My hand found the book. At first I just stared at the jacket and contemplated the title: Unearthing Your Childhood Dreams. I wondered if I had the strength or desire to dig up anything. Not really, but I opened the book to the first chapter and started reading.
“As we grow to adulthood,” the author wrote, “we become our own worst enemies, our most ruthless critics. Kind and encouraging to those around us, generous in our praise, we recognize ability only in other people’s creations. When we hear our own unique voice or see our own pen on paper, it seems somehow meager and inadequate.”
The first step toward achieving one’s lost childhood dreams, the author claimed, was to recall them. A lengthy exercise with numerous questions made me sleepy. I got stuck when I couldn’t remember my favorite food or teacher in elementary school. And my favorite toys? Surely I had some, but all I could recall were my art supplies. I’d always longed to be a famous artist.
I clapped the book shut and set it on the bed table next to a ten-year-old photo of Rob cradling our cairn terrier, Charlie, then a puppy the size and color of a russet potato. I remembered Rob begging for a dog, as if his world would snuff to an end without one. Charlie, a squirming bundle of energy, was my son’s best friend for more than a year until my boy discovered lacrosse, a sport, he informed me, originally played by Native Americans. Then, when not in school, Rob often skipped out the door carrying his lacrosse stick in search of someone to throw him the ball, something I couldn’t do worth a hoot.
I remembered how Rob—who’d once snuggled on my lap with his knees tucked under his chin—started shrugging off my embraces as if I were a stranger with bad breath. By age eleven, he couldn’t fit in my lap anymore, his giant feet reaching the floor and ready to escape. Almost overnight he towered over me and had to lean down to receive an obligatory kiss on his cheek. Then the girls started calling.
I yawned, but my lungs refused to expand all the way. Maybe I should have bought a book on empty-nest syndrome, I thought. Is that what I was going through? My father always said a midlife crisis was an excuse for not taking responsibility for one’s obligations. Well, I was sick of acting responsibly.
I flicked off the lamp and sank into the mattress, its spongy softness comforting my stiff back. I tugged the covers up around my neck and drifted into slumber.
After what seemed like a few seconds, I awoke in a cave of darkness. I instructed myself to fall asleep again, but my brain thrummed with activity. In a few hours I would help Rob pack for college. I wondered if I’d collected enough cardboard boxes for all his clothes and his sound system. Would he have too much to fit in Phil’s van? I dreaded Rob’s leaving. I couldn’t imagine life without him.
Hoping to doze off, I forced myself to lie in bed for another hour, but visions of my son kissing me good-bye swirled through my head like snowflakes scattered by an icy wind. Finally, I flipped over and read 5:30 on the clock’s illuminated face. I staggered to my feet, put on my chenille robe, and padded downstairs. Charlie watched from his basket in the corner of the kitchen as I poured water into the coffeemaker.
“Too early for an old guy like you?”
Charlie moaned a lengthy response and stayed put.
I opened the canister and breathed in the nutty aroma of Italian Roast, then scooped grounds into the paper filter and switched on the coffeemaker. When the urn stood half full, I poured myself a cup of the syrupy liquid and headed to the living room. As I eased down onto the couch, my eyes turned to the window. I expected to behold nothing but dismal blackness, but instead saw a huge, glowing moon staring back at me. The porcelain sphere, so brilliant it seemed to produce its own light, was framed by a halo of mist.
Feeling dazzled, I almost dashed upstairs for my camera, but I knew the sky’s splendor would appear insignificant on a three-by-five snapshot. I gazed at the moon like a child staring at a Christmas tree, trying to affix every detail in my mind. Then without thought, I took a piece of scratch paper lying on the coffee table, grabbed a pencil, and began sketching the moon. First with a heavy hand I drew a small circle, then a paler one around it to depict the ring of fog. Finally, blurred lines described the wisps of horizontal clouds partially covering the moon.
For several moments I looked down at my finished drawing. When I glanced back to the window, I saw a bank of clouds had taken over the sky, completely masking the moon. Only a piercing shaft of light shone down to the earth like a dagger.
I watched the morning sun tint the clouds smoky-pink, and the vague shapes of my garden transform into shrubs and bushes. A robin warbled up the scale, then another bird answered.
I felt a pleasant tightness in my throat. Many years earlier, I’d experienced those same sensations when I gazed upon my new baby boy wondering what to name him. Even before his birth, Robert Laurence Carr had been a part of me.
This drawing was my new infant. And it begged for a sibling.
Listening at Rob’s bedroom door, I heard nothing. I had plenty of time to dash out for my weekly stroll with the Mom’s Brigade—a group I named years ago when we four women were all pushing strollers shoulder-to-shoulder—before night-owl Rob got up. Laurie, Susan, and Erika would be greeting each other at the usual spot on the corner in less than twenty minutes, but I
