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Dad gives me a wave with one hand as he stares down at his phone and walks backward back into the hat shop. I know that he is already on the job. He’s already probably got a project plan all settled in his mind for every minute of the next nine days. Everyone is all accounted for. Materials are probably already on order.
And for a brief moment, just for a second, I feel like I can exhale.
I don’t think anybody’s been to the cabin in quite a while. A single bulb burns over the tiny front porch, even though the sun hasn’t gone down yet. It’s probably on all the time.
I park the truck in the drive and get out, balancing my weight on my toes so the gravel doesn’t chew up my heels. With my suitcase in my hand, I practically tiptoe across the scrubby front lawn to the door and find the spare house key in its hiding place.
The door swings open silently, and I hold my breath. I don’t want to be flooded with memories right this second. I know it’s coming, but I just want to wait. I don’t want to fall down the well of childhood memories. I don’t want to feel that sick sensation of longing tugging me deeper into the past.
But I don’t want to suffocate either.
Slowly I convince myself to breathe, setting the suitcase down just inside the door. Just small breaths at first. Shallow, through my mouth. Golden light streams through the tiny kitchen windows that face the Gulf as the sun begins to set. The light ricochets all around the kitchen and large living room, filling it up with a fairy-like glow.
Someone’s been here, at least to keep it dusted. It smells like Murphy’s oil soap and I can see that the wide-plank floorboards gleam with the burnished warmth of decades of use. The sofa is newer, one of those IKEA futon things that pulls out into a bed. But the piano is still in the corner, as well as Grandma’s dining room table at the end closest to the kitchen.
Slowly I walk toward the bedroom door, noting the pictures stacked on the wall from floor to ceiling. There we all are: one small, happy family. Me and Mom in the garden. Dad and Mom with their pants rolled up, laughing in a tide pool. Me and Didi, our hair dyed black with matching rings of angry eyeliner, rolling our eyes as we sit at the table doing math homework.
That makes me smile. Angry homework seems like a very normal teenage experience.
I could probably spend all day looking at these, but I’m not going to. I’m not going to wallow. I have a life in Manhattan. A life that I engineered on my own. A life that I need to get back to. However temporarily nice Willowdale seems to be, with all its sweet memories and homey possibilities, it’s a life I deliberately left. That’s a fact. I’m sure in a day or two the haze will lift, and I’ll remember exactly why.
The bedroom is also filled with the golden light of the sunset, and even more so because the windows are so much bigger. This is a really great room. As one-bedroom houses go, this little A-frame was planned out pretty well. I imagine it was meant for a young couple just starting out with stars in their eyes. People who wanted to spend a lot of time together in a luxurious, comfortable bedroom, staring out over the ocean and talking about everything life was going to bring them. It’s kind of weird to think that that was my parents, but all evidence points to that fact. They were that romantic couple. They had those stars in their eyes, made those plans. Even better, they made them real. And they still love each other like crazy.
The pale blue quilt on the bed dimples as I rest my suitcase on it. Another cloud of memory-tinged aroma wafts from the fabric, sending me a vision of jumping on this bed with Mom, giggling until our stomachs hurt. I remember she was wearing something kind of funny. Was it a girdle?
Yes, I think that is what it was: a girdle that went from her shoulders down almost to her knees. World’s most extreme underwear, I think I remember her saying.
Suddenly remembering, I open the closet door, startled to find it is jam-packed. Floor-to-ceiling, there are stacks of carefully labeled boxes, fastened with brown paper tape. My mother’s neat handwriting explains each one: Ann, dresses. Ann, scarves. Ann, pantsuits.
“Oh, these are Grandma Ann’s clothes,” I mutter aloud.
But I force myself to step back. Grandma was a very fine lady of the fifties and sixties. She had old-fashioned ideas about how to be an excellent housewife, and she always looked extremely elegant. In our small town, she was toasted as both a glamour girl—to her face—and derided as a fussy woman who spent too much of her husband’s money on things for herself—behind her back.
But they were just jealous. Grandma thought she was doing it for Grandpa. I guess I come from a long line of happy couples.
“Yeah, where did it all go wrong, JoJo?” I sigh sarcastically as I close the closet door.
Grandma’s treasure trove is going to have to wait. I have a million things to do. Forcing myself to focus, I unzip my suitcase and begin pulling everything out to organize it. Thankfully, I did bring blue jeans, so I will be able to help with the renovation. That will show him. It’s not like I’m going to stay here and paint my nails for nine days.
After finding a couple of empty drawers in the bureau, I get all my things put away and then gather the remaining toiletries to relocate to the modestly-sized bathroom. I arrange the hair products and oral hygiene stuff on the shelf below the mirror, in the same order that I use back home in Manhattan. Vitamin E tonic, facial wipes, Listerine, toothbrush and toothpaste. Now I just need to get my birth control pills up there and I will be set for tomorrow morning.
Weirdly, they’re not here. I rush back into the bedroom to plunge my hands into the zippered pockets of my suitcase. They’re not here. They’re not anywhere. They’re not even in my pocketbook. Apparently I forgot them.
Swearing under my breath, then louder since there’s no one to hear me, I call my pharmacy in New York and jab on the nine button until I’m connected with a pharmacist.
After explaining my issue to her, I hear that wrinkled-nose silence that means I’m out of luck.
“Oh, hon?” the pharmacist coos. “You don’t have a refill. I mean I can’t send you a refill. Because you don’t have one.”
“Are you sure?” I ask, my voice rising. “I mean, I don’t really need a refill? I just need to finish the ones that I got from you… But I left them in New York. So I need a sort of replacement. Am I explaining this right?”
“Oh I understand you,” she snaps. “But you gotta call your doctor. You need a new prescription because this one is over a year old. You already got all these pills.”
“But I don’t have them!” I replied, exasperated. “I have to get a refill!”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m telling you,” she sighs, and I can practically hear her rolling her eyes. “Okay, thanks, bye.”
I start to reply, but I hear the line go dead. That’s customer service in New York.
