The Good Neighbor

 

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For Zachary and Chloe, my superheroes.

I love watching you fly.

In memory of Souder Street.

 

You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right.

—M
AYA
A
NGELOU

 

Chapter 1

The Banana Song

T
HE DOORBELL RANG AND
I knew it was my ex, just like when my lip tingled and I knew it was a cold sore. Most Wednesday nights I was ready for my midweek parenting respite. Not tonight. Tonight I longed for a snafu in Bruce's plans—a flat tire, a meeting, a hangnail. So tonight he was twenty minutes early. Of course.

Even so, I sang, “Daddy's here,” and scooped Noah's toys from the kitchen table, shoving them inside his Spider-Man backpack along with two dinosaur books. I tucked in Spidey briefs and a clean sweatshirt, smoothing it hard as if to mark my territory.

My stomach rumbled and I slid my hand to my belly. Hollow gurgles akin to pregnancy flutters skittered across my palm. I smiled, remembering the moment I'd felt those first movements from Noah. I loved every one of them, even as they became an elbow in my ribs or a foot on my bladder.

I gathered the last of the boystuff, combed my fingers through my hair, and opened the front door. I left the storm door closed and wrangled Noah into his coat, hat, and mittens, which he plucked off. He reached up and touched my cheeks with his still-soft hands. I crouched down so we were nose to nose. I smelled apple juice, soap, and a hint of boy.

“See ya later, alligator!” he said, accenting the last syllable.

“In a while, crocodile!”

Noah linked his arms behind my neck and I stood. His legs dangled and his chest bounced with giggles. What would it be like when he was taller than me, taller than everyone, like Bruce? I was grateful, with a mother's longing, that he still had a round, soft face and fine, almost-black hair.

I nodded at my ex. Noah pushed out the door and hugged his dad with a force that landed Bruce against the metal railing. He kissed the top of Noah's head and held him at arm's length, as though memorizing the details. Bruce loved Noah like I did. That was something I still counted on, something I was grateful for. Something I needed to remember.

“Where's Amber?” Noah asked. His
r'
s sounded like
l'
s.

“Amber's in the car, buddy. She can't wait to see you.”

My world had seized the moment I realized I was sharing Noah with someone other than Bruce. One day I watched my small child look up at Amber and reach for her hand. He smiled at her, and her meek grin widened. Amber took his hand in hers and patted it. I was awestruck. Or maybe dumbstruck. I was not surprised Amber warmed to Noah. That part I understood
.
But I was surprised how easily he reached for her. He held out his hand. He trusted her. He was a little boy who needed to be safe and happy and included. Yet instead of feeling a rush of gratitude and a momentary freedom from responsibilities, I burned, singed by an unlikely betrayal. Did he call her Mommy by mistake—or worse, not by mistake? Get a grip, I'd told myself. Bruce will have many more Ambers. Then I realized, for Noah's sake, that I didn't want that either.

Noah shot imaginary webs from his palms and Bruce fell back with a flourish. He ughed and arghed and begged Spider-Man to release him, but his performance was flat. Bruce sounded constrained, without enthusiasm. This was not his best trapped-dad voice.

“If Spider-Man lets me out of this web, I'll drop him off at school in the morning.”

“Okeydoke,” I said, instead of
No shit
. Bruce had been doing Thursday-morning drop-offs since school started in September.

“Smells delicious in there, Iz. If you're making your lasagna, he must be
some guy
.”

I closed the door and leaned my back against it. Why did Bruce mention familiar details—my hair, an old sweater, the smell of lasagna? Didn't leaving mean he could no longer lay claim to these things? It was harder to forget, harder to forgive, when he kept poking into the past and pushing it forward. I shook my head to scatter the thoughts, then scurried to the kitchen knowing “some guy” was really “the girls,” and they would be on time. My veggie lasagna would not be. It was bubbling on the sides, but soft and runny in the middle.

My lasagna brought me comfort. Moving “back home” had brought me comfort, too. And a little bit of shame. You grow up, move out, go to college, work, get married. You do not move back home with your small child in tow. Unless you need to. And I had—so I did.

Though I arrived months ago, I was still making the transition from living in the house-where-I-grew-up to living in that house as the only grown-up. But I was getting there. A moment of optimism blew through me, like a sigh of relief from the universe.

Still, lasagna from scratch was ambitious on a school night. Maybe I should have nuked a pizza on one of those silver crisping trays, opened a bag of Caesar salad, and squeezed dressing from a tube. Or ordered in. Who was I kidding? I, Izzy Lane, did not order in when the girls were coming for dinner. Even on a Wednesday.

*   *   *

Jade and Rachel arrived at the same time. Rachel leapt to hug me before she even closed the front door. Rachel moved the way she did throughout our childhood, as if she were Tinker Bell—just now with hips that swayed from the weight of four children under seven.

Jade looked up from her phone and surveyed the scene, her arms crossed, her foot tapping.

Rachel and Jade connected only through me. Opposite in demeanor and appearance, they were my perfect fit. Rachel's bounce balanced Jade's stillness. Jade's urban vibe muted Rachel's suburban air. I was a little like each of them, except they reveled in the lives they'd built from scratch. I loved them—despite their contentment.

I went to the kitchen and returned with a bottle of wine.

“We haven't done a Wednesday dinner in ages,” Jade said. “What's up?”

“Can't I just make dinner for my two best friends when Noah's with Bruce?”

“No,” they said in unison.

Rachel sat on the arm of the chair I still referred to as “Dad's.” She tapped her fingers in sequence, from pinkie to pointer. One two three four, one two three four, one two three four. Over and over, as if she were waiting for something—and that something wasn't wine.

“I can't stand it anymore,” she said.

“Stand what?”

“When are you going to tell us?”

“Tell you what?”

Rachel exploded with the fervor of a pageant toddler on Pixy Stix. “About Mac!”

“Mac?” Jade asked.

“How do you know about Mac?” I asked, dumbfounded. And maybe even a little dumb.

“Oh, come on, Izzy. You know I've been reading your blog! And so have all the girls at mahj
.
”

“Her blog?” This was Jade. This was Jade getting annoyed. “Why am I the last to know these things?”

“I told you about it.…” I put my hands on my hips, a vague gesture of self-defense. “I didn't make a big deal about it, but I did tell you.”

“She's right, Jade. She did. She started it the day Bruce moved out. But she calls herself Bizzy, remember?”

“That's what you did when Bruce left? Turned to your computer and made up an alias?”

“No, not exactly,” I said, although—yes. Exactly. “It was just, well, I needed an outlet. Some sort of journal.” And to be someone else. Someone whose world wasn't upside down and inside out. I was also someone else who didn't realize her first cousin had been taking notes.

Rachel's hands moved as if she were conducting a symphony. “When you wrote about the date where the guy squirted ketchup all over his eggs and how you had to clean off the lid of the ketchup bottle when he went to the men's room? It hit me. No one enjoys cleaning dirty ketchup lids like a Lane.”

Rachel should know.

“Jade, you should see the comments! There are tons of them.”

Jade perked up.
Tons of comments
had gotten her attention.

“She's totally an advice goddess. Izzy told one woman to stop trying to be someone she wasn't, because then the right guy wouldn't be able to find her. That's genius, right?”

It
was
good advice. Why was I surprised? Though I'd never thought of my master's in school counseling as a boon to my blogging escapades before, it was.

“It's true, the advice I give seems to be helpful to people. But some of the stories I've told aren't exactly…”

“They're awesome! Tell Jade about your dates.”

“Dates? You've gone on more dates? I thought you said it ‘wasn't the right time.'” Jade used air quotes. Jade hated air quotes.

“When it's the right person, it's always the right time,” Rachel said. “Tell Jade about Mac!”

“Who's Mac?” Now Jade crossed her arms.

“Her boyfriend!”

No. I was not telling anyone about Mac.

“You have a boyfriend?” Jade stood and went to the closet. She took out her coat and draped it over her arm. “I worry about you every weekend when you say you're doing nothing, when you won't meet me in town, and now I find out you're really out tooling around the city with a man you're keeping a secret? Oh my God. Is he married?”

That's what she thinks of me? “I am not tooling around with anyone!”

“Okay, so you don't want to call him your boyfriend.” Rachel grinned. “But you're seeing someone. Mac is amazing. From everything Izzy told me—well, she didn't tell me, really—he's smart and funny and handsome. She met him on JDate—”

“Stop!” I yelled. “He's not what you think. It's not what it seems.”

Rachel put her hands over her ears. “Please! I don't want to hear it. Let your old married cousin live vicariously through you a little longer.” She grabbed me again. “Nobody's perfect, you know.”