his office, typing away. He took all his meals straight up there, probably to avoid Weezy and talking about Max. Whenever she brought it up, when she talked about how worried she was about Max, Will just nodded.
“Don’t you care?” Weezy asked.
“Of course I care,” Will said. “I just don’t think we need to pretend like Max isn’t responsible, like this is something that happened to him and not something that he did.”
But Will’s inaction just made Weezy move faster. She began to redo the basement, since she figured that Max and Cleo would be staying down there when they returned. It would be more comfortable for them, and easier on the whole family, if they had their own space.
The challenge of course was to make a basement look like a place where you wanted to spend time. There was something damp and chilly about the room down there, and Weezy had never liked it. But now, she would get it done. She felt like she was on one of those home-decorating challenge shows, where they find an unused space and make it into something amazing.
She got the floors redone, and bought new throw rugs to cover the tile. (They couldn’t put wall-to-wall carpeting down there, because there was always a chance it would flood. But she made it look cozy.) She bought new furniture, a new dresser and two bedside tables with matching blue ceramic lamps. She had the walls repainted a soft yellow, which seemed welcoming and calming, and she bought new bedding that looked inviting and soft.
The bathroom in the basement was old and rusty and the floor was always freezing, no matter what time of year it was. She had some people come in to look at it and two days later it was all ripped up. “We’ve been meaning to do this for years,” Weezy said when Will acted surprised. “Now this just gives us a reason to get it done.”
She bought a bassinet for the baby and put it right next to the bed. That would do for the time being. They’d have to figure out a crib at some point, but for now this would be enough. Although she did go out and buy a couple of extra soft baby blankets, and just a few little stuffed animals to put in the bassinet so it didn’t look so empty.
When she showed Claire and Martha the finished room, she was extremely proud of herself. They were shocked, she could tell. “Well?” she asked them. “What do you think?”
“Whoa,” Martha said. She kept turning in circles looking at the walls.
“It looks great,” Claire said. “It doesn’t even look like the same place.”
“Oh, it was just a few things here and there,” Weezy said.
“I don’t know how you did this all so quickly,” Claire said. “Now you’re all set.”
But she wasn’t all set. The room was just the beginning. There was so much more to do. Maureen told her to slow down. “You’re running yourself ragged,” she said. But no one understood. No one understood that Weezy had to keep moving, had to keep doing things, or everyone around her would fall apart.
The rest of her family seemed to go on just as usual. Claire was spending a lot of time with that boy Fran, which worried Weezy, although in the grand scheme of things she couldn’t worry too much about it now. Unless Claire got pregnant as well, there just wasn’t time. And of course once she had that thought, it was stuck in her brain. Imagine if that happened—if Claire and Cleo were both pregnant and living under her roof. See? Weezy thought. Things could be worse.
WEEZY GOT THE FEELING THAT her family was talking about her behind her back. Whenever she came into a room, it seemed that Will and Martha and Claire had just been whispering about her, just been sharing some information. “Just humor her,” Will probably told them. “Just be helpful.”
It reminded her of when the kids were young, when every once in a while she’d lose her temper and stomp off to her room, and when she’d come back down, she’d find Will playing with them or making them lunch and they’d all look up at her and say hello, cheerfully, as though nothing had happened. Will would be spinning the wheel for Candyland or making bologna sandwiches, and she just knew that they’d talked about her while she was upstairs. “Mom’s upset,” Will would have said, “so we