The B&B we found was just a short walk to Derby Square, a cobbled street blocked off to traffic, where vendors sold everything from feathered and sequined witch’s hats to skull-topped walking sticks to caramel popcorn. Street performers posed for photos and $1 tips: two parents and their daughter sat on a wicker chaise dressed as The Addams Family, looking eerily like Gomez, Morticia, and Wednesday. A green-faced Frankenstein, complete with nuts and bolts stuck to his neck, clomped around in black platform shoes, holding out his arms and pretending to chase people down. A trio of friends dressed as mice with pointy noses, long tails, and dark sunglasses: “three blind mice.”
“We gotta try some of these next year,” Bry said, taking pics with his cell and tipping all the street performers.
Halloween morning, we couldn’t get ready soon enough. We powdered our faces and arms with theatrical make-up until we looked ghost-like. Then Bryan drew the iconic sugar skull patterns around our faces, filing them in with bright pink, green and yellow paint. I needed Spanx to fit into the wedding dress, but once it was on, it gave me an hourglass shape Bryan said was sexy.
We walked all around Salem that day, from the harbor with the tall sailing ships to the street lined with gift shops, tarot card readers, and psychics, then down to the sweet shop for multi-colored candy corn and solid chocolate witches and warlocks.
When we danced at the Witch’s Ball, I felt like Cinderella’s odd cousin.
Afterwards, crowds of costumed kids and adults spilled into the streets. Many people stopped us to ask if they could pose with us for pictures. Bry said we should start taking tips.
We stayed out till dawn, finally collapsing in bed, still white with powder.
“Best night ever,” Bryan decreed.
We’d vacationed on Cape Cod, Myrtle Beach, Orlando, and Lake Placid. On every getaway, although I missed my kids and dog, the only person I wanted to be with was Bryan.
In many ways, that was still true.
Penny nudged my arm to be picked up.
“Thank you, sweetie,” I said. I held Penny up on my shoulder the way I used to burp the babies after a bottle. She tucked her warm nose into my neck.
“You save my life every day.”
We settled down to sleep, side by side.
17
A month after Bryan moved south, it was more than urgent to look at my finances. Because I hate math intensely, I made Ian sit down with me to write up a household budget: mortgage, utilities, groceries, cable, car loan, garbage collection.
I decided to cut out online shopping and entertainment entirely. I hoped I could break my Amazon addiction, which seemed necessary, to gauge by the fact I had a collection of a dozen pairs of Halloween leggings. As for movies, that’s what Netflix was for.
When he printed out the spreadsheet, I felt sick as I looked at the columns of numbers.
“Wow, grim,” Ian said, putting his arm around my shoulders.
“At least I have good credit,” I said.
“Let’s check Credit Karma,” Ian said, already Googling it on his cell. “Yup, your score is 820, that’s excellent. But you do seem to be lacking cash.”
It was clear: The freelance work wasn’t cutting it: I needed a full-time job, and I needed it fast.
We’d had to sell the suburban house where the kids had grown up, and afterwards, the three of us had moved 11 miles north to Meredia, a small, historic town that billed itself as the “Welcome Home Town.” Eddie had lived in Meredia for ten years since his marriage to Donny and always said I’d like small-town living. I wanted to be out of the suburbs. I invested the equity from the sale of the home we’d had with Adam into the Meredia house. It was an older home but was exactly what the kids and I needed. My bedroom was on the first floor with my own bathroom, the kitchen, and the laundry room. Upstairs there were two good-sized bedrooms, a smallish office space, and a second bathroom. It gave Ian his own space; I rarely went up there.
The move into the town was a short one, but still required boxing up our belongings accumulated over fifteen years.
There were many things I had to part with, each of them difficult to give up: the light-up Santa that stood on our porch at least a dozen Christmases in a row; the kids’ report cards starting in first grade; the Halloween punch bowl set with skull-shaped cups; the blender we never used because the idea of kale smoothies sounded better than they’d turned out to be. Ian sold the train set that he’d set up only once or twice, then lost interest. Madison donated half the clothes in her closet.
But there were many things I refused to part with. The bin of Dr. Seuss books, well-worn from bedtime story reading. Their baby books with locks from their first haircuts, their handprints, their kindergarten school photos. Ditto for Penny’s puppy memento box with her first collar, a teething bone, and a little pair of suede boots we thought she might leave on in the snow but instead nudged off with her nose the minute we put them on. I also had a lock from Pen-Pen’s first grooming.
I kept the haunted houses in our Halloween village set that flickered purple lights and made scary cackling witch noises when plugged in. The long-stemmed wine glasses, a wedding gift, still in the box because we were afraid we’d break them. An extraordinary painting of red and blue birds on a tree branch, a gift from Eddie for our 10th anniversary. Every ceramic project the kids had ever made in art class: the sleeping dog, the ladybug, the crooked vase, and Ian’s pride and joy,
