“Jean, I’m a disaster,” I said a few days later. We were at a busy restaurant in Trastevere, arguably Rome’s best-known food destination and something of a tourist trap, albeit a delightful one. The neighborhood’s bustling blocks were lined with restaurants, cafés, and shops; Jean and I had chosen a trattoria on the corner, not for its menu but for the red-and-white checked tablecloths and the twinkle lights strung inside and out. Now we were seated on the heated patio beneath a canopy of glowing strands.
Jean leaned toward me and narrowed her eyes. After she had examined me, she said, “You don’t look like a disaster to me, dearie. Tired, maybe, but far from disastrous. But tell me more.”
“I messed up,” I said morosely. “I thought I was pulling my way out of my funk, but come to find out, I’ve slipped even farther down than I realized.” I told her about what had happened with Benito. “I mean, I drank so much I don’t remember half the night. What’s wrong with me?”
“What’s wrong with you is that you’re beating yourself up too much,” she said matter-of-factly. “You’re going through a rough patch, but you’re certainly not the first person to handle it in a way that’s not ideal. When I realized I’d rather be alone than stay married to Sam, I drank my face off for half a year.”
I stared at her. “Really?”
“Sure did. Instead of telling Sam the truth straight away, I drank too much. Finally a friend of mine pointed out that instead of making things better, I was heading in the exact opposite direction. So I stopped boozing and got honest with Sam. There were some tough months after that, and more still after he passed. But now I’m back to having an occasional glass of wine or jigger of whiskey without worrying about whether it will lead to six more,” she said, pointing toward the glass in front of her. “There’s no doubt it would serve you well to dry out for a while. But you’re going to have to work through what’s making you want to drink in the first place.”
I took a bite of my caprese salad. “Thank you,” I said after I had swallowed. “And you’re right. I’ve got to work on not flogging myself all the time.”
“Don’t we all, my dear. Don’t we all.” She lifted her wineglass, and I lifted my sparkling water. “Cheers to shedding old habits and making new friends.”
“Cheers,” I said, clinking my glass against hers. “Let’s hope my old habits don’t follow me back to Chicago.”
Jean was staring at me with a serious expression on her face.
“What is it?” I asked, instinctively wiping my mouth. “Is there something on me?”
“You’ve got basil between your front teeth.”
I started reaching for my mouth when she swatted at me.
“I’m joshin’ you. But do you really have to go back to Chicago? I mean, you already quit your job.”
Although Gita had asked me this, too, I had not yet given serious thought to the question. Where else would I go? “Maybe? I don’t know. It’s the most likely scenario, I suppose.”
Her cheeks folded like an accordion as she smiled at me. I wondered if I would look like that when I was her age. Jean made me think it wouldn’t be so bad if I did. “I’m about to throw an offer at you that changes your most likely scenario—but before I do, keep in mind that you’re not obligated to take it. My house in Ann Arbor is sitting open until I get back from Florence. It’s a cute little place, in a private spot but not too far from downtown. Now, I know you and Adam went to school there, but that was decades ago, and there’s a whole other city aside from the university that’s pretty darn great. Course, it’s not Rome.”
I was so stunned that I said nothing. Me? Living in a town that had not been on my radar for a good thirty years? Because I had the good fortune to meet this lovely stranger who was now a friend?
Jean’s eyes followed a gaggle of tourists for a moment. “If you wanted to take a break from Chicago, though, you could do that there. Six months would probably be time enough for you to figure out what you wanted to do next. Here.” She slid her phone across the table at me. “Flip through. There are a couple pictures. Bought it not long after Sam died, and did most of the handwork myself. I’m proud of it.”
The house was set on a wooded lot. It was barn shaped and painted slate gray, with a cherry-red door. The interior was white with colorful paintings on nearly every wall, and worn Persian rugs on the ground.
“This is amazing,” I said as I gave the phone back. And it was. But this was not a one-week jaunt to Italy; it was a half-year commitment to live somewhere else. As much as I wanted to leave Oak Valley, was I really ready to start over? “It’s incredibly generous of you to offer, but I don’t know if I can accept. I mean, I just told you what a mess I am. How do you know I won’t trash the place?”
Jean gave me a look that was a lot like the one I gave Zoe and Jack when they were being ridiculous. “A worrywart like you who’s managed to raise two fine children? I’ll believe it when I see it.”
I laughed. “I see your point. But how could I ever pay you back?”
“That’s exactly what I said to my friend when she helped me through the worst part of my divorce from Sam. Forget paying it back—this is me paying it forward. I think you’ve already gathered that I’m not the type to offer what I don’t intend to deliver. You’d need to cover utilities, but I wouldn’t charge you rent. You’d be saving me money, in fact, because I wouldn’t have to keep paying my neighbor to make sure no one’s stealing my paintings.”
I bit my lip. If I didn’t have to pay rent, and I rented out our home, I might actually come out ahead—provided my alimony went through. It was all sounding . . . doable. Except once again, I found myself wondering what was happening to me. Two days earlier, I had nearly been intimate with a man who was not my husband, then walked into a church and had something of a moment in spite of my spiritual skepticism. Now I was considering throwing caution—and my home—to the wind and moving to a new state. It was as though I had inadvertently opened a portal to a part of myself that I had not known existed.
Jean continued. “If you decide to go for it, I’ll have my lawyer draw up some sort of agreement to keep things on the up-and-up and make it clear to anyone who stops by that you’re not a grifter. Suppose I could run a background check on you, too, but if there’s anything I’ve learned in sixty-eight years of living, it’s to trust my gut about people—and my gut says I can trust you. Course, if I’m wrong and you light the place on fire, which I know you won’t, I’m also old enough to know how to start over. Now let me tell you what’s weird about my home before you make up your mind.”
Dozens of reasons why not paraded through my head, and not one of them had anything to do with Jean’s warning about the backward hot- and cold-water handles and a bedroom that was never quite warm. What would Gita say when she found out she was right about me moving, even temporarily? The kids would probably think I was having a bad reaction to the divorce. Rose—well, Rose did give me pause. If I left Chicago for half a year, who would she become while I was gone? And Adam—
Who cared what Adam thought? Or anyone? Like Zoe had said, it was time for me to start focusing on what I wanted for a change. And while wanting Adam may have been disastrous, this desire, at least, did not involve anyone other than me.
Yes, something—dear God, something—had to give if I was going to make it out of this divorce with a shred of my identity and confidence intact. I walked around the table to hug Jean. “Okay,” I said. “It’s probably nuts to make a change right now, but this feels right. Thank you.”
Jean patted me on the back. “Maggie, I have a feeling this is one change that’s going to do you good.”
TWELVE
After dinner Jean and I said goodbye, though it no longer felt like a goodbye now that we knew we would see each other again later that year. The next day I packed my suitcase, had one last cappuccino, and flew back to Chicago, again in a first-class seat. This time I didn’t ask if there had been a mix-up.
“Well, well, wel
l!” declared Gita two days later. I was at her salon to have my roots touched up and had just sat down at her workstation. “Look who’s glowing.”
“Am I? It won’t last with this weather,” I said, brushing snow off the top of my head. I swallowed hard, knowing I was about to deliver news that Gita would not be happy to hear. “It was an incredible trip.”
Our eyes met in her mirror. “But?” she pressed.
“You know me so well,” I said. Then I told her everything: about my flight upgrades, Jean, Benito and my drunken mistake, and how I was heading to Ann Arbor for a while.
“I won’t say I told you so, but I told you so,” she said with a sad smile. “I have to ask: What about your support network? What about your house and—everything else?”
“Unless the court forces me to do otherwise, I’m not going to sell the house. I’m going to see if I can rent it. It’s not forever.” I would leave at the beginning of January. In an unfortunate twist, the court date for the formal dissolution of my marriage was on the sixth—two days before what would have been Adam’s and my twenty-eighth wedding anniversary.
Gita retrieved a comb from a pocket of her apron and began pulling it through my hair. “I can’t say I blame you,” she said, peering at my roots. “I know Adam and I have been friends for years, but he acted like a real bastard. Are you sure you’re not punishing yourself instead of him, though? I mean, what are you going to do in Ann Arbor?”
“There’s plenty happening there,” I said, even though I had not been to visit since Zoe was touring colleges ten years earlier. I bit my lip, thinking of how painful it had been to see Adam at Thanksgiving—and that was even before he revealed his terrible lie. “I just think it would be good to put some distance between me and Adam. The incident with Benito made me realize I’m not coping like I should.”
“Well, who would?” said Gita.
“I know it’s within the range of normal. But I’m drinking too much. Or at least I was,” I corrected myself. “I haven’t had anything since then.” I had hated turning down free wine on the flight back, but not nearly as much as I had hated the feeling I’d had when I woke up in Benito’s bed.
“No way,” she said, putting her hands on my shoulders. “I know plenty of alcoholics. You’re not one of them.”
“I didn’t say I’m an alcoholic. I’ve developed a bad habit. There’s got to be a better way to get through this.”
“Well, some of us, myself included, think you’re doing great,” Gita said quietly.
I was pretty sure I knew what Gita was thinking. If I gave up alcohol, would I have to skip the wine-tasting parties she and Reddy threw? Wouldn’t I be a total snooze, sipping soda water when we went out for drinks—if you could even call an evening outing “drinks” when you were no longer imbibing? What would happen to us facing the worst with gin and tonics, a ritual that had turned many a rotten day into something sparkling and sidesplittingly hilarious? Drinking was part of our friendship. It was what we did.
And this one was more reason why leaving Oak Valley for a while was a good idea. I knew Gita would never push me to drink, but it would be easier not to if joining her to wash down the day’s troubles with wine wasn’t an option.
“You know I support you no matter what,” she concluded.
“Thank you.”
“You’re most welcome. So, let’s talk about your hair.” She squinted at me over the top of her glasses. “I’d say you’re at about forty percent gray, which means you’re probably going to have to sit in my chair more often. Maybe even go a tiny bit blond.”
“Blond? Oh no, no, no. I’ll pull an Ophelia in your shampooing sink before I become a blonde,” I said. My natural color was chestnut brown—or at least it was until I entered perimenopause and much of my hair’s melanin decided to vacate the premises.
“I’m not talking Marilyn Monroe here. Just some golden highlights, maybe a lighter base.” I must have winced, because Gita added, “I hope this isn’t about money, because you know it’s not an issue. You get the too-much-dirt-on-the-salon-owner special. I’m going to charge you the same thing no matter what you get. Of course, you’ll have to come home to get the discount.” She gave me a devilish grin, and I knew we were okay.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. And in case you’re wondering, I think a new look would be good for you. But I’m happy to stick to the same old for now.” She poked at my head one last time and excused herself to go mix my color.
Gita had just wheeled a cart loaded with foul-smelling dye back to where I was sitting when the doorbell jingled and a tall, immaculately dressed woman came striding into the salon.
“Who’s that?” I whispered.
“Oh, her? That’s Vivian,” said Gita under her breath. “Isn’t she fabulous?”
Indeed she was. The woman was wearing a red tweed cape—the type of contraption that would have made me look like a budget Sherlock Holmes impersonator but that painted Vivian as the picture of grace. She slid the cape off and hung it on the coatrack, revealing a crisp white button-down shirt, slim black pants, and a pair of knee-high leather boots. The main attraction, though, was her hair. Though her face was barely lined—she probably had half the wrinkles I did—her long waves were a bright, crystalline silver. I had never thought of gray as an attractive color before, but Vivian’s hair paid no heed to the idea that sexy only came in shades of yellow, red, and brown. It was hair that was not to be ignored.
“She sees Sophie,” said Gita, referring to a colorist at the salon.
“Is that her real color?” I asked.
“It is now,” said Gita, and reached for the applicator stuck in the bowl of dye. She was a second from slathering the light brown paste on my head when I said, “Wait!”
She jerked her hand back, alarmed. “Did I hurt you?”
“No, no, I’m fine,” I said. “I just—don’t know that I want to cover up the gray. I want to grow it out so it’s natural.”
Gita looked at me like I had suggested a buzz cut. “If you aren’t proof that heartbreak can make a person crazy, I don’t know what is. I thought you wanted to stay dark?”
“I do—sort of. Isn’t there a way to weave in the existing gray while I grow it out?”
“There’s a way to do everything,” she said, shaking her head at me. “But I’m sorry to report this does involve highlights, which means a little more maintenance, at least in the short term. It’ll look good—but it will be different than what you’re used to.”
“I’m ready,” I told her, and it almost felt true.
Later that day I stood in front of the mirror in my master bathroom. Beneath the bright, revealing light of the bathroom where Adam had once brushed his teeth as I slathered on antiaging cream that never did make me appear even one day younger, I saw that I did look different.
But it was not my golden highlights or pink cheeks that were a surprise. It was the absence of the innocence I had casually worn all those years when Adam was still mine. The shell-shocked expression I had adopted after his departure was gone, too, and that was almost as strange.
Now there was a new woman staring back at me. And she wore the weary expression of a traveler who had lost sight of her destination.
THIRTEEN
When I was a child, my mother did all she could to make Christmas joyful. She would put toys and clothes on layaway in the spring and summer so she would have gifts to put under our tabletop tree in December. Meals became increasingly creative as we approached the holidays, because she was setting aside part of our budget to buy a honey-glazed ham, chocolate, and oranges—foods that still suggest Christmas to me in a way that eggnog and peppermint sticks never will. On Christmas morning she would watch me closely, desperate for proof that she had not failed to deliver some version of a childhood fantasy she must have longed for when she was young. And in response, I put on a jubilant performance, because anything less would have crushed her.
As an adult, no perf
ormance had been necessary. I had all I had ever wanted: a permanent roof over my head, a delicious meal and gifts whose cost did not evoke a secret sadness in me, and above all, my husband and children.
But when I returned from Italy and began to prepare for Jack and Zoe to come home, it occurred to me that I would have to pull my old mask back out.
Just push through until you leave town, I told myself. You made it through the past nine months; you can hold out two more weeks.
It’s not that I thought Ann Arbor would be Shangri-la. But I had begun to see it as a symbol of finished business. When I moved there, the divorce would be final. I would have received my last paycheck and begun receiving alimony. The house in Oak Valley—which Linnea, in a true feat, had rented to a pair of grandparents who wanted to spend six months in the same town as their new grandchild—would be off of my hands, if only temporarily.
True, I had a hard time visualizing what my life would look like in Michigan. But maybe, I thought—just maybe—in a place where I was not reminded of Adam and the life we had shared at every turn, I could find a way to begin again.
“You know you didn’t have to put up a tree, Mom,” said Zoe on Christmas Eve. The kids were dividing the holiday between Adam’s loft and our house, which was now a maze of boxes. The three of us had spent the evening together; they would go to Adam’s brother’s house for Christmas Day, then spend the night at Adam’s. I hated that we were now on a split schedule. Had Adam thought about that—really thought about it—when he left? If so, had he actually decided his own happiness was worth the cost of severing our family unit? It seemed so unlike him.
Then again, I didn’t know who he was anymore—if I ever had at all.
Zoe and I were standing in the kitchen; Jack had fallen asleep on the sofa after dinner, and we had left him there. I looked from the Christmas tree in the living room to my daughter. “Well, this year was strange enough as it is. I wanted to preserve some sort of tradition.”
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