into her shoulder. “It’s kind of scary to be so lucky,” she said, and I nodded again. I knew exactly what she meant. Sometimes being lucky is only waiting for a fall.
14
IT WAS SUCH A DIFFERENT CAR RIDE, GOING BACK. NO fighting in the backseat. Only a respectful silence, occasionally punctuated by a neutral observation or a request to have the radio tuned to another station. I looked out the window and thought about the three of us siblings lined up on my parents’ bed that morning, being offered various things of my father’s by my mother, she in her bright, brittle way pulling open his drawers, rummaging through his closet. Her eyes shining with tears that she clearly wanted not to acknowledge. I’d taken only his hankies, his initials embroidered in navy blue in one corner. Steve had taken his watch and his cuff links—Steve is the only man I know who still wears cuff links—and his stamp collection. Caroline took a photo of him that was taken just before he married my mother. He stood beside an old jalopy, his foot up on the bumper, smiling broadly. Everything else that my mother had offered—his sweaters, his pipes, a bathrobe he’d never worn—we had refused. I think it was just too early. None of us kids had been ready to put the kind of seal on his death that taking his things would do.
Whereas Steve and Caroline had tiptoed around each other, not speaking, not even looking at each other, she and I had restored an uneasy truce before I left; I told her I would return within the week, and that I’d call her as soon as I arrived back at my mother’s house. Now, only a few miles from home, I regretted having made that promise. I felt I needed more time to reclaim my own life.
When we pulled into the driveway, I saw Maggie out in her yard, two houses down. She waved, smiling, then walked over to us. “How was it?” she asked as I got out of the car. Then, her smile disappearing, she said, “Oh. Jeez. Bad trip, huh?”
Pete and the kids greeted Maggie and then headed into the house, leaving us alone. “My dad died,” I said.
She stared at me for a moment, trying to understand. “Just . . . now? While you were there?”
I nodded.
“Oh, my God.” She hugged me, then stepped back to search my face. “I’m so sorry. Doug said you’d called. But I didn’t have your number to call you back.”
“I wasn’t calling about that. That was before he even . . . I was calling about something else.” I looked at our house and saw Pete passing in front of the living room window. He’d be checking everything out, making sure nothing had happened in our absence. The kids were undoubtedly ensconced in their rooms, reconnecting to their real selves as opposed to the hampered individuals they became when they were constantly in the presence of parents and relatives. Anthony lite, my son called himself in such situations.
“We can talk later,” Maggie said. “You need to go in?”
“Actually, I think I need to go out. Can you?”
“Let me just go and tell Doug, and then I’ll meet you back here. I’ll pick you up. Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, alcohol or sugar?”
“Salty alcohol.”
“Goldie’s?” we said together, because of their famous nachos and margaritas. And laughed. It was so good to laugh. I felt as though I too were reentering my legitimate self.
I went into the house to tell Pete I was going out with Maggie, and he told me there was a message on the machine. My mother. Saying that she’d like to come and stay with us for a while. She wanted to fly in the next day.
“No,” I said.
“No? Well, what are you going to tell her?”
“I’m going to tell her no.”
“Laura.”
“I said I’d go there!”
“She wants to come here. Do you really—”
“I’m going out with Maggie. I’ll call her when I come back.” I looked at the pile of mail and newspapers on the kitchen table. Even this seemed insurmountable. “I just need to go out for a while, Pete.”
I went upstairs to tell Hannah I was leaving. She was sitting on her bed, talking on the phone. “Hold on,” she said, and looked at me expectantly.
“I’m going out for a bit with Maggie. Okay?”
“Yeah. Can I go out for dinner and shopping for school clothes with Gracie?”
I’d forgotten all about