“You and the kids should live with me, Charlie.”

“The offer’s appreciated, Rose, truly. I’m just not sure. The kids and I are finally starting to…” I hesitated to explain how we were only recently adjusting to the family of three we’d become, because I didn’t want to make her sound excluded.

She played her trump card. “I don’t think you and I were ever as close as Tom would have liked. I believe this decision would help him rest easier, don’t you?”

Yes, it would have made him very happy.

“We’ll be like Stella and Louise,” Rose said, sounding eager.

“Who?”

“Some movie.” She frowned. “Weren’t there two women who, I don’t know, bonded?”

“Thelma. You meant Thelma and Louise. And that movie ended in joint suicide.”

“Oh. You’re sure?”

“They drove into the Grand Canyon.” Whistling, I made a diving motion with my hand.

“What a silly way to end a film. Okay, then. Not like them! Some other pair that would make a good roommate analogy.”

Felix and Oscar came to mind. Hard to believe Rose and I would be any odder a couple.

Tanya Michaels

enjoys writing about love, whether it’s the romantic kind or the occasionally exasperated affection we feel for family members. Tanya made her debut with a 2003 romantic comedy, and her books have been nominated for awards such as Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice, Romance Writers of America’s RITA® Award, the National Readers’ Choice and the Maggie Award of Excellence. She’s lucky enough to have a hero of a husband, as well as family and friends who love her despite numerous quirks. Visit www.tanyamichaels.com to learn more about Tanya and her upcoming books.

Dating the Mrs. Smiths
Tanya Michaels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader,

You know the expression that you can choose your friends, but not your family? Well, it’s also true that you can choose your husband, but you can’t choose his family, which are generally part of the package deal. But what if that husband was gone, and his family—specifically his disapproving mother—was all you had left?

These were the thoughts that led to the idea for Dating the Mrs. Smiths, a story in which widow Charlotte “Charlie” Smith and her two young children end up relocating to Boston and moving in with her mother-in-law, Rose, a woman with a good heart buried underneath all her strong opinions. Deep, deep underneath.

I’m very excited about my first book for NEXT, and hope you enjoy it! If you do, please drop me a note at t.michaels@earthlink.net. You can also visit my Web site at www.tanyamichaels.com for giveaways, book excerpts and all my latest news.

Wishing you happy reading and wonderful in-laws.

Tanya

Thank you, Jen and Pam,

for helping me figure out my NEXT step.

And special thanks to my parents-in-law,

Harvey and Sandra, for your support and

encouragement of my writing. I’m very thankful

that you raised such a wonderful son and that

my kids have such loving grandparents.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 1

“This isn’t a time to panic,” Martin assured me from behind his desk. “Only a time of change.”

Considering some of the changes I’d experienced in my thirty-nine years, I didn’t find the qualification particularly comforting.

“Think of it as two roads diverging,” my boss continued with a paternal smile, “creating new paths for you, Charlotte.”

Yeah. Well, I wanted to take the road most likely to pay my mortgage. After the months I’d struggled to recreate some sense of security for myself and my two children, Martin Kimble’s informing me that the warehouse and office were being closed felt like a mortal blow. And he wanted me to dismiss it as just a flesh wound?

Despite his soothing tone, I noticed hypocritical traces of subdued panic behind Martin’s wire-rimmed glasses. I didn’t think he was worried about his mortgage, though. I think he feared having a hysterical woman on his hands. Or an angry woman who might staple his striped tie to his desk blotter.

Instead, what he had was a mostly numb woman. I would have thought I was no longer naive enough to expect life to be fair, but I couldn’t help my instinctive reaction, the denial welling up inside me, the inner protest that this really was unfair. Almost laughably so, if you had a sick sense of humor.

The kids and I were just starting to regain our footing, thanks in large part to Kazka Medical Supply taking me back. I’d worked here part-time for over a year before leaving to have Ben, never guessing I’d soon return, begging for a full forty hours a week. Forty hours that were about to be yanked out from under me.

“You have some choices,” Martin added, nervously repeating the same phrase he’d used to open this Ides of March conversation. Okay, technically this was autumn—and I wasn’t a Roman emperor about to be assassinated—but the sense of doom and betrayal seemed appropriate. Plus there’s no great Shakespearean reference for the Ides of September.

Nodding to reassure my district manager I hadn’t gone catatonic, I mulled over the options. All two of them.

Stay in Miami and hope like crazy that I found another job before the southeastern distribution center closed in October, or put in for a transfer and hope like crazy it was approved. Martin had said he was more than willing to recommend me for the latter and that he thought my chances were “quite good.” Of course, a transfer would mean uprooting Ben and Sara, and praying Kazka’s northern locations continued to do well and weren’t shut down soon after I moved. Thirteen-month-old Ben would probably adjust all right. If he felt anxious in a new place, I could just put him in his playpen, where the world view was four navy mesh walls no matter what zip code we called home. But Sara…

A first grader whose biggest worries should have been subtraction and whether or not she’d like the sandwich in her sack lunch, she’d already been through so much in the last two years. After four years of being home with an attentive mommy all day, Sara had started pre-K, followed by kindergarten—the year Sara had learned she would no longer be an only child. At first we’d thought her frequent but vague complaints about not feeling well were cries for attention, but she had indeed been experiencing periodic viral throat infections throughout my pregnancy. Then, less than eight weeks after the baby and I had been discharged from the hospital, Tom had checked in. Sara and Ben’s father, my late husband, had been scheduled for a “routine” and “low-risk” surgery.

Doctors had assured us that serious complications from angioplasty were quite rare. If we were going to experience a freak overturn of the odds, why couldn’t it have been winning the Florida Lotto?

Sara was finally coping with her dad’s death, and a month into the new school year, she’d yet to be out sick—her life was improving. What would a child psychologist say about my now removing her from a class she enjoyed and taking her away from the only state she’d ever lived in, destroying her barely recovered sense of stability? I had a quick, flash-forward image of my daughter as a black-clad, green-haired teenager with her pierced lip curled back in a sneer as she explained to a sympathetic talk-show host, “I never had a chance. My mother completely screwed me up when I was young.”

Oh dear.

“I saved the good news for last,” Martin said coaxingly.

I glanced up from the hands I’d been unconsciously wringing in the lap of my outdated broomstick skirt. “There’s good news?”

“You haven’t asked where we would transfer you.” He beamed at me as if the relocation, hardly a done deal even if I wanted it, would take me to paradise on earth.

Hershey, Pennsylvania? I hear the streets there are paved with chocolate. Or at least named for it.

“Chicago is the first option,” he said. “But the more likely location for someone with your sales and marketing experience is…Boston.”

“The one in Massachusetts?” No, genius, the one in Nevada. My question was really just a rhetorical reflex—I’d forgotten we even had a location there. In my defense, I’d had a few other things on my mind.

Martin was nodding. “Home of the Red Sox, famous clam chowder and, if I’m not mistaken, some family members of yours?”

“My mother-in-law.” Rose Fiorello Smith.

Technically several of Tom’s relatives lived around Boston, but it was Rose who loomed large in my mind. Her visits to Florida had been rare during our marriage, but as last fall became winter, she’d made an unprecedented three trips here: to meet Ben, to bury her son, and to “celebrate” Christmas with us, that awful first holiday season without Tom. A closer mother- and daughter-in-law duo probably would have been a comfort to each other. But love for Tom was one of the few things Rose and I had in common; with him gone, the awkward strain between us was more pronounced.

“Rose is the children’s only living grandparent,” I told Martin, reminding myself of why it was important to try to make more time to call or visit her. Even if it was a subconscious relief to let months go by without talking.

“And she’s in the Boston area? Wonderful!” Martin’s shoulders sagged in visible relief. Obviously the possibility of my being near family made him feel less guilty about this afternoon’s bad news. “You see? Where one door closes…”

Thank goodness he trailed off. If he’d added “another opens,” or some quaint remark about windows, I probably would have stapled his tie to his desk blotter.

It wasn’t that I necessarily disagreed with the unspoken sentiment, but I’d heard my share of well-meaning platitudes since Tom’s surgery had gone wrong, leaving me a widow with two young children. People desperately wanted to say something to make the situation more bearable. Time heals all wounds; everything happens for a reason; loved ones live on in our hearts. You’re not alone had been the worst. I knew intentions were good, but when I woke up at four in the morning, reaching for a man who’d shared my bed for twenty years and was now in the ground, it sure as hell felt like I was alone.

Inhaling deeply, I forced myself back to the present. “Do I have to give you an answer today?” I hoped not. My thoughts were too jumbled to form a rational decision, and I was suddenly so tired that just asking the question took effort. Truthfully, I was a little alarmed by the oppressive, fog-like fatigue rolling in—a disturbingly familiar sensation.

Last year, the combined lack of sleep, postpartum mood swings and overwhelming grief had banished me to a hazy depression I hadn’t fully escaped until spring. I thanked the Lord every day for my friend Dianne Linney. Sara adored “Aunt Di,” and Dianne, a single young woman with no children of her own, had helped with my daughter during those long, bleak months I’d felt trapped in a dark hole. Dianne had also fielded more than a couple pediatrician’s visits on days when I absolutely couldn’t miss work.

“I wouldn’t dream of pushing you for a decision,” Martin said. “I’ll break the news to the salespeople tomorrow, when I have them all in the office for our meeting—I’d appreciate your discretion in the meantime—and the official company-wide memo won’t go out until next Monday. So take a few days to give the matter some thought, no reason to rush.”

No reason except the office being closed in a matter of weeks and my inordinate fondness for being able to buy groceries. But sarcasm was never the answer. If it were, I could make a killing on Jeopardy.

I stood, smiling to show there were no hard feelings, and returned to the office that had been mine since my return and advancement to full-time status. Inside the building, we could only pick up one radio station with consistent clarity, so I listened to a lot of Spanish rock music at my desk. Its sassy beat sounded muffled now, distorted, and the rest of my day passed like a recording playing at the wrong speed.

By the time I pulled into the driveway of my one-story stucco house that evening, I had managed to shrug off the tentacles of encroaching depression—mostly by making internal, inappropriate jokes. But I still hadn’t adjusted to the fact that my current job situation, our financial lifeline, was disappearing.

I exited the car, trying to ignore the warm humidity that plastered my clothes to my skin, and waved to our retired neighbor, Mrs. Winslow, who was out mulching her flower beds. Mrs. Winslow watched the kids for me on Fridays, but one day a week with young children was enough for her. I was fortunate that Dianne, aforementioned gift from heaven, could stay with Ben and pick up Sara from school on Monday through Thursdays, allowing them to play with their own toys and be in the security of a familiar environment. There were several good day cares in the area, but God knows how I would have afforded one of them.

And Tom, who had been raised by a doting and devoted mother, had always maintained that day cares were too impersonal for his children. If I was no longer the stay-at-home mom we’d planned for me to be, at least the children were with someone who loved them unconditionally. I insisted on paying Dianne a nominal fee, which she added to what she made as a performer in a ritzy Vegas-style Miami hotel on the weekends, but we both knew she was saving me a bundle. Sometimes it seemed comical that my best friend was a gorgeous twenty-four-year-old who shook her booty for a living, when I myself was a newly widowed almost-forty-year-old from the burbs, but I’d hit it off instantly with the younger woman when a co-worker of Tom’s had brought her to the company picnic. She’d become the sister I’d never had.

If not for Dianne’s generosity and the last few dollars of the life insurance settlement, I might have had to sell my body on street corners to make ends meet—not that I expected a high profit margin on the bod of a woman who’s nursed two babies. Unless there was a trendy stretch-mark fetish I didn’t know about.

The wind chimes hanging in the alcove at my front door greeted me with tinkling metallic cheer. Even nicer were the voices I heard as I turned the knob.

“Mommy’s home!” A pink-socked Sara barreled in from the carpeted living room onto the slick square of tile just inside the door.

I caught her as she skated into me, nearly knocking both of us back out into the front yard. “Missed you today, Sara-bear.”

Behind her, Ben wobbled into view, grinning and drooling. He didn’t have much of a vocabulary yet—I couldn’t count ma-ma since he generally said it to the oscillating fan in the kitchen—but his high-pitched squeals made it clear he was happy to see me. From the screened sunroom at the back of the house, Gretchen added her woofs of joy that I’d returned. Gretchen is a German shepherd mix who joined us after Tom insisted that it was good for kids to grow up with a dog and that he’d feel better knowing a trained canine was helping to look after the family. Thus resulting in my ownership of a sixty-five-pound nervous condition with chronic shedding.

Since Gretchen was terrified of the geckos that frequently got in the house, I didn’t consider her my go-to line of defense in an emergency.

I hugged both of my children tight, closing my eyes and breathing in the faint scents of baby shampoo and Play-Doh. Being away from the kids all day was a difficult adjustment. I’d loved being home with Sara for her first three years, doing things like Mommy and Me activity groups, trips to the zoo and playdates at the park. Somewhere along the line, getting outside the neighborhood had become a must. I don’t remember the median age in our subdivision being sixty-seven when Tom and I had bought the house, but more and more I was feeling like the only one at the monthly potluck who still had all her own teeth.

“Hey.” Dianne met us as we rounded the corner from the living room into the kitchen. I wore a skirt, blouse and pumps, yet my statuesque friend looked far more glamorous in her faded jeans and yellow Life’s a Beach T-shirt. For all our superficial difference, she “gets” me and we share the same loyal streak.

She jerked her thumb toward the ivy-print kettle steaming on the stove. “I was just brewing some tea. How was your day?”

So many possible answers, so few of them appropriate in front of children.

I hadn’t called Dianne because I’d worried that if I tried to talk about today’s news before fully absorbing it, lurking despair might snatch me into its jaws. But I was home now and armed with my secret weapon against despair—kiddo-hugs and a mouse-shaped cookie jar stuffed to the rim with reduced-fat Oreos. I predicted significant cookie depletion by morning.

Dianne raised one red eyebrow when I didn’t answer. She’s boasted more than once that among the redheads in her act, she’s the only natural one. “That bad, huh? Want me to stay and help with dinner?”

I glanced at the jar pushed back on the mauve counter-top, theoretically out of Sara’s reach. Which was silly, since my daughter was plenty enterprising enough to drag one of the table chairs toward her goal. At least the scraping of wood on linoleum gave me an opportunity to foil her plans. “I was kind of thinking six-course Oreos.”

“Oh. So really that bad.”

“Or maybe I should come up with something more representative of the four food groups?” I averted my gaze guiltily, remembering the gourmet meals made from scratch I’d proudly had on the table when Tom got home after a hard day’s work. The carefully prepared casseroles I’d frozen toward the end of my pregnancy with Ben, so that nutritious dinners could be tossed in the oven with no thought or trouble once the baby came.

“P-i-z-z-a offers bread, dairy, meats and veggies,” Dianne suggested with a wink at my daughter, knowing perfectly well that Sara could spell pizza and enough other words to make her one of the best readers in her first-grade class.

Sara began jumping up and down. “Pizza! Can we have pizza, Mommy? Please!”

Caught up in her exuberance, Ben began waving his sippy cup of apple juice, ostensibly in demand of a ham-and-pineapple deep dish.

“Okay.” I reached for the kitchen drawer where I kept coupons for the local delivery place. “Pizza sounds like decent comfort food.”

“You want to talk about why you need comforting?” Dianne asked.

“Maybe this isn’t the best time.” I jerked my head toward the kids, who were bouncing around the kitchen in time to Sara’s whoops of excitement. Ben wouldn’t understand the technicalities of Kazka’s downsizing, but even he could pick up on that Bad News vibe children are sensitive to, no matter how casual adults try to keep conversation. And Sara was bound to take the threat of more change badly.

“After they go to bed, then,” Dianne said.

“You sure you want to stick around that late?” I floundered between wanting to talk to another grown-up and not wanting to take advantage of my friend’s constant kindness. It was Wednesday, which meant she worked tomorrow night on top of watching my kids during the day.

“I can make us rumrunners,” she cajoled. Dianne mixed better drinks than Tom Cruise’s character in that old 1980s bartending movie.

Which is why several hours later, I hovered between a pleasant buzz and that weepy feeling alcohol can induce when you’re blue. Feet tucked under me, I sat at one end of the couch, wearing flannel pajama bottoms and a T-shirt of Tom’s—I’d donated most of his clothes to charity, but had been unable to part with all of them. From the other end of the sofa, Dianne was regarding me with unconcealed worry.

“I’m just a little down now because the news is still fresh. I’ll be fine once I have a few days to take it in,” I insisted. Wanting to reassure us both, I managed a smile and conjured one of those clichés I knew by heart. “You know, that which doesn’t kill us—”

“Sucks swamp water, nonetheless?” Dianne supplied, her eyes twinkling.

“Exactly.”

Perhaps saying I would be “fine” in a few days had been unrealistic. After all, it had been a long time since I’d truly felt fine. But I was coping. The weekend rolled around, and I eyed the classifieds in Friday’s paper as I browned hamburger meat for dinner.

As the person who coordinated all of Kazka’s sales appointments for the Southeast, I had contacts within the pharmaceutical distribution and medical equipment industry. Several people had agreed to look at my updated résumé. I suspected, though, that most of these offers stemmed more from professional courtesy than an overwhelming need to fill openings, which didn’t bode well for me.

I knew I could find a job, but one that would allow me to support the family? Not for the first time, I regretted that I’d never gone back to college to complete my bachelor’s degree. My college career had been cut short by Dad’s unexpected death and my marrying young, but I’d finished enough credits to earn my associate’s. The degree didn’t carry as much weight in the current job market, though, and it wasn’t my only handicap. I’d quickly proven myself at Kazka before leaving to have my second baby and had been told a full-time position was mine if I ever wanted it. But as far as impressing prospective new employers went, the stay-at-home-mommy years I’d missed in the workforce could put me behind the competition.

I stirred the beef around, making a mental note to get chicken or fish sticks into the kids tomorrow since we’d had cheeseburger kids’ meals last night. Once I’d set down the plastic spatula, I reached for the newspaper, which crinkled as I folded it back. Pickings were slim, unless I wanted an exciting job in the field of selling condo time-shares to tourists. Would applying for the transfer to Boston really be such a bad choice?

For the last few days, my knee-jerk reaction had been that I didn’t want to uproot the kids. This was home, the place Tom and I had made our life together, a place full of memories.

He and I had met while attending the University of Florida, where he’d been offered a football scholarship. I’d been a freshman away from my Georgia home for the first time, enchanted with the good-looking Gator receiver. We were both only children, both raised by single parents. And now I was the single parent.

If the kids were going to be stuck with just me, maybe I should move somewhere where they had more family. They loved Dianne, but she dreamed of one day moving to Las Vegas or New York to perform. In Boston, Sara and Ben would be closer to their adoring grandmother. Unfortunately, so would I.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like my mother-in-law. We got along, particularly when we were in different states. But Rose had been raised in a patriarchal family where the men were revered and waited on—when she’d lost her husband, she’d transferred her devotion to her teenage son. Her pride and joy. The focus of her entire being. The first time he’d brought me home, during a semester break in college, I’d had the distinct impression that she’d wanted better for him. Maybe it wasn’t personal; maybe no mere mortal woman could have lived up to what Rose envisioned for him.

But that point was moot now. And the kids deserved people in their lives besides me.

Speaking of the children… I glanced around the corner into the too-quiet living room. Although it might seem counterintuitive to worry that silence signifies chaos, it was amazing what my cherubs could do covertly. They were like a little sneaky special-forces team, usually on search-and-destroy missions. For the time being, though, Sara was lying on her stomach on the floor, tugging at the carpet that needed vacuuming as she watched a video. Ben was stacking soft blocks in the corner, then knocking them down and clapping his hands. Gretchen was probably either asleep in the hallway or hiding under my bed from any geckos that had infiltrated the house.

If we moved to Boston, I definitely wouldn’t miss finding lizards in the tub. Nor would I miss palmetto bugs so large they flew into the outdoor electric insect zappers just for the head rush.

Not wanting to disturb the kids when they were behaving so well, I tiptoed back into the kitchen, where I followed the back-of-the-box directions to finish preparing our meal. I poured a cup of milk into the drained hamburger, then stirred in noodles and a powdered sauce mix. With dinner finally simmering on the stove, I picked up the cordless phone. All this pondering a move to Boston made me guiltily aware that I hadn’t found time to call Rose recently. Tom would have been disappointed in me.

What were the odds she wasn’t even home and I could just leave a dutiful “we’re thinking about you” message on the machine?

She answered on the first ring. “Hello?”

“Rose, hi. It’s Charlotte. Charlie.” The informal name everyone else called me wasn’t quite as comfortable with her; it had taken me years just to stop referring to her as “Mrs. Smith.”

“What an unexpected pleasha to heah from you!” Though Rose and her tight-knit family were active in an Italian sub-community, a lifetime of living in Boston had my mother-in-law sounding more like a Kennedy than a Corleone—at least to my ears. “It’s so lovely you remembered, even if it is a few days late. But I always thought a birthday is better when you spread it out, anyway.”

“Um…absolutely.” Birthday. Last week. Damn. How could I forget when we were both September babies? Of course, I was in serious denial about turning forty later this month, so that might explain it. “Happy belated birthday! Did you do anything special to celebrate?”

“Had lunch with some friends, puttered in the green-house, spent the evening looking over old photo albums, thinking about the restaurant where Thomas Sr. used to take me on my birthdays. I don’t even know if it’s in business now. I don’t believe I’ve been since he passed on.”

The image of Rose alone in that big house, surrounded by pictures of her lost husband and son, made me feel like the worst daughter-in-law on the planet. The least I could have done was sent a card.

“While we’re on the subject of birthdays,” Rose said, “I saw something on sale I wanted to send you.”

“Oh, Rose, you don’t have to do that.”

“Nonsense. What kind of family would I be to ignore your birthday?”

Ouch. Direct hit!

“Just let me know what size you are, dear. Still carrying around all that pregnancy weight you gained?”

Yes. I’d thoughtlessly ignored her birthday and I was fat.

After a brief pause, I lied, naming a size two digits smaller than I could comfortably zip. It wasn’t as though I were likely to wear the gift even if it did fit. For herself, Rose has great taste in clothes. She knows exactly what colors and styles flatter her dark looks. Regarding my fair-to-the-brink-of-sallow blond complexion, she’s a little less successful. Last September, when she’d come to meet her grandson, she’d given me an early birthday present. A thick wool sweater unsuited to the muggy Florida climate, in a shade of unflattering army-green.

That night, in the privacy of our room, Tom had asked, “You are going to keep it, though, right?” My reply of “Sure, you never know when the bilious look might make a comeback,” hadn’t amused him, but when I’d promised to have the sweater on hand for future holidays with Rose, he’d pulled me into a grateful hug. He’d smelled like his favorite bar soap—a “manly” soap he’d always teased, telling me he’d leave the sissy moisturizing stuff to me. Sometimes I still caught myself reaching for his soap at the grocery store before I remembered no one in the house used it.

I sighed, missing my husband. He would have wanted me to make more of an effort with his mother. “Rose, I really am sorry I didn’t get a chance to call you on your birthday. Things have been so…” Description eluded me.

“Busy with that job, I imagine. How do you modern career girls do it, always on the go? It probably makes me something of a relic, but I was naturally the housewife type, with no outside ambitions. I believe a mother can do so much good at home with her children.”

Well, if your precious son hadn’t up and died on me—

Whoa. My heart was slamming and my vision swam in a red haze. I knew from the books on grief Dianne had badgered me to read that rage was just another expression of loss, but the unexpected flash of fury still sent waves of shock and guilt through me. Tom hadn’t asked to abandon us. And I’d come too close to verbally lashing out at Rose. So much for my theory that I was more balanced these days, moving on to the next stages of acceptance.

I spoke slowly, keeping my tone neutral. “Being a stay-at-home mom is certainly a noble choice.”

“I know it’s what Tom always wanted for his children.”

Since I had no honest response that didn’t seem cruel, I bit my tongue. I could manage that for one phone call.

But on a more permanent basis?

I’d forgotten how tense Rose could make me. Oh, I knew it on an objective level, but I’d repressed the actual physiological reactions she provoked—stomach in knots, palms clammy as I wondered what I would do or say wrong next. Living near this woman wouldn’t be in the best interests of my blood pressure.

I cleared my throat. “Why don’t I get Sara and let you chat with her while I finish making dinner?”

“I’d love to talk to the darling girl! But isn’t it a bit late for them to be eating?”

“It’s not that late. Well, maybe it is. Traffic was—” I did not have to justify my children’s eating habits. One look at them would assure anyone that I wasn’t raising underfed waifs. And tomorrow was Saturday, so there was no harm in letting them sleep in a little if our evening ran behind schedule. For that matter, it would mean I got to sleep in a little, assuming stress didn’t have me awake again in the murky predawn hours.

“I didn’t mean to sound critical, dear,” Rose said. “It takes time to properly prepare a good home-cooked meal, and I applaud you. Too many parents nowadays rely on fast food. What are you fixing?”

Glad I’d called her tonight and not after last night’s take-out kids’ meals, I glanced at the empty cardboard box and the plastic bags. “Um, lasagna.” Lasagna-flavored, anyway. I saw no reason to elaborate and find out whether or not the fare met Rose’s criteria for “home-cooked.”

“Wonderful! One of Tom’s favorites.”

My stomach clenched again. I wasn’t used to other people mentioning him so flagrantly, dredging up twenty years of memories each time his name was spoken. Dianne always waited for me to broach the subject. With the kids, I didn’t avoid talking about him—it was important they knew their father loved them—but I didn’t want to push, either. And, I admit, not discussing him sometimes made it easier for me to get through the day.

When I thought about him too much, wishing he were here to hug me and say everything would be okay, to reassure me I would somehow be enough for the kids, that I’d find the answers to the tough questions, that I’d—

“Mommy! Fire, Mommy, fire!”

I jumped at Sara’s presence as much as her announcement. I’d been too lost in thought to notice her wandering into the kitchen, so her voice at my elbow came as a shock.

As Rose demanded to know what had happened, I glanced toward the stove. My pan of simmering food had boiled over just enough that some of the noodles had fallen onto the burner and ignited. Pasta flambé. But nothing that would require actual firemen at the scene.

“Everything’s fine,” I assured my mother-in-law as I turned off the stove. “No reason to worry. I just ran into a snag with dinner. We’ll call you back tomorrow, if that’s all right.”

“All right? It will be the highlight of my weekend! Two calls, after months and months of not hearing from you? It’s a grandmother’s dream come true.”

I hung up feeling thoroughly chastised, not realizing until I was loading the dishes later that, hey, wait a minute, Rose had a phone, too. She could always call us if she wanted to talk to the kids…or further criticize the way I was raising them. A pocket of resentment bubbled up in me, despite the noble intentions I’d had when I’d first dialed her number. Ten minutes of Rose went a long way.

What would weekly—or, gulp, daily—interaction be like?

Oh, yeah. Moving to Boston was out of the question.

CHAPTER 2

“I can’t believe you’re moving to Boston!” Dianne, who’d waited until my daughter and her giggly best friend were out of earshot, looked suspiciously as if she might cry.

“No waterworks,” I warned, feeling shaky myself. “If you start, we’re both doomed.”

Bawling in my kitchen was not how I wanted to commemorate my fortieth birthday. Giving Martin my final decision this morning had been difficult enough. Still, Di’s recent announcement had made accepting the transfer a no-brainer.

Determined to be happy for her, even though I would miss her, I smiled. “You’re moving on to bigger things yourself. I didn’t even know lounge acts had talent scouts. And they want you to be headliner!”

“Yeah, but the cruise-ship thing is only temporary. I’m just subletting my place. And when I come back, you…” She turned away, unbuckling a newly scrubbed, fresh-faced Ben from his high chair. There for a while, it had been touch or go whether we’d ever find him underneath a layer of frosting.

“My son certainly appreciated your baking efforts,” I teased. When I’d come home for the evening birthday celebration we’d promised the kids, Dianne had greeted me with the announcement that she’d made a cake but doubted it was edible.

“Ben mistook it for face paint and didn’t know it was food. You were kind to have a slice, but face it, I lack your domestic-goddess skills.”

I thought about the accumulated fast-food dinners in the past few months and the fact that my bedroom had become a wildlife refuge for dust bunnies. “Fallen domestic goddess, you mean.”

She set Ben down, her gaze sympathetic. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, babe. You’re doing the best you can.”

That’s what worries me. What if it didn’t get better? Or, what if moving to Boston made things even worse?

I obviously didn’t hide my concerns very well because Dianne’s expression filled with guilt.

“It’s all my fault you have to go.”

“You’re not responsible for the company’s falling profits of the last two quarters and Kazka being edged out by the competition here in Florida.”

“No, but my being away for six months leaves you without a much-needed babysitter. Maybe if—”

“I’m sure you spent all those years in dance class so you could become an inadequately compensated nanny. Besides, you might have noticed I’m also without a much-needed job.”

She bit her lip. “There is that.”

In the two weeks since Martin’s “road diverging” speech, I’d been on several interviews with varying degrees of success. Two companies expressed polite disinterest, one company had offered a salary that wasn’t going to cover mortgage and child care, and the last interviewer was a sleaze who’d stopped one suggestive question shy of my reporting him to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Luckily, our office in Boston sounded happy to have me. In diametric opposition to their Floridian counterpart, Kazka’s northeastern division was doing so well that they’d expanded the sales force, promoting the woman who’d served as sales coordinator, the position I’d held here and would fill for them.

Moving was the logical step, even if I hadn’t yet found a place to live…or the courage to tell the kids. I’d put it off as long as possible, not wanting to upset them until I’d exhausted every option. The thought of telling Sara she’d have to leave the only home she knew filled me with dread.

You can’t shelter her from everything. Isn’t that what I’d told Tom on more than one occasion?

Rather than be faced with his daughter’s tears of frustration, he practically offered to tie her shoelaces until she was in high school. Like me, Sara had been blessed with a father who absolutely adored her. I’d never known my mom—her post C-section infection had been fatally complicated by diabetes—but my protective dad had tried hard to be the perfect parent. He’d done an admirable job, yet there were pains and losses from which even he couldn’t spare me. Especially after the stupid fall that had killed him while he’d tried to help a neighbor patch her roof.

I swallowed back a lump of emotion and jerked a thumb over my shoulder. “I’d, um, better check on the girls. All I need for them is to get lipstick all over the carpet before we put the house on the market.”

Ben grinned up at me, cherubically unalarmed by the words house and market. As Martin had cheerfully pointed out today, I had a ton to do, and finding a real-estate agent was at the top of the list. I would also need to tell Rose about the move and probably beg her to help us find a place in Boston. Assuming anyone wanted to buy this place and that I could get us all packed in less than a month.

I’d barely finalized the decision to transfer and was already wondering how to accomplish it all, how to find a good school for Sara, wondering if I’d given up the job search here too early. It was funny—in that decidedly un-humorous way—how I’d been the one to make the bulk of day-to-day parenting decisions when Tom had been alive, but now that he wasn’t here I keenly felt the burden of responsibility. What if Sara never got better at math? Who was going to teach Ben to pee standing up? If either of them grew up to be a serial killer, guess whose fault it would be?

I supposed I could look into some sort of single-mother support group for my occasionally neurotic thoughts, but how was I going to find the time and energy to commiserate with other moms about my lack of time and energy?

With a mental shake, I poked my head into Sara’s room. She and her friend Callie both wore the traditional cardboard cone party hats, held in place with elastic chin straps. Sara had also placed one on Ellie, her beloved pink stuffed elephant.

“Hi, Mommy.” My daughter beamed up at me, pink lipstick smeared around her mouth and green shadow circling her eyes. “Callie doesn’t hafta go home yet, does she?”

“No, I was just checking to see if you were still playing beauty parlor.”

Sara shook her head. “Nope. We got pretty for a princess ball, and we’re going to that now.”

I grinned, glad Callie’s mom wouldn’t mind the “princess makeup” when I took her daughter home. “You guys have fun. I’m going to go say goodbye to Dianne.”

My friend had to work tonight, but it had been sweet of her to stay to have an early dinner and cake with me and the kids. I found her on the back patio, pushing Ben in his outdoor toddler swing. Even though we’d reached the end of September, it was still warm outside. Yesterday, the air-conditioning window unit in my office had crapped out and I’d felt as if I’d been trying to finish filing in a sauna.

“You know,” I said slowly, “it might be nice to live somewhere where they have actual seasons.”

Dianne sent me a comically blank look. “What are those?”

We definitely didn’t get a lot of white Christmases in these parts, and while I had nothing against palm trees, they don’t provide spectacular autumn foliage.

I snapped my fingers, remembering Rose’s birthday gift last year. “And sweater weather!” Just not army-green ones, no offense to those who were being all they could be.

Unflattering colors aside, I’d much rather be seen in a soft knit turtleneck than a bathing suit. Sure, some women looked good in swimsuits even after multiple pregnancies, but clearly they’d struck some sort of Faustian bargain.

Switching places with Dianne, I took over swinging my laughing son. “Boston won’t be so bad. Rose will lavish affection on the kids. And I’ll be fine, learning the ropes in the new office.”

“Who’s worried about you?” She sniffed. “I’m thinking of myself. When I come back, you won’t even be here!”

“Yes, but you’ll be rich and famous by then and can afford to visit me. Besides, you’re never gonna meet hot young guys if you spend all your time around a widowed suburbanite.”

Her lips curled in an appreciative grin. “Ah, hot young guys. Now there’s a topic that perks me up. Maybe you should give guys some thought, too.”

“What?” My head snapped in her direction, and I was so startled I let my hands drop to my sides. When I didn’t catch Ben’s swing on the rebound, it hit me in the midsection. “Oof.”

Dianne glanced down, and I didn’t know if it was because she was trying not to laugh or because she was hesitant about broaching the subject. “I know you’ve been through…more than I can imagine. But moving to a new city is like a fresh start in a lot of ways. Full of new opportunities.”

“You sound like Martin.”

“He tells you to think about dating, too?”

“No.”

Dating? An interesting idea, but interesting in the same way as me being an astronaut—unlikely and surreal. I’d been with Tom for half my life, almost all of my adult life. Would I even know how to date?

“I know I’m butting in,” Dianne said unrepentantly, “but that’s what best friends do. You’ll be meeting people, and Rose might be available for some weekend babysitting. You call yourself a widowed suburbanite—”

“Which part of that statement is inaccurate?”

“I’m just saying there’s more to you than that. A lot more.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I merely nodded. Theoretically, I wasn’t opposed to dating someday, but it was at the bottom of my very long list of concerns right now. Still, I was touched that my younger friend with the comparatively exciting life saw more to me than I suspected my sympathetic neighbors and co-workers often did. There was a brief silence as we recognized that we’d gone from playground chat to one of those girlie bonding moments often portrayed in commercials for yogurt and International coffees.

She gave a sideways little grin. “All I’m saying is that you should consider dating, and if you should meet any good-looking younger guys, feel free to tell them about me.”

“Who said I don’t want a younger guy?” I was kidding, of course, but one of the things I adored about Dianne was how I never had to explain that.

“You might need one to keep up with you. I’ve heard women really hit their stride at forty, get empowered and stuff. These will probably be your bad-ass years.”

Charlie Smith, bad-ass at large. I laughed, despite knowing in that moment how keenly I would miss her.

Encouraged, she continued. “I hope when I’m forty, I’ve still ‘got it’ enough that strange men risk sexual harassment suits just to hit on me.” Her joking helped take the edge off the awful interview I’d had early in the week.

“You’re deranged,” I said affectionately.

“Yeah, and I can’t bake a cake to save my life. When you start making new friends in Boston, try to trade up, would you?”

“Not possible.”

Her expression sobered. “Are you going to tell them tonight? I could stay if you want.”

“Your boss refused to give you the night off,” I reminded her. “You should probably be leaving now.”

“True. But I’m starting a new job in two weeks anyway. What’s he going to do, fire me?”

I sighed, torn between wanting her there when I broke the news to the kids, and being afraid that when they realized they wouldn’t see her anymore, the conversation would go even worse. “No, you get to work. I’m not going to tell the kids tonight, anyway. Sara’s been insistent about celebrating my birthday, and there’s no reason to bring it up before morning.”

Maybe by then, I would have found the right words and the confidence to assure them that everything was going to turn out great.

Nights were the worst. It’s so much easier not to worry during the day, not to remember, but when it’s dark and still, the things you don’t want to think about have a way of finding you. Especially if you’re alone.

It was a little pathetic, the way I wished Sara were here to stay up and watch movies with me, but Callie’s mom had invited my daughter to spend the night. Since I knew Sara and Callie wouldn’t be seeing much of each other in the months to come, I’d instantly agreed.

Ben was asleep in his room and I was doing my best to fall asleep in the living room watching television. Our powder-blue couch was nubby and going threadbare in the arms, and so many of the pillows were stained that I had to turn them backward when company came. The sofa was comfortable in a favorite ratty sweatshirt kind of way, though, and I didn’t think I could sleep in my room tonight.

When I’d turned thirty-nine, Tom and I had celebrated alone together, our first big night out since I’d had Ben. Tom had joked that the romantic dinner was for me, but that our having sex afterward was more like a present to him. Since it’s not always easy to work up enthusiasm for intimacy when you’re the mother of a newborn, that night had been the last time we’d made love. I wished now that there had been something unique about it, something special that stood out that I could hold on to in my memory. Like what, rose petals strewn across the comforter? But it had just been us, my husband and me, coming together as we had hundreds of times before. No more, no less. We’d had no idea that we didn’t have many nights left.

Tom had been hale and hearty in that macho “I don’t need doctors” sense, proud of how few sick days he’d taken at the construction firm where he’d worked his way into management. Although fiercely protective of his wife and kids, he wasn’t by nature a worrier and refused to stress over intangibles like his cholesterol count. I was the one who’d nagged him into that last checkup, reminding him that his own father had died of a stroke when Tom had still been in high school. Though he’d humored me by eventually making the appointment, he’d pointed out not unkindly that my dad had been perfectly healthy before the fall that had killed him, so there was no sense in obsessing over what we couldn’t control.

Even when the doctors had concluded that Tom needed the angioplasty and could no longer dismiss the chest pains he’d tried to downplay, my husband hadn’t seemed concerned. He’d told me everything would be fine—a frequent reassurance I missed but that had turned out to be hollow in this case. He reminded me that angioplasty wasn’t even considered a surgery anymore but just a procedure, that’s how low-key it was. He’d still been chiding me about it before they’d wheeled him away, before the arterial spasm that had caused damage, leading to an emergency bypass and freak fatal heart attack.

You worry too much, baby. Haven’t I always taken care of you?

He always had. But now here I was, my first birthday without him since I’d been eighteen—a lifetime ago.

The children had each had birthdays over the summer. The night Ben had turned one, after the kids were in bed, I’d sobbed until I threw up. Earlier in the day, well-meaning Gladys Winslow had assured me Tom was witnessing the milestone in heaven. My spiritual belief that he was indeed in a better place hadn’t stopped me from briefly wanting to shake my elderly neighbor by her frail shoulders and scream, “How is watching from some ethereal distance doing the kids and me any good?”

Anger was supposed to be one of the early stages of grieving, followed later by depression and eventually acceptance, but I seemed to experience them in a random and sometimes repeating jumble.

For Sara’s sixth birthday, I’d thrown an all-out bash, even scrimping and saving beforehand to rent a pony. There had been brief, teary moments that day when I knew she’d been thinking about her father, but, mostly, the sugar-charged five- and six-year-olds running and screaming through my house had served as a decent distraction. Maybe I should have invited them all back for my birthday today. Even if I had, I’d still have to deal with now, the night, and the realization that I was forty and alone.

Forty was fine, in theory, this just wasn’t where I’d planned on being in my life. When Tom and I had married right after his winter graduation, I’d been young and uncertain in some areas. Moving away from the shelter of the small Georgia town I’d grown up in had been a huge change; losing my dad had been devastating. But I’d had Tom at my side to help me work through it, and I’d possessed lots of youthful optimism. Convinced I’d become accomplished and assured as I grew older, I took a part-time job as a receptionist and threw myself into efforts to be the perfect wife and, one day, mother. I’d had visions of hand-knitted booties, future PTA presidencies, the day when Tom would brag to an unhappy co-worker on his second marriage to a petite trophy wife that I was more than enough to keep a man happy at home.

I’d thought that by forty, Tom and I would be raising teenagers. I hadn’t counted on the two miscarriages before having Sara and being over thirty when I had my first baby. I had imagined we’d be financially secure after wisely investing for several years, maybe sneaking off for the occasional romantic cruise. I hadn’t expected to be dashing around town trying to find a job, second-guessing the decisions I had to make for myself and my children.

That was what really pissed me off about this birthday, about my age. Not the wrinkles, which were so far mostly limited to the laugh lines around my blue eyes; not the streaks of silver, which didn’t stand out too much yet in my pale hair; not even the sagging boobs, which I could claim to have earned nobly by nursing two children. No, what grated my cheese was the fact that I’d pictured having a stable life by forty, one in which I knew what the hell I was doing.

Boy, had I been off the mark.

After breakfast in the morning, I still had a few minutes before I needed to pick up Sara. Deciding there was no time like the present to take proactive steps toward our new future, I phoned a woman who had been in Sara’s and my Mommy and Me group. Having heard through the grapevine that Lindsay and her husband had sold a house not far from us a few months ago, I was curious to know if she’d recommend her agent. If so, it might save me from randomly sorting through the 340 Realtors in our area. If not, I could at least cross the guy off the list and narrow down prospects to the other 339.

Lindsay was the proud mother of a seven-year-old little boy, four-year-old girl and their six-month-old baby sister. As we talked, all three of them seemed to be clamoring for Lindsay’s attention, along with her husband—who, she informed me, was packing for an overseas business conference and not a lot of help with the trio of noisemakers.

“So you’re serious about selling the house?” she asked over someone’s crying and her husband demanding to know if she’d seen his other brown belt. “I don’t envy you. That whole process was such a pain, I’d…oh, but I’m sure you’ll have a much better experience.”

Definitely. Because I’d been the poster child for good luck lately. “Well, I have a great job waiting for me in Boston and family there, so I think the move will be healthy for me and the kids.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I—did you check the closet? What about the hook behind the bathroom door? Sorry, Charlie, I was talking to Mark there, not you. Anyway, I’m thrilled you’ll be closer to helping hands. I’ve always felt so awful that there wasn’t more I could do, but with the pregnancy and everything…”

“I understand, Lindsay.” And I did. But understanding hadn’t eased the sting completely. After Tom had died, I’d felt as if I’d not only lost him but the circle of friends we’d had, which was made up primarily of other married couples.

At first, people had invited me over, but it had been awkward, like being the only unicorn on an ark full of paired-off animals. I don’t remember if the invitations stopped first or if I’d started making excuses not to go. Maybe the gradual distance was my fault, but I got the impression everyone had been relieved when they didn’t have to tiptoe around marital subjects anymore. I wondered with sudden insight if this was part of the reason I was so comfortable with a woman over a decade younger than me who didn’t even have a serious boyfriend, much less impending nuptial plans.

“Just know that you’re in our prayers and our hearts,” Lindsay added. “You give me a holler if there’s ever anything I can do for you.”

“I would be grateful for that agent’s name and number,” I reminded her cheerfully.

“Oops. Right, sorry.” She’d just finished reciting the information I’d called for when she was interrupted by her husband again, this time because he couldn’t find his cell phone. “Oh, for… I can’t believe they let this disorganized man plan their budget at work! I’d better run, or he’s going to end up missing his flight. You know how husbands are.”

There was a sharp silence, followed by immediate apologies I was too slow to stem. “I am so, so… I shouldn’t have said that, Charlie. Honestly, I don’t know where my head is. The last thing you need is to be reminded… I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay, Lindsay. Tell Mark I said hi.” On the bright side, I told myself as I hung up, compared to that conversation, telling Rose about the move this afternoon would be a breeze.

Except that hours later, after spending an active day at the park and getting the kids tucked in for a short nap, calling my mother-in-law didn’t seem any easier. Why was this so hard? Because it’ll be real then. This chapter of your life will come to an end.

Then again, once it did, maybe I could move on. Maybe I’d reach a point where my emotions weren’t hovering so close to the surface, like bruises just under the skin, where tiny reminders weren’t around every corner, catching me off guard and evoking a fresh sense of loss. People assured me I’d adjust to the grief; mostly, to my extreme shame, I just wanted it gone. How terrible was it that sometimes I wished I could just forget the man who’d fathered my children and spent half his life with me?

Maybe my guilt was what made talking to his mother even more difficult.

But stalling wasn’t helping anyone. I sat on the sofa with the cordless phone, propping my feet on the coffee table and sinking down in the cushions. Then I made the call.

To say Rose was startled to hear from me would be an understatement. “Yoah stahting to worry me, Chahlie.”

I wondered absently if the kids would one day speak with Bostonian accents.

“So many calls in such a short time!” she exclaimed. “Oh, but you’re probably calling to say thank you.”

Belatedly, I recalled the sunshine-yellow blouse that had arrived yesterday. My own fault that it was too small and, if buttoned across my chest, would probably get me arrested. “Well, yes, thank you for the shirt, but—”

“You don’t like it?”

“Oh, no, it’s, um…bright. Very cheery. I was just going to say that I have an additional reason for calling.”

“Are you unwell? The children?”

When Tom had died, I’d felt I should be the one to tell her. The conversation was a blur to me, except for Dianne taking the phone when I couldn’t get through the words, but the sudden panic in Rose’s voice gave me a moment of déjà vu, a flicker of repressed memory.

“Everybody’s fine,” I rushed to assure her. “Actually, I have good news.”

“This is what you sound like when you’re happy?”

“Well. It’s the kind of news that’s good in the long run but chaotic in the short. The kids and I are moving. To Boston. Kazka is closing the warehouse and offices here and sending me up north.”

“Boston? Why, that’s fantastic! How soon will you be here? I have a friend with a granddaughter just Sara’s age, they’ll get along famously. And there are a couple of private schools we might still be able to get her in, even though the year’s started. Thank God you have plenty of time to put Ben on all the right waiting lists. You’ll just need to—”

“Whoa, slow down!” I hadn’t even told the kids yet, and she’d already yanked them out of the public school system? “I, uh, appreciate your enthusiasm, but I’m still feeling a little overwhelmed by the impending move. Just getting there is going to be an ordeal.” I didn’t relish a road trip with toddlers and a German shepherd, but paying for airfare was out of the question. Besides, how else would I get our van to Boston?

“You didn’t breathe a word of this last time we spoke. Were you holding out until you had a definite buyer?”

I meant to tell her that this had all been rather sudden, but instead echoed, “Buyer?”

“When do you close?” she asked. “Did they meet your asking price? I hope you’re not letting yourself get taken advantage of with all kinds of silly demands like recarpeting the place or giving them your washer and dryer.”

I couldn’t imagine anyone actually wanting my laundry set, which dated back to the Paleozoic, but it was all too easy to picture new occupants demanding carpet untouched by kid, Kool-Aid or dog. Thoughts like that were rather cart before the horse, however. I needed people to come see the place before I started worrying about haggling over the contract.

“We haven’t sold the house quite yet.” Or put it on the market, if one wanted to get technical. “But I’m absolutely confident it won’t be a problem.”

“Oh.” Her dubious tone didn’t reflect my confidence, not that I blamed her. Mine was fake, anyway. “Well, I’m sure it will be all right, dear.”

It would be, eventually. After I’d told the kids and we’d all adjusted to the idea. “I’ll keep you updated on the specifics, but I should run now—wake the kids up and figure out what to do for dinner.”

“Goodness, if you let them sleep so late in the day, how on earth do you get them to bed at night?”

I sighed. “Talk to you soon, Rose.” Was it already too late to change my mind about the move?

CHAPTER 3

As I walked down the hall to get the kids, I heard murmurs and rustles from Ben’s room, along with the familiar annoyed cry as he realized he was waking up to a wet diaper. Even that tugged at my heart. I loved my kids so much and I just wanted to make the right decisions. Sometimes when I opened the door, where Sara and I had stenciled his name in animal-themed letters, I felt a jolt of happy anticipation at seeing him, snuggling him close. I knew that as they grew, snuggling opportunities became more rare.

Ben was standing in his crib, holding the cherrywood rails and bouncing slightly as he began chanting “Mmm-a, mmm-a.” Maybe I was finally pulling ahead of the oscillating fan in the “Are you my mother?” race.

Once I had Ben changed, I carried him into Sara’s room and sat on the edge of her twin bed, smiling at the way her dark hair was spread across the Barbie pillowcase. How odd that she could be so feminine and tiny and delicate, yet still look so much like her father. Ben had darker hair than mine, too, but he had my blue eyes, not Sara’s and Tom’s deep brown ones. I gently shook her shoulder. My daughter woke up in stages, and it usually took at least ten minutes before she was alert enough to do more than stare blankly into space and hug her floppy-eared pink-and-white elephant.

When she was more awake, I asked if they wanted to go talk on my bed. About half the time, I keep the baby gate latched in the hall to give Gretchen the back half of the house as refuge from Sara’s attempts to put lipstick on the dog or to make her the horsey in a game of cowgirl. Also, keeping the gate up meant that the children couldn’t breeze into my room whenever they wanted and destroy it in a matter of seconds, like a swarm of locusts dressed in OshKosh. The kids loved the rare treat of cuddling in the master suite on special occasions such as rainstorms, story time, or when I felt whimsical enough to let them jump on the bed for a few supervised minutes.

I’d already lumped the pillows into a mound against the rounded oak headboard, and a blue leather photo album sat on the nightstand. I was hoping visual aids would keep Sara in a positive mindset.

I hugged the kids close. “You like talking to Nonna Rose on the phone, right?”

Sara had enjoyed the Saturday call following the night of the pasta fire. Long-distance charges meant nothing when you were six, and she’d sung her entire repertoire of songs, from “Alice the Camel” all the way to “If You’re Happy and You Know It,” which is Ben’s favorite because he likes to clap along.

My daughter nodded, her face lighting up. “Can we call her again?”

“Even better, wouldn’t you like to see her in Boston?”

“You mean, visit Nonna?”

I wondered if she remembered the trips we’d taken when she was younger. We’d spent the Christmas before Ben was born in Boston but hadn’t been back since.

“More than just a visit, pumpkin. You know how Billy from across the street moved?” The house had promptly been bought by a couple eager to retire here before another Milwaukee winter set in. Would that God sent such retirees my way. “And Mommy explained how people go to new homes sometimes? We could get a house near Nonna.”

“No, thank you, Mommy. We don’t need a new house. I like this one.”

“But I need a new job, Sara-bear. There’s a place where I can go to work there. And lots of fun things for you to do.” I flipped open the photo album in my lap, holding it up so both kids could see the pictures of Rose’s house. “You remember? We had such a good time.”

“Will I get to stay in my class and see Mrs. Bennings every day? Will Callie still get to come over?”

“You won’t see them every day, but maybe we can visit sometimes. And you’ll have a new class, meet lots of new friends.”

Ben was sucking on the side of his hand, taking this with the nonchalance I had anticipated. Unfortunately, Sara was also reacting pretty much the way I’d expected. Her doe brown eyes grew large and her bottom lip quivered. She squeezed Ellie hard enough that I feared for the fuzzy pachyderm’s seams. I’d tried to make new sound exciting—Sara loved new books and new toys and new movies—but she wasn’t buying it.

She scrambled off the bed, her eyes welling with tears. “I don’t want to move. Don’t work anymore, stay home with us. Like you used to!”

The slurping sounds had stopped and Ben looked up with an anxious expression, as if he were trying to calculate where this fell on the uh-oh meter.

“Sara, I wish I could, honey, but I’ve got to have a job.”

“Why? Daddy didn’t want you to have one. Everything was better before!”

She was right about Tom not wanting me to go back to work when she’d started school, but I hadn’t realized she’d been aware of our disagreeing on the subject. “Sara, sometimes things change, and even if we don’t really want them to, that doesn’t mean the changes won’t be for the best.” Great. Now I was the one spouting the inane clichés, which weren’t going to do a damn thing to lessen her worry about leaving home and losing the people close to her. How could I ask her to give up Dianne, her friends, the neighbors she’d known since she was a baby, when she was still coping with the loss of her adored father?

“No!” Sara shrieked, wild-eyed. “Nononono!”

Well. Not much chance of refuting that logic.

I let her run out of the room, and didn’t follow to scold her when she slammed her door. By then, Ben had started to cry in earnest, so I sat for a few minutes comforting him. Should I have been easing them into the notion over time instead of just dumping it on them?

Ben’s tears subsided to hiccups a few minutes later, and I carried him toward Sara’s room. Heaven knows sitting on my bed wondering if I’d completely mishandled this wasn’t accomplishing anything. I knocked once, opening the door when Sara didn’t answer. I didn’t dare set Ben down because he’d toddle over to help himself to her toys, and something told me she wasn’t in her most magnanimous sharing mood. Trying to carry on this conversation while my children beat each other with LEGO blocks wouldn’t be an improvement.

As it was, I was reduced to talking to a pink lump. She was sitting on the floor of her room, her bed comforter pulled over her head, with only Ellie’s skinny plush tail visible.

“Sara, I know you don’t want to move, but we have to. If you just give it a chance, I think—”

“What if Daddy came back?” The comforter slid off, her earlier anger replaced by a deep sadness that looked out of place on a child. “What if Daddy came back, and we weren’t here?”

Oh, God. My heart clenched painfully. This never got easier, no matter how many times we went through it. “We’ve talked about this, pumpkin. You know Daddy can’t come back. But he can watch over you, and he’ll never stop loving you. He’ll watch over you no matter where we live.”

“You promise?” Her voice trembled.

“I promise. We’ll find a house you and Ben really like. And you can help me decorate it. We’ll make lots of good memories there, just like we have here.”

She thought it over. “I can have a pink room?”

“Any color you like.” I rearranged Ben enough that I could press my daughter close to me, her tears warm and damp against the front of my blouse. “It will be okay, bear. You’ll make lots of new friends in Boston. And I bet we’ll see snow in a few months.”

There was silence as she considered the benefits of playing in snow—not that she’d had much experience with the fluffy white stuff, but she’d seen it on television.

I pushed my advantage. “We can celebrate our moving to a new house by ordering pizza tonight.”

“Pizza!” Sara bounded back. “Yay!”

Ben rocked in my lap, also shrieking with delight. Crisis averted.

What were the odds everything to come could be dealt with so easily?

Despite suffering my share of headaches in the past, I didn’t think I’d ever experienced an actual migraine such as I’d heard other women describe. Turns out, trying to move to another state is one big migraine, complete with blinding pain and the urge to curl up quietly in the fetal position.

During my initial meeting with the real-estate agent, the day after I’d called Lindsay for his number, the man had informed me that if I would just add a half bath at the front of the house, we could dramatically increase both the chances of selling it quickly and the asking price. Skipping over my skepticism that there was sufficient space for another room, no matter how small, I patiently explained that I had neither the money nor the time to worry about plumbing renovations.

We hustled the house onto the market, stipulating in the paperwork that I had two small children and a dog, so interested parties and their agents needed to call ahead before coming to look. Two nights later, my Realtor let himself in with his lockbox key on an unannounced visit to show the house to a middle-aged couple with a teenage son. Toys were strewn all over, the dinner dishes were still sitting on the kitchen counter, and Sara and I were having a heated discussion about her decision to “improve” her room by coloring flowers on the wall with a marker. Gretchen was so unnerved by the sudden appearance of strangers that she’d thrown up—a crackerjack watchdog, that one. Worse, since I hadn’t had time to prepare Sara for the walk-through, she’d decided that these invasive strangers were the problem, that they wanted to take away her home. She’d commanded them to stay out of her room and punctuated the order by slamming a door.

Why the man who actually worked for me didn’t understand that the call-ahead commandment applied to him as well as outside Realtors, I have no idea. It would have given me a great deal of temporary satisfaction to fire him, but then I’d have to pay listing fees out of pocket now instead of them coming from his six-percent commission after the sale. I had nothing out of pocket. I barely had pockets.

In the week and a half since, we’d only had a handful of viewers, and none of them had called back. My ever-helpful real-estate agent seemed to think that getting someone to fall in love with the house would be easier if the kids and I weren’t actually here when people came to see it. So we were living in a DEFCON four state, diaper bag always at the ready so we could leave on a moment’s notice. Oddly enough, my mother-in-law’s increasingly enthusiastic, near-daily calls to see if we had found a buyer yet weren’t helping. Nor was Sara’s anxiety over Halloween. While doing some sort of holiday creative-writing unit at school, my daughter had become fixated with the idea that our move might prevent her from trick-or-treating. I promised her, repeatedly, that no matter what state we were living in at the end of the month, she would be in costume and begging door-to-door for candy.

At least I knew we could stay with Rose while I house hunted in Boston, a daunting task. I was due to be there the fourth week of October to start my new job. In other words, I had nine days. Dianne, with her typical graciousness, had spent a lot of time here over the past couple of weeks, helping me repaint over crayon marks and grubby handprints. I was trying not to think about her shipping out tomorrow afternoon. Saying goodbye to the person who had helped me cope with the most devastating change of my life was far more daunting than moving to another state.

Other than some minor house maintenance, I had hardly rounded up all the boxes I would need, much less begun packing. Martin had promised I’d receive half pay during the transitional, out-of-work interim between my positions. Thank God, or we’d be living in boxes instead of labeling them Bedroom, Kitchen and Kids. Apparently, preparing for the move, working full-time during the office’s last week before shutdown and trying to calm Sara out of hyperventilating every fifteen minutes wasn’t a full enough schedule for me. Because I’d also decided to go in with Mrs. Winslow and throw a “jewelry party.”

She’d recently rediscovered her inner entrepreneur but lacked a good-sized living room for cramming in a semicircle of attendees. So, we’d invited the little old ladies of the neighborhood to my house for chips and dip and the chance to watch us model jewelry manufactured by Mrs. Winslow’s parent company, ZirStone. She and I would each get a cut from any sales. It just so happened she’d mentioned the business deal to me on the same day I’d been getting cost estimates from moving companies, catching me in a weak moment when I’d been contemplating hocking the television and VCR for cash.

Today was the party. I’d bribed Sara with a rented video I was allowing the kids to watch in my room. Ben was viewing the movie from inside the comfort of his playpen, accompanied by a few of his favorite toys. Now, if I could just get someone from the neighborhood interested in some of the quality synthetic gemstones we had available, perhaps I could justify losing half a Saturday of potential packing. But fifteen minutes into my sales pitch, a real-estate agent called wanting to show the house.

“I wanted to know if this afternoon would be good,” he said.

I peeked around the corner of the kitchen, where Mrs. Winslow was opening a gray box of earrings with a flourish Vanna White would have envied. “Approximately what time were you thinking?”

“We’re looking at a place the next subdivision over, so about ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes?” I could barely get both children properly strapped into their respective car seat and booster in that amount of time, much less empty the living room of guests.

Following my shrieked question, the buzz of conversation in the next room stopped abruptly.

There was also silence on the other end of the phone, but the man recovered quickly, sounding a tad defensive. “Look, if you don’t want prospective buyers to come see your house—”

“No, it’s not that.” I couldn’t afford to turn them away. How could I possibly make two monthly house payments? The mere thought prompted me to plead, “Please bring them by. But you have to understand that I wasn’t expecting to show the house today.”

“Oh, so there haven’t been many visitors?” Oh, so there’s not much interest and we can whittle down the asking price?

“Plenty! Just none scheduled for today,” I clarified. “I have a few people over, and you didn’t give us much notice—”

“We don’t want to disturb anyone,” he interrupted, back to the smoothly polished salesman’s voice with which he’d started the conversation. “We’ll have a quiet look around, and you and your guests will hardly notice we’re there.”

I got off the phone wondering how much of his estimated ten minutes were left and whether or not I should try to shoo the ladies out of the house. But they weren’t exactly in an age demographic known for speed and agility. Besides, it would look odder for people to view the house with empty folding chairs in the living room and a sideboard of half-eaten snacks than for them to just walk through while we concluded the jewelry show. Heck, if the potential buyers didn’t want the house, maybe I could still talk them into a faux black pearl bracelet.

I quickly updated the ladies, letting them know visitors would be walking through but that we should carry on as scheduled. I didn’t have to worry about wrangling the dog outside because I’d already let her into the sunroom before the jewelry shindig, but I did rush back to my room to check on the kids. God bless ’em, they were behaving perfectly. Ben was sitting in his play area flipping through a board book about fire trucks, while Sara was cuddled with Ellie on my bed, focused on her movie.

She barely glanced in my direction. “Is your party over, Mommy?”

“Not yet, but there are some people coming to see the house.”

“Do we have to leave again?” She did look at me then, annoyance clear on her young features. “I haven’t watched my favorite song yet.”

Though she’d stopped viewing potential buyers as The Enemy, she resented her life being disrupted for the convenience of others.

“Nope, just stay back here in Mommy’s room. Don’t even get off the bed, okay?”

Her brown eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “What if I have to use the bathroom?” The way she was always looking for loopholes, I figured she had a brilliant future as an attorney.

“Why not go use it now?” I suggested. “Hurry, because they’ll be here soon.”

I went back to the living room, suspecting Mrs. Winslow would try to cut me out of my half of the profits if I didn’t actually spend a few minutes helping her. I was explaining, as per the instructional brochure, why jewelry should be the last thing you put on before you go out when our doorbell rang. The Realtor let himself in before I got there, however. Either he’d only rung the bell to prevent startling anyone or he’d remembered after doing so that I had guests and didn’t want to interrupt.

Behind the agent, there was a harried-looking couple who wore matching we-stopped-being-able-to-tell-floor-plans-apart-twelve-houses-ago expressions. They had three kids in tow. I wasn’t sure this house had enough space for a family of five, but the youngest child was a girl who appeared to be about four, and I suspected she’d appreciate the girlish decor in Sara’s room, hopefully causing her to remember this as a house she liked. In case they gave the four-year-old a vote.

Yeesh, I really was desperate.

“Hi. Come on in, and please look around,” I invited. “Don’t feel like you’re imposing, just take your time.”

I barely resisted the urge to tack on, And we have some lovely blue topaz earrings that would match your eyes, ma’am.

The four-year-old made a beeline for the refreshment table, only to be scolded by her father, at which point she burst into tears. The middle child, a boy wearing a black T-shirt and a scowl that made me recall every time my dad had ever teased, “Your face is gonna freeze like that,” declared, “I don’t like this house. It smells funny.”

I chose to believe that any odor came from the combined eight or nine perfumes and numerous arthritis relief creams of my guests.

The Realtor cleared his throat, meeting my gaze. “Um, kitchen’s this way, is it?”

I nodded, but they hadn’t yet turned the corner when there was a cry from the back of the house. The realty party froze in place as I strode toward the hallway.

Sara catapulted out of my room, screaming, “Snake!” She was moving with astounding speed for someone who had Dora the Explorer panties down around her knees beneath her denim skirt.

I met her halfway, scooping her up and probably giving her a wedgie as I hurriedly tugged her undies into proper place. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. “But there’s a snake, Mommy!”

In all the time we’d lived in this house, we had never once had a snake in the house—if we did, Tom was smart enough not to tell me about it—so why now? Why today? This was way beyond simple Murphy’s Law. This was more like Murphy’s Magna Carta. I instinctively muttered a phrase under my breath that I sincerely hoped Sara hadn’t heard.

With Ben still at the back of the house, I jogged down the hall, not acknowledging the buzz of alarmed comments behind me. “Where was it?”

“In the bathroom.” Her voice was shaking. “I was sitting on the potty, singing ‘Catalina Madalina,’ and I looked down and seen it. Saw it.”

“Okay. I’ll take care of it.” How?

Maybe it was just a little bitty garden snake, the harmless kind that could be tossed outside. Not that I particularly wanted to get close enough for tossing, but as the only adult in the family, these things fell to me. And if it isn’t harmless?

Ignoring that thought, I lifted Ben out of his pen and set him down in the hallway, letting him crawl for freedom. Save yourself, son. Sara, dragging Ellie by the trunk, followed me so closely that if I stopped, she’d bang into me.

“Stay back,” I told her as I approached the master bath. When I glanced at her to make sure she understood I was serious, I saw that the Realtor and the family touring the house were all hovering in the bedroom doorway. The preteen daughter looked as if she might lose consciousness. The sullen boy was actually smiling now. Figured.

There was no closet in my bedroom, but the bathroom was spacious enough to make up for the deficiency—equipped with the standard toilet and sink vanity, a shower/garden-spa tub and a walk-in closet with its own lights. I’d better find the damn snake, because I didn’t relish wondering if it would slither out at me every time I opened the closet door for the next week.

The Realtor cleared his throat—a habit of his, I’d noticed. “So why again are you trying to get rid of this house?”

“We’re selling the house because I accepted a job in Boston,” I said, wondering what part of my tense body language made it look as if now were a swell time to chat. “Sara, where did you see it?”

“Under the sink. It’s green.” She was climbing up on my bed as she answered, her eyes wide.

Green. Most harmless garden snakes were green, right? I peeked into the room, my gaze coming to a screeching halt when I saw the thin green line across the tile, curling slightly. It was only a couple of inches long, but it disappeared beneath the edge of the vanity, so I wasn’t sure how much more there was. I executed a leap that would have qualified me for National Champion Long Jump status and then reached into my closet for a shoe box, dumping out a pair of strappy silver sandals I’d last worn to a holiday party with Tom.

As I crouched down to make the capture with shaking hands, I blinked, realizing the only reason I’d thought even for a millisecond that I was dealing with a snake was because I’d been told—by a hysterical six-year-old—to expect a snake.

Relief ballooned inside me. “Sara, there’s no reason to be scared. It’s just one of those lizards that are always getting into the house.”

At the sound of my voice, the gecko disappeared the rest of the way beneath the sink. I found out a moment later that he wasn’t the only one startled. I came out of the bathroom with a smile that vanished as soon as I saw the expression of the woman who’d been considering the house.

“Always getting in?” she asked, her face pasty.

“Cool,” her son said.

“Well, not always,” I amended, “but Florida does have a lot of lizards. They’re, um, good for eating the bugs.”

Her eyes darted from side to side, as if she expected giant winged insects to swoop down and carry her off. “The bugs?”

Somehow I got the impression these nice folks weren’t going to be making an offer this afternoon. Maybe now would be the time to see if I could send her on her way with a lovely parting purchase of earrings and matching pendant. But I never got the chance to ask because the doorbell rang.

If it was another real-estate agent, I was going to smack him in the head with his own cell phone…just as a gentle reminder to call ahead next time. But it was more likely to be one of the neighbors who had RSVPed that she might attend late. I opened the door with a cheerful, welcoming, “Hi!” and almost passed out on the spot.

My mother-in-law beamed at me. “Chahlie, deah!”

CHAPTER 4

Carrying a small suitcase in each hand, Rose Fiorello Smith swept into my house. A short woman with a solid build, dark bun and tidy appearance, she radiated authority despite her small stature. I wasn’t sure whether her entrance reminded me more of Mary Poppins or Napoleon.

“H-how did you get here?” I saw neither a flying umbrella nor mounted cavalry.

“Plane, rental car. Who are all these people? I hope it’s a packing party, you don’t look nearly ready to go. There they are, my beautiful babies!” She’d spotted her grandchildren, not that they were hard to pick out of the crowd since Sara was rushing toward us.

Ben hung back, quietly watchful in contrast to his sister’s running narrative.

“Nonna!” Sara tugged at the sleeve of Rose’s red blazer. “Come watch my movie with me. You can hear my favorite song, only we hafta rewind because I missed it when I went pee-pee and there was a snake in the bathroom. Mommy said a dirty word. I can’t say which one, because it was real bad.”

And there went all my motivation for ever encouraging Ben to talk.

“It wasn’t a snake, just a lizard,” I said. “Harmless gecko. Gone now. Um, Rose, can I offer you something to drink?”

With her eyebrows arched toward her dramatically white-streaked hairline, Rose moved farther into the house—a good thing, since the prospective buyers looked as if they would shove her out of the way to escape this loony bin.

Except for the boy. I distinctly heard him mutter, “Cool,” one last time as his parents hurried down our sidewalk. The Realtor followed, making assurances that the next home would better suit their needs.

“They were looking at the house,” I said weakly.

Rose drew the obvious conclusion. “I believe they’ve decided to pass. You know, dear, your living room would appear a lot more spacious if it weren’t full of folding chairs and whatnot.”

Mrs. Winslow glared at me. Apparently, I was testing the limits of her graciousness with the constant interruptions to her business venture.

“Rose, this is Gladys Winslow. We were in the middle of showing the ladies some of ZirStone’s fine merchandise. Mrs. Winslow, my mother-in-law, Rose Smith.”

The two women shook hands and Rose stepped forward, Sara still at her side. “Lovely to meet you. Would you mind if I took a look at those earrings, Gladys? Oh, these are fabulous. Do you take out-of-state checks? I hate to cut your party short, but I haven’t had the chance to visit with my grandchildren in almost a year. I’m sure you ladies understand. Oh, did you see this pendant?” she asked a woman sitting to her left. “It would be beautiful on you. Such a graceful neck.”

She somehow ushered my neighbors out of the house and made four sales for Gladys at the same time. “Did you see how this brooch is the same style as your bracelet, dear? You should splurge on yourself. We all should, before the busy holiday season starts and our time and energy is devoted to others. Goodbye, it was wonderful to have met you ladies.”

I just stared, belatedly moving into action as Gladys closed her jewelry case and turned to gather up her dishes. My business partner was whistling cheerfully when I shut the front door behind her. And then it was just me, Rose and the kids.

My mother-in-law was seated on the couch, Ben nestled in her lap as Sara sat next to her, showing off one of her favorite books. Rose glanced up with a reproachful smile. “If I’d known how much you needed my help, dear, I would have arrived sooner.”

“Tell me again,” Dianne urged, grinning over the rim of her mimosa. She was dappled in the sunlight spilling through mini-blinds we’d half closed because of the glare off the water and sand.

“So glad to provide the entertainment,” I said dryly.

The original plan had been for the kids and me to take Dianne to breakfast before she left this afternoon. With Rose unexpectedly available to babysit, Dianne and I had grabbed the rare opportunity for a more elegant brunch in the restaurant of a five-star beachfront hotel. We didn’t often get to sit down just the two of us, adults only, without being interrupted or having to dice someone else’s food. When we were done here, we’d go to the house so Ben and Sara could say their goodbyes.

Between Dianne’s interruptions and unfeminine snorts of laughter, it had taken me almost forty minutes to relay the full story of yesterday’s events.

She cut off a piece of Belgian waffle. “I’m just glad we got this chance for a girls’ morning out before I left. Although it is weird not to have the munchkins here.”

“‘Weird’ is relative. After yesterday, this hardly qualifies. I still can’t believe she showed up out of the blue like that.”

At least Rose had tempered her declarations that I clearly couldn’t handle the move by myself with the admission that she’d been so excited about seeing her grandbabies, she just couldn’t help herself.

Dianne raised an eyebrow. “Showed up and took over, from the sounds of it.”

It was true that Rose had assigned Sara packing tasks within half an hour of arrival, but I was too tired to resent offers of help.

“It’s her way. You know how she is.” They’d only met on a few occasions, but it didn’t take long for Rose to make an impression.

“Yeah. That, I know. What I don’t know is whether I feel less worried about you because you’ll have her help in Boston or more worried about you and whether or not you’re going to end up needing strong prescriptions for anti-psychotics.”

I laughed and we managed to joke our way through the rest of the brunch. Neither of us wanted some weepy, sentimental goodbye, even though we both knew that our friendship wouldn’t be the same after today. Driving separately back to the house kept me from saying anything that would sound like a badly written greeting card. I parked next to Rose’s rental car, Dianne behind it. When my friend stepped out onto the driveway, she held packages in her arms.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Dianne teased. “Neither of these is for you.”

“Somehow I suspected as much.” I nodded toward the Disney-themed wrapping paper featuring some of my kids’ favorite animated characters.

The kids met us in the foyer, Sara’s cries of “Aunt Di” quickly changing to “Presents!”

Rose hung back in the living room, her lips pursed. “Now, Sara, that’s hardly good manners. Let the ladies at least get into the house before you bombard them.”

“Oh, I don’t mind the bombardment.” Dianne hugged the children close to her. “I’d better stock up while I can!”

This reassurance didn’t really help with the lip-pursing. One of the sources of tension between my mother-in-law and me was that Rose had never warmed to Dianne. When I’d first heard Tom’s co-worker was dating a woman half his age who danced in skimpy costumes at a club on the weekends, I’d formed a premature impression, too—and learned a valuable lesson about rushing to judgment. But no matter how much the kids and I raved about Dianne, Tom’s mother had always seemed annoyed that the children’s closest “family” was the off-Broadway version of a Vegas showgirl. Deep down, though, Rose was probably envious of how little she got to see the kids in comparison.

Either she was respectful enough of my friendship with Dianne not to have made any snarky comments about my splurging on a leisurely brunch when I should be packing, or she was too glad to have an excuse to be alone with her grandkids.

We all adjourned to the living room, where Dianne, the kids and I squeezed onto the couch. I glanced up with the guilty realization that Rose probably felt excluded. Just because I hadn’t expected her to come down right before Dianne’s departure didn’t mean I should be inhospitable.

“Would you like a seat?” I asked. “I actually have something I should go get from my bedroom, anyway.”

Rose shook her head. “Thank you, dear, but no. I’ll go finish up in the kitchen.”

She’d informed me yesterday afternoon that she was here to chip in, and we’d begun the labor-intensive process of wrapping dishes and other breakables and boxing them. It had been a relief that someone besides me could pack the wedding china Tom and I had registered for all those years ago, for use on Thanksgiving and our April wedding anniversary. Whenever I handled the gold-rimmed plates, I was assailed with memories: our first Christmas as a married couple, when I’d overcooked the duck and Tom had assured me it was delicious; my teasing the strapping macho football player about helping me with the bridal registry; the expression on his darkly handsome face when he’d proposed beneath our favorite tree on the UF campus.

With practiced effort, I pushed away the achingly bittersweet past, determined to focus on the present. More important, the future. Though Tom and I wouldn’t have one together, I still had to raise our children with as much love and enthusiasm as I could. After my months of depression, Sara particularly worried when she noticed me looking unhappy.

Summoning a smile, I watched as both kids engaged in frantic tearing, shredding little bits of wrapping paper onto the carpet. Ben had uncovered a soft-to-the-touch choochoo train that made all kinds of noises when you pressed various places and even lit up. One of the sounds was the urgent “ding! ding! ding!” of a railroad crossing.

Dianne’s eyes were bright with affectionate mischief. “I’ll bet you’ll think of me the whooole ride to Boston.”

“I’ll bet the batteries will have mysteriously disappeared by then,” I kidded in return.

Sara unwrapped a purple cardboard box with a clear plastic front that showed dress-up accessories inside. Squeals of anticipation escaped her as she tried to get to the pink feather boa, sparkly tiara, plastic high heels and translucent purse full of makeup.

“Look, Mommy, look!”

While Dianne dutifully helped Sara into her new finery, I slipped out of the room and down the hall. Finances weren’t much right now—I’d pretty well blown any mad money I had on our extravagant brunch—but I’d put together a little something for my friend. I was grinning, thinking about the calendar gag gift, but my mouth dropped open in astonishment when I stepped inside my room.

My clothes were not where I had left them that morning. Dresses lay across the bed, sweaters dangled from plastic hangers on the door, and every pair of shoes I owned was lined up in front of the bureau. Rose. I knew she wanted to help with the packing process, but that’s why I’d given her the kitchen to tackle. I wasn’t wild about the idea of her going through my personal things when I wasn’t around.

If Tom were here, he would have told me she was just trying to make herself useful and I should let it slide; then again, if Tom were here, I wouldn’t be moving to Boston in the first place. Since I was, and Rose and I would presumably be seeing a lot more of each other, I thought it would be best to get certain boundaries clarified now. I sucked in a deep breath, prepared to call her in here, but then reminded myself that she was my mother-in-law, not my six-year-old. We could talk about it after Dianne had said her goodbyes to everyone.

When I returned to the living room, Sara and her brother were both wearing pink lip gloss that Sara informed me tasted like strawberries. Sara was teetering in her new heels, with the boa thrown over her shoulders, and Ellie sat on the couch, the “jeweled” tiara perched drunkenly between her plushy elephantine ears.

“I have a little going-away present for you,” I told Dianne, handing over a flat package wrapped in staid paper, a pattern of mauves and muted gold. “Nothing much, just something you can remember us by while you’re at sea.”

Dianne smiled at me and peeled away the curly ribbon and tape to expose a calendar with modern dancers posing on the cover, in contorted yet somehow still graceful positions—except that I’d stapled another calendar entirely inside the cover. She flipped it open, and a green-eyed hunk grinned up at her from February. His naked biceps were flexed as he prepared to shoot an arrow from a bow, and only the fact that he was standing behind a large red heart on a waist-high white column allowed the calendar to be sold in family-friendly stores.

Surprised, Dianne let out a short bark of laughter.

“I’m sure you’ll have a great time onboard,” I said. “But I figured, by that last month, you might be counting the days until you’re permanently on dry land and back to your own place. Might as well have something fun to look at while you’re counting! But here’s your real gift to remember us by.”

I handed her a two-sided, five-by-seven hinged frame that folded shut. On the left was a picture of Dianne and the kids at the beach; on the right was a picture of Dianne and me. We’d been at a bachelorette party for one of Tom’s secretaries. It was before he’d died, before I’d known I was pregnant with Ben. In the photo, I was a lot thinner and I hadn’t developed the matching baggage under my eyes yet. Dianne and I were grinning foolishly at the camera. God, it seemed like a long time ago.

She hugged me fiercely for just a moment, then let me go. “Well. I have to run. But I do have one thing for you first.” She reached into the beige purse resting against the corner of the sofa and pulled out a glossy brochure. “Here.”

“What’s this?”

“A day spa I researched in Boston. I’m booking us some decadent treatments for August. I plan to come up for Ben’s birthday.” She turned to Sara. “When I come up, we’ll celebrate yours, too, princess. Which is cool because that means you’ll get presents in June and in August. Deal?”

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