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The next morning, my mom’s plan doesn’t seem so far-fetched.
I’m standing outside our family cabin, taking in the fresh mountain breeze and stretching from the long car ride.
Well, here we are.
It’s a smaller wooden home, made from old logs and covered by a shiny tin roof. It boasts a large front porch that is usually covered with plants and rocking chairs and pitchers of lemonade. The first floor is dedicated family space while the upstairs holds the bedrooms, bathrooms, and a reading nook.
We’ve had the cabin since I was a kid – it’s our family retreat during summer months. It’s surrounded by deep woods and a nearby lake, where all the neighboring kids would play together.
But today, in the cool, early spring breeze, the whole house looks a little bit empty and a little bit forlorn.
I stride up to the porch and fish the comically large key that unlocks the cabin from my purse. Pushing open the heavy wooden door, I step into the cool front hallway and into the mudroom where, growing up, I’d have to strip out of wet swimsuits or muddy overalls or slimy sneakers.
The little entryway smells stuffy and everything is dusty, but otherwise it seems as cozy as ever.
I pass through the mudroom into the living room and pick up the landline. There’s no cell service this far out in the mountains, but even still, I always feel a little silly using the old dial-up. I call my mom.
“Hi Mom. I just got here.”
“Everything seem okay?”
“Yep. It’s dusty, but good to go. I was just about to unload everything.”
“Okay sweetie. Look, I’ll give you your space, but I want you to call me whenever you feel like it.”
“Of course, I will, I promise.”
“Thank you. Oh, and Cora?”
“Yeah, Mom?”
“Try to use this time to heal. Just focus on your happiness, however that might look.”
“Thanks, Mom. I’ll do my best.”
We hang up our respective phones and I prop the heavy door open with its wedge.
Slowly, I unload the car. I have way too many groceries for two weeks, my duffel bag, and my various novels. It takes a few trips, but eventually, I’m standing in the quaint little cabin surrounded by food and books and clothes.
I take a moment to look around the little structure. The cabin is sweetly decorated, thanks to my mom. While nothing matches perfectly, plaid is the unifying design. The living room is full of cozy couches and chairs, lots of blankets, and rustic décor. Lamps serve as the main source of light and several thick carpets are scattered around the room.
I grab some grocery bags and head into the kitchen. Like the living room, this space is all about being comfortable and practical. The counters are granite and there are two deep sinks. Perfect for cooking and water gun wars.
I smile as I think back to my wild childhood summers here. For several weeks each year, my parents would gather me and all my cousins for a vacation in the woods. And for those few weeks, we enjoyed ourselves to ours little hearts’ content: ice-cream every night, staying up way past bedtime to play hide and seek in the dark, grilling out for every meal. It was the perfect way to grow up, and I wanted my kids with Marky to have those same experiences.
Ouch.
Of all the things that seem to be hurting me most, it’s the fact that I really want kids. I think Marky and I would have been good, fun parents, and I was eager to start a family as soon as we could.
Now, standing in the empty cabin where I imagined our kids playing, it hits me that my relationship is over and there’s not a chance of anything returning to normal.
I sigh deeply and spend the next several minutes putting away the groceries, trying to take my mind off the pain of the last few days.
I went a little crazy on the food front, but I like to eat and since no one is around to judge me, I opted for comfort and ease more than anything. Bags of chips, pasta, several pints of ice cream, and Mac ‘n’ Cheese topped my list. But I remembered that we have a grill here at the cabin and so I also purchased hotdogs, burgers, and fresh veggies to cook on it.
I place the few bottles of wine on the counter and head back to the living room, content with the spoils of my grocery trip.
I grab the heavy duffel bag and head upstairs to the main bedroom to unpack my few clothes. I decide to take over the master room, if only because the bed is nicer. The bedroom, like the rest of the cabin, is cozy. The queen size bed is soft and the adjacent bathroom has a large tub.
