by Juliette Fay
Learning to transition, thought Janie. Now there’s a class I should audit.
Dylan clung to Janie like a barnacle for the first five minutes, then his grasp slowly released until he was only holding her finger. Even before Keane blew in with Heidi, Dylan was waving to kids he knew from last year, and leaning toward the sensory table filled with shaving cream and Matchbox cars. “Okay,” said Janie, when his little fingers let go completely. “Have a ton of fun and I’ll see you at pickup. Love you, Dylan.”
“Love you, Mom,” and he was off.
Janie dawdled at the sign-in desk, waiting for Heidi to say good-bye to Keane. It took a minute or two, because Heidi had to catch him before she could kiss him. When they walked out together, Janie asked, “So what are you going to do about the picture?”
“I have no idea,” groaned Heidi. “I suppose I could manage to stand next to that philandering doofus long enough for someone to snap a photo. But what does that say to Keane? I don’t want him to feel like we’re covering something up—or worse—that we might actually get back together.” She nudged Janie with her elbow. “You’ll use a copy of that one Barb took of the three of you at Dylan’s birthday party, right?”
“I guess,” said Janie.
“Why wouldn’t you? It’s gorgeous.”
“I don’t know…” Carly wriggled to get down and Janie let her walk, holding her hand to keep her from inevitable trips and spills. “It’s just kind of out there, I guess. Hey, look at us, no daddy.”
Heidi gave a sympathetic shrug. “We are what we are,” she said. It was no practical help, but it gave Janie a sense of not being alone in the matter. She was about to ask Heidi if she had time to grab a cup of coffee when Heidi glanced at her watch, gave a wilted little shriek, and broke into a jog toward her station wagon, calling good-bye to Janie over her shoulder. Janie went home.
Carly was in the process of dropping her morning nap, a fact that tapped its watch at Janie, reminding her once again that milestones don’t wait for mothers to be ready. The changing naptime flustered Janie, making it hard to plan when to be home and when she and Carly could be out somewhere. Not that she had anywhere important to go. This morning, however, since Carly had already been up for almost half a day, she conked out on the car ride home.
Janie transferred her to the crib, poured the last dregs of coffee into a mug, and carried a kitchen chair out to the new porch. She had intended to simply enjoy the view, but found herself scanning the porch itself, noticing details she had overlooked amidst the clouds of sawdust and smell of stain.
The walls that extended out from the house were each composed of two five-foot-wide panels of mesh screens, separated by cedar posts. The front wall was made of three such panels. The leaves of the red maple in the front yard were still, yet Janie could feel a subtle current of air around her. This porch would be cool even on the hottest days.
The back wall, which extended from the far end of the kitchen by the driveway to the other side of the front door, had been paneled in beaded fir and stained (Janie was surprised she had retained this detail) in “butterscotch maple.” The rotted house shingles that Robby had intended to keep were long gone, now probably buried under several months of garbage in the town dump. The great majority of any civilization ended up in its own dump, Uncle Charlie liked to say.
The vaulted ceiling of the porch had also been finished in beaded fir, but was stained a slightly darker color. (“Caramel chestnut”? Or was she making that up?) It loomed fifteen feet high, crossed by three cedar beams that matched the uprights. The ceiling was studded with an antiquey wood-slatted ceiling fan, the light like a broad sepia-toned bowl in the center. Had she picked that out? Sort of. Tug had pointed to it in a catalogue and she’d agreed. Acquiesced? Did it matter?
Possibly the best feature was the screened door that led to the yard. It was wooden with some delicate scroll accents in the corners, and sat diagonally across the corner where the lawn met the driveway. It added a touch of the uncommon and kept the room from feeling boxy. Two broad mahogany steps led down to the yard.
The porch was beautiful, she had to admit. Simple, artistic, somehow cozy despite its openness. It needed furniture, maybe a rocking chair or two. Things that would defer to the porch as the main attraction. A lamp so she could sit out here in the evening and read. Or just sit.
Thanks, Robby, she thought. Thanks for my birthday or Mother’s Day present, or whatever you meant this to be. Thanks for starting something beautiful before you left. Thanks for all the times you thought of me, considered what I would want, put my needs before your own. So many times. Such a good man. Thank you.
CARLY SLEPT AND SLEPT. Janie had lost all sense of time when she saw the white truck pull into the driveway. Tug’s arm rested on the open window, then raised to greet her. He climbed the steps onto the porch with a long flat box, grinning at her on the lone chair with the empty coffee mug on the floor beside her. “Thinking about furniture?” he asked.
“I am now,” she said. “Any suggestions?”
“What am I—your interior decorator?”
“No,” she said, squinting up at him in mock irritation, “you’re the Idea Guy. Like every five minutes, ‘Hey, Janie, I have an idea…let’s…paint the whole thing gold and call it a ballroom!’”
He laughed and looked around. “Gilded? Nah, too nineteenth century. But it’s not bad for dancing, if that’s what you had in mind.”
Her face softened. It was so good to see him. “What’s in the box?” she asked.
He looked down at his hands. “Oh,” he said giving it to her. “I saw this at a little shop on the Cape last week. I didn’t pay much for it, so if you don’t like it, don’t feel like you have to—”
Janie lifted the cover off the box. It was a set of wind chimes. The chimes were long and thin and were suspended from a delicately carved piece of wood. A pear-shaped piece of the same wood, about the size of her thumb, hung in the middle. She glanced back up at him, her eyes wide.
“I tried it out,” he said quickly. “It’s not very loud. The chimes are spaced far enough so they don’t bang into each other, they only sound when the wooden clapper touches them, so it’s soft. And the notes are low. It shouldn’t keep the kids up at night or anything….”
She tugged it from its box by the looped hanger and listened to the gentle tinkling sound for a moment. “It’s so nice,” was all she could think to say.
“Really, it’s okay if you don’t like it.”
She looked around. “Where should I hang it? From the beam over there, that’s perfect. I wonder if I have a hook somewhere.” Tug produced one from his pocket and held it out on his palm. She had to smile. “You knew I’d like it,” she chided him.
While he stood on the chair and screwed the hook into the beam, she went into the house and brought out another chair and a glass of chocolate milk. They sat, and she asked him about his trip to Cape Cod. He had a house there in Orleans; he’d put the down payment on it from his first serious construction job almost twenty years ago. It wasn’t very big, only two bedrooms, and didn’t have a water view, but it was near enough to the ocean to hear the surf crashing on Nauset Beach at night, which was his favorite thing about it. He’d gone down there the day after he’d finished her porch and stayed for a week, his only summer vacation.
“Must be pretty relaxing,” said Janie.
He nodded. “My brother and his family came for Labor Day weekend. My nieces, you know, they’re like most kids—only relaxing when they’re sleeping. But they’re teenagers now, so that’s the better part of their day.” He drank up the last of his chocolate milk. “It’s good to have them nearby again, since I moved back.” He spoke matter-of-factly, even affectionately, but Janie sensed a faint eddy of resignation, too. A breeze kicked up and the chimes rang softly.
“Listen to that,” said Janie. “And they go so well with this room, it’s like you built it just to hang them here. I feel like I should pay you for the
m, though.”
“Absolutely not,” he said. “They’re a gift.”
But why? she almost asked. Contractors hand out gifts now? Did Shelly get a gift?
“I should go.” Tug rose quickly, strode into the house and placed his glass in the sink. A moment later he was standing on the porch again, hands in his pockets, face blank. “Listen,” he said, “the Geezers are playing tomorrow night—that’s my team.”
“I know,” said Janie.
“Well, the games are earlier now since it gets dark sooner, so I thought maybe you might want to bring the kids. Dylan really seemed to like it.”
“He practically reported me to the Mommy Police when I made him leave the last time.”
Tug chuckled for a second. “Well, maybe this time we could, you know, maybe grab an ice cream or something afterward.”
Janie felt a strange clenching sensation in her chest. A fragment of conversation flickered in her inner ear; it was Tug’s workers saying he enjoyed “the view.” They were wrong, though. A man might enjoy the view, but that didn’t mean he wanted anything more. Tug was off the market. He had told her so himself. Her mind stuttered in response to his suggestion, and she said only, “Okay.”
His hands seemed to tense in his pockets momentarily. “Great. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“SO, YOU KNOW THAT monstrosity Shelly sold over in Pelham Heights?” Tug was leaning an elbow on the edge of the stands where Janie and the kids had set up camp for the game. There were snacks and drinks and baby toys strewn about. Carly was sitting in Janie’s lap gumming a teething biscuit; Dylan was wearing Tug’s glove and tossing a tennis ball into it, whispering “Out!” to himself.
“Yeah, the one that basically funded her retirement?” said Janie.
“That’s the one. Guess what—they’re gutting it.”
“Come on!” snorted Janie.
“No kidding. It’s a palace, but not the right kind of palace, apparently. Too modern. They want more charm. And not just molding and a couple of beams. Hard-core charm.”
“How do you know?”
“I got the job.”
“No way! That’s huge!”
Tug bristled. “I do big jobs, you know. That porch is the smallest thing I’ve done in years.”
“No—I meant it’s great!” She nudged his elbow. “And don’t go fishing for my undying gratitude because you lowered yourself to do my itsy-bitsy porch. Even Michelangelo painted houses on the side.”
Tug considered this for a moment. “Is that true?”
She shrugged. “How should I know?”
He laughed hard, tipping his head back in that way that he had, and Janie had to laugh with him. He gave her hand a quick pat before heading back onto the field. They didn’t end up going for ice cream after the game because it was getting dark, and Dylan was fairly spackled with ballpark dirt, requiring a bath before bed. But before they left, Janie agreed to come to Friday night’s game and let the kids go to bed late, a concession she made with a minimum of encouragement.
JANIE WAS STILL ON the phone when Heidi arrived to pick up Keane.
“No!” the two boys whined at her in unison. They had built a fort in the living room with couch cushions and sheets, and numerous small toys had been squirreled away under its drooping roof.
“Go talk to Dylan’s mom,” begged Keane. “Go talk to her a lot.”
“She’s on the phone, Keane, and we have to get home and figure out something for dinner.”
“Wait!” said Dylan. “Hear her? She’s saying ‘Uh-huh.’” The three of them stopped to listen.
“Uh-huh,” said Janie, writing something on the calendar in the kitchen. “Uh-huh…uh-huh…”
“That means she’s almost done! Go!” he said, wagging his finger toward the kitchen. “Go quick!”
Heidi gave them a serious-business look, and said, “Five minutes.” The two boys scrambled back into their fort, pillows listing with the strain.
“Sorry about that,” said Janie hanging up the phone. “Dylan’s been begging me for swim lessons again. Robby always took him, and I couldn’t even remember where they were held.”
“Swim lessons?” said Heidi.
“Yeah. I’m still checking it out. Are you interested?”
Heidi would have to clear it with her ex-husband, but she wanted to make it work. She was worried about Keane knowing how to swim, since his father had just bought a boat, and was, as Janie knew, not terribly safety-conscious. “I wish he would get transferred to Japan, or something,” said Heidi. “I hate how little control I have. He’s irresponsible and immature, but because he’s the father, he can take Keane out on the open seas if he feels like it.”
Janie tossed out a sympathetic look, but privately she had to wonder if a self-absorbed adolescent for a father wasn’t better than no father at all. She was also struck by the fact that it wasn’t so long ago that she would have felt compelled to voice that opinion. “Scrambled eggs and toast for dinner again,” she said quickly, in an effort to maintain her slowly rehabilitating sense of discretion.
Heidi groaned in agreement. “I just can’t make a real dinner when I know I’m the only one eating it. We live on chicken nuggets and pancakes.”
Janie studied her for a moment; her makeup was still fresh, her silk blouse was uncreased, her hair hung in that precisely haphazard style that Janie had seen in magazines. Beach roses, thought Janie, some small comfort against the heartache of motherhood.
“Let’s order out for pizza,” she said.
Heidi slumped into a kitchen chair, a blissful smile gracing her unblemished face. “Brilliant.”
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7
The kids have finally settled down. I don’t know if ice cream before bed is such a good idea, but they had fun. Dylan was practically wagging like a happy dog in the line at Dairy Queen. It was a good game—they played the Weston Midlife Menace, the team that idiot reporter, Wick Lally, is on. Tug got him out when he tried to steal third. The guy jumps up, all friendly, and gives Tug a big pat on the back—No hard feelings, or something good-sport-ish like that. Tug ignored him. I saw him roll his shoulder after, like he was wiping off the guy’s cooties.
Afterward, when they won, the team went to The Pal for beers, but Tug kept his word about ice cream. I felt bad for him, I’m sure he probably would have rather gone with the guys. I told him it was fine, we could do ice cream another time, he should go celebrate. But he said No, he’s been there a hundred times and it’s just the same old thing.
I have this funny feeling about him. He seems pretty happy. Well, maybe not happy, exactly, but content, anyway. He likes his life—he’s good at what he does, loves his house, his family. Talks about his nieces a lot, mostly complains, but you can tell how much they mean to him. And he loves softball, told me he hasn’t missed a game or a practice since he moved back. He says he likes the aches and pains he gets from a good game, and when he can feel them the next day he knows he played his hardest. Now that’s just weird.
But he’s also unhappy. When he’s ticked off he gets quiet (which I know from experience because he’s been ticked at me plenty). And he’s lonely, which must be why he seems to want to spend time with us. He’s attached to us in a funny way, maybe because he’s seen so much of our drama. Maybe it’s like getting hooked on a soap opera—you want to know if the young stud (who’s always named something like Dirk or Drake or Dakota) is going to realize that the girl he loves but also hates because she’s on trial for murdering his mother isn’t really the killer, but merely a pawn in the game of intrigue being played by a soulless, unaccountably rich guy named Franco.
Tug laughs a lot when he’s with us. I think we take his mind off things. I’m glad I know he’s not looking to date. That would make it uncomfortable.
I went for a walk up Jansen Hill today. My first in over a month. It was a beautiful day and I had nothing better to do (except take the car in for an oil and filter change, which I don’t think has been done since
last fall, so I guess it’ll keep for another couple of days). I’m out of shape. Plus Carly’s bigger.
I went to the old house foundation where Jake and I sat on the log and he cried. I wonder how he’s doing. I didn’t sit there long. It was too hard to miss him. I have enough missing to do without looking for more.
Walking back down I saw a maple leaf on the ground. It was thick and green in the middle, but the edges were that translucent red that you see in the fall. I put it in the jar, which, yes, I still have. I’d get rid of it, but I can’t think of where.
IN CHURCH ON SUNDAY, they sat behind a couple with two teenagers, a boy and a girl, who had perfected their lack of enthusiasm with a slouching kneel. The parents, in their early fifties, Janie guessed, sat close together. During the Offertory, the man leaned over and whispered something into his wife’s ear. She turned and beamed him a sparkling grin. His eyebrows shot up, and they both laughed silently.
I used to have that, thought Janie. That used to be me in fifteen years.
WHEN TUG PULLED INTO the driveway at a quarter to twelve on Tuesday, Janie was only mildly surprised. It was just Tug, showing up again. It seemed almost normal.
“Hey,” he called, walking toward her with his cooler as she met him on the porch, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Have you had lunch yet?”
“No, I just barely cleared away the breakfast stuff. Is it that time already?”
“Well, I’m up around five, so I eat when old people do, an hour or so ahead of everyone else.”
“Is that the early bird special?” she asked pointing at the cooler.
“You might say,” he smiled. “Got extra if you want to join me.”
