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I found myself looking for Reed today at school. I couldn’t help it. It was like pressing down on a bruise, slowly at first, waiting for the tender pain. I’d only seen him in Physics class, and even then, we hadn’t made eye contact. Head bent down over his textbook, golden hair in his eyes.
The driveway of the house Mom pulled up to only fit one car, and the attached garage looked like it could barely accommodate her SUV. But there was street parking, and for the time being, Mom slid up along the curb. “It’s cute, right?” she asked, leaning to peer out my side window. “What do you think?”
What did I think?Cuteandquaintcould’ve been synonymous in this case, but even though the house was smaller than our current one, she was right, I guess—itwascute. It gave me cottage vibes, with a grand bay window in the front and a wide door set on a small porch. There was a dormer on the roofline with three windows. “The yard’s nice,” I told her, eyeing the manicured green grass. “Is there a sprinkler system?”
“There is,” she answered excitedly, popping her door open. “One less thing to worry about, yeah?”
It was funny that sprinklers were on Mom’s list of must-haves. She loved the look of green, healthy grass. I hadn’t even stopped to think what might’ve been on my list throughout this; I’d been too determined that I wasn’t moving that I hadn’t stopped to think about what might’ve been fun in a new house.
The porch creaked a little as we stepped onto it, but in a way that felt homey rather than treacherous. Mom keyed in the combo to the lock box and pulled out the door key, letting us inside. “It has central air, new hardwood floors. Like I said, it’s practically a dream home. It’s a steal at this price, too.”
“Have you put in an offer already?”
Mom shut the door firmly behind us, letting me look around the foyer before she responded. It was small, but someone had built a collection of locker-looking racks for coats and shoes. It would’ve been the perfect place to hang my backpack when I got home from school every day. “Well, we should talk about that,” she said, voice firm, like we were about to discuss business affairs instead of personal ones.
But standing in a stranger’s house, I wasn’t really in the mood. “Where would my room be?”
She forfeited the subject with an inward sigh. “It’s upstairs. It’s the only room up there, so you’d have to come down to use the bathroom. I think it used to be a loft, and they converted it into a bedroom.”
I ventured deeper into the house without another word, eyeing the living room space as I passed it. Or I assumed it was a living room space—there was no furniture in the house, and the blank canvas made the area feel empty. Didn’t make it feel like someone was living in it. It made it less awkward to roam around in.
I took the carpeted steps slowly, pressing my hands to either side of the enclosed staircase. The tight space was one that made me feel at ease, because even though it was dark with the lights off, it felt cozy. The stairs deposited me on the landing with one oak door at the top. It was propped open, and I poked my head inside.
The room was small, about the size of Rachel’s room, actually, but the dormer windows letting in the west facing light in made it feel so much larger. I stepped up to it, placing my hands on the sill and peering out at the street. Years of looking out my bedroom window and seeing the Manning house left me shocked at the view, or maybe it was the view itself. There was a one-story house across the street, but since I was on the second level, I could see over its roofline. Behind that house was a large expanse of trees, a small forest within Jefferson limits, with the sun’s rays shining through the branches. It was beautiful.
I curled my fingers against the sill, nails scratching at the section of peeling paint. As I turned back to the room, I could almost begin to see where I could put my furniture, imagine what the closet would look like with my clothes hanging up.
I could imagine myself living here. And for the first time since Mom dropped the bomb…I didn’t hate it.
Mom was waiting for me when I came downstairs. “How was it?”
“It was nice.” The compliment felt a bit pulled out of me, but I didn’t want to lie just to be petty. Dad’s words resurfaced then.If you don’t go into this with an open mind, nothing’s going to be good enough.It wasn’t like I wanted to make her life more difficult, but something in me wanted to dig its heels in, refusing to go further. “Can I see the rest of it?”
We went through the rest of the house in relative quiet. The kitchen looked a lot like ours, with updated cabinetry and a subway tiled backsplash. The guest bathroom was also updated, and the white marble vanity put the one I had at home to shame.
If I were to put my sadness to the side, I could see how this could be Mom’s dream house. Even more, I could see that this house would be Mom’s fresh start. A way to separate the life she’d lived with Dad, to start a new one for her. Just like Dad had done with his apartment. It just sucked that I had to leave my life behind, too.
We made our way outside, once more bracing against the wind, and Mom locked the house up. The porch creaked its farewell, and we went to the car. I tugged on the door handle, but it didn’t give. “Can you unlock it?” I asked Mom, giving the passenger door another useless pull.
But she eyed me over the roof of the SUV, the wind tugging at her hair. If my pink locks hadn’t been tied back, it would’ve been flying like crazy. “I’ve been doing this all wrong.”
“Doing what?”
“Making these big decisions. I’ve been treating you like a child instead of nearly an adult.”
Her words felt a little like too little, too late. “Ironically, I’m not in the mood to have this conversation now,” I told her, tugging the door again. Broaching the topic caused a flurry of heartbeats in my chest, a tickle of anxiety.
Mom drew in a slow breath. “They don’t teach you how to break these sorts of things to your children. There’s not a book on it.”
I was sure there was, somewhere. There was a book about everything nowadays. “It doesn’t change the other things, though,” I said, because fine, if we were going to have the conversation now, we were going to have it. “You still asked Ms. Murphy to talk to me instead of talking to me yourself.”
The car suddenly beeped as Mom pressed the button on her key fob, and she nodded her chin toward the SUV. “Hop in.”
At first, I thought that it was another subject change, at least until we were both in our respective seats and she let out a deep breath. She trailed her fingertips along the steering wheel, taking a moment to think through her words. “I know it may not seem like it, Ava, but everything that’s been going on…it’s been really hard.”
For who?I wanted to ask her, because it seemed like it was troubling me more than it was bothering either of them. But I thought about the tissues I’d seen on Mom’s nightstand, and I even thought of something Reed had said.That’s why I need to get out of the house sometimes. Just to forget everything.It made me think of all the times Mom had stayed at work late, went out with friends, did anything other than be home.
Kind of how I was at times, camping out at Expresso’s or at Rachel’s.
