Elizabeth Wrenn - Second Chance

I pulled on my ancient gray zip sweatshirt and matching pants, both patterned with the set-in stains of motherhood, and headed down to the basement. I paused in the kitchen, a note on the counter catching my eye.

D – out of tea bags. Call Sondra O’Keefe about dinner Friday . – N .

Damn. I’d completely forgotten about the O’Keefes’ dinner party. A benefit for seed money for the clinic. The dinner was going to be a fancy, dressed-to-the nines affair, and my total wardrobe added up to maybe five and a half. But it was yet another duty. The O’Keefes were nice people, it’s just that I didn’t even feel like being with my family, much less with a bunch of people all decked out and hobnobbing for a cause, even a good cause. I just didn’t have the energy. I looked down at the note, noticing the absence of an x and o where Neil signed off, a usual given in notes from him. When had he stopped? Maybe this morning. I pushed the note into the pocket of my sweat jacket and went down to the basement.

First, the laundry. I shoved in a load of whites, scooped out the detergent, then tipped in the perfect amount of bleach, watching as the agitator sucked the socks, underwear, and T-shirts into its spiral abyss. But I was smiling when I finally walked into the storage room. I had seen the large Art Department shopping bag when I’d put away the Christmas things last week. I started moving the precisely labeled boxes. Glass Ornaments & Lainey’s Ornaments I gently set on the floor. Garland for Bannister I set atop another stack. We hadn’t opened some of these boxes in a couple of years. Teenagers neither require nor admire festive stairways.

It was behind Fireplace Wreath and Red Candles that I found the bag, stuffed into a crevasse between the Christmas boxes and the spring holiday boxes (Valentine’s through Easter). I gathered the paper hoop handles and lifted. The handles broke free of the paper, no doubt rotted over the years. I was holding the two loops when Lainey’s cannonball bellow shot through the house.

‘Maa-ahhh-ammm! Where are you?!’

Loops still in hand, I climbed the stairs. The paints were almost certainly dried out anyway.

Lainey was just coming around the corner into the kitchen, yelling again when she ran into me.

‘MA— oof! There you are. Where were you?’ She said it as though I’d been deliberately hiding from her. Hairy was yowling on the desk chair, wanting some canned food in addition to his overflowing bowl of dry kibble.

‘Lainey, it’s Saturday. What do I always do on Saturday? And on Wednesday?’ Her puzzled face stared back at me. ‘Here’s a hint: We all magically have clean clothes every Sunday and Thursday.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Fine. Whatever. You need to drive us to the mall at eleven. Sara can’t now.’

Lainey and the neighbor girls, Nan and Sara Kellerman, had planned to spend the day at the mall, shopping and ogling boys. Matt was going to hitch a ride with them, to meet his friends, maybe catch a movie. I was going to have the house to myself on a Saturday. But apparently not.

‘What happened?’ I asked, walking past her to the kitchen table. I began gathering up her breakfast dishes.

She leaned dejectedly against the doorframe, arms folded over her ever-growing chest. ‘Kurt,’ she said rather dreamily, seeming to think this would explain everything.

I stared at her while still holding her cereal bowl, juice glass, and toast plate in a stack in my arms. I shrugged and began loading the dishes into the dishwasher. ‘Am I supposed to know who Kurt is?’ My slipper stuck to a tacky spot on the floor. What was that? I’d just mopped yesterday afternoon.

‘Oh, Mom! Kurt !’ The juice glass still in my hand, I looked at my daughter. I felt my own mother’s clueless expression on my face, and hated it. Lainey drummed her fingers on her arms, giving me that fifteen-year-old’s look of, ‘Are you naturally this stupid or does it take effort?’ I remembered that, too. I mentally apologized to my mother. Lainey pushed off the door-frame with her shoulder, flipped her long brown hair over her other shoulder, and took a step toward me, her hands now on her hips. ‘Sara’s boyfriend ?!’

‘Oh,’ I said. I put the juice glass in and closed the dishwasher. Ah, yes. The fabulous Kurt. I vaguely recalled that last month sixteen-year-old Sara had also canceled on a ski trip with the girls because Kurt ‘doesn’t like to ski.’ I grabbed the cleanser from under the sink and shook some into one side of the aged white porcelain sink. When we’d redecorated the kitchen several years ago, I’d wanted one of those high-tech composite sinks, but couldn’t justify the expense. The porcelain was still perfectly good, albeit chipped and dulled. I stopped scrubbing. One of my good dish towels lay in the other side of the sink, a wet orange wad.

‘Did you use the dish towel to wipe up orange juice?’ I asked, barely keeping my voice calm in my rising tension. So that was the tacky spot.

‘No, it was there. Dad must’ve.’

‘Goddamn him!’

‘ Mom! You owe me a dollar!’ Lainey said, looking first stunned, then gleeful. Shit. Shoot. She was right. I was trying to curb their use of expletives and so charged them a dollar each time. I never swore. Until recently. And although I usually didn’t actually collect from the kids, just warned them that next time I would, I felt compelled to pay up.

As I walked to my purse and handed her the dollar, I got back to the subject at hand. ‘And this Kurt said Sara can’t go shopping with you and Nan? Does Sara want to go?’ I asked, scrubbing at a stain left by Neil’s tea bag.

‘Oh, jeeze, Mom!’ Course she does. But guys don’t like shopping. And, you have, like, certain responsibilities when you’re boyfriend and girlfriend. So you need to take us now, okay?’

I knew I should make her rephrase that, put in a ‘please’ somewhere. Instead, I scrubbed harder at the stain, partially regretting that Neil and I had revoked Matt’s driving privileges when, backing out of our one-car garage, he’d smashed the side-view mirrors on my old Camry wagon. Both of them. First he’d scraped the driver’s side nearly off, leaving it hanging by just the wires. But then, in his panic, he’d pulled forward into the garage, then backed out again , overcorrecting, and cracked both the plastic casing and the glass of the other side mirror. Poor guy. I think he was almost relieved to be absolved of the responsibility of driving. It wasn’t a complete surprise. When he was three he’d practiced riding his new tricycle in the garage for a week before he would head out onto the wilds of the sidewalk. I guess he was doing the same thing with my car.

With Sam’s tuition at Stanford, I was, more than ever, pinching every penny. So the mirrors of my car were decoratively held on with half a roll of duct tape. And Lainey was already agitating to get her learner’s permit. Oh, Lord.

‘Mom! Will you drive us or not?’

I rinsed out my sponge, pleased with the clean spot where the tea-bag stain had been. ‘I guess. Okay. Maybe I’ll do the walking course. Get a little exercise.’

‘Yeah. You should.’ She must have heard how that sounded because she came over and hugged me briefly before she turned and headed back upstairs to gather her things.

I was stopped at a red light with Matt, Lainey, and Nan all sitting in the backseat. I remembered when my kids used to fight over the front seat and who would get to sit next to me. It wasn’t that long ago. But it was.

All three were now engaged in a lively game of rock, paper, scissors. As I watched the light, listening to their repetitive counting to three then bursts of laughter, the hot flash began. Streams of perspiration started from my underarms and slid down my sides. I didn’t have to check the rearview mirror to know that my face was flushed to nearly purple. I could feel my scalp moisten. Then the rivulets started down my face.