Authors: EJ Valson,Michelle Read
I hurry home to shower and change so that I can leave again and still return home around the time I would typically get home from work. I don’t
want Joe to know I played hookie. He is not the least bit sympathetic to the slightest sickness. Even though it would be fun to not have to do anything around the house for a day, he is not the kind of guy to pick up the household slack and cook dinner or clean up. Well, at least from what I recall.
I quickly check my work email on the home computer -- not that I really care, as this is job and this life are hopefully temporary -- and respond to the few requests Ruth has sent. I grab a quick sandwich, my purse, my phone and get back in the car. I have about two hours until Joe gets home with Olivia, so I decide to go and rediscover my past.
I make a left turn out of the neighborhood and head north towards the only major shopping center that exists at this time. I pass the manufactured home park my dad lives in, the fairgrounds that aren’t yet updated, and the little rural market. As I approach the main shopping center I realize there is no high-end discount store there yet. Bummer.
I decide to head east towards the main thoroughfare and then turn south. A drive that in the future would normally take about fifteen minutes, now only takes ten. Buildings are more spaced apart and the new “big box” stores and restaurants that will later appear are just empty fields or old business buildings that will one day be torn down.
I head downtown to the waterfront. The distance through which you can drive in this area now is about one third of the length it will be. Construction is starting on some of my future favorite hangouts and the fountains are almost finished. How is it that I can see all of it so clearly?
I feel a beam of hope surge through my body. I’m grateful to Astrid and even find comfort in her name, which is Scandinavian. She left me with a feeling of peace and connection, something I deeply need as I float around in this state of limbo.
After orienting myself with my past again in terms of my physical surroundings, I head back home. Again the drive takes almost no time at all due to the lack of congestion, students and traffic lights. I still have an hour to kill, so I decide to head to the manufactured home park to see if my dad is still living there in the double-wide he and my stepmom bought. Well...at one time they did...or maybe they didn’t.
The community is still clean and quiet -- mostly older folks living in their fifth wheels for extended stays. Everyone here is friendly and they take care of their little gardens with pride. In later years the stereotypical trailer park tenants will inhabit it, but my dad will have moved out just in time before the druggies and ex-convicts move in.
I pull in front of his mobile home and turn off the engine. The house appears exactly the same. The garden is full of roses and other plants I couldn’t begin to name. I hesitantly get out of the car. I wonder if I will run into anyone from the old neighborhood.
I hear pots banging on the stove from inside through the screen door. Someone is preparing to cook. I quietly walk up the steps to the sliding door, just enough to peek in without being seen.
The same woman who was in my dad’s car has her back to me and is washing something in the sink. I find a quick comfort in knowing this is still my dad’s home, but I’m saddened that it is not my stepmom in the kitchen. Well, the stepmom I knew. What happened to Nancy?
“Hey!” a voice shouts from behind me and I almost fall off the step. I turn around to see my dad doubling over with laughter.
“Dad, you scared the hell out of me!” I say in shock, my heart pounding and hands shaking. His humor hasn’t changed. He still finds this type of thing funny, and at this moment I oddly appreciate it when ordinarily it would irritate me.
He puts his arm around me.
“Hey, Kid. Sorry. What are you up to?” he asks, walking into the house with me held close to his side.
“Not much,” I reply. “Just wanted to stop by.”
“No work today?” he inquires.
Crap! I forgot about playing hookie.
“I got off early,” I quickly cover.
Mary turns around from the sink a
nd smiles big when she sees me. “Hi, Sweetie,” she says, coming over to hug me. She smells nice, and her body feels warm and comforting. I have never seen this woman in the life I remember, but she feels familiar. “You hungry, or thirsty?” she asks.
“No thanks,” I say. She is so kind, just like Nancy. I wonder if they know each other and how my dad met her.
The decor inside is more formal than I recall Nancy and my dad having in their home. Mary apparently likes the color red and she has antique lamps and furniture displayed throughout the small space. I notice a collection of figurines enclosed in a glass cabinet.
“So, Kiddo, have a seat, take a load off,” Dad says, as he plops into his recliner and puts his feet up. I take a seat at the couch nearest his chair. Mary goes back to her kitchen duties. Dad and I make conversation about the heat and the garden and other minor topics. I listen and just enjoy his presence. He is thinner now than in the future. He looks like he is more active. I wonder what changed.
I glance around the living room. The walls are full of picture frames of family and friends. Some I recognize, others I don’t. They must be on Mary’s side. My eye quickly moves back to a framed picture on the bottom shelf of the TV stand. It’s displayed in a beautiful glass frame with wings etched into the pattern. It is a picture of Nancy.
I stop listening to my dad, get up from the couch and I move closer to the picture for inspection. Why would they have a picture of his former wife in their house? I bend down on my knees and pick up the frame. I know this picture. It was taken on Joe’s and my wedding day. She is laughing with her head tipped back, her beautiful sparkling blue eyes shining with delight.
I notice a small silver plaque on the bottom. It is engraved, “
Nancy Vasquez, 1954-2003. Heaven has another angel.
” My heart sinks. I slump my head in my hands and I begin to cry without a sound. My stepmom Nancy has died.
“Jen...Jen... Oh, hey, don’t cry,” my dad says from his chair, trying to comfort me. He doesn’t get up though. He has never been sure how to deal with m
e when I’m emotional.
Mary comes around from the kitchen, curious as to what is going on. “Oh, Jenni, what happened?” she asks concerned and kneels beside me, stroking my hair. I let her. I’m full of tears today and I will take comfort anywhere I can get it. She rubs my back as I collect myself. I hate crying in front of people. “Oh, Sweetie, don’t cry,” she consoles.
Dad finally sits up. “It’s OK, Jen. She’s not suffering anymore. She is at peace,” he assures me.
“At peace from what?” I ask looking at them.
They look at each other a bit confused. I can tell they are surprised by my question. Mary stands up and extends her hands down to help me off the floor. She leads me to the couch and puts an arm around me. I can’t look at them right now.
I’m too embarrassed.
“Well, her car accident, Honey,” Mary says.
My agony swells inside of me, but I do my best to conceal it. What car accident? How did this happen? Did she suffer?
“Thank God for Mary,” my dad chimes in. “If not for her help through that tough time I don’t know what I would have done,” he says.
“Well, I’m a nurse, it was my job,” Mary says humbly.
The bits of information that they are providing swirl in my head. I want to ask for more details, but I know it will concern and confuse them.
I take a deep breath and nod in agreement, though I don’t know what I am really agreeing with. “Sorry guys, I don’t know where that came from,” I apologize.
“It’s alright, Honey,” they both say in unison.
I meet Mary’s gaze. “And you’re fine with having that picture here?” I ask her.
A smile sweeps across her face and her eyes soften, “Of course, Jen. She will always be a part of your family. When I was taking care of her, I saw the love you all had for her and I would never try to interfere with that,” she explains.
To some degree it is beginning to make sense. Mary must have been taking care of Nancy after some tragic accident. All I can assume is that it was bad, and she must have had injuries that required hospitalization and later they contributed to her death.
I shake away the images my mind is generating. I can’t think about it any longer. In some small way, I’m grateful that I can’t remember it at all. Not having her here in
this
version of my life is painful enough.
I shrug off my emotions and try to put my facade of normalcy back on. I stay another thirty minutes or so, observing their interactions with each other. It is friendly and loving. Mary is an attractive woman, with hair that’s almost white. She is a little plump and probably closer to sixty than my dad. She has a golfer tan and a visor line. The thought of them golfing together makes me happy.
I give both of them hugs when I say goodbye. Then I drive towards the house. Anxiety butterflies began to flutter in my stomach when I see Joe’s truck in the drive. But the butterflies are followed by excitement from the realization that my little Olivia is inside and I get to see her again. I quickly check my face in the visor mirror for mascara streaks and tear tracks, then get out of the car and head towards the front door.
I can hear Joe’s favorite country music album playing from inside the house. It’s been a long time since I’ve listened to that genre. When I open the door I smell freshly chopped onions. Joe is flattening hamburger patties and singing out loud, along with the music.
This is a side of Joe that I occasionally saw at parties or when friends were over and he’d had a few beers. Tonight there isn’t a beer bottle or can in sight.
“Hey Babe,” he says with a smile when I walk in.
“Hi,” I reply, a little surprised by his chipper behavior. He continues with his burger preparation tasks. I put down my purse and take off my shoes. I hear the thump of little feet running quickly to approach me from behind. Two chubby little arms wrap themselves around my legs.
I gently break free from Olivia’s grasp and turn around to pick her up. Her rosy cheeks are plumped from a big smile that graces her sweet face. She grabs both sides of my face with her toddler hands, looks into my eyes and exclaims, “Mommy, you’re home!”
I awaken to the sound of a man singing in the alley two stories below, as he walks past our window. It is early morning. My head is heavy from the fun we had the night before. The room is gray and beige. Misty cloudy light from the Seattle sky is trying to squeeze into the room through the crack in the curtains. I don’t want it to. I don’t want to leave this room or the uncomfortable queen-size bed.
I can smell cigarette smoke coming from underneath the door that connects to the adjoining room. This has to be the worst hotel I have ever stayed in. But it was cheap, and the point of coming to Seattle for the weekend wasn’t for us to stay in our room.
I fight the urge to cough. I will my eyes to close and my body to fall back to sleep. I can feel the heat of his body radiating towards mine as we lay back-to-back -- respectfully maintaining just enough space to be just two friends sharing a bed, but still aware that we are in it together.
Some people who know us think we are more than just friends. Others insinuate that we are sleeping together and that I have taken advantage of this young guy who will only be in the United States temporarily. But I wouldn’t do that. Either would he. We have never crossed the line of friendship by being physically intimate. We hadn’t intended on sharing a room, but circumstances with the friends we were traveling with changed our sleeping arrangements. Happy accident.
We took a weekend getaway to see the sites Seattle had to offer. Neither Michael nor I had ever been there. He wanted to see a bigger city before he had to return to Sweden in two weeks. I wanted to share that with him.
Olivia i
s at home. Her dad and his wife came into town, so I dropped her at his parents’ house, where they were staying, so he could see her -- and I could avoid seeing him. It worked out better than I could have planned.
Now I lay here with someone I have only known for a short while, but feel like I have known my whole life -- and maybe even a few before this one. I stare at the wall, remembering the conversation we had yesterday afternoon when we were supposed to be resting before we headed out to dinner and dancing.
Unable to nap, we ended up talking about him leaving and how grateful we were to ha
ve met and become good friends.
“Jen, you need to stop trying to be so strong all the time,” he had observed. “You are a good person and you need put your guard down and let someone love you.”
“So do you,” I retorted with a smile.
He’d had a hard time making direct eye contact with me. I could tell he wasn’t used to bei
ng so honest with his feelings.
“You’ve restored my faith in women,” he said. Then he sheepishly grinned. “But I’m not done with you yet...I am going to marry you one day,” he joked, laughing. I laughed too. Little did we know one day he would.