Authors: Michaela Greene
Love for Scale (34 page)
Of course, my parents weren’t home, both having already left for their respective jobs. Dad was a math teacher at the local high school and Mom worked at a local craft store where she was able to spend most of her days gossiping with her contemporaries while knitting afghan after afghan. I had been the recipient of countless beautiful afghans and had cheerily passed all but a few of them along to Goodwill where they would be put to much better use than attracting moths in my closet.
I was happy they weren’t home: a few hours to myself to decompress was just what the shrink would order.
Letting myself in with the key I had never returned upon moving out, I put my bags down in the tiled front hall. I filled my lungs with the sweet, heady air of my former home. Every time I returned, it still smelled good: a mixture of home cooking and lavender that was better than any aromatherapy concoction available on the market. Now if I could just bottle the fragrance, I’d never have to turn to Oreos for comfort again.
I slipped out of my shoes and nudged them until they were neatly on the mat against the wall. Forget the Ten Commandments: disorganization and mess were at the top of the list of sins in my parents’ house.
Retrieving my bags, I stepped deeper into the house, making a beeline for my old room which now doubled as my dad’s office. I passed by my sister Ruby’s old room and didn’t spare it a glance, knowing what would be inside: bolts of quilting fabric, skeins of yarn and assorted toolboxes and Rubbermaid containers containing various notions, threads, and knitting needles. Ruby hadn’t been married a week before my mother converted her room into craft supply central. My brother Steve’s room hadn’t suffered the same fate and stood untouched since the day he announced he was accepted to law school and was moving out. It was eerie how his room was fit to welcome Steve back at any time, with ever-fresh sheets and recently-dusted golf trophies even though the room hadn’t been utilized in almost a decade, other than to accept the odd visiting relative. And it didn’t matter that he was a successful lawyer who made decent money; until the day Steve walked down the aisle, Mom didn’t believe he wouldn’t be coming back home and so left his room ready for him.
My room, however, had almost nothing left of my former life except my old bed dwarfed by the huge computer desk. Thanks to his profession, Dad was plugged into technology and prided himself on his technical aptitude. Not to mention that having a hopped-up computer made him very popular with Ruby’s kids when the family congregated for the holidays.
I set my bags next to the bed and took a deep breath. I headed down to the basement to the rec room to work in some much needed ‘me time.’ Turning on the TV, I snuggled under one of the obligatory afghans and smiled as I found the Food Channel.
* * *
“Vicky? Honey are you here?” Mom’s voice interrupted my nap, reminding me immediately where I was.
“Yeah, down here,” I hollered as I slid my legs to the floor. I yawned and stretched, the muscles across my shoulders and back protesting my spending the entire day channel-surfing and sleeping on the worn out old couch.
Mom trudged down the stairs, her knitting bag still in hand. “What are you doing here? Are you feeling okay?” She dropped the bag and came at me, her palm automatically poised to land on my forehead.
I waved her off. “I’m fine.”
“That doesn’t explain why you’re here.” She sat down on the end of the couch facing me. “Not that I mind. It’s nice to see you, honey,” she added quickly.
And there it was: I had to explain. There was no way around it. She wasn’t budging until she got an answer out of me. “Dave and I…” the tears came quicker than I expected. “We’re having some problems.” I pulled up my legs and hugged my knees to my chest, fighting the urge to rock back and forth.
My mother’s hand flew to her mouth, the shock still clearly visible in her wide eyes.
“Oh, honey…” She leaned in, putting her arms around me.
That’s precisely the moment when I lost it.
In my mother’s arms, I wept like I hadn’t since the age of fifteen when my beloved dog, Sandy, didn’t wake up one morning. It was almost the same feeling now: my best friend leaving me, the void left behind painfully palpable.
When the crying finally subsided to just annoying hiccups, Mom removed her arms and leaned back. She dug into her knitting bag and found a Kleenex, which she pushed into my hand.
“Honey, I’m sure it will be okay, you and Dave will work everything out.”
“I don’t think so, Mom.” I wiped at my eyes with the Kleenex before using it to blow my nose.
“You want me to call the Rabbi?”
I blinked at her. “What? Why would I need you to call the Rabbi?”
She looked at me like I’d asked her who Barbra Streisand was. “The Rabbi. Maybe he could give you and Dave some advice. You know, marriage counseling.”
The last thing I needed was marriage advice from a ninety-year-old Rabbi, who’d been widowed for three decades. “No thanks, Mom.”
“Do you want to talk to me about it?” her eyes dropped from mine before she continued in a lower tone. “Is it about what happens in your bedroom?”
“Ew, Mom, no. And I’m not really in the mood to talk about it right now. Is it okay if I crash here for a while?”
She almost looked happy. “Of course, you can stay here as long as you like. Come on, you’ll help me with dinner.”
Glad for something to do, I threw the afghan off and got up, stretching again. “Sure, what are we having?”
Mom looked apologetic, “Oh nothing fancy. There’s a chicken soup with matzo balls and I’m going to put a brisket with potatoes into the oven now. Oh, and I’ll put a salad together for your father; the doctor said he needed to eat more vegetables. Maybe if I’d known you were coming, I’d have made something special.”
Sure, nothing fancy at all. Nothing fancy in
my
house meant a couple of baked potatoes and chili from Wendy’s grabbed on the way home from work. I felt a pang of guilt as I wondered what Dave would be eating for dinner. If he was feeling anything like I was, he would end up at
his
mother’s house, pilfering a home cooked meal made by
his
Jewish mother.
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Life, Sideways
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