But she couldn’t do it, and apparently neither could he.
Garrett disconnected the call. She tossed her phone into the passenger seat.
They’d gone to a museum exactly once, the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, back in July, to give themselves a break from the boxes and unpacking. They’d seen the Hope diamond and a mummy and an enchanting exhibit with live butterflies. It had been their best day so far.
Then school and sports started in mid-August, and Garrett began traveling, and they hadn’t set foot in a museum since.
And that thing about beingminutesfrom the nation’s capital? That was only true at 10:23 a.m. on a Friday morning in August when there was no traffic. At other times it could take almost an hour. Or longer. She’d learned that the hard way.
She rested her head against the steering wheel and fought back tears. She wouldnotcry. Crying never helped.
“I just wish ...” She whispered the words, then stopped. It was more of afeelingthan a wish. Nostalgia and longing wrapped in frustration. A desire to give her own children the very best of what she’d had growing up.
But what was that exactly? What did she really want?
To go back home to Minnesota?
No. That wasn’t the answer. Because even if they moved back home, she’d still have four kids in five million activities. She’d still have a son with dyslexia and ADD who struggled in school. She’d still be driving around in circles at top speed in a minivan, going nowhere, except maybe crazy.
I wish we could go back in time.
Yes.That’swhat she wanted. Life wasn’t like this when she was a kid. She didn’t start playing sports in earnest until high school. She didn’t have loads of homework every night.
She rode her bike around the neighborhood after school in her tiny hometown with a pack of kids. At dusk, she pedaled home to a balanced and nutritious dinner made by her stay-at-home mother.
Then she watchedLittle House on the PrairieandThe Love Boatwith her whole family, all in one room, together, on a device that looked like a piece of furniture, and went to bed.
She wanted to go back tothatworld. To a place with no social media. No cell phones. No arguments about screen time andFortniteandMinecraft. No PowerSchool portal to check grades in real time. A place where the telephone clung to the wall like a barnacle, and a long curling cord held the world at bay.
She shook her head, banishing these memories and the soft yearning they generated.
A ridiculous wish. Also impossible. Impractical. And a little bit sad.
You can’t go home again. And you can’t go back in time.
No point in fantasizing about a different way of living. She’d chosen to have four children, and this wild, frenetic existence was the price of modern motherhood. Everyone was busy. Everyone had a million activities. She just needed to buck up and stop complaining.Embrace the suck,as her brother, an army veteran, sometimes said.
She sighed and ran her fingers through her unwashed hair. Things would get better once they got settled.
Plus, she only had to live this way for another decade or so, until her third grader turned eighteen and left for college ...
She’d figure this out. Because that’s what mothers did.
And as for that other issue ...
She shuddered at the memory of what she’d found this morning.
The flutter of movement had caught her eye as she gazed out the window at dawn, thinking existential thoughts while nursing her first cup of coffee.
Something white peeked from the trunk of the massive sweet gum tree in the front yard.
She slammed her coffee cup down on the counter. How many times had she told the boys not to leave their socks, their shoes, and inexplicably, sometimes even their underpants,in the front yard?
She bolted into the mudroom, put on her flip-flops, and approached the tree, eyes narrowed.
Not a sock. Or underpants.
Instead, a page of lined notebook paper quivered in the early-morning breeze, spiked to the tree trunk with a large nail.
