I pushed the bell and heard the familiar ring, but no one came to the door. I used the knocker and still got no response.
Thinking my mother might be out back, I trotted around the side of the house. I scanned the small yard and noticed the grass needed mowing. Mom’s prized rose bushes growing under the kitchen window needed pruning, and weeds had assaulted the perennial beds beneath them. Mom had always prided herself on her gardening ability, but maybe this neglect was all part of growing old.
I took care not to slip on the wet boards as I climbed the porch steps. Peering through the backdoor window, I could make out the silhouette of my mother slumped at the kitchen table. Weird.
“Mom,” I called, rapping on the glass. I watched her slowly pull herself to her feet, move across the room, and open the door. Clad in her bathrobe, she looked terrible. Her eyelids were swollen, and her greasy hair lay flat on one side.
She was an early bird; she never slept in. “Did you just get up?” I asked, checking my watch and reading eleven thirty. I entered the room and inhaled a bitter cloud of burnt coffee.
Mom said nothing. She went to the sink, trickled water into the kettle, and placed it on a burner.
I took off my wet jacket and draped it over the back of a chair. “I’m glad you’re home.” I reached around her hip to turn on the burner.
She fell back onto her chair and propped her chin in her hands. I sat across from her.
“Are you coming down with the flu?” I leaned over and felt her cool forehead.
“No.” She shook her head in slow motion. “Nothing like that.”
I listened for the sound of the TV in the living room or my father’s footsteps, but the house stood silent. I hushed my voice. “I need to talk to you in private.” I wasn’t ready to tell Dad about Rob and Andrea yet. I couldn’t face my father’s criticism. “Where’s Dad?” Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t seen his car on the street.
“He moved out.”
The image of him literally moving out refused to gel in my mind. “If that’s a joke, it isn’t funny.”
She shook her head again. I hadn’t witnessed such sorrow on her face since her sister died.
“When?”
“Last night.”
“You two had a fight?” Dad probably went to cool off someplace. “Don’t worry, he’ll be back.”
“He packed two suitcases.”
“You watched him leave and didn’t try to stop him?”
A tear leaked from her eye and slithered down her cheek. “Why should I?”
“Because he’s your husband. Because you love him.” I sprang to my feet. “I’ll call Dad and get him to come home. Where is he?”
“I have no idea. Probably at Alice’s house.”
“No way. He’d never go there.” Would he?
The kettle spewed several blasts of steam, then began wailing. I got up and lifted it off the burner. I stared at the kettle’s chrome surface. Mom had used this kettle to boil water for as long as I could remember. This kitchen had always been the hub of the house, an oasis of safety and love where the real family conversations took place. Until recently, I realized, my siblings and I had done most of the talking—sharing our problems or triumphs—and Mom listened, throwing bits of advice our way when we were done.
She pulled a crumpled mass of Kleenex out of her bathrobe pocket and blew her nose. Between snuffles she said, “You came over here with something important on your mind, and I’ve been doing all the talking.”
“It’s nothing. We’ll discuss it later.”
Minutes later I plodded out to my car. Again, the crows cawed. In the mood I was in, I might have opened fire on them if I’d owned a shotgun. I dumped myself in the driver’s seat and nosed the car away from the curb.
I’d left Mom cocooned under a blanket on the couch. Her eyes shut and her lips moving, she was praying. A lifetime of her prayers had fallen on deaf ears, I thought. Either there was no God, or Mom wasn’t good enough to get his attention. That thought made my skin itch, feeling like prickly sun rash. If Mom wasn’t good enough, no one was.
Steadying the steering wheel with my knee, I whipped out my cell phone, called the office, and asked the receptionist to look up Alice Foster’s address. I scribbled the numbers on a scrap of paper, then headed south toward Madison Park not knowing what I would do if I found my father.
I tailgated the compact car in front of me until it turned onto a side street, then I flew through the next intersection just as the amber light shifted to red. A motorist off to the right honked, but I didn’t bother to look, not caring if someone was mad at me. Whoever it was had better keep out of my way.
Several blocks shy of Lake Washington, I took a left, entered a neighborhood of smaller homes, and found Alice’s address affixed to the porch of a pink-colored bungalow. Yuck, I thought. What kind of a woman would paint her house that color? I didn’t see Dad’s car, but a late-model beige-metallic Cadillac Deville sat out front. Next to the house stood a garage with its door closed; anything could be hidden in there.
As I came up behind the Cadillac and jammed on the parking brake, I tried to recall what little I knew about Alice, only remembering she was single—not whether she was widowed or divorced.
I got out and marched across the edge of the lawn. The grass, I noticed, was clipped short enough to be a putting green. I tromped up the front steps. On either side, window boxes filled with fading geraniums sat under lace-curtained windows. In the mail slot next to the door, I saw outgoing stamped envelopes waiting for the mailman’s arrival. Macy’s,
