Buffy Andrews - A Year of Second Chances

Moms never forget. Dads sometimes do. But moms, they remember everything, even the things you wished they’d forget. Like coming home late from a date or borrowing an expensive piece of jewelry and losing it.

Mom sat down across from me. At seventy-seven, she was still the most beautiful woman I knew. Like Dad, she had white hair, which she wore in a stylish bob. Her blueberry eyes seemed to bounce like rubber balls when she talked. “Did you get through all the boxes?”

“I think so. I had no idea you had so much stuff packed in the basement.”

“I’ve been telling her to get rid of it for years,” Dad said. “But you know your mother. She’s a pack rat.”

Mom shook her head.

“You’re just as bad, Dad.”

Dad’s wiry eyebrows jumped to the top of his forehead. “Me?”

“Yes, you. Have you been in the garage lately?”

Dad tucked his chin into his broad chest.

I playfully shook my finger at him. “No, you haven’t been in the garage because you can’t get in the garage.”

“She has a point, Howard.”

Dad waved his hand. “Two against one. No fair.”

I picked up my water glass. “Bottom line, guys. You have a lot of stuff that has to go. Now that I’ve been through the boxes in the basement and Tommy has, I think the next step is calling someone to haul away what you can’t take with you.”

My brother, Tommy, and I knew moving into a retirement community out of state was a big step for our parents. After living in a four-bedroom, two-story house, moving into an apartment would be an adjustment. So would living so far away from Tommy and me. But after their best friends had moved from Pennsylvania to Florida, they’d decided to join them. Last winter’s northeaster, which dumped more than twenty inches of snow, had sealed the deal.

Before leaving, I called movers and arranged for them to haul the items Mom and Dad wanted to take to their new place. Then I called an auctioneer to take what was left.

I picked up the box I’d stashed in the dining room. Mom and Dad followed me outside and waited as I put it on the backseat of the car. I turned and hugged them.

“Tell the kids to call,” Mom said. “I haven’t talked to either of them in weeks.”

“I will.” I kissed Mom and Dad and climbed into the car.

I pulled out of the driveway, past the mailbox I’d hit when I was learning to drive Dad’s Chevy Malibu, a metallic bronze boat. Driving through the old neighborhood was bittersweet. An avalanche of memories buried me in emotions, heavy and wet with tears.

It seemed like only yesterday Shonna and I had roamed these streets. Funny how time changes with age. When you’re young, an hour is forever. With age comes wisdom and the realization there’s no present, only past and future. Every moment is either one or the other. It’s like going to the ocean and watching the waves crash on the beach. There appears to be a line separating the two, but there isn’t. There is only water and sand.

I knew what my past held and that I had the power to change the future. But did I have the courage? I had the list I’d found. Maybe that was a start. Maybe my future lay in visiting the past and realizing some of those teenage dreams. Maybe it wasn’t too late to find myself again. At the very least, I owed it to myself to try.

Chapter 3

I dreaded coming home to an empty house. Tory, who’d graduate from college in a week, was moving to New York. Like me, she’d earned a degree in marketing. Unlike me, she was actually going to use her degree. David, a couple years older, lived in Chicago where he worked for a tech start-up. I carried the box inside and sat it on the kitchen counter. Muffin, who’d been sleeping on the couch, barreled toward me. I bent down to pet her.

“Great watch dog you are, Muffin. What if I’d been a robber? What then, silly dog?”

She rolled over onto her back, waiting for me to rub her belly. There was a day when Muffin would’ve been at the door barking before the garage door was halfway up. She was in the twilight of her life and her old terrier body wasn’t as quick as it used to be.

I remember the day we brought her home. She weighed about three pounds and her black button nose took up most of her face.

Tory had begged to get a dog. Mike, who never had pets growing up, didn’t want the responsibility or expense. “Please,” Tory had pleaded. “I’ll take care of her. Promise.”

Mike never could say no to Tory so when he brought home a big box with a red bow on top I wasn’t surprised by what was inside. That was twelve years ago.

My cell phone beeped and I pulled it out of my purse. It was a text from Shonna.

Worried about you. What did your parents say?

I texted back: Didn’t tell them. Don’t want them to worry.

Makes sense. I’m sure you’ll be fine.

I texted Shonna about finding the list.

The List? she texted back.

Yeah!

For real?

Yes. Found it in my yearbook.

Wish I still had mine.

Lots to talk about.

K. Call you after work.

I don’t get to see my bestie that often. After graduating from college, she’d moved to Vermont. Growing up, we always said we’d attend the same college and move to New York City when we graduated. We planned to share an apartment and have great careers. Eventually, I wanted to open my own boutique. We did attend the same college, but that’s the only part of the plan that came true. I met Mike my senior year and his list became my list.

I filled up Muffin’s water bowl, picked up the box I’d brought home and opened it. I pulled out a couple of the painted rock magnets and put them on the refrigerator. I also stuffed one in my purse. They’d be a daily reminder of that long-forgotten dream.

I carried the box upstairs to my bedroom and pulled out the list before storing it in my walk-in closet.

I sat on the edge of my bed, reading the list again. I remembered the night Shonna and I wrote them. It was the summer I’d turned seventeen. We were hanging out at the town pizza joint waiting for Jake and Shonna’s boyfriend, Butch, to finish their shifts stocking shelves at the local grocery store.

I’d pulled two napkins from the metal dispenser sitting on the table and handed one to Shonna. “Let’s make wish lists.”

Shonna took the napkin and retrieved a pen from her purse. “Oh, this is going to be so easy. I might need a second napkin because my list will be long.”

“Just unfold it,” I said, “and write small.”

“Wouldn’t it be cool to keep these lists and look at them years from now and see how many of them came true?”

I nodded. “Great idea. Let’s keep them.”

Later that night, I’d stuffed the list into my yearbook, between the page featuring the homecoming court and the one containing group photos of the bowling and ski clubs.

I scanned the list again, noticing that my penmanship at seventeen was the same as at forty-nine. Some things never change, I thought, and other things definitely do. Like my marriage. For the first couple years it was great. The next few, which included the birth of our two children, weren’t bad either. But little by little Mike and I grew apart.

He resented me for pressuring him to give up his dream job in New York after David was born so we could live closer to my parents. David came as a surprise after we’d both had too much to drink one night and had left the condom lying unwrapped on the nightstand. I’d been having terrible headaches and had to stop taking the pill. A month later, I was pregnant.

At first Mike was furious and blamed me for getting pregnant. But once David was born, we both fell in love with him. Our one-bedroom apartment became even smaller and, after months of nagging, Mike finally gave in and found a job closer to home. I think it was the one and only time he compromised in our marriage. Things were great at first. I was happy and I thought Mike was happy, too. But as news of big promotions and raises filtered in from his New York buddies, he began to resent me for taking him away from it all. They were living the life Mike had wanted to live, the one I’d “forced him” to give up.