be with him and the kids. Is that bad?” Her voice was almost pleading.

  “Of course not. I think it’s great.”

  “I don’t think I’m being stupid. I mean, I told him we have to see a marriage counselor, make some changes, figure out what went wrong so it won’t happen again.”

  “Good for you.”

  She hugged the book she was holding to her chest. “I’m going to do what you said, Rickie. Move on and try again, even if I can’t forgive what he did. That can work, I think.”

  “You love him,” I said. “He loves you. That’s what matters.”

  “I do love him.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “But I’m not sure I’ll ever trust him again.” I didn’t know what to say to that. She probably wouldn’t. Melanie dropped the book into the bag and looked around. “I’m so scared I’ll end up back here, even sadder than before.”

  “You won’t,” I said firmly. “But I’ll miss you, Mel. It’s going to be a lot lonelier here without you.”

  “I only live fifteen minutes away,” she said. “And our kids go to the same school. And I was over here all the time even before I moved in. And we’ll always have the committee meetings.”

  I snorted. “Great.”

  “Speaking of which, Maria and Carol Lynn are going to be so mad at me. I’m doing exactly what they told me not to do.”

  “Yeah, well, I think you have a better chance of being happy than they ever will.”

  “I hope you’re right. About my being happy, I mean—not about them not being happy.” She scanned the rest of the room. “I’m not going to take everything here home yet. That feels like bad luck. Just a few things for now, and I’ll gradually move everything else back. Over time. If things work out
.” She picked up her bag by the handles. “Oh, but wait—do you need the room? I mean, Noah could move in here. You want me to clean it out for him?”

  “Eventually,” I said. “But since he doesn’t even make it through the night in his own bed, there’s probably no rush moving him to his own room.”

  “Just let me know.” She gave a little final bob of her head and took a deep breath. “So that’s that, then.”

  We walked back downstairs together, and a little while later she drove home with her family.

  “Still think it’s a bad idea?” I asked my mother after they left.

  “I honestly don’t know,” she said. “I worry about Melanie. She goes through life expecting people to be as good as she is, and when they’re not, she takes it hard.”

  “No one’s as good as she is.”

  My mother nudged my arm. “You’re pretty close.”

  I drew back in surprise. “Me? I’m the Anti-Melanie. I’m the opposite of her. She’s nice, I’m rude.”

  Mom just smiled a little. “You’re not as different as you think.”

  I shook my head. “You’re just trying to mess with my mind.”

  “Maybe.” She laughed and walked away.

  Debbie Golden picked up Noah and Joshua at school on Thursday afternoon and Noah played at their house until I came to get him right before dinnertime.

  “They did great,” Debbie told me as she let me into their small, slightly shabby, and very cozy West Los Angeles house. “Oh, I hope it’s okay—they’ve been playing computer games almost the whole time. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Mind?” I said. “They could have dropped acid and I’d be fine with it so long as they were having fun together.”

  “We usually save the LSD for the second playdate,” she said.

  Noah and Joshua came floating down the stairs, happily chattering away to each other about some game. Then Noah spotted me and dashed frantically back up the stairs, away from me, shouting, “It’s too soon, it’s too soon!”

  “He definitely had fun,” I said to Debbie. I corralled him in Joshua’s bedroom and threatened him with an early bedtime if he didn’t come with me that minute.

  As we were leaving, Debbie said, “Oh, and good luck at the game!” before closing the front door.

  “What game?” Noah asked me as we walked down the gravel path to the car.

  “Your T-ball game, remember?”

  “We’re playing a game?” The coach had told them like five times the week before but apparently it hadn’t sunk in. “Against another team?”

  “That’s kind of the point of the league.” I looked down at him. His face was white with terror. I took his hand and squeezed it. “It’ll be fine, Noey,” I said.

  He didn’t answer, just shook his head and stayed silent for the rest of our drive home.

  Andrew sent an e-mail on Friday to all the parents on the team, suggesting they make sure their kids ate a good breakfast the next morning and requesting that parents “limit all comments at the game to positive ones and leave the coaching to me.”

  Early Saturday morning, I told Noah to stop watching cartoons and put on his baseball uniform. He instantly curled up into a ball and said, “I can’t go. I’m sick.”

  “You’re not sick.”

  He forced a cough. “See? And my throat hurts and my head.”

  I sat down on the sofa next to him. “I know it’s scary to have to play a real game—”

  “That’s not it. You think I’m faking but I’m not. I’m really, really sick.”

  “You’re really, really not. And you’re really, really going to this game.”

  “You’re so mean,” he said. “You don’t even care that I’m sick.”

  I sighed. “Just go get into your uniform, Noah.”

  He rolled slowly off the sofa and onto his feet like he could barely move and then slouched his way across the floor, hunching up his shoulders and choking out a few more theatrical coughs along the way. “I’m going to die of my sickness out there,” he said over his shoulder, “and it will be all your fault because you’re the meanest worst mother in the whole world.” He fake-coughed again as he left the room.

  My mother looked up from her desk in the corner of the room, where she’d been quietly working, and said, “What was that all about?”

  I flopped back onto the sofa cushions, already exhausted. “His first T-ball game’s today. He’s pretending to be sick and he’s mad at me for not buying it.”

  “He doesn’t want to go?”

  “He’s scared. It’s a lot of pressure and sports are hard for him. And I swear I’m sympathetic to that—but then he starts taking it out on me, like it’s all my fault. It drives me crazy.”

  “That’s kind of how it works with mothers.” She swiveled her chair around to face me. “Kids get scared or they make mistakes and get angry at themselves, and you’re there, you’re always there, so they take it out on you because you’re the only one it’s safe to take it out on.” She leaned forward a little. “Kids need to know that there’s someone there who won’t ever go away or leave them, no matter how horribly they behave. So you give that to your kid.”

  There was a pause. Then I said slowly, “You think I do that to you. What Noah does to me.”

  “You’re older,” she said. “It comes out a little differently…”

  “I don’t take things out on you,” I said. Then, with less certainty: “Do I?”

  “Yeah, sometimes. But it’s okay.” She gave a wry half smile. “Most of the time, anyway.” She got up from her chair and came over to me. She was still wearing her nightgown and bathrobe. She wasn’t much of a morning person and, if she didn’t have a morning meeting, often didn’t get dressed until almost noon. “What you’ve done over the last few years hasn’t been easy. And you never take anything out on Noah.”

  “Just on you?”

  “It’s the far better choice.”

  “It’s not how it feels,” I said. “I mean, I feel like I’m genuinely angry when I’m angry, not like I’m working something out.”

  She smiled that half smile again. “And Noah has probably convinced himself he’s really sick right now.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure he has.” I thought for a moment. “So if I take everything out on you—and I’m not saying I do, but just for the sake of argument—and Noah takes everything out on me, where does that leave you? Who do you get to beat up on?”

  “Oh, I probably tormented my own mother when she was alive. In fact, I know I did.” She laughed. “And your father’s always good for a little verbal abuse when I’m feeling close to the edge.”

  “He doesn’t even notice when you yell at him.”

  “That’s what makes him so good for it.” We were both silent for a moment. “Can I come with you?” Mom asked suddenly. “To Noah’s game?”

  “It’s not going to be much fun. He really isn’t very good at it and you know how stressed he gets.”

  “That’s why I want to go. I figure you could use a little support.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I could.”

  “I’ll go get dressed.” As she passed by, she gently squeezed my shoulder.

  I didn’t even flinch.

  25.

  When I walked Noah over to join the rest of his team, Andrew came toward us. “Oh, hi,” he said. It was the first time I’d actually seen him in person since Casino Night. “Hey, listen, I’m sorry about canceling last Sunday.”

  “No worries,” I said, trying to match his casual tone even though my heart was thudding. “You go out of town?”

  “No,” he said with an almost violent shake of his head. “Just dealing with stuff here.”

  What did that mean? There were too many kids and parents around to have a real conversation. I squatted down in front of Noah, who was still clutching my hand hard like he wouldn’t ever let go. “Listen, guy, don’t worry about anything, okay? Just have fun.”

  “Fun?” he repeated, his voi
ce shrill with anxiety. “Playing ball when I’m sick is not fun.”

  “Is he okay?” Andrew asked.

  “No,” Noah said. “I’m not. I’m really sick but she’s making me play.”

  “He’s not sick.” I stood up and tried to let go of his hand, but he was holding on so tightly I literally had to pry his fingers off, one by one. “He’s fine. Good luck with the game, Noah. Don’t worry too much, okay? You’ll do fine.” I started to move away.

  “Hey, Rickie,” Andrew said and I stopped and turned to look at him, but whatever else he was going to say was lost because one of the obnoxious dads came bearing down on him at that moment, angrily spitting out the words, “Did you know the umpire has a nephew on the other team? What kind of bullshit league is this?” and I fled.

  My mother was saving me a seat at the top of the bleachers.

  “I just want him not to mess up completely,” I said as I sank down on the bench next to her. “I don’t need him to hit a home run. Just for him not to embarrass himself. That’s not asking too much, is it?”

  “It’ll be fine,” she said and patted my leg reassuringly, but then I saw that she was jiggling her own ankle nervously.

  The jerky father came over to where his friend was standing on the grass, hands rammed into his pockets, just a couple of feet away from where Mom and I were sitting. “It’s bullshit,” he told his friend. “He won’t do a thing about it. Bad enough we have a crap team, but we had to have a crap coach to go with it.”

  His friend offered up a few four-letter words that seemed to imply agreement, and then the game started.

  Our team won the coin toss and was up at bat first. Noah was fairly far back in the lineup, but our team kept getting hits and he kept moving up. I was hoping they’d get three outs before he came to bat, but he came forward out from the bench under the worst possible conditions: the bases were loaded and his team had two outs.

  “Shit,” I said. “Too much pressure.”

  I wasn’t the only one who found the situation worrisome. “This kid will blow it for the whole team,” one of the evil dads muttered to the other.