The cab driver pulls the car into my driveway, and I see Lois’s porch light on next door. She’s been home about a week now, fully recovered from whatever virus laid her low in Jumayah. I should go over, tell her we’re back, let her know what happened.
But it’s past eleven, and I’m exhausted, and I can’t face explaining everything tonight.
Tomorrow. I’ll talk to her tomorrow.
“Ma’am?” The driver is already unloading our bags from the trunk. “Where would you like these?”
“Just inside the door is fine. Thank you.”
He carries our luggage to the entrance, graciously accepts the tip I give him, and drives away, leaving me alone in the dark with a sleeping toddler and multiple weeks’ worth of sand-covered belongings.
I shift Ella to my other hip as carefully as possible. She stirs but doesn’t wake, her head heavy against my shoulder as I carry her inside. The cottage smells stale from being closed up, and I make a mental note to open windows tomorrow, air everything out.
But right now, I just want to get Ella to bed and find a private moment to myself. It’s been go, go, go since leaving the excavation site, and I’ve been keeping a brave face on with each step.
The moon-shaped nightlight illuminates her room. Carrying her to the crib, I lay her down gently, holding my breath as she shifts and makes a small sound. But she settles, one hand curled near her face, breathing deep and even.
She’s going to ask for him tomorrow. For Calvin. For “Cav-cav” and sandcastles and all the routines they built together. And I’m going to have to tell her no. Over and over until she stops asking. The thought makes my chest ache, and I pray that she forgets him sooner than not. At least that would be one of us who can let memories slip away. I, however, have an adult memory and I’m not so fortunate.
Closing her door softly, I stand in the hallway, suddenly at a loss. The trip home was exhausting, but now that we’re finally here, I feel anything but tired. I’m wired.
I could unpack. Start some laundry—everything we brought back is covered in desert sand. I could check my email, see what consulting work has piled up in my absence. I’m now officially unemployed, after all, and every time I think about the matter, dread fills me.
Instead, I just stand here, listening to the unfamiliar silence.
In Jumayah, there was always sound. The generator humming. Wind against canvas. The team talking, laughing, working. Calvin’s voice…
It’s only nine something. Not too late. I pull out my phone, scrolling through my contacts. I should call someone. Tell someone I’m home. Get some support, some perspective, someone to tell me I did the right thing.
But who?
The list of names feels like an indictment of how small my life has become.
There’s Anna, my best friend from graduate school. But we haven’t spoken in over a year. She’s in London now, doing research at the British Museum. We grew apart after Ella was born. Or more accurately, I pulled away. Too tired, too overwhelmed, too embarrassed by how my life had contracted while hers expanded.
And then there’s Marnie and Sara, friends from my old department at the university. We used to get drinks after faculty meetings, complain about departmental politics over cheap wine. But when I left academia, when I moved to Maine, we lost touch. There were a few texts here and there at first, then nothing. Being in different states, my being a mother and themboth without kids, made a wider divide that I ever could have predicted.
My parents are in the contacts too. Mom and Dad, listed separately even before they had cell phones, because they divorced when I was twelve and never learned to communicate directly. I haven’t called either of them in months. They don’t know I went to Jumayah. Don’t know about Calvin. Probably don’t know much about my life at all beyond the Christmas cards I send with photos of Ella.
They weren’t bad parents, exactly. Just… distant. Always more interested in their research than their daughter. I was raised by babysitters and graduate students, learning early that adult attention was a scarce resource not to be wasted on childish needs.
I swore I’d be different with Ella, and I am. But the cost has been everything else. Friendships. Career. Any semblance of a social life.
Now, my only friend is Lois, my elderly babysitter, who I know for a fact goes to bed promptly at eight p.m. every night. She’s next door sleeping, but I wouldn’t dream of bothering her for anything other than an emergency.
So, I put the phone away without calling anyone.
Grabbing a blanket from the couch, I step out onto the deck. The ocean is dark, barely visible except where moonlight catches the foam of breaking waves. The stars are bright in that direction, no light pollution there, just endless sky.
It’s beautiful. Peaceful. The life I chose.
I wrap the blanket around my shoulders and sit on the weathered wood, staring up at the constellations.
In another timeline, I could be sitting looking at the stars with Calvin right now. If things had gone differently. If he’d been able to choose me over his need for control. If I’d been able to trust him when it mattered.
We could have been people who talked things through. Who called each other at the end of long days. Who leaned on each other instead of pushing away.
In that timeline, I wouldn’t be sitting alone on my deck, trying not to cry, wondering if I’ve made a terrible mistake.
