J.J. would borrow Libby’s strength for the next bit.
She would stay a few days, get the place cleaned out, get her son straightened out, and then, she’d...
She didn’t know what. But it would come to her.
The house had been mostly decluttered, cleaned out, and staged for sale. But walking in, a flood of emotion threatened to pull J.J. underwater.
“It looks great in here,” Libby said.
“Yep.” J.J. didn’t have words.
Libby stepped back, and J.J. took several more steps forward. Dean at the table with the boys, that scene, repeated over and over, flashed into her brain:
“We need meat and potatoes and a vegetable.”
That was the order from Dean when J.J. would just as happily give everyone a bowl of Apple Jacks for dinner. She was glad now that they’d done that, that they’d had family dinners.
She had a trove of dinners to unpack in her memories. But not yet. She couldn’t look at those times with Dean. When her boys were little, and her husband was here.
“I think I’m not ready,” J.J. said. Her own voice sounded shaky to her. She didn’t want to be shaky.
“You don’t have to be. Let’s just do a quick walkabout, and I’ll find a company to move the stuff. You don’t have to do a thing.” Libby wanted to solve problems. That was her art, her mission.
J.J. didn’t want to be this dependent person, this basket case. She was never the basket case; she held the basket and scooped the messes other people made into it. That’s who she was.
But now, in her fifties, she didn’t know who she was anymore.
She did know that she had to face this. She had to pull herself together.
“No, no. Dean would absolutely call me a baby if he saw this display. I need to get on with it.”
“You’re used to doing everything yourself; you don’t have to, and you’re not being a baby. And if you don’t remember, Dean wanted, above all things, to make sure you were happy.”
J.J. took a breath. “Okay, well, let’s walk through. We can do that, and I can see what’s what.”
A tour of the three-bedroom ranch home didn’t take long. There was no east wing or west wing. There was a front room, a kitchen, and a family room behind that. There were three bedrooms, one full bath, and a powder room. The full basement was the salvation of J.J.’s sanity. Toys and a bathroom with a shower for the boys helped J.J. survive being outnumbered.
She made all of them shower down there. They did as she asked. She knew now that, really, they’d treated her like a queen. She didn’t know it then; she only realized now that their cozy little kingdom was gone.
She heard her boys laughing, Dean humming Johnny Cash as he went to work in the morning. That’s how these walls talked to her.
They were crowded in here as a family, but once the boys grew up, this was just the right amount of space for Dean and J.J. as empty nesters.
“You know, I never would have moved. I was about to turn Austin’s room into a workout space, and D.J.’s was going to get a makeover for my mom to use when she was in town.”
“It’s a lovely house. It shows Dean’s craftmanship in every square inch.”
“It wasn’t always so lovely. But it had a good foundation, Dean always said.”
After walking from room to room and assessing the garage and basement, J.J. calmed down a bit. She didn’t want to pack up her past, but she would do it. She’d feared being here, but she’d managed to do it.
“So, do you want me to call around to get a moving company on this? Where are we going to have them store things? There’s a place in Adrian.”
“Actually, Libby, I’m going to do it. I have to do it.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am. It might even help.”
