“How long will it take?”
“Only a week.” Alice hoped, although she had two before the demolition, if she needed more time to figure out what to do with her mother’s endless collections and antiques. She had left Grace, the Center’s assistant director, with dozens of tabbed folders and lists of what would need to be done while she was gone. The winter months were always the slowest because fewer school groups traveled to stay at the on-campus aquatic camp. But Alice wanted to prepare for their busiest months in the spring when the professors she worked with would rush to analyze the year’s data in time for grant deadlines. She planned to call to check in every day, even though she promised Grace she wouldn’t.
“Mom, can I please be excused?” Robbie asked.
Alice nodded, and he stood up from the table. “But don’t let Buddy come,” he said. “He’ll walk all over my puzzle again.”
She placed her foot on Buddy’s fur to keep him steady.
They ate quietly for a couple more minutes before Caitlin and Walker started into a heated discussion about something happening in the Middle East. “If people would stop blowing themselves up,” Walker said. Alice stopped listening.
She supposed forty-two was a little old to fear a house so much, to avoid a whole section of her life. But dwelling on memories of her time there created a sinking feeling in her chest as if her heart was a hole with gravity strong enough to suck in her other organs. She pictured the house—and the tree house where she and Rob would play—alone on the empty street, lots cleared of old houses, a vortex that inhaled the mailbox and bugs and their childhood pets and her mother’s hatpin collection, and finally, inhaled the family itself, with only Alice left holding onto the edge—
“Mom, he’s doing it.”
“Doing what?” Walker threw his hands up in the air.
“Let’s not fight tonight. We all agreed not to talk about NYU, right?”
“It wasn’t about NYU,” Walker said.
“I said I think I want to major in English or creative writing and minor in women’s studies, wherever I go, but probably at NYU, and he said—”
“I said I didn’t think the job opportunities would be good for that, but even with that degree, she could still go to law school later. I really don’t think the minor is a good idea; she shouldn’t be broadcasting it.”
“What’s that supposed to—”
“I work in the corporate world. I know—”
“Ready, Dad, say it with me.” Caitlin brought her hands in front of her chest. “Les”—clap—“bi”—clap—“an.”
“No!” He glanced behind him to the wall, as if they were in a public restaurant. “No, that’s not what I meant. I guarantee no one at my firm took women’s studies. That’s all I’m saying. Plus, I am paying for this crap, if you remember.”
It wasn’t completely true, but Alice didn’t contradict him. Meanwhile, Walker reached for a piece of corn bread and took a large bite.
“Forget it.” She turned to Alice. “I need to work on some stuff anyway.”
“Love you so much, honey!” Walker called as the sound of Caitlin’s combat boots on the stairs echoed through the house. He turned to Alice with a smile, as if the last thing he said was all that mattered. Upstairs, the music for the play Caitlin was directing at school seeped bass beats and electric notes down the stairs. Alice prayed the premiere on Saturday would be the end of the house-shaking vibrations.
“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” Alice said.
“Guess not.” He stood up, carrying his beer to the basement.
Alice sat surrounded by half-eaten bowls of homemade chili.
* * *
As Alice brought the bowls to the sink, she attempted to convince herself that going to the house was a positive, as she always did with the things she dreaded most. Maybe it was coming at a good time since she could use some alone time to think. She could run over the other item on her procrastination list—her marriage—instead of looping again through a conversation with Maura from last Sunday’s visit to “her apartment.” She’d spent so much time with her mother in her head in the last week that Alice gave herself a pass for today’s weekly visit.
That day, her mother was in one of Alice’s favorite forms: a friendly stranger, not stuck in the past or unhappy at her confusion.
“Why would a young lady like you come talk to an old lady like me?” her mother said—teasing, friendly.
“Same reason you would want to talk to me.”
“And why do you think that is?”
“It’s nice to have someone to talk to. So you don’t get lonely.”
“Is that why you think old people like to talk to young people? Bless your heart! I’m not lonely. I have myself, and I’m the best friend I’ve ever had.”
Alice laughed. Her mother was charming, something Alice could see easily now that had eluded her when they lived in the same house.
“We like to talk to young people to share our wisdom. It makes us feel like all our pain was worth it, if only the next generation could learn from it. Of course, young people are always too stupid to listen. I was the same way. What problem could you use an old lady’s pain and wisdom on?”
Did she dare?
“Well, one,” Alice began, monitoring her mother’s face for any switch in mood. “I found out yesterday my husband has been having an affair. He doesn’t know I know. I…” She guessed her mother wouldn’t understand texting or the subtext of an eggplant, then donut emoji, not to mention all the creative synonyms for what Alice had only heard her mother refer to as it. Alice pushed the words from her mind. “I found letters they wrote to each other.”
Her mother clucked her tongue. “Difficult, but nothing you can’t handle,” Maura said.
Alice looked at her mother, hoping for a second that she knew to whom she was speaking, if only to have the confidence her mother had in her.
“Are you satisfying him?”
“Mam-ura!” Alice said, attempting to change to her mother’s name mid-exclamation.
“At least you haven’t gotten fat. What color is that lipstick though? It does nothing for you.”
“It’s ChapStick.”
“Exactly.” Maura smiled, as if her point had been proven. “What will you do?”
Alice shifted in her chair, crossing her legs the other way.
She knew suddenly why she had chosen her mother, an unlikely confidante for this secret: her mother’s generation saw marriage as a logical piece of machinery, a system of levers and pulleys that, with a quick repair, could run smoothly. Success was measured only in that the machine kept running; happiness was inconsequential.