by Carole Lazar
“It’s not something we want to do, but we don’t have any choice. We can’t afford to keep it. We could manage the mortgage payments with both our salaries and if we counted our pennies, but it was always pretty tight. Now your mom will need her money to pay rent on her new place. I can’t keep up the payments here on my own.”
“What if Mom moved here instead? I could stay here with her and maybe you could get a small apartment.”
Dad shakes his head. “There just isn’t enough money to go around. We can’t afford this place if either of us has to pay rent somewhere else.”
“But what if Mom changes her mind and wants to come home?”
“I’m not holding my breath on that one,” Dad replies. “She says she’s got plans. They don’t seem to include me. She’s going to call a realtor tomorrow.”
And just like that, Dad walks out of the room and leaves me sitting there by myself. I can imagine how bad he’s feeling, so I don’t take it as an insult or anything. He and Mom both worked so hard fixing up this place. No wonder he’s upset. First he loses his wife; now he’s losing his home. What I don’t get is how Mom can walk away from it like it’s no big deal. She loved this house so much, but I guess if you can fall out of love with your husband, you can fall out of love with your house too.
So in a day or two, we’ll have a realtor tromping through our house. The realtor will love my room, I know it. I can hear his spiel now.
“This is an exceptional bedroom that was designed with a teenage girl in mind. Notice the study nook and all the custom-made shelving.”
I imagine some other girl my age living here … in my room. I feel tears coming. I hate her. I hate the realtor. I hate my mother.
seven
It’s Wednesday morning and I can’t find my homework. I did it yesterday afternoon at Grandma’s place. Maybe I left it there. When Dad drops me off at Grandma’s again, she and I search for it, with no luck. Maybe it is at my mom’s. I’m ready to scream! I am a very organized person, but there are limits. It’s impossible to keep track of all my belongings living like this. Mom and Dad worked out my schedule. Dad takes me to Grandma’s in the morning like always, then she takes me to school and picks me up again after school. Mom comes to get me from Grandma’s place about five o’clock, when she gets off work. We go to her apartment and she feeds me dinner. When Dad gets off work, which could be any time between seven and nine o’clock, he picks me up from Mom’s and takes me home to sleep.
“It’s called joint custody,” Mariah tells me one day over lunch at school.
“Well, I call it insanity! See this sandwich?” I ask. I wave it in front of them. “My mom made it. She’s living two blocks from here, but this sandwich has traveled thirty-five miles to get here today. I had to take it home to Dad’s. Then this morning, I had to remember to take it to Grandma’s, and I was so busy trying to find my homework, I almost left it there.”
“Think of the plus side,” says Siobhan.
“And what would that be?”
“It’s the perfect excuse for not having your homework, wouldn’t you say? Sister Alexis didn’t even give you a hard time about it.”
Sometimes I wonder why Siobhan and I are friends. She can be so irresponsible.
“I probably shouldn’t even care about them selling our house,” I say. “I can just live in a car somewhere. That’s pretty much what I’m doing now.”
“If the place your mom is staying in is only two blocks from here, why is your grandma still picking you up from school every day?” Mariah asks. “Wouldn’t it be simpler just to walk to your mom’s?”
Well, obviously! That’s what I did when I visited Mom last Friday. “You’re right,” I say. “I don’t know why we’re doing it this way. It makes no sense at all. Maybe we’re all just so stressed out we’re losing our minds.”
“Maybe you’re all stressed out, but at least your parents don’t seem to fight that much. My dad and mom are back in court next week.”
“What’s it about this time?” Siobhan asks.
“The August long weekend.”
“Why’s that a problem?”
“Dad has me for July and Mom has me for August. Dad wants to bring me back after the long weekend. Mom says I have to be home by seven o’clock at night on July 31 because she gets me for August and he’s not entitled to take extra days any time he wants.”
“So what day is July 31?” Siobhan asks.
“Sunday.”
I try to imagine both my parents wanting to be with me so much that they’d go to court to get an extra day or two of my company. It just wouldn’t happen.
“At least you know they both want you. I feel like I’m some sort of a burden.”
“Oh, come on, Lucy,” says Siobhan. “You’re not saying you feel like your parents don’t want you, are you?”
“Well, not really, I guess …”
Siobhan reaches over and pats my hand. She leaves her hand on top of mine and gives it a squeeze. “It will be easier once your mom finds a bigger place and you can move in with her.”
She’s right of course. When Mom first left, I made a big deal about staying with Dad, but it really makes no sense at all. I only did that because I thought it would make Mom stay. So much for that plan. We haven’t discussed it, but it’s like everyone in my family knows that I’m going to be going with Mom as soon as she finds a place.
*
That night, when Mom picks me up from Grandma’s, instead of going back to the apartment, we go to the house. For a crazy moment, I think maybe she’s changed her mind and we’re both going home. I’m wrong.
“Gina’s realtor specializes in selling condo units, but he gave me a number for a woman in his firm who he says will do a good job marketing the house for us. She’s coming by this evening.”
“When Dad gets home?”
“Right.”
“What’s she like?” I’m getting ready to hate her, just like I planned.
“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her. I gave your dad her number, so he’s the one who set up the appointment.”
“Why are we going there now? What about dinner?”
“It’s in the back seat.”
I look behind me. There’s a submarine sandwich bag. “I want to do a fast cleanup before she goes through the place.”
“You mean, you’re just coming over to do housework?”
“Well, I’ll have to be there to sign the listing agreement anyway. She’ll probably suggest a better price if things look good.”
And maybe if things look messy enough, I think to myself, no one will buy the house and I can stay there. It’s a stupid idea. If no one buys it and Dad can’t make the payments, the bank will take it over and I’ll still have to move.
“I’m going to come by and clean every weekend till the house sells,” Mom says, “But until then, it’s important that you and your dad keep it really tidy. You’ll never know when they might be bringing people through.”
“It would be easier if you’d move into a place big enough for both of us. If I’m not here, Dad will probably spend all his time at the office. The house will never get messy, and that way the realtor can bring people by without disturbing anyone.”
“Good point. Dad’s not the one who leaves a trail of clothing and books from the front door to the kitchen and then up to his bedroom when he gets home each day.”
It bugs her when I do that. I can’t help it if I have too much stuff to carry. When I put my backpack down on the hall table or hang my jacket over the railing of the stairway, I mean to come back for them – but then I get busy doing something else. It’s easy to forget.
After we eat our sandwiches, Mom starts hauling out the vacuum. It makes me wonder what will happen when she gets her own place. Will she and Dad divide up all the furniture and the pots and pans and towels?
“When you find a place to rent and we move, who’ll get the vacuum?”
Mom looks down at the old canister va
cuum at her feet. “Me, I guess. I’m the only one in the family who knows how to turn it on.”
She thinks she’s being funny. The on/off switch is totally obvious.
“I don’t mean just the vacuum. I mean everything. Will we take half the furniture and the dishes and all that?”
“I’m not going to take much right now,” she answers. “The house looks better furnished.”
I think about it. “If we took my bedspread and the baskets and cushions from my room, it wouldn’t look so cool. It’s the way it’s all coordinated that makes it special.”
“Right, and it’s the same with the towels and bath mats in the bathrooms.”
It’s the same in every room. My mom has decorated the place to the max.
She hands me a dust cloth. “Here,” she says. “Follow me around. You can dust while I vacuum.”
I’m not amused. We start on the living room. I run the dust cloth over the top of the coffee table, weaving in and around the stuff she has on it.
“Lucy! Pick up that vase and the candles. Dust under them and then dust everything before you set it all back down again.”
That’s the trouble with all Mom’s special touches. It would be much easier to dust at Siobhan’s house. They don’t have any ornaments. The kids have broken them all.
Mom finishes vacuuming the living room and front hall. She goes in and starts scrubbing the downstairs bathroom. I start dusting the end table between the wing chairs.
It’s after six when Dad comes home. He’s brought Chinese food. He offers Mom and me some, but we tell him we’ve already had dinner. He fills a plate for himself and stands over the kitchen sink, eating. He’s just finished putting his plate in the dishwasher when the doorbell rings. He goes to answer it. Mom gives the counters one last wipe.
The woman at the door is tall and slim. She could be a fashion model, she looks so good. She’s wearing a navy pantsuit, but it’s not a downtown business sort of suit. It’s more sporty looking. Her shirt is white with narrow red and navy stripes. Her earrings and bracelet match, made of pounded-out gold. Her hair is blonde and comes just below her chin line. She is looking up at my dad like he’s the only one in the room.
“You must be Harold!” she says in this bubbly sort of voice, as if she’s ready to start laughing in pure joy any minute. “I’m Amy Audet. Isn’t it funny how when you talk to someone on the phone, you form a picture in your mind of what they’re going to look like? You’re not at all what I expected. You’re much better looking.”
Dad chuckles a bit. I’d never even thought he knew how to chuckle. He’s most definitely not the chuckling kind. “Did you imagine I’d be short and fat?” he asks.
“Oh no, of course not,” she says. “But I thought you’d be older.”
“And I guess I imagined that you’d be shorter and definitely brunette.”
My mom’s been standing behind me. But now she steps around me and extends her hand to Amy. “I’m Kate,” she says. “The owner of half this house, one of the people you’ll need to have sign the papers if you’re going to get this listing.”
Amy turns away from my dad and shakes hands with Mom. “Nice to meet you, Kate. Perhaps you’d like to show me around.”
I’m feeling a little embarrassed because it seems to me that Mom isn’t being very friendly. Then, as she starts to lead this woman back to the kitchen and family room area, I see Amy look back at my dad and roll her eyes. He just grins back at her. He is not usually the grinning type any more than he’s the chuckling type. I think this woman is flirting with him. He probably hasn’t noticed. I don’t blame Mom for being a bit snippy. It is half her house after all. I’m also thinking Amy Audet is kind of two-faced, which could be a good thing. That way, if I end up hating her for selling our house, I won’t feel too guilty.
Knowing that our house will be on the market by next Monday makes me worry that I’m going to be a bag lady. What if Gina’s apartment and our house both get sold and Mom still hasn’t found a place to rent? She’s been looking at ads in the paper for weeks now, but she says everything is too expensive.
I wait until we’re eating dinner the next night before telling Mom that I’d like to start walking to the apartment after school instead of going to Grandma’s. “That’s what I did when I came to visit last Friday, and it worked fine. Why am I going to Grandma’s? You have to go way out of your way to pick me up, and I end up almost back where I started in the first place.”
“But you’ve always gone to Grandma’s after school. Your dad and I wanted to keep things as normal as possible.”
“Well, this doesn’t feel very normal to me. Right now I’m bouncing around so much I feel like a ping-pong ball.”
“You won’t be lonely being on your own every afternoon for that hour or two?”
“I won’t be alone. I’ll have the dog.” I look down at her, sitting by my feet. I slip her a tiny piece of chicken. That’s what she’s been hoping for. She’s becoming a real little bum.
“While we’re on the subject of schedules,” Mom says, “what are your plans for the weekend?”
“I hadn’t thought about it.”
“Well, I know you haven’t really seen much of your dad this week, but I was hoping you’d spend at least a few hours with me on Saturday.”
“Why’s that?” I ask.
“I think I’ve found a place for us to live.”
“Really?”
She nods.
“Oh, that’s a relief. I was beginning to wonder what was going to happen to us if our house and Gina’s apartment sold at the same time.”
“The fellow who owns this place is a friend of Ian and Gina’s. He’s only asking five hundred dollars a month.”
“That sounds scary cheap. That’s about what they want for those skid row kind of hotel rooms down by the river.”
“Well, it is in Langley,” she says. “Rents are definitely cheaper there.”
“Langley!”
“It will be a longer drive to get to work and to your dad’s, but it’s not that bad and it’s only going to be for a few months. We’ll manage.”
I stay overnight with Dad on Friday, but Mom picks me up about ten the next morning. While we’re driving out to Langley, I ask if she’s seen this place yet.
“Yes,” she answers, “I was over last night. I’ve put down a deposit.”
“So what’s it like?”
“You … you’ve got to understand … it’s nothing fancy. It’s not at all like our house. You might want to think of it as an adventure. It will be like we’re going on holiday, like we’re going camping.”
Like we’re camping? I’m beginning to wonder if this place will have a bathroom or if we’ll be trudging out to use shared toilets and showers like we did that summer we stayed up at Harrison Lake. Or will the bathroom be like one of those little tiny ones Dad’s friend had in his fifth wheeler. Dad said it was so small he could sit on the toilet, wash his hands in the sink, and wash his feet in the shower – all at the same time. He didn’t really do that, but he wasn’t exaggerating. He could have.
“How much farther do we have to go?” It feels like we’ve been driving forever.
“Just after that next set of lights,” she answers.
As we pass the lights, Mom pulls into the curb lane and starts to slow down. I see the sign ahead. Highland Estates. As soon as we turn into the driveway, I see we’re in a trailer park.
Inside the gate, she has to slow right down because there’s a bright yellow speed bump. You can see more of them at intervals all down the narrow strip of cracked and potholed pavement ahead.
Mom points to a neat white bungalow with green trim. “That’s where the caretakers live,” she says.
“So there are real houses as well as trailers in here?”
“They don’t call them trailers. They’re mobile homes. That’s a double wide.”
I don’t care what she wants to call them. If the place she’s rented is anything like
this one, it might be okay after all. It has its own little yard bordered by a picket fence. It’s pretty much like the place Siobhan’s grandma has in the retirement community where she lives. I just hope this doesn’t mean everyone here will be old.
As we drive farther in, we pass real trailer-looking trailers: corrugated tin ones with rusty streaks at the seams. One has three old cars in front of it, none with a licence plate. Two of the cars have their hoods up and a man is leaning in to one. He stands up and watches us go by. The good news is that he’s not old. He might even be a bit good-looking. It’s hard to tell because he’s so covered with grease.
“How come they’re called mobile homes?” I ask. “They don’t look very mobile to me.”
All the trailers have add-ons of some sort. There are porches, decks, and lean-tos attached to them. Some have added wood siding and a few even have brick facing.
“Well, they’re easier to move than a regular house,” Mom answers.
It seems like every second place we see has those icicle-style Christmas lights hanging from the eaves. It’s April. “Why do they have Christmas lights up? Even the stores don’t put their Christmas stuff up much before Halloween.”
“I guess they’re just really efficient people,” Mom says. “Anyway, here we are.”
She’s slowed almost to a standstill in front of the weirdest place I’ve ever seen. It is a single wide trailer that’s white on top and red on the bottom. Icicle lights outline the flat roof of the main unit and hang from the eaves of the large covered deck that’s attached to one side of it. The lights that edge the eaves of the deck are interspersed with hanging baskets filled with brightly colored plastic flowers. There are two sets of wide steps coming down from the deck. One set is clear for walking, but the other is covered with big and small planters. In some places, they’re balanced on top of each other. Some of the vines and greenery that are spilling out of the planters look real; other planters are filled with artificial flowers. The unusual part is that all the planters are shaped like pigs, with holes in their backs for greenery. In front of the trailer, under the big window, there’s a shrub about two-and-a-half-feet high and three-feet wide. It’s been clipped so that it’s shaped like a pig. There’s a pig-shaped mailbox and a birdbath with a plastic pig peeing into it. There are brackets supporting trellises on either side of the front window. Each bracket is decorated with a pink wood cutout of a pig. Every window I can see from the road has a stained glass ornament hanging in it. Some of them are too small for me to see clearly from where I am, but want to bet they’re all pigs?
