by Zoe Whittall
The next afternoon, Andy pulled up in front of my house, car packed for adventure. I got in, threw my overnight bag into the back seat. Andy leaned over and kissed me. From the moment he put the car in gear, one of his hands was always on me, and I never wanted to come back home.
Chapter 10
carola
missy and I sometimes went stretches without talking, but she hadn’t called me in months, just a text to say she wasn’t pregnant. A text! I had a nagging worry that she was falling into a depression after her split with Navid, maybe even using again, but even so, I couldn’t make myself pick up the phone. I had too much to explain.
But now I knew that the worst of my treatment was over, I had to check in.
“Hi, stranger,” she said. She was bubbly, in a way I hadn’t heard for years. I wondered if she was high.
“Ha, you’re the stranger,” I said. “What have you been doing with yourself lately?”
“You know, same same. You?” She sounded distracted.
“Really?”
“Well, actually, Mom, I met someone.”
“Really? Who is he?”
“His name is Andy. I guess the short version is that I’m really in love. I feel crazy all the time, but like, good crazy! He’s so smart, Mom, and handsome. I feel like he really sees me, I know that’s a corny thing to say, but it’s true. It feels different than any other relationship.”
“That’s wonderful, I can’t wait to meet him,” I said. “What does he do for a living?”
“He’s a musician, too, but does graphic design for a day job. He’s a single dad, recently divorced. He lives in North Beach. We met on Tinder but we actually met a long time ago in the ’90s. And he knows Agatha. It’s all kind of crazy, how small the world is. But I’m happy.”
“I’m so glad to hear that. You sound happy. I mean, I guess the last time we spoke Navid hadn’t moved out yet.”
“Yeah, it was rough for a few months but so much better now. How have you been? I was just thinking that in the spring you’re going to be sixty. That’s wild.”
“It is. It is.”
“What are you going to do for it?”
“Oh nothing. Too old to make a fuss.”
“No way, it’s a big one!”
“Well, maybe I could come for a visit!” I’d never just invited myself before. I felt nervous suggesting it.
“Well, Andy and I were talking about how it would be cool to know each other’s families. Maybe we could all meet up at Half Moon Bay and have a real party. Why not? I could invite Aunt Marie, too. Maybe Larry—”
“Oh honey, you know Larry won’t get on a plane.”
“Right. Metal not meant to fly and all that.”
I looked around the camper van, how it was its own tiny house on wheels.
“I have an idea,” I said, “let me figure it out.”
I wanted to keep this positive vibe going, so I didn’t tell her about the cancer. Why not just wait until I got the next news? Why worry her when she was in such a good place? By the end of the weekend, I’d found a place where I could rent a bigger RV, one that could fit Larry, Tegan, and Karen. I had a few months to work on Larry and his homebody ways.
Tegan was immediately on board when I told her about it. But she wasn’t sure she could convince Karen.
“She’s a bit jealous sometimes, you know, my first love and all.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said, laughing, but was secretly touched to be someone’s first love. And even more grateful that someone who loved me that much could evolve so seamlessly into a friend I could count on, even at the lowest moments of my life.
A week later my oncologist called to tell me the news. They had got it all. I was officially in remission. I went back to work the following Monday for the weekly staff meeting, where I was greeted with balloons and cupcakes. I was thrilled to go back to regular workdays. They had a sheen to them now, and I appreciated every ordinary, comfortable moment. Surviving made me grateful for everything I already had—the sound of Larry making porridge in the morning that used to drive me crazy, Rufus bringing me half-dead prey gifts, the dogs jumping up with muddy paws, the ladies who got angry when they weren’t immediately self-actualized on day two of a retreat, I loved all those moments.
When Larry asked me what I wanted for Christmas I told him I wanted him to join Tegan and Karen and me in an RV and drive to California to see Missy for my birthday. “You have months to prepare. No flying, I promise.”
He agreed, somewhat unenthusiastically. I let him research all the RVs and choose the one with the best mileage and safety rating, and then he became excited, buying a map book of America and drawing out possible routes. As we were lying in bed the week before we left, he said, “You know, I’ve only ever been to Florida, once when I was a kid. It’s about time I saw some things.” All five of Larry’s older brothers had gone to Vietnam. Three came home. As an anxious child, he’d developed an ulcer, which kept him from being drafted. I think this was why he liked to stick close to home. Everyone he knew as a kid who left came back different or not at all. I loved Larry so much in that moment, hearing the sweet, curious little-boy voice come out of a six-foot-tall grey-bearded man of few words.
Chapter 11
missy
after a while, I began to understand the rhythms of my relationship with Andy. I understood that sometimes he wanted to see me every day, and other times he had to disappear for long spells. As my mother’s birthday party in Half Moon Bay approached, we were deep into a hot-and-heavy stretch and had just returned from a whirlwind last-minute trip to Hawaii. It had felt like a honeymoon, as we eschewed hikes and beach days and hardly left our little beach rental. We just had sex and more sex, and eventually I had to lock him out of the bathroom, laughing, so I could shower and drink water and not get a permanent UTI.
And when the airport taxi pulled up in front of my house, he surprised me by getting out. “I don’t want to leave you yet, and I don’t have the kids until tomorrow.”
“Oh, okay,” I said, ushering him inside. The next morning, we were sipping coffee in the backyard, being leisurely, but I didn’t trust it. I knew it was just a matter of time before he got antsy, would need his space and his freedom. He would leave and then I might not see him again for a few days, or even a few weeks. I’d learned to accept Andy’s disappearing acts, though they still unnerved me. At least he’d agreed to send me a heads-up when he was going AWOL, and I’d agreed I wouldn’t respond. I would wait it out and be there when he came back. But for the last few months we’d been on a high, and our relationship was almost starting to feel normal, like we’d balanced things out.
I’d packed him up a bit of leftovers from dinner, brought them out to the patio table. “If you want to take them home?”
“Oh, I don’t have to leave yet,” he said, “if you don’t want me to.”
I never wanted him to. Which was in itself an odd feeling.
He looked up from his datebook. “So I have an idea for the food for the party for your mom. How about this cake?” He passed me his phone, a series of recipes. A bird landed on the patio table and started pecking at crumbs from our muffins. “Man,” Andy said, “your garden is like a little Eden. This place is just perfect, you are so lucky.”
“It’s a good house,” I said. “I was lucky to get it in the divorce.” I was feeling so comfortable, so happy, that I took a risk.
“My mom says you should move in here, that it’s a big-enough house. She’s such a hippie,” I said.
“Well.” He sat up, put his phone down. “She might be right, huh?”
“Andy, we’ve been dating for like, barely a year.”
“Well, we could take some time to get used to the idea, see how it feels?”
“Are you sure we’re not both still too fragile from our divorces?”
Honestly, I wasn’t that fragile. Navid and I had become friends again. I looked at him and couldn’t imagine being a couple anymore, but
he felt like family.
“I don’t know, it might be nice, though?” Andy said, looking at me with shining eyes.
“It could be nice, I guess?”
So we began to plot it out, a possible domestic future together. We spent the next several weeks describing a joint household that began to feel less like fantasy and more like a real life. We talked schedules and schools, bedrooms and closets. We might need to build a new bathroom in the basement. We might need additional parking space. By the time we got to furniture, my head was beginning to spin, overwhelmed with elation or just overwhelmed, I wasn’t sure.
I’m so excited about this. I can’t wait to tell them. I think it’s such a good idea, he texted me from the furniture store where he was pricing kids’ beds.
For the next few weeks, I read everything I could get my hands on about blended families. What I should and shouldn’t do to make kids feel welcome, the role of a good step-parent, how to adjust to the expected bumps. Andy texted me photos of furniture. I sent him articles about how to introduce children to pets, so Harlon would warm up to Penny. I went up to Petaluma for a few nights to record some songs with the new band. Andy had the kids for a few days, and he drove them up to hang out on the last day.
We rehearsed a few songs we’d be playing at our first show. The kids looked alternately entranced and bored. I’d been staying with Tom for the band’s rehearsals and he had said that Andy and the kids could crash for a night, too. When we got there, Tom already had the grill going for burgers. Tom and Andy got along like a house on fire, talking about the dad life and drumming. They had a lot in common.
By the time we finished eating, Harlon was sleepy, and cranky from all the adult conversation. I offered to take him for a walk, asking if he’d like to go find the bunnies that lived out in the meadow behind Tom’s house. It was so beautifully quiet outside, and the sun was about to disappear. Harlon often got quiet when we were alone. He was a thoughtful kid. His hair was white-blond from the California sun, and he wore a soccer uniform basically every day. The pathway took us along a grouping of sunflowers twice as tall as he was, and as we got close to the patch of grass where I usually saw the bunnies, I whispered that we had to be extra quiet.
We sat on the ground and watched as the mama bunny emerged from the warren, and then several little kits. Harlon’s eyes got wide, and I pulled some carrots from my pocket and handed him one. We crept forward slowly, and then Harlon got too boisterous and the rabbits ran back into their hole.
“It’s okay, we can leave the carrots on the ground and when the bunnies come out again, they can have their dinner.”
Harlon carefully placed his carrot on the ground and looked at me solemnly. “They probably don’t want to be fed by giants. I mean, I wouldn’t want a giant to feed me.”
“You’re so funny,” I said, laughing. He grinned.
We lay on our stomachs, trying to make ourselves small, and silently waited until the rabbits returned. Eventually, they did, and Harlon’s face lit up as the mama rabbit grabbed a carrot and scurried back into her hole with it. As we walked back to the house he said, “You know, if the end of the world comes and I have to build a hole in the ground for my family, you could come, too.”
“Oh wow, thank you, Harlon,” I said. It was a pretty good offer. I was overwhelmed by the feeling that he wanted me in his life, and was trying to say so using this imaginative example.
We went inside and I offered to read him a bedtime story while Andy and Tom were excitedly playing records for each other, and Ayden and Harriet, Andy’s oldest, sat on the couch glued to a video game on their iPads. Harriet was quite indifferent to me. I was reading all I could about teen development in hopes we could connect before they moved into the house.
The next day Tom and I watched as Andy and the kids drove off down his long driveway. “He’s so good,” Tom said.
“Isn’t he?”
“I love how happy you are with him,” he said.
“Aw, thanks.”
“But be careful, he seems . . . complicated.”
“Agatha said the same thing.”
The following week Andy and I met for breakfast on the Friday before we were to drive down to Half Moon Bay. He was late and I sat in our usual booth by the window, people-watching and sipping coffee. I was so lost in my reverie I didn’t notice that a toddler had sidled up to me and was pulling at my dress.
“Oh, no, don’t bother the lady, Semi,” a mom said, rushing up and grabbing her.
“Oh, it’s okay.”
The mom also had a baby strapped to her chest, barely out of the oven.
I watched them go back to their table and started to cry. I hadn’t had a baby craving in months! I was so awash in everything-Andy, the sex, the idea of moving in together, having a blended family with him, the romantic getaways, all this stuff I couldn’t do if I had a baby. I guess I thought I had moved on, had realized that there was a lot I could enjoy with my freedom, and I’d found someone to do it with, which felt meaningful on a whole new level. But seeing this woman brought it all back. Even how tired she looked, how her shoulders sagged. I wanted it. I was overwhelmed by a feeling of I can do that.
I quickly swiped at my tears when I saw Andy step into the café. He apologized and ordered a coffee, diving into a rapid monologue of his crazy morning. Then he noticed my splotchy face and red nose, which I kept surreptitiously dabbing.
“Is everything okay?”
“I think I must be premenstrual. I just saw a really cute baby. Sometimes I still really want one.”
He grabbed my hands and squeezed them across the table.
“I don’t want to stop you, you know. I’ve already said this, but if it’s what you want, you should do it.”
But he didn’t want another baby. We both knew that.
“It’s fine, I don’t even know if I could be a single parent. That I’d be capable.”
“You’d be capable, you’d figure it out,” he said. I’d never wanted to change a subject so desperately before.
“Anyway, I was looking at loft beds today, I think if we build one in the study, Ayden would love it and it would make the room much bigger.” I pulled my phone out to show him the design. “And Harriet could have the other room all to themself.”
“Right, right.”
There was a long pause.
“Look, I’ve been thinking, and my friend has a place in North Beach he’s leaving for a year while he’s on sabbatical. He said I could have it. It’s only a two-bedroom, but I could stay on the couch when the kids are there. It’s ideal, actually.”
“Oh.” I looked down. The tears started again—I couldn’t control them. I was so angry at myself for being surprised by this.
“And I’m not sure I can make it up to the cottage this weekend after all. I want to meet your mom and be there, but there’s so much going on.”
“Oh,” I said again. Suddenly not able to say anything else. What was happening? He had planned the menu, he was supposed to pick up Marie from the airport. The party was tomorrow.
The waitress came, and I ordered my breakfast.
“I’ll just have this coffee,” he said. “I have to get going actually.”
“Oh, then never mind, I’m good,” I said. “Guess I have a lot to figure out for the party now.” I added a bite to my tone, hoping he would respond, apologize, change his mind. But he just looked at his phone as it blinked with incoming texts, then keyed in a response, looking up and mouthing sorry.
“I’m going to go,” I said.
“You’re upset.”
“Yes, I mean, you practically initiated this weekend. It meant a lot to me, that you’d want to meet my mom. Now you just can’t come?”
“I’m sorry, I’ve just been so disorganized. It is important to me, I do want to meet your mom. I just can’t.”
When we left he stood up to give me a strange half hug and avoided my eyes before I turned and slammed out the door.
There wa
sn’t much I could do. I didn’t have time to wallow. I ran around doing last-minute prep for the party—half of it stuff Andy was supposed to cover—then raced to the cottage. They’d called from Las Vegas a few days ago, where it sounded like they were having an amazing time. When they pulled the hulking RV up the winding driveway and got out they looked so much older; it always took me a second now to recognize them. I hadn’t seen my mom since Navid and I had visited her and Larry for Christmas one year. She looked so strange, though. She was usually fit, but she was downright skinny and it made her look even older. She had lost tone and colour. It made me worried, but I filed this away as something to ask her about later. There was too much to do to get into it now. And she had cut her hair into a bob, which was maybe not the best choice. She pulled me into a massive bear hug.
“Oh, Missy, you look wonderful. It’s so good to see you! How I’ve missed you,” she said.
I had to bite my tongue not to point out how she clearly didn’t miss me when she went so many months without calling. But whatever, I hadn’t exactly been calling her either much this past year.
She held on to my arm and kept patting it as she spoke until finally Tegan shouldered her way in for a hug.
“Oh, look at you!” she said. “Divorce agrees with you, you’re just gorgeous! Just so . . . healthy now!” she grabbed at my hips, pinching them. One thing I did love about hippies was that they understood gaining weight to mean growing healthier.
I groaned and pushed her away playfully. It was hard in those moments not to say things like It’s incredible what not doing cocaine and actually eating regular healthy meals does to a body! But instead I just hefted her carry-on onto my shoulder and started directing them toward the parking lot.
Larry was busying himself bringing a cooler into the house, but mumbled a sweet and soft hello.
Tegan loomed in my childhood memories as a sort of Chrissy-from–Three’s Company type, but a hippie Chrissy. Always bleached blond or bright red curls, dripping with silver and turquoise jewelry, carrying the scent of sandalwood and amber oil. I hadn’t seen her in a long time, but we’d always kept in touch over the phone and email. Sometimes she would call to talk about Taylor, share memories from when we were kids. I was always game. It made me sad, but also happy to think about Taylor. That frizzy-haired kid was my first best friend. I still couldn’t believe she was gone.
