“Like HIPAA?” I ask, and Grace nods. “You can tell me anything—I don’t talk to anyone. And even if I did, I’d probably forget what you told me anyway.” I tap the side of my head with my finger. “Senior moments on a daily basis.” That’s when I realize I’m still wearing my Bird hat. I pull it off as fast as I can and stuff it into the sling.
Grace smiles nervously, then looks down at the dog. “Such a cutie!” she coos, pointing to Charlotte’s head poking out of the off-white cotton opening. The sling-dog distraction appears to be working. Grace is being super friendly. She couldn’t possibly be any nicer. There’s no way she’ll bring up money now. “And you take it everywhere with you like that? Despite it being disabled?”
Confused and slightly offended, I take a step back from her. “The dog isn’t disabled.”
“I’m sorry. Differently-abled. Or walking-challenged.”
“Wait, what? The dog is fine.”
“So why don’t you just walk it?—I’m sorry. I don’t know what gender your dog identifies as so I keep calling it ‘it.’”
“Girl. Female. Charlotte.”
“Then she’s a therapy dog. Without an official vest.”
“Nope! Not a therapy dog!”
“Then why do you carry her?”
I shrug and sigh. “It just kind of happened. And now we can’t stop. It’s just what we do.”
Grace nods vigorously. “I know what that’s like. And I also know that sometimes life is too painful without a little buddy to help you feel safe.”
I hug the sling. “Exactly! I’m her little buddy!”
Another head-tilt. “Oh. I thought she was your little buddy.”
I make a big face. “Then I would need the vest!”
We both laugh again until Grace clears her throat. Here it comes. “This is, like, so awkward.” She cringes, lowering her voice to a whisper. “But you guys are really really behind on tuition.”
“I know!” I cringe and whisper, too. “I’m so sorry!”
“I’m sorry, too!” Grace looks truly pained. “So many people are struggling right now. It’s such a bad time in the world.”
Relief washes through me. I grab her arm, a little too hard, I realize a little too late. “So it’s not just us? We’re not the only ones barely staying afloat? No matter what I do I can’t seem to get ahead.” My voice trails off the way it does when I forget I’m with a person and not just talking to myself and I almost tell her about how truly awful the last few years have been—in detail—but something—her awkward smile, the half step back she takes—stops me. Because I realize suddenly that she probably can’t wait to get away from me. Who could blame her?
“I’d just hate for Teddy not to be able to come back next year,” Grace whispers. “Everybody loves him.”
“Really?” I blurt. “I just mean—he’s gotten so quiet. Sometimes I worry that people mistake that for unfriendliness or hostility.”
Grace shakes her head. “Oh no. It’s just a phase.”
“You think?”
“He’s a teenager. They all get like that.”
“You mean that awkward phase of adolescence when they seem like sociopaths?” I joke. I think of him on the fringes of the multipurpose room that morning, of how quiet the house has become; how he barely ever picks up his guitar or talks to me in the morning before school or while I’m cooking dinner the way he used to and wonder if every mother of a teenager is walking around like a cored apple, completely hollowed out inside.
“Teddy’s always been so special,” Grace says, smiling. “I still remember the first day he came to Morningside. He had that long rocker-hair that covered half his face and purple skinny jeans. He was wearing a Frank Zappa T-shirt. He was so shy at first, but everyone thought he was incredibly cool. Including all the teachers.”
I hug the dog and bite my lip, but still the tears come.
“It’ll work out.” Grace takes a step toward me now, rubbing my arm and reaching into the sling to pet the dog. “He’ll come back. Boys always do.”
“Do they really?” I’m crying now, and so, I see, is Grace.
“Of course they do. They’re just scared. Underneath it all, they’re just little children in big bodies. They still need us.”
Grace hands me a tissue and keeps one for herself. We blow our noses, and as we do I look at her face, her skin, trying to get a sense of how old she is. Younger than me, I’m sure—everyone is now—but beyond that, I’m not sure.
“I just realized I’m standing here crying with you and I don’t know anything about you. Your life. What you do when you’re not here. Do you have kids?”
Grace looks away, wipes her nose. “It’s complicated.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s no one’s fault but my own.”
I have no idea what that means and no idea what to say next—I’ve never understood people who don’t like to talk about themselves—so I put the tissue in the sling for the dog to play with. Then I stand up as straight as I can, which, given the weight and position of the dog, makes me overcompensate by sticking my stomach out the way I did when I was pregnant.
“So how much time do I have?”
Grace sighs, looks up and away. “Another year or two. In my experience, by sixteen things start to turn around.”
“I meant for the payment.”
We both laugh at the misunderstanding, but I feel like all the molecules in my body have suddenly rearranged themselves into a snowflake of hope. There’s a clock on my heartache, and I’ve just started running it out.
“November fifteenth. That’s the drop-dead date for what’s overdue and the next payment. And,” she says, an idea suddenly occurring to her, “if you’re interested in housing some People Puppets, that could definitely reduce your payment.”
“Definitely. I’ll talk to my husband.”
“Great.”
“November fifteenth,” I repeat.
“Six weeks.”
“Six weeks,” I repeat again.
Grace gives me a quick hug. “It’ll work out.”
“Okay.”
“Hang in there.”
“Okay.” And then I add: “You, too!”
Grace turns and smiles, and when she does I reach into the sling and take Charlotte’s paw and wave it at Grace even after her back is turned and she is halfway down the hallway.
The Snoring Room
The snoring room is in the basement off the laundry area, a guest room/playroom that Teddy never actually used when he was little enough to need it because it felt too far away and separate from the rest of the house, which he didn’t like. As an only child, he had learned at a young age to entertain himself for hours, but he always wanted to know that he wasn’t actually alone. That there were other people in the house—even if those other people weren’t siblings—which is what he wanted more than anything in the world. (That’s why, when he was eight and I was, well, older than that, we got the dog.) There’s a bright orange modern sofa that converts into a bed without even folding out; a guest chair; two floor lamps; bookshelves, side tables, and Teddy’s old train table, which now functions as a coffee table.