"Do you realize you haven't gone out with one guy since dad left? It's been almost three months! Before we turn around it'll be New Year's. Are you planning to stay home alone?"
Sara sat down on the bed beside her.
"I'm sorting through memories, darling," she said. "I need some time."
"I've heard this before, mom. It doesn't go over."
Attempting to regain any authority she could muster, Sara rose, leaned over the bed and fluffed the pink, purple and crimson checkered cushions that were scattered everywhere.
"A person has to be ready to start over," Sara continued, "to make sense of what happened."
"Fancy excuses," said Chloe, standing almost as tall as Sara. "Who really makes sense of anything?"
Chloe took a big gulp of air, and plunged forward, like a train headed for a destination from which there was no turning back.
"I have something to tell you."
Sara suddenly felt afraid. "Not bad news about school?"
Chloe flipped her chin upwards bravely. "No."
"It's Berta," Sara grabbed at anything. "She put your cashmere sweater in the wash again?"
"Mom, there's news in the family."
Sara's palms grew damp as a stream of cold air came in through the window, wafting over the two of them.
"It's about dad," Chloe said.
Stop, Sara wanted to say.
"He's not coming back. He doesn't want to. He told me to tell you."
The room started spinning and a warm fury began to rise through Sara's chest. Melvin told Chloe and not her? What right did he have to impose that on her?
"He said he knows for sure now," Chloe continued. "Three months have gone by. Dad's happy. As happy as he can be. Alicia's not that bad either. She's simple minded, but Matt's decided she's good for dad. He's relieved about it. And what about you? Have you dated even once?"
"Thank you for telling me," Sara stood up to signal that the conversation was over. She was trembling inside, but showed nothing.
"Wait a minute, mom." Chloe stood up too and spoke faster. "There's more. Alicia is moving in with him."
A sharp pain slid through every bone of Sara's body. For a moment her voice vanished; then it returned feebly. "Really?"
"Really," Chloe said softly.
Sara's eyes filled with tears.
"Are you okay with that, Chloe?"
Chloe flipped her chin up bravely.
"Why shouldn't I be? Lots of girl's fathers marry younger women - the same age as them, practically. Daughters deal with it. They have to."
Sara reached out to hold Chloe, but Chloe took a step back. She didn't want comfort, she wanted strength.
"And their mothers deal with it, too," Chloe continued. "They have to. They go on!"
Warm, splashy tears stung Sara's face.
"For my sake, mom - please go on!"
Chloe left Sara alone to absorb the news. She stood there, not knowing who to call. Her mother was out of the question, and she had been on the phone with her friends these past few nights. They had enough trouble of their own; they didn't need to hear this. Most of her friends were married and busy with their own lives. Sara stood quietly while tears played with the edge of her face and the afternoon sun sliced through the window, checkering her face and arms. She stood like that for what seemed an hour, but when Chloe pranced back into the room and she looked at the clock, only ten minutes had passed.
"Thank you for telling me," Sara garnered her strength. "It must have been hard."
Chloe nodded. Sara looked at her closely. "It's definite?"
"Yes, it is, and you should be glad. The truth is, we're relieved, mom. All of us."
As she talked, Chloe started pacing around the room with the rhythm of a young colt. "When you said good-bye to dad you did the right thing. Your marriage was over years ago. It was obvious to everyone. My friends used to say, your mom is so pretty, why is she staying here like this?"
Sara paled. "Like what?"
"With a man so obviously not in love with her. . .The two of you were never meant for each other. I'm telling you this because I love you. We all do. Abel and Matt both agree with everything I say. You're a beautiful woman, mom."
Sara reached for a lavender cushion and played with its fringes. "I am?"
"Mom," Chloe caught it mid-air, "we want you start dating immediately! There are thousands of guys out there. Tons are single - or about to be!"
Despite herself Sara laughed.
Chloe grabbed a cushion and threw it at Sara. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper.
"We prepared this for you. Think of it as a holiday present. A great way to start the new year. Here it is. Look!"
Sara took the paper. On it was written in a very firm hand:
Extremely vibrant, unusual woman, ready for adventure, seeking a flexible man.
Sara's eyes opened wide. "Who's this for?"
"You!"
Sara clenched the paper and looked more closely. The kids had written some kind of ad, God knows if they'd already placed it. Thousands could be reading it. Visions of men on barstools, in coffee shops, in offices and bachelor apartments reading her ad streamed across Sara's mind.
"It's too soon," Sara cried.
"You can do it. Wanda did, so did Iris. What about Gillian? She had a good time. Wanda met Thomas through an ad."
Sara felt like throwing it away, but something stopped her. Perhaps it was the gleam in Chloe's eyes, or the realization that, indeed, she had no plans for New Year's. Suddenly Chloe seemed a reflection of what she could have become had life played a different tune through her.
"Mom, how can I leave for school in the Fall when I'm thinking of you sitting alone? You need courage. A woman can't express all of herself without the right man at her side."
"Where'd you get that?" Sara thought of the battle that women of her generation had waged in the name of independence, and here her own daughter was dragging her backwards in time.
"I'm not talking about every woman, obviously," Chloe broke in. She was too smart to let it go by. "But a woman like you, who has lived her whole life only for love!"
Sara's legs went wobbly. "What do you mean lived only for love?"
"Only for love. Taking care of us all - dad - your children, their friends, your friends, your mother. . ." Chloe pursed her mouth. "Write your own ad if you don't like this one. Call your single friends and do it together. There'll be a ton of answers. You'll see."
Sara stared at the paper.
"Do it for us! Will you?" Chloe pleaded.
Despite every thought that rose to the contrary, Sara smoothed the paper and looked at it more closely.
"Give me a minute. Let me see exactly what you kids wrote down."
Thankfully, Chloe left the bedroom. Sara took the ad and placed it on top of her grandmother's antique chest. Sara loved the chest - it kept memories of her stately grandmother close at hand. Then she opened the bedroom windows to let the chilly air into the room. It felt good. Winter was almost here, the air stung with the promise of snow. She looked out the window and saw the boys cutting wood for the fireplace, a job their father had always done. It was then Sara felt the loss of Melvin most keenly. At that moment she longed to bring someone strong into the family for them to cut wood with, shovel the path, break in their new baseball gloves in the Spring.
The ad on top of the chest seemed like a strange intruder, though - a harbinger of trouble. Perhaps she would feel better if she wrote her own. At dinner when she and the children were seated around the table she said, "thanks for writing that ad. I appreciate you're doing it."
"We'd feel better if you'd go and look," Matt said.
"Like I'd look for a house or a new car?" Sara burst out. "What exactly do I look for? Someone thin, handsome, intelligent? You make a shopping list for love that way? Love comes like a gift. Not a dinner menu."
"You're overly romantic," Chloe said, exasperated. "And at your age,
too. My God, mom, your generation! Crazy. All of you."
Sara had to agree that her generation must seem lost and disheveled. She got up, filled a large platter with vegetables, and took out of the ice box some chicken, and the bowl of potato salad with pimentos, Berta had prepared. Sara realized that most of her kid's friends had parents who were divorced. Some of her own friends had become single these past few years, women she'd known through years of child-rearing and home-making. Women in marriages that seemed like rocks. It was an epidemic, like leaves falling off old trees.
Sara was gripped with a longing to apologize to her children for not bringing them into a world as unshakable as her parents used to be.
"We all think it would be a good idea if you put the ad in," Matt repeated.
"Because Alicia is moving in with dad?" Sara finally said. "Is that the reason?"
A taut silence fell over them.
"Let her move in," Abel said. "What do we care?"
"Alicia's good for dad," Matt insisted.
"Yeah, and an ad's good for you," Chloe said. "Everyone's splitting and doing it. What's the big deal?"
Sara suddenly had a vibrant image of families splitting and reforming into odd new shapes at a moment's notice.
"Then what happens?" Sara asked softly.
"What happens to what?" Matt asked.
"What happens to how we used to be?"
"How we used to be is over," Chloe flatly said.
CHAPTER 3
Dear Sunflower 101,
I finally figured it out; the reason you haven't answered my letter is because I said I was interested in magic. That scared you. But the kind of magic I'm talking about is nothing serious - a few card tricks, reading your palm, tracing the details of a person's heart line. (That was a joke.)
In my youth I was interested in handwriting analysis - I took a course and interned one summer for the police department. You see, I said I was an unusual man. My intuition tells me you are too.
Although I don't like to tell women too much about myself, by profession I'm a lawyer. I work for myself in a small office on the second floor on 34th Street. You see, your prolonged silence is prompting all sorts of confessions.
Still hoping,
Greg
A few days later, just as Sara was finishing breakfast, the phone rang. It was Cynthia, a married friend she'd known for years and hadn't seen much of since her relationship with Melvin started going bad.
Cynthia had been married to Ted for twenty years - never had children - and ran a small gift business that did better each year. She had dirty blonde hair, pretty eyes, a wonderful figure and knew all the right places to go for fun. Sara and Melvin had gone out with them from time to time over the years. Ted and Melvin got on famously, talking about football all night long, and Sara enjoyed Cynthia's verve. Her call surprised her, though.
"Listen, sweetheart," Cynthia started, "how are you doing?"
"Fine," Sara answered, taken aback.
"I mean, really doing? Come clean! We all know about you and Melvin."
Sara flushed. "Well -"
"I hope you're not mad I didn't call sooner, but the girls and I have been giving you time."
"The girls?" Sara asked, unsettled.
"Greta, Iris, Wanda. . ." Cynthia rattled off names of some single women they both knew.
"The single girls," Cynthia whispered. "I'm one of them now too."
Sara's was startled.
"You and Ted? When?"
"You didn't hear? It was sudden. About four months ago. Just before you."
Sara been out of touch. "I'm really sorry," Sara said.
"Don't be. I'm doing great. Ted's off in California now. I'll tell you all about it. Look, the girls have a support network that meets Tuesday nights at each other's house and we all wanted to invite you to join. We hang together, plan outings, review our dates for the week."
Sara flinched.
"Don't knock it. It's the best thing around. Obviously, none of us can do this alone."
"I'm sure we can't," Sara said slowly.
"No you're not sure - not yet," Cynthia said, "but give us a try. You'll see it's great."
Sara reviewed the women in her mind. She'd known them in passing over the years; they'd all lived in the same community, raised their children together, ran into each other at PTA meetings, ballgames, local parades. Now they were thrown from their nests, out there, single again.
"Thanks so much, but I'm busy," said Sara. "I've got a million things going -"
"But not the right things. Honey, you're a single woman now. You've got no choice but to be part of the gang."
Sara's stomach lurched at the thought. She wanted to be part of the gang of sparrows that perched on her branches outside her window, sang for a few moments, and then flew free.
"This Tuesday at eight, at my house -" Cynthia pressed on. "How bad can it be? What more can you lose?"
"Now, wait a minute," Sara said, "I'm not exactly bankrupt. I work in my shed, write articles about Raku that are getting published in Circles now."
"Congratulations."
Circles was a newsletter that reached an odd collection of potters scattered over the country, working silently in sheds of their own, finding new ways of being with the materials of the earth, forming new shapes, glazes and methods of firing. Sara realized after she said it that Cynthia probably had no idea what Circles was.
"You remember once I told you about Raku, Cynthia?"
"Yeah, but I forgot."
Raku broke from the old conventional methods, had its roots in the sixteen hundreds in Japan, in Zen, where they created tea cups for the art of tea. Sara fervently longed to have one of those tea cups for herself. She pictured herself in her shed, drinking tea from an ancient cup, suddenly understanding the contorted shapes life took unexpectedly. She didn't know what to say to Cynthia about it, though.
"I'm caught up most of the time," she said.
"So what?" Cynthia flung back. "We're all caught up with something. But kids or no kids, work or no work, at a certain point, when your man is gone, you realize you need your friends."
Despite having just finished a steaming cup of coffee, Sara grew chilled.
"Why not try it, just once?" Cynthia urged. "Or we'll feel you're snubbing us."
Sara gulped. "Come on, Cynthia!"
"Just once?"
Sara paused. "All right. Just once. But if I don't come back, it's not personal."
"Great," Cynthia answered. "But don't be scared when you see me. I'm not the old gal you once knew. I'm streamlined now."
Sara laughed and despite herself suddenly felt excited. She had started exercising as well, having soup instead of lunch, running a few times around the block before going back into the shed. And as she spoke to Cynthia, she realized that perhaps it was time to step out of the shed for a little while, look and see what life had in store.
Sara arrived at Cynthia's door promptly at eight, a box of homemade cookies in her hand. Cynthia opened the door looking bright-eyed and edgy, with an air of expectancy. She wore a blue, silk blouse, with long, odd earrings that hung low; she had lost too much weight, wore lipstick that glowed in the dark, and looked at least ten years younger.
Sara wore jeans and a simple V-neck sweater.
"Great to see you," Cynthia scooped her up. "I've missed you. We all have. Come on in."
"You look great, Cynthia," Sara commented, handing over the cookies, but felt peculiar looking at her. She didn't want to look like a kid again, turn her life backwards, reverse the powerful ebb of time that had brought her to exactly who she was today.
"God, you look fabulous," Cynthia hugged her, totally interrupting her reverie. "Seems like it's been years."
Sara could barely remember when they'd been together alone. In the past she and Cynthia, as well as the other women, got together occasionally as couples. Once in a long while they'd have lunch alone. But this was new ground.
Sara walked through the foy
er, into Cynthia's softly lit living room. The girls were spread comfortably around, dressed in slacks and cashmere sweaters, lounging on Cynthia's plush love seats which were placed around a glass coffee table. When Sara walked in, they looked over her way.
"Well, look who's here!" Greta was the first to get up, come over and give Sara a welcome hug. She was beautiful, with long, black hair, a petite, perfect figure and truly languid eyes. She'd been married since she was nineteen, and her life had revolved around her husband, Jason. Or so she thought.
"Welcome to our den of thieves," Greta laughed.
Iris jumped up after her. She was a redhead with her long hair now tied in braids. Divorced a while by now, she'd obviously decided it was time for another try.
"So good to see you darling. We were all devastated when we heard the news. Greta told us you'd be in mourning forever, and to just leave you alone."
"Not at all," Sara trembled.
"Come on, Iris, hold your horses," Cynthia stepped between them. "Iris has been single for years. She forgets how it is in the beginning."
Sara wondered when the beginning really was. "What happened between us wasn't so terrible," she said.
"Of course not," Cynthia interjected, opening the box of cookies delicately. "It's years of not knowing what's going to happen that are the worst. All the years of hoping something will change. But it never does - does it?"
"Sometimes it does," said Sara. "And just because things change doesn't mean they're over."
"The minute they walk out it's over," said Iris, setting her jaw tight. "You'd save yourself a lot of heartache if you realized that."
"You sound like you still miss Melvin," Cynthia said, biting into one of her homemade, vanilla cookies. She went on, not waiting for an answer. "I'll always miss Ted, too. Even though for so long we were so unhappy."
Who hadn't been unhappy? thought Sara. No one dodged it. Long years of marriage had etched creases on all their hearts.
Cynthia chewed the cookie, talking at the same time.
"Ted decided to move to California one night, just like that. He always liked California." She spoke in a tone very much like a little girl. "It was just too hard between us. But it's better this way, isn't it?"
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