A Window Opens: A Novel (30 page)

“Mom, please tell me you’re joking.”

“I’m not joking. I thought you’d be happy.”

“Mom,
are you kidding me?
This is the most embarrassing thing, like, ever. You can’t come. You just can’t.”

“Margot, do
not
speak to me in that tone. I’m coming to Career Day whether you like it or not.”

“OMG, I’m going to be
mortified
. Mom, you can’t do this to me, I’m begging you. Please.”

“I am speaking to your classmates on Career Day. End of story.”

“
Mom, you’re ruining my life
!”

Cue the door slamming. Wow. Did that really happen? Why, yes. Yes, it did.

•  •  •

I visited the Blue Owl with my kids on a Saturday morning after spinning, looking for excuses to mingle among real books instead of digital files of books. We stocked up on Clementine, Lemony Snicket, Origami Yoga, Camp Confidential—pretty much every book presented to me, I piled by the cash register. Discomfort with my place of employment made me suspend my stringent spending rules.

While Susanna wrapped
Jenny and the Cat Club
(a birthday gift for Georgie’s friend), I ran into a woman I knew from Oliver’s hip-hop class. She said, “Alice, how funny, I was
just
wondering when you’re going to host another meeting of the No Guilt Book Club!”

I cringed, glancing at Susanna, who appeared to be all ears, even from the back.

“That’s right, we haven’t done one in a while. Susanna and I will have to put our heads together and figure it out.”

“Please do. I’d love to come!”

The birthday present was meticulously wrapped in owl paper and topped with a curly green ribbon. Susanna and I avoided each other’s eyes as she handed it over. “So what do you think?” I asked. “Should we put a date on the calendar?”

She waited until a pair of arriving customers moved past the cash register and spinning card racks, toward the nonfiction section at the back of the store. Then she answered, “I’m sorry, I can’t do another No Guilt night with you, Alice. I have an obligation to the store and—well, you know.”

“
Susanna
.”

“
Alice
. This is business. I don’t want to collaborate with you here anymore; I’m sorry, it’s just too weird. It feels like a deal with the devil.”

“So I’m the devil?”

“Scroll is . . . okay, maybe not the devil, but I don’t want you in here, scouting for ideas for your stores.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing?” My gaze took in the gleaming wood of her shelves, built by Paul, and the peaceful crowd of customers browsing round tables in the center aisle of the store. At a recent meeting at Scroll, we’d discussed the logistics of distributing noise-canceling headphones to all our customers. They’d need them to drown out the din of the video games and the heirloom popcorn machine we’d have in the kids’ area. No, I wasn’t stealing ideas from the Blue Owl; I was mourning a dream that would never come true.

But I couldn’t say this to Susanna. Instead, I grabbed a copy of
14,000 Things to Be Happy About
from a cardboard stand next to the cash register and added it to my pile of things to buy. She rang up the items without meeting my eye.

•  •  •

Georgie’s kindergarten teacher, Miss Pasquariello, sent home a monthly calendar so parents could sign up to volunteer in the classroom. When Margot was in the same class, I used to go in and help with “center time” every Monday and Wednesday morning. Hard as it was to squeeze the bump-that-would-yield-Georgie onto the Lilliputian kindergarten chairs, I looked forward to an hour of cutting out snowflakes or helping Margot’s classmates form simple sentences using the letter of the week.

By the time Oliver was in kindergarten, I’d reduced my volunteer commitment to once a week—but never was a child so happy to see his mom show up in the classroom doorway! The beatific look of joy on his face almost made up for all the time Oliver spent as a toddler collapsed in a heap on the floor, wrapping his body around my ankles. For years, every time I looked down, I saw a flash of train engineer–striped overalls.

When I received the December calendar from Miss Pasquariello, I decided it was time I took an interest in Georgie’s education. I added my name for a Thursday morning, estimating that the forty-minute commitment would land me at work sometime around lunchtime. I made myself OOTO on Outlook and declined an invitation or two for meetings scheduled at that time.

On the morning of my much-anticipated volunteer commitment, I received a text from Genevieve at 7:11 a.m.

Genevieve:
You going to the analytics debrief at 11? Please fill me in after.

Me:
I have a family obligation at that time.

Genevieve:
OK.

To her credit, Genevieve had a healthy respect for the challenges of being a working mom. Once when she ran into me by the elevator at the end of the day, she said, “Now you’re off to your second shift.”

I smiled appreciatively, feeling like a specimen under glass.

•  •  •

Georgie jumped for joy when I told her I was coming in. She requested a special hairdo (two paths of hair clips leading into braids) and a special outfit (powder-blue tutu paired with pink chihuahua shirt).

Walking the kids across the street to school had become a novelty, and I was surprised by how much more congested our street was now that traffic ran in both directions on North Edison. The street teemed with minivans and Priuses, each bearing oval magnets indicating the memberships, political leanings, and vacation destinations of its occupants: MV (Martha’s Vineyard), ACK (Nantucket), OBX (Outer Banks), FUSC (Filament United Soccer Club), SDFC (its rival), a green paw print indicating Panthers swimming (Margot’s team), GOBAMA!, COEXIST, and of course the plain A in a sage green circle, indicating allegiance to Louisa May Alcott School.

I stepped gingerly across the street and buzzed at the front door. Just inside the front hallway, I ran into Kara and another mom, who were transforming a bulletin board into a starry backdrop for a collection of projects by second-grade Van Goghs.

“Alice!” Kara leapt off her step stool and gave me a tight hug, demonstrating subtle Bar Method muscle. “What are
you
doing here?”

I ignored the slight—because, truly, I knew it wasn’t meant as one—and took an instant to appreciate how pretty these women are, with their well-tended figures and neat, studiously casual clothes. In my too-short color-block minidress, I felt as though I’d arrived at a casual party in costume.

When I walked into her classroom, Georgie was sitting on the floor with her class, listening to Miss Pasquariello read
My Mama Is a Llama
. She ducked her chin shyly when she spotted me. I recognized the kids’ sitting position as criss-cross applesauce—not Indian-style; I’ve spent enough time in kindergarten classrooms in recent years to be aware of this important linguistic shift.

While the kids listened to the last few pages, I stepped over to the
window, where there was a string weighted down with pictures clothes-pinned under a sign saying “How My Family Stays Healthy During Cold and Flu Season.” I scanned the crayon drawings of people with gigantic heads washing their flipper hands and found Georgie’s masterpiece toward the end of the exhibit, half obscured by a spider plant in a twine hanging holder.

Immediately, my cheeks got hot with shame. Georgie’s caption, as dictated to Miss Pasquariello: “We stay healthy by sharing toothbrushes.” It was true that our dental hygiene had slipped in the past few months; in fact, by recent calculations, we had only three toothbrushes in the rotation. But I had never claimed this was anything but a failure on my part to get to CVS.

I ended up in the school library with Georgie and three other little girls in side ponytails and huge sparkly sneakers. The girls took turns reading
Frog and Toad
, one page each at a snail’s pace. When it was Georgie’s turn, she caught my eye and smiled. Suddenly, it didn’t matter that I wasn’t a PTA regular and that I only sent in napkins and cutlery for every school party.

I
f Linda could arrange to stay late on Tuesday nights, my mom still came over to make spaghetti and meatballs for the kids. I tried to let her off the hook, but she insisted. I suspected she was also on the receiving end of constant reminders to do something nice for herself, and ordinary time with her grandchildren seemed to fit the bill.

Our tradition was to have a glass of wine together when I came home from work, but sometimes I was so tired I pretended we didn’t have any wine on the premises. One night, my mom helpfully pulled a bottle of red out of her Mary Poppins bag. “Time for a quick slug?”

“No, thanks,” I said.

“Seriously? Are you sick?”

“I’m fine, Mom. Just tired.”

“This job—Alice, you really need to get some rest.”

“It’s not just the job. It’s—”

“Too much, if you ask me.” She wound a scarf around her neck: around and around and around, until it looked like she was wearing a ruffled purple neck brace. “Well. Your meatballs are in the fridge. Make
sure you read a good book and get to bed early.” This prescription was a constant refrain from my childhood. There was the Holy Trinity we learned about in the CCD program at Our Lady of Agony, and then there was the one Will and I absorbed by osmosis at home: work hard, read a book, go to bed early.

Suddenly, it occurred to me: my mom was a round-the-clock caretaker, yet here she was making dinner for my family. “Wait, Mom, how are
you
?”

She looked exhausted, with new pink pouches under each eye and an unnerving new slump in her shoulders. My dad had taken off his wedding ring for one of his many procedures and now my mom wore it on a chain around her neck. She sighed. “I’m soldiering on.”

This response was classic Joan Pearse. Like my dad, she avoided talking about her feelings the way most people avoid root canal or the DMV. “Well, Dad is lucky to have you. You’re doing an amazing—”

“Why does everybody say that? He’s not ‘lucky.’ I’m his wife. This is what you
do
, dammit. You take care of each other. He would do the same for me.” Her face reddened. Was she thinking what I was thinking?
He’ll never have the chance.

“Mom. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”

She shook her head and left without answering, bucket of cooking supplies in one hand and her meatball pot in the other, dangling by one handle. Before her car was out of the driveway, I’d uncorked her wine and poured a large glass for myself.

•  •  •

Employee review season was approaching, so Genevieve briefed me on how it worked. I would solicit six to eight colleagues to deliver feedback on my performance, and I would accept invitations from six to eight colleagues who wanted my feedback on their performance. Feedback would be collected on the basis of innovation, initiative, and inner spirit. Team members would then be ranked according to their performance. The highest performer would receive a bonus in the form of MainStreet
stock, and the lowest would be put on a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan).

“Remember, Alice, these evaluations are not a reflection of how much you
like
a colleague. We want the good, the bad, and the ugly, with an emphasis on the final two. Because, of course, that’s where true learning occurs.” Genevieve’s smile flickered on/off, as if it were connected to a light switch.

“Wow, okay. I’d rather share my thoughts in person, but if this is the protocol—”

“This is the protocol. The automated system is more efficient.” She clicked out of GatheringPlace and ticked an item off a list on her iPhone. “Hey, how’s your dad doing?”

“Thanks for asking, Genevieve. He’s home now.”

“And?”

“Well, the goal is just to make him comfortable at this point.”

(My phone lit up with a text from Jessie: “Margot doesn’t want to go to swimming.”)

“That’s really hard. How are you holding up?”

“I’m just kind of . . . numb, if that makes any sense.” (My phone lit up with a text from Margot: “Do I have to go swimming? Pls Mommy? I rly don’t feel good.”) “As horrible as this sounds, I just wish I knew when . . . how long it’s going to be. The uncertainty is exhausting. Do you put your life on hold or do you keep going because this—he could be in this holding pattern for another month?”

Genevieve nodded knowingly. “I mean, I barely remember the very end when my dad died. But it seemed to go on forever, and for a long time that was the only way I remembered him—so, so sick.” She stared at a spot on the ceiling and then snapped back to attention, as if she had forgotten I was there. “Does he have the death rattle yet? Your dad?”

“Um . . . I’m not sure what that is.”

“It’s this terrible sound a dying person makes as they near the end. Like maracas.”

“Gee, nobody has mentioned the death rattle. I don’t think he has it.”

“You’ll know it when you hear it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

(Text from Nicholas: “I told Margot she can skip swimming.”)

The
death rattle
? Perhaps this was to the end of life as the mucus plug is to the end of pregnancy: a final humiliation nobody warns you about until there’s no going back.

I went back to my desk and started soliciting feedback on my performance. “Dear Matthew, I would appreciate your thoughts on my work. Would you mind visiting GatheringPlace to provide an evaluation of my strengths and weaknesses? Thanks for your time. I would be happy to return the favor.”

Then, a second message to Matthew’s Gmail account: “Matthew, if you leave out the time I cried in our office, I’ll leave out the time you gave Genevieve the finger behind her back. Deal?”

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Dear Mrs. Bauer,

Georgie got a little teary in class today and she told me that her grandfather is very sick. I gathered from some of the details she shared that he may be near the end of his life. I told her how my mother passed away yet is still with me always. Forgive me if I’ve overstepped; I’m not sure of your belief system—Georgie says she is “half Jewish, half Christmas.”