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“Sara, I wish I could, honey, but I’ve got to have a job.”
“Why? Daddy didn’t want you to have one. Everything was better before!”
She was right about Tom not wanting me to go back to work when she’d started school, but I hadn’t realized she’d been aware of our disagreeing on the subject. “Sara, sometimes things change, and even if we don’t really want them to, that doesn’t mean the changes won’t be for the best.” Great. Now I was the one spouting the inane clichés, which weren’t going to do a damn thing to lessen her worry about leaving home and losing the people close to her. How could I ask her to give up Dianne, her friends, the neighbors she’d known since she was a baby, when she was still coping with the loss of her adored father?
“No!” Sara shrieked, wild-eyed. “Nononono!”
Well. Not much chance of refuting that logic.
I let her run out of the room, and didn’t follow to scold her when she slammed her door. By then, Ben had started to cry in earnest, so I sat for a few minutes comforting him. Should I have been easing them into the notion over time instead of just dumping it on them?
Ben’s tears subsided to hiccups a few minutes later, and I carried him toward Sara’s room. Heaven knows sitting on my bed wondering if I’d completely mishandled this wasn’t accomplishing anything. I knocked once, opening the door when Sara didn’t answer. I didn’t dare set Ben down because he’d toddle over to help himself to her toys, and something told me she wasn’t in her most magnanimous sharing mood. Trying to carry on this conversation while my children beat each other with LEGO blocks wouldn’t be an improvement.
As it was, I was reduced to talking to a pink lump. She was sitting on the floor of her room, her bed comforter pulled over her head, with only Ellie’s skinny plush tail visible.
“Sara, I know you don’t want to move, but we have to. If you just give it a chance, I think—”
“What if Daddy came back?” The comforter slid off, her earlier anger replaced by a deep sadness that looked out of place on a child. “What if Daddy came back, and we weren’t here?”
Oh, God. My heart clenched painfully. This never got easier, no matter how many times we went through it. “We’ve talked about this, pumpkin. You know Daddy can’t come back. But he can watch over you, and he’ll never stop loving you. He’ll watch over you no matter where we live.”
“You promise?” Her voice trembled.
“I promise. We’ll find a house you and Ben really like. And you can help me decorate it. We’ll make lots of good memories there, just like we have here.”
She thought it over. “I can have a pink room?”
“Any color you like.” I rearranged Ben enough that I could press my daughter close to me, her tears warm and damp against the front of my blouse. “It will be okay, bear. You’ll make lots of new friends in Boston. And I bet we’ll see snow in a few months.”
There was silence as she considered the benefits of playing in snow—not that she’d had much experience with the fluffy white stuff, but she’d seen it on television.
I pushed my advantage. “We can celebrate our moving to a new house by ordering pizza tonight.”
“Pizza!” Sara bounded back. “Yay!”
Ben rocked in my lap, also shrieking with delight. Crisis averted.
What were the odds everything to come could be dealt with so easily?
Despite suffering my share of headaches in the past, I didn’t think I’d ever experienced an actual migraine such as I’d heard other women describe. Turns out, trying to move to another state is one big migraine, complete with blinding pain and the urge to curl up quietly in the fetal position.
During my initial meeting with the real-estate agent, the day after I’d called Lindsay for his number, the man had informed me that if I would just add a half bath at the front of the house, we could dramatically increase both the chances of selling it quickly and the asking price. Skipping over my skepticism that there was sufficient space for another room, no matter how small, I patiently explained that I had neither the money nor the time to worry about plumbing renovations.
We hustled the house onto the market, stipulating in the paperwork that I had two small children and a dog, so interested parties and their agents needed to call ahead before coming to look. Two nights later, my Realtor let himself in with his lockbox key on an unannounced visit to show the house to a middle-aged couple with a teenage son. Toys were strewn all over, the dinner dishes were still sitting on the kitchen counter, and Sara and I were having a heated discussion about her decision to “improve” her room by coloring flowers on the wall with a marker. Gretchen was so unnerved by the sudden appearance of strangers that she’d thrown up—a crackerjack watchdog, that one. Worse, since I hadn’t had time to prepare Sara for the walk-through, she’d decided that these invasive strangers were the problem, that they wanted to take away her home. She’d commanded them to stay out of her room and punctuated the order by slamming a door.
Why the man who actually worked for me didn’t understand that the call-ahead commandment applied to him as well as outside Realtors, I have no idea. It would have given me a great deal of temporary satisfaction to fire him, but then I’d have to pay listing fees out of pocket now instead of them coming from his six-percent commission after the sale. I had nothing out of pocket. I barely had pockets.
In the week and a half since, we’d only had a handful of viewers, and none of them had called back. My ever-helpful real-estate agent seemed to think that getting someone to fall in love with the house would be easier if the kids and I weren’t actually here when people came to see it. So we were living in a DEFCON four state, diaper bag always at the ready so we could leave on a moment’s notice. Oddly enough, my mother-in-law’s increasingly enthusiastic, near-daily calls to see if we had found a buyer yet weren’t helping. Nor was Sara’s anxiety over Halloween. While doing some sort of holiday creative-writing unit at school, my daughter had become fixated with the idea that our move might prevent her from trick-or-treating. I promised her, repeatedly, that no matter what state we were living in at the end of the month, she would be in costume and begging door-to-door for candy.
At least I knew we could stay with Rose while I house hunted in Boston, a daunting task. I was due to be there the fourth week of October to start my new job. In other words, I had nine days. Dianne, with her typical graciousness, had spent a lot of time here over the past couple of weeks, helping me repaint over crayon marks and grubby handprints. I was trying not to think about her shipping out tomorrow afternoon. Saying goodbye to the person who had helped me cope with the most devastating change of my life was far more daunting than moving to another state.
Other than some minor house maintenance, I had hardly rounded up all the boxes I would need, much less begun packing. Martin had promised I’d receive half pay during the transitional, out-of-work interim between my positions. Thank God, or we’d be living in boxes instead of labeling them Bedroom, Kitchen and Kids. Apparently, preparing for the move, working full-time during the office’s last week before shutdown and trying to calm Sara out of hyperventilating every fifteen minutes wasn’t a full enough schedule for me. Because I’d also decided to go in with Mrs. Winslow and throw a “jewelry party.”
She’d recently rediscovered her inner entrepreneur but lacked a good-sized living room for cramming in a semicircle of attendees. So, we’d invited the little old ladies of the neighborhood to my house for chips and dip and the chance to watch us model jewelry manufactured by Mrs. Winslow’s parent company, ZirStone. She and I would each get a cut from any sales. It just so happened she’d mentioned the business deal to me on the same day I’d been getting cost estimates from moving companies, catching me in a weak moment when I’d been contemplating hocking the television and VCR for cash.
Today was the party. I’d bribed Sara with a rented video I was allowing the kids to watch in my room. Ben was viewing the movie from inside the comfort of his playpen, accompanied by a few of his favorite toys. Now, if I could just get someone from the neighborhood interested in some of the quality synthetic gemstones we had available, perhaps I could justify losing half a Saturday of potential packing. But fifteen minutes into my sales pitch, a real-estate agent called wanting to show the house.
“I wanted to know if this afternoon would be good,” he said.
I peeked around the corner of the kitchen, where Mrs. Winslow was opening a gray box of earrings with a flourish Vanna White would have envied. “Approximately what time were you thinking?”
“We’re looking at a place the next subdivision over, so about ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes?” I could barely get both children properly strapped into their respective car seat and booster in that amount of time, much less empty the living room of guests.
Following my shrieked question, the buzz of conversation in the next room stopped abruptly.
There was also silence on the other end of the phone, but the man recovered quickly, sounding a tad defensive. “Look, if you don’t want prospective buyers to come see your house—”
“No, it’s not that.” I couldn’t afford to turn them away. How could I possibly make two monthly house payments? The mere thought prompted me to plead, “Please bring them by. But you have to understand that I wasn’t expecting to show the house today.”
“Oh, so there haven’t been many visitors?” Oh, so there’s not much interest and we can whittle down the asking price?
“Plenty! Just none scheduled for today,” I clarified. “I have a few people over, and you didn’t give us much notice—”
“We don’t want to disturb anyone,” he interrupted, back to the smoothly polished salesman’s voice with which he’d started the conversation. “We’ll have a quiet look around, and you and your guests will hardly notice we’re there.”
I got off the phone wondering how much of his estimated ten minutes were left and whether or not I should try to shoo the ladies out of the house. But they weren’t exactly in an age demographic known for speed and agility. Besides, it would look odder for people to view the house with empty folding chairs in the living room and a sideboard of half-eaten snacks than for them to just walk through while we concluded the jewelry show. Heck, if the potential buyers didn’t want the house, maybe I could still talk them into a faux black pearl bracelet.
I quickly updated the ladies, letting them know visitors would be walking through but that we should carry on as scheduled. I didn’t have to worry about wrangling the dog outside because I’d already let her into the sunroom before the jewelry shindig, but I did rush back to my room to check on the kids. God bless ’em, they were behaving perfectly. Ben was sitting in his play area flipping through a board book about fire trucks, while Sara was cuddled with Ellie on my bed, focused on her movie.
She barely glanced in my direction. “Is your party over, Mommy?”
“Not yet, but there are some people coming to see the house.”
“Do we have to leave again?” She did look at me then, annoyance clear on her young features. “I haven’t watched my favorite song yet.”
Though she’d stopped viewing potential buyers as The Enemy, she resented her life being disrupted for the convenience of others.
“Nope, just stay back here in Mommy’s room. Don’t even get off the bed, okay?”
Her brown eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “What if I have to use the bathroom?” The way she was always looking for loopholes, I figured she had a brilliant future as an attorney.
“Why not go use it now?” I suggested. “Hurry, because they’ll be here soon.”
I went back to the living room, suspecting Mrs. Winslow would try to cut me out of my half of the profits if I didn’t actually spend a few minutes helping her. I was explaining, as per the instructional brochure, why jewelry should be the last thing you put on before you go out when our doorbell rang. The Realtor let himself in before I got there, however. Either he’d only rung the bell to prevent startling anyone or he’d remembered after doing so that I had guests and didn’t want to interrupt.
Behind the agent, there was a harried-looking couple who wore matching we-stopped-being-able-to-tell-floor-plans-apart-twelve-houses-ago expressions. They had three kids in tow. I wasn’t sure this house had enough space for a family of five, but the youngest child was a girl who appeared to be about four, and I suspected she’d appreciate the girlish decor in Sara’s room, hopefully causing her to remember this as a house she liked. In case they gave the four-year-old a vote.
Yeesh, I really was desperate.
“Hi. Come on in, and please look around,” I invited. “Don’t feel like you’re imposing, just take your time.”
I barely resisted the urge to tack on, And we have some lovely blue topaz earrings that would match your eyes, ma’am.
The four-year-old made a beeline for the refreshment table, only to be scolded by her father, at which point she burst into tears. The middle child, a boy wearing a black T-shirt and a scowl that made me recall every time my dad had ever teased, “Your face is gonna freeze like that,” declared, “I don’t like this house. It smells funny.”
I chose to believe that any odor came from the combined eight or nine perfumes and numerous arthritis relief creams of my guests.
The Realtor cleared his throat, meeting my gaze. “Um, kitchen’s this way, is it?”
I nodded, but they hadn’t yet turned the corner when there was a cry from the back of the house. The realty party froze in place as I strode toward the hallway.
Sara catapulted out of my room, screaming, “Snake!” She was moving with astounding speed for someone who had Dora the Explorer panties down around her knees beneath her denim skirt.
I met her halfway, scooping her up and probably giving her a wedgie as I hurriedly tugged her undies into proper place. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “But there’s a snake, Mommy!”
In all the time we’d lived in this house, we had never once had a snake in the house—if we did, Tom was smart enough not to tell me about it—so why now? Why today? This was way beyond simple Murphy’s Law. This was more like Murphy’s Magna Carta. I instinctively muttered a phrase under my breath that I sincerely hoped Sara hadn’t heard.
With Ben still at the back of the house, I jogged down the hall, not acknowledging the buzz of alarmed comments behind me. “Where was it?”
“In the bathroom.” Her voice was shaking. “I was sitting on the potty, singing ‘Catalina Madalina,’ and I looked down and seen it. Saw it.”
“Okay. I’ll take care of it.” How?
Maybe it was just a little bitty garden snake, the harmless kind that could be tossed outside. Not that I particularly wanted to get close enough for tossing, but as the only adult in the family, these things fell to me. And if it isn’t harmless?
Ignoring that thought, I lifted Ben out of his pen and set him down in the hallway, letting him crawl for freedom. Save yourself, son. Sara, dragging Ellie by the trunk, followed me so closely that if I stopped, she’d bang into me.
“Stay back,” I told her as I approached the master bath. When I glanced at her to make sure she understood I was serious, I saw that the Realtor and the family touring the house were all hovering in the bedroom doorway. The preteen daughter looked as if she might lose consciousness. The sullen boy was actually smiling now. Figured.
There was no closet in my bedroom, but the bathroom was spacious enough to make up for the deficiency—equipped with the standard toilet and sink vanity, a shower/garden-spa tub and a walk-in closet with its own lights. I’d better find the damn snake, because I didn’t relish wondering if it would slither out at me every time I opened the closet door for the next week.
The Realtor cleared his throat—a habit of his, I’d noticed. “So why again are you trying to get rid of this house?”
“We’re selling the house because I accepted a job in Boston,” I said, wondering what part of my tense body language made it look as if now were a swell time to chat. “Sara, where did you see it?”
“Under the sink. It’s green.” She was climbing up on my bed as she answered, her eyes wide.
Green. Most harmless garden snakes were green, right? I peeked into the room, my gaze coming to a screeching halt when I saw the thin green line across the tile, curling slightly. It was only a couple of inches long, but it disappeared beneath the edge of the vanity, so I wasn’t sure how much more there was. I executed a leap that would have qualified me for National Champion Long Jump status and then reached into my closet for a shoe box, dumping out a pair of strappy silver sandals I’d last worn to a holiday party with Tom.
As I crouched down to make the capture with shaking hands, I blinked, realizing the only reason I’d thought even for a millisecond that I was dealing with a snake was because I’d been told—by a hysterical six-year-old—to expect a snake.
Relief ballooned inside me. “Sara, there’s no reason to be scared. It’s just one of those lizards that are always getting into the house.”
At the sound of my voice, the gecko disappeared the rest of the way beneath the sink. I found out a moment later that he wasn’t the only one startled. I came out of the bathroom with a smile that vanished as soon as I saw the expression of the woman who’d been considering the house.
“Always getting in?” she asked, her face pasty.
“Cool,” her son said.
“Well, not always,” I amended, “but Florida does have a lot of lizards. They’re, um, good for eating the bugs.”
Her eyes darted from side to side, as if she expected giant winged insects to swoop down and carry her off. “The bugs?”
Somehow I got the impression these nice folks weren’t going to be making an offer this afternoon. Maybe now would be the time to see if I could send her on her way with a lovely parting purchase of earrings and matching pendant. But I never got the chance to ask because the doorbell rang.
If it was another real-estate agent, I was going to smack him in the head with his own cell phone…just as a gentle reminder to call ahead next time. But it was more likely to be one of the neighbors who had RSVPed that she might attend late. I opened the door with a cheerful, welcoming, “Hi!” and almost passed out on the spot.
My mother-in-law beamed at me. “Chahlie, deah!”
CHAPTER 4
Carrying a small suitcase in each hand, Rose Fiorello Smith swept into my house. A short woman with a solid build, dark bun and tidy appearance, she radiated authority despite her small stature. I wasn’t sure whether her entrance reminded me more of Mary Poppins or Napoleon.
“H-how did you get here?” I saw neither a flying umbrella nor mounted cavalry.
“Plane, rental car. Who are all these people? I hope it’s a packing party, you don’t look nearly ready to go. There they are, my beautiful babies!” She’d spotted her grandchildren, not that they were hard to pick out of the crowd since Sara was rushing toward us.
Ben hung back, quietly watchful in contrast to his sister’s running narrative.
“Nonna!” Sara tugged at the sleeve of Rose’s red blazer. “Come watch my movie with me. You can hear my favorite song, only we hafta rewind because I missed it when I went pee-pee and there was a snake in the bathroom. Mommy said a dirty word. I can’t say which one, because it was real bad.”
And there went all my motivation for ever encouraging Ben to talk.
“It wasn’t a snake, just a lizard,” I said. “Harmless gecko. Gone now. Um, Rose, can I offer you something to drink?”
With her eyebrows arched toward her dramatically white-streaked hairline, Rose moved farther into the house—a good thing, since the prospective buyers looked as if they would shove her out of the way to escape this loony bin.
Except for the boy. I distinctly heard him mutter, “Cool,” one last time as his parents hurried down our sidewalk. The Realtor followed, making assurances that the next home would better suit their needs.
“They were looking at the house,” I said weakly.
Rose drew the obvious conclusion. “I believe they’ve decided to pass. You know, dear, your living room would appear a lot more spacious if it weren’t full of folding chairs and whatnot.”
Mrs. Winslow glared at me. Apparently, I was testing the limits of her graciousness with the constant interruptions to her business venture.
“Rose, this is Gladys Winslow. We were in the middle of showing the ladies some of ZirStone’s fine merchandise. Mrs. Winslow, my mother-in-law, Rose Smith.”
The two women shook hands and Rose stepped forward, Sara still at her side. “Lovely to meet you. Would you mind if I took a look at those earrings, Gladys? Oh, these are fabulous. Do you take out-of-state checks? I hate to cut your party short, but I haven’t had the chance to visit with my grandchildren in almost a year. I’m sure you ladies understand. Oh, did you see this pendant?” she asked a woman sitting to her left. “It would be beautiful on you. Such a graceful neck.”
She somehow ushered my neighbors out of the house and made four sales for Gladys at the same time. “Did you see how this brooch is the same style as your bracelet, dear? You should splurge on yourself. We all should, before the busy holiday season starts and our time and energy is devoted to others. Goodbye, it was wonderful to have met you ladies.”
I just stared, belatedly moving into action as Gladys closed her jewelry case and turned to gather up her dishes. My business partner was whistling cheerfully when I shut the front door behind her. And then it was just me, Rose and the kids.
My mother-in-law was seated on the couch, Ben nestled in her lap as Sara sat next to her, showing off one of her favorite books. Rose glanced up with a reproachful smile. “If I’d known how much you needed my help, dear, I would have arrived sooner.”
