“Actually, youdon’tsee.” She crumpled a fistful of packing paper. “You don’t see because you’renever here.”
“Oh c’mon, Kiersten.” He ripped another trash bag from the Hefty box. “That’s not fair, and you know it. It’s not like I’m off hunting or fishing. Or playing golf. Or jetting off to Vegas for bachelor parties. I’mworking.”
She took a steadying breath. “I know you’re working. But this wholearrangement”—she made a frustrated gesture toward the packing boxes, the trash cans, and the riding lawnmower, as though the contents of the garage were somehow to blame—“it isn’tworking.”
“Fine. I agree. It’s not working,” he said, aggressively shrugging his shoulders. “But dropping out of everything isn’t the solution either. In fact, it’s completely insane.”
“Why?” She could hear her voice rising an octave, getting defensive again. “Why is it insane?”
“Because our boys are talented athletes. If they quit baseball and hockey for a year, they’ll be completely behind. And what about school? Who would teach them?”
“Iwould teach them. And the neighbors would teach them. One of them is a writer.” She omitted the wordromancefrom Rosamund’s résumé. “And the other one is ...” She faltered, suddenly aware of how amateur it all sounded. “The other one is really good at math and science.”
He ran his hand over his close-cropped hair. “I don’t think that’s going to work, Kiersten.”
She hurled her box cutter to the floor and stalked across the garage to where he stood. “Listen to me, Garrett. The boys are miserable, and I’m doing all of thisby myself. And I am telling you, I can’t do it anymore. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I know it’s hard when I travel, but—”
“But what?” She stepped closer, inches from his face. “But it’s okay as long as I don’t leave any more kids on the Pennsylvania Turnpike?”
He held her gaze for a long moment, then looked away. She could see his jaw tighten as he took a slow, deliberate step back. He pulled a wad of packing paper from a box and stuffed it into the trash bag. “Look, I understand that you’re upset about what happened. But what you’re proposing here is radical. It could affect their ability to get into college. To get a baseball or hockey scholarship. All because you’re tired of driving.”
Her mouth dropped open as the injustice of this statement hit her like a punch.
“I don’t like driving?You don’t like raising your own kids.You’re never here! They have no father, and I have no husband.”
He smashed the overstuffed garbage bag against the floor with a loudthwap. “What do you want me to do, Kiersten? Quit the job that pays our mortgage? Or maybe you want to support the six of us with your part-time paycheck from1-800 Call an Advice Nurse?”
His contempt for the wordsadvice nursecut her to the core. Suddenly she felt a flash of hatred for the person she’d always loved most in the world.
“I would be happy to work full-time again if you can find me a boss who likes employees who leave in the middle of a shift to take people to the orthodontist and the pediatrician and the dyslexia tutor and batting practice. Or maybe you’d like me to work nights again and leave the boys home alone while you travel?”
He hung his head. His shoulders rose and fell as he inhaled and exhaled slowly. Then he reached out and gently touched her arm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
She flinched and pulled away. “Yes, you did.”
She sat down on a plastic lawn chair and buried her face in her hands. “This isn’ta life... it’s an endless series of appointments and auditions for some kind of terrifying future where our kids will only succeed if they’re professional athletes or tech geniuses who graduate from Harvard. I can’t live this way anymore. And neither can the boys.”
It felt good to say it out loud. To surrender. To admit defeat. To speak the fears that drove her to drive her kids, literally and figuratively, every single day.
He pulled up another lawn chair and sat beside her. “Do you want to take the boys and move back home? I could get an apartment and commute back and forth between DC and Minnesota. I could probably be home one weekend a month, but my parents and your parents would be there, plus all the aunts and uncles, to help with the boys. You wouldn’t be alone.”
A shiver of fear passed through her. His proposal felt like a prelude to something far worse.
“But they’d never see you,” she said. “I’dnever see you.”
His shoulders slumped. “You never see me now.”
“But then we’d see you even less. We’re a family. Not a collection of people who happen to live in the same house. And the boys need you even more than I do. Especially now, as they get older.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose and went silent for a long moment. Finally he spoke. “Tell me how this ... experiment would work.”
A faint smile tugged at her mouth. She wanted his opinion because she valued his judgment, and if he truly thought the Experiment was crazy, then it probably was.
But she also wanted him to give the idea a fair hearing. For the first time since they’d started talking, she felt like he was willing to discuss it with an open mind.
She explained the basic outlines of the plan. “So we do school here at home,” she concluded. “But we also do so much more because we live in this incredible place filled with some of the finest museums and historical sites in America.”
