We pack clothes first, then carry sleeping bags and air mattresses out to the car. We seem to have a lot of camping equipment though we seldom went camping. We load the card table and four folding chairs. Finally we decide to make one more trip to the new house and unload the car so we can take more tomorrow. We both know we just want to see it again, to stand in rooms that are ours, not someone else’s. Without a mess of papers over very horizontal surface the rooms look huge. Of course the lack of furniture contributes, but that will come in time, our furniture, not Bill’s.
Nancy looks out the patio doors. “This is an end unit. That means we have extra grass and can run from the front door to the back. I can throw balls for the dog in the side yard.”
Her excitement is infectious. “You can do batting practice there. I think I remember how to throw a softball.”
She comes and hugs me. “I was so worried about you, Mom. You looked like you didn’t even know me. It’s good to have you back.”
“It’s good to be back, though we are planning our escape.”
“This is so exciting,” Nancy says. “Suddenly I don’t feel trapped anymore. I feel like I have a future.”
“Me too. You want to call the Falls Bend coach?”
“Isn’t it too late?”
“It’s only nine-thirty.”
When we get home Nancy talks to the coach and gives him our new address so he can send a practice schedule. I am busy going through the books. I am proud that I actually know which ones are mine. I hesitate over the picture albums but push them back onto the shelf. This is a whole new life and I don’t want all those sad memories to hold it back.
The car is full again but it’s almost midnight so Nancy gets ready for bed. Still no Jeffrey. I have been calling the number every half hour and finally someone picks up and almost yells at me.
“Who is this?” I demand.
“You called me, lady.”
“My son called from this number hours ago. He said he was at a team party. Now where is he?”
“Who’s’ your son?”
“Jeffrey Boswell.”
The man yells to someone asking if Jeffrey is still there.
“You sound like Coach Garfield.”
“Well I am and you better come pick up your son who is drunk and puking all over the lawn.”
I feel anger flame up in me. “No, let me tell you how it is. You better bring my son home in the next half hour or I call the police.”
“I didn’t give the kids beer.”
“And just who is going to believe that? Half an hour or I call the cops. That’s guaranteed.”
“If you call the cops your son will be arrested.”
“At this point I’m thinking that would be a good thing. Half an hour starting now.”
I hang up on him and realize I have no idea where Coach Garfield lives. I go to the phone book and find his address easily enough. Half an hour was generous. I just hopes Jeffrey is okay, but I know I can’t manage him. He outweighs me now. It still stuns me that I have a son who is the size of a man. He’s just not using the judgment of a man. Of course, look who his example is.
“Mom, what was all the yelling?” Nancy clings to the banister in her pajamas as though ready to bolt.
“Apparently the team party was a beer party so I gave the coach an ultimatum. Either he brings Jeffrey back or I call the police.”
“Sweet, Mom. Garfield could be fired. I can hardly wait.”
“Can’t say I blame you, but you should go back to bed.”
“No way.”
Nancy makes cocoa for us and is almost disappointed when two of Jeffrey’s teammates, who also reek of beer, drag Jeffrey in the door and lay him on the sofa.”
“You’re not really going to call the police, Mrs. Boswell, are you?”
“No, not unless one of you is driving.”
“Coach is driving. He’s used to driving drunk.”
They blunder away from the door laughing as I blink my eyes. Now I really am conflicted. What if the man wrecks and kills those two? I run to the door and yell, “Wear your seat belts.”
I always wear my seat belt, probably why I survived the crash. I stand in the doorway thinking. I didn’t have my seat belt on when Bill called me back from that river of death experience.
“Forget them, Mom. I put a drop cloth by the sofa in case he’s sick again. Maybe some other parent will call the police.”
“Let’s hold a good thought.”
Bill doesn’t come home again that night and I feel glad. I had no part in my son’s condition but I know I would get blamed for it. I try to rouse Jeffrey in the morning but give up and drive Nancy to school early, then drop off another load at the town house. I unload the computer, books, linens and cookware. We have brought the twin sheets and the colorful picnic dishes to match the lively colors of the new place. The card table and chairs will be fine for meals. Everything seems bright and uncomplicated.
I am thinking of it as home now, not the place where we have all been prisoners. As I was falling asleep the night before I had been turning the pages of my memories backward trying to figure out what went wrong and when. Mostly I was trying to remember if I had ever really loved Bill and came up with a big no.
I simply had not known him well enough to realize he’d always been a gambler. Sometimes he had gotten lucky, but not lately. He is still living the high life of a single guy while I am scrimping for change to buy milk. Talk about a double standard. If I hadn’t gotten a job I would have died by now.
Work is busy the next day but we feast on leftover stuffed pizza rolls and birthday cake. I tell them I am leaving Bill. They all nod as though they thought it was about time. I don’t cry. No one cries but they all assure me I can call on them for help in moving.
“We’re not taking any furniture. We’ll just have new beds delivered to the house and maybe a futon for the den. My dad’s coming out to stay for awhile. You’re all invited to meet him when he gets here.”
“We wouldn’t miss it,” Mike says. “You look so happy.”
“I am happy.” I can say this without reservation.
“Hey, if Bill gives you any trouble, tell him I’ll knock some sense into him.”
“Thanks Mike. But he’s been AWOL for a couple of days. Work has been calling him. That’s one call I won’t answer. I have no idea where he is.”
“Can I do anything at all?” Amy says.
“I’m doing a lease/purchase agreement on a town house in Falls Bend. Could you go over it with me?”
“You’ll be closer to work. I’d be happy to.”
“Remember me on moving day,” Phil says.
I make chicken soup for dinner but Jeffrey is still hugging a pillow to his stomach and has not left the sofa as far as I can tell except to go to the bathroom. Nancy and I are just starting to clear the table when I hear the SUV again.
It has all come back to me now, the accident. They said I might blank it out forever, but now that I have confronted the problem, the whole scene plays in my mind with absolute clarity.
I expect Bill to be drunk, but he isn’t. Instead he smells like someone else’s perfume. Is he too stupid to realize it? Guess so.
“We need to talk,” he says.
“So talk.” I see Nancy go to the kitchen.
“I can’t take you working. It’s too much hassle.”
“You can’t take it because it’s a blow to your pride. Well, the world isn’t what it was in your dad’s day. You put us in debt with this upscale house and the rest of it. I’m just trying to keep our heads above water. You cannot afford the luxury of pride, none of us can.”
“I need to feel like a man.”
“A real man shares everything. Good and bad. If I’m starting to sound like wedding vows, stop me.”
“You want a divorce?”
“I’m not going to put up with being treated like a servant. The kids are on board with this. At least Nancy is. They’re willing to do their part. They always were, but they haven’t had the best example in front of them.”
“I am not a bad example to my kids.” He thumps the table for emphasis, wholesome chicken soup the furthest thing from his mind.
“I meant me. I’ve been doing too good an imitation of a doormat. That’s over. This life is over whether you want it to be or not. They’re foreclosing on your house.” I slip the letter in front of him.
He stares at the document and shrugs. “It always comes down to money.”
“It comes down to growing up.”
Bill leans back with a satisfied grin. “Who is he?”
“The he who is a problem in my life is you. And after putting up with all this, I’d be crazy to let any other man take advantage of me.”
Suddenly he is all concern or faking it well. “I never realized you felt this way.”
“I distinctly recall telling you many times how I feel. You just weren’t listening.”
“I’m listening now.”
“Fine, will you be listening tomorrow and the next day.”
“Do you love me at all?”
As usual he never answers my questions, just gives me his accusatory third degree.
“I don’t. I know I love the kids. I think I could have loved you. But you will never change, you’ll only promise to, and men usually don’t change at your age.”
“Change how?”
“See, you don’t even know what’s wrong. You’ve been faking being an adult, pushing the kids and me into things we don’t want to do, discouraging them from the things they do want to do. In other words you treat us like possessions, not human beings.”
“Someone has to be in charge.”
“Generals have to be in charge. Fathers have to be there.”
“I’m at every game. . .”
“Until coach stopped playing Nancy.”
“That coach is an asshole. I just heard he got arrested and is going to lose his job over giving beer to kids.”
I hear Jeffrey move on the sofa but decide not to snitch on him. Things will be tough enough for him if he doesn’t come with us. “And yet you let her keep going to practice without your support. In fact you told her she had to go or be considered a quitter.”
“It’s a good experience for her.”
“Being shit upon. I don’t think so. Besides, the games are for you not her. For a change think outside the box that is you and what you want.”
He blows out a weary breath and stands. “Are you coming to bed?”
Another change of subject. “No. You told me if I went to work not to come back. So now that you’ve returned I’m leaving. Nancy’s coming with me. Jeffrey will have to decide what he’s doing.”
I can see the fury in his eyes. He grips the table cloth and yanks, sending everything flying with a crash of crockery and broken glass. His stacks of paperwork and his mother’s ugly lazy Susan are on the floor amid the spilled soup and all the broken bowls and glasses. I’m not cleaning that up.
I stare at him in calm contrast to his bubbling anger. “What’s that supposed to be, the tablecloth trick? Well, it didn’t work.”
“You’re not even competent to run this family. You can’t do it. Your brains are scrambled eggs.”
“Not anymore. I finally faced the problem and it’s you. I remember what you did. You unbuckled my seat belt and slid me into the driver’s seat.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I have the number of the investigating officer. One more DUI and you lose your license. Either you leave us alone or I call her.”
“I want a divorce,” he says so he can be the first to ask.
“Fine. You will not ask for custody. Nancy stays with me. Jeffrey gets to chose.”
“You think I care. Keep the kids. See how much fun it is to support them.”
I feel badly since both Nancy and Jeffrey must have heard that.
He leaves then in a roar of annoyance. I am glad I have not parked in the garage. I go to the window to check on the car and he has missed it.
Jeffrey is staring at me from the sofa ,and Nancy has come out of the kitchen.
“What about it? You coming with us? We want you to. We’ll even help you pack.”
He sits up, his head bowed. “I didn’t mean to drink so much, but I’m not going to graduate. Now all the other kids know.”
“There’s always summer school. We’ll help you,” I say.
“Besides you’ll be in a different high school next fall,” Nancy says. “In Falls Bend. No one will know.”
“I want to come.”
“We’re just taking clothes and sleeping bags. We’ll buy furniture later.”
“Good idea.” He gets up and hugs me, then starts up the stairs as Nancy creeps after him. He pauses and touches her arm in mute regard.
She hugs him and swats him on the shoulder. “Go pack, you slacker. We’re getting a dog and I’m going to train it.”
She comes to stand beside me staring out at the empty street.
“This is our last night here,” I tell her.
“Is he coming back?”
“I don’t know.” I hug her. “But we’re leaving anyway.”
“Sometimes he scares me.”
“Sometimes he scares me, too, but I should never have let that keep me from standing up to him.”
“Mom, you’re the greatest. And in all the rush I completely forgot your birthday. I got you a card but no gift.” She hands me a card and I open it. The card says nothing about being 40, just about being her mom.
“I’m not the greatest mom. I need work too, but at least I admit it. Still it’s good to know I’m not the broken one.”
“Jeffrey heard what Dad said, about not wanting us, didn’t he.”
“I’m sure he did.”
“You know what this means.”
“What?”
“Jeffrey’s going to want a dog too.”
I laugh. “We’ll go to the pound tomorrow and pick out two dogs who really need a good home, one for each of you and I’m looking for a cat to warm my bed at night. That will be my birthday present.”
“I can identify with needing a home.”
“Me too.” We hug and go up the stairs together, our last night in the old house.
I start taking pictures in my mind, me and Nancy and our pets, pictures of Dad visiting, pictures of Jeffrey resentfully joining into the fun, pictures of my work crew coming for a party. Jenny would have her baby by then. Pictures of a pair of cardinals slashing in our bird bath. None of the pictures I imagine have Bill in them. He’s the one on the outside now. He’s the one who’s broken.
Search on Amazon Books for Barbara Jean Miller, for the 12-book cozy romantic mystery series set in Falls Bend, plus other books by Barbara Jean Miller.