in her could stick together. What was left was floating like the fuzz you blow off a dandelion.
Cleaning up took about an hour. She scooped up what she could with paper towels and dumped it into the trash; she swept and swept and swept; she moved the stove after all. Drawers came out. She cleaned cabinet doors and chair legs with a wet sponge.
At the end of it, she sat on the floor of her kitchen and took out her phone. Can you come over?
Are you OK?
OK/safe, but need help.
Give me 15.
Side door’s open.
It was closer to ten minutes later that the door of her kitchen opened and Andy, sweaty in basketball shorts and a Red Sox T-shirt, stepped into her house for the first time in about two months. He saw her sitting on the floor, leaning back against the cabinets under the sink. “Jesus, Ev, are you all right? What’s going on?”
“Just sit with me,” she said.
He dropped down to sit next to her, stretching his legs out in front of him. He waited, then leaned toward her. “Why are we on the floor?”
He had grown his hair out a little, and realizing she hadn’t seen him in such a long time that his hair was different made her chest tighten. “I was changing the light bulb,” she said, looking up above the kitchen table. It was a start.
He followed her eyes up there. “From down here? That seems like the hard way.”
She smiled. “I went to get the screwdriver.”
He turned and looked up at the shelf. “Did you have it in the Giant Screw Can? Evvie, I told you that was asking for trouble.”
“It was in the Giant Screw Can. Knocked over the can, knocked over the applesauce, knocked over the rice.”
He cringed. “The giant rice thing, the enough-for-Survivor thing?”
She nodded. “That’s the one.”
“And it fell?”
“It fell. It all fell.”
He crossed his arms and looked around, then took a quick breath and said, “I have to admit that sounds amazing.”
“Oh, it was amazing all right. There was rice in the bathroom.”
He gave a low whistle. “Wait, you cleaned it all up already?”
“I did.”
He laughed. “Ev, you’re supposed to call before you do the whole thing yourself.”
“I didn’t feel like calling you to come clean up my kitchen would be the thing to do. You know, considering.” She turned toward him and sighed. “I said a lot of things that I should not have said.”
“We both did, Ev.”
“It shouldn’t have taken me this long to call. It was stupid, and I’m so sad, and something is wrong. Everything is wrong.” She rubbed the spot between her eyes. “My mother called. Not today. I mean, she had called while I was working on dinner, the day you guys came over.”
“Oh shit,” Andy said. “What happened?”
“She wants to see me, and she’s been leaving messages. I can’t put her off anymore. It’s been weighing on me so much, but I didn’t want to bother you about it—”
“Oh, Evvie, God, you wouldn’t be—”
“I know. I just…I want to be the kind of person who…I don’t know, who—”
“Does exactly the right thing all the time? Yeah, I do, too.” He wiped his damp forehead with the bottom of his shirt. “Every day, I worry that I’m screwing up my kids, screwing up with Monica. Hell, I worry I screwed everything up already.” He scooted closer to her and picked off a piece of rice stuck to her bare knee. “You’re not going to make everybody happy all the time.”
“I want to, though.”
He put his arm around her shoulders. “I know you do.”
“Baggage,” she said. “So goddamn much. I should have my own cargo plane.”
“Well, you’re not alone. You remember I told you that night that Lori had the girls for a weekend?” Evvie nodded. “She told me that day that she wanted to have them with her for six weeks every summer.”
“Oh, no.”
“I’ve never been away from them for six weeks. Ever. I don’t think I’ve been away from them for six days since Lilly was born. But Monica and I didn’t want to wreck the night, so we decided to keep it to ourselves.” He nodded. “Which wasn’t a very successful plan.”
Evvie smiled thinly. “What happened?”
“What usually happens when Lori makes noises about wanting to see them more. She sees them, and she remembers that she loves them, and they love her, but she’d rather take them out to Chuck E. Cheese’s and on cruises than be the