“I need to go.”
“Drive fast, okay?” he said. “I’m not trying to be a total asshole, but this is important.”
“I’ll be there as quickly as I can.” I could hear the tightness, almost a sarcasm, in my own voice, but this time Charlie did not remark on it.
I found my purse where I’d set it on a kitchen chair and carried it to the living room. “I think I’ll be on my way,” I said, and Lars said, “All’s well on the home front?”
“Charlie wanted to know if I could smuggle the leftover nacho casserole back to Milwaukee,” I said. “He claimed you two would never notice.” Though Lars chuckled, my mother seemed somber; the mood of the room had changed while I was in the kitchen. “You all right, Mom?” I said.
My mother tilted her head to one side. “I keep thinking she’s gone upstairs to read.”
I understood perfectly; now that the distractions of planning for and enduring the funeral were finished, there was only the long future without my grandmother. Would Lars be enough to fill the house, to keep my mother company, after all?
With more confidence, more optimism, than I actually felt, I said, “Maybe she has.”
OUR HOUSE IN
Maronee was a 1922 Georgian colonial, the clapboard painted pale yellow—it had been white when we’d bought it, but we’d redone it about five years before, and I thought the yellow was softer—and on either side of the front door, two extremely tall Ionic columns supported a second-story pediment that was purely decorative. On most days, when I turned in to the driveway, our house struck me as ordinary, merely our house; but sometimes when I’d been away, especially when, as on this evening, I was returning from Riley, I realized again how large it was, especially for only three people. The house sat on an acre of zoysia grass (mowed on a weekly basis, except in winter, by Glienke & Sons landscapers), and tall oak and elm and poplar trees stood at irregular intervals, providing shade and a kind of buffer from the road. Our driveway was smoothly paved asphalt, our three-car garage freestanding and also yellow; though we had only two cars, we had managed to fill the extra space with bicycles, rakes, a stepladder, and an assortment of other domestic clutter. On this night, as I approached our property, I saw Charlie and Ella throwing a Frisbee in the front yard; Ella was barefoot but still wearing her dress from the funeral. As I pulled into the driveway, Charlie held up his left arm in a gesture that was half-wave, half-halt sign, and Ella began a dance that, as far as I knew, she’d made up: She set her hands on her head, index fingers up like antennae, and moved sideways in little hops. The early-evening sunlight through the trees was dappled gold, and in spite of my irritation with Charlie, I found myself thinking how lucky we were; really, I was not sure it was fair to be this lucky.
I set my foot on the brake and rolled down my window, and Ella called out, “Daddy threw me a bear claw, and I caught it!”
“Ladybug, your dress will last much longer if you don’t play in it,” I said. “Let’s go inside and have you change.”
“Thanks for coming back,” Charlie said. “You’re a lifesaver, Lindy.”
“You’re a Tootsie Roll, Lindy,” Ella said, and Charlie laughed and swiped his hand against the top of her head.
To me, he said, “Mind if I take your car?” He opened the driver’s-side door, extending his arm with an exaggerated flourish and saying, “Madame.” I started to turn the car off, and he said, “Just leave the keys in the ignition.”
When I stepped out, he very quickly kissed me on the lips, then slid into my seat. “Adios, amiga,” he said to Ella, and to me, he said, “I should be home by ten.” He was already backing up when I shouted, “My purse!” He reached over and tossed it out the window; improbably, I caught it, and he said, “Hey there, Johnny Bench.” Then he reversed out of the driveway and disappeared down the street.
“Don’t ever do that,” I said to Ella.
“Drive fast?”
“That, too, but I meant don’t throw Mommy’s purse.”
We went inside for her to put on shorts, then headed back out because she still wanted to play with the Frisbee. After we’d tossed it a few times, she said matter-of-factly, “You’re not as good as Daddy.”
“I haven’t had as much practice,” I replied.
When she’d tired herself out, we went in, and I ran a bath for her, and when it was time to wash her hair, she summoned me. For all that I had believed before the fact that I didn’t want my daughter to have long hair, this was one of my favorite rituals. I still used Johnson’s baby shampoo on her, with the pink droplet on the label that said no more tears. Soon enough, I suspected, she’d take note of this label and be perturbed by the word
but so far she hadn’t said anything. She sat naked and cross-legged with her back against the side of the tub, her head tilted forward, and I massaged her scalp in amiable silence; she occasionally flicked the surface of the water with her thumb and middle finger. I rinsed the shampoo out with the shower nozzle, and when she stepped from the tub, I was sitting on the toilet lid holding up a towel; she walked into it, and I wrapped her, holding her tight in my arms. “Mommy,” she said.
“What?”
“I can lift a pencil with my toes.”
I kept hugging her. “Since when?”
“Christine taught me. Want to see?”
“You can show me after you put on your pajamas.”
The book I read to her that night, not for the first time, was
