Again.
In retrospect, my decision to stay in Ann Arbor after graduation had been largely fueled by my desire to avoid Ben—and maybe my mother, too. At the time, however, I told myself that I simply wanted to live in a greener, less expensive place that had a slower pace—and all of that was true, even if it wasn’t the real reason I became a townie, as the longtime permanent residents referred to themselves.
I didn’t come home for the holidays that first year after college, since Belle was a puppy and needed so much attention. (That was my story and I was sticking to it.) Then I met Josh, and his very presence felt like a shield of sorts, which made it easier to head back to the city for special occasions. I knew through social media that Ben had moved to California soon after college—he’d actually hated finance and went to get his culinary degree at the Culinary Institute of America, right in the heart of Napa County, then moved to San Francisco. And like me, he rarely returned to New York. A particularly ill-advised bout of browsing revealed that he’d gotten married to a stunning woman named Celeste in his early thirties, but they’d since divorced. And if the photos he posted were to be believed, it appeared he’d left California after their divorce and had been bouncing around working as a private chef for the kind of people who owned three homes and spent almost no time in any of them.
Except now he was back in Brooklyn. I almost wished Hadley hadn’t told me, so I could focus my entire attention on getting through the week quickly, then launch headfirst into my new life as a potential parent. Granted, the particulars of said life remained murky. From what I’d gathered online, getting pregnant was complicated and nerve-racking. Temperatures to monitor, hormones to check, ultrasounds, and more: Could I really go through that on my own? And that wasn’t even the more involved and expensive procedures, like egg retrieval and storage, which I might very well need.
Then there was the other half of the problem. The fact that I hadn’t been able to muster up the courage to type “how to find a sperm donor” into the search bar didn’t bode well for my ability to actually get pregnant. Well, not without Josh. My ob-gyn’s next available pre-fertility appointment was in September, but I had a list of ob-gyns who took my health insurance, and I intended to call them right away to see if someone could tell me what I needed to do to get my body ready for a baby.
But first, to see my mother and determine just how hyperbolic Hadley was being about her mental faculties.
The cab pulled up in front of my mother’s brownstone. I paid the fare, grabbed my suitcase from the trunk, and headed straight for the door. Though I was here to help my mother, I almost wished I’d asked Hadley if I could stay with her; she and Topper had a Park Avenue penthouse, and the guest rooms—there were two—were spacious and welcoming and, of course, miles from one particular Carroll Gardens apartment I was trying to steer clear of.
Even as I climbed the stairs of my childhood home, my eyes had landed on the building three doors to the left. Same brown cement facade and well-tended stoop; same wrought-iron flower boxes—today brimming with purple and yellow pansies. My pulse quickened as I realized just how not ready I was to face Ben. After all, what would I say? I never did confront my mother, but that’s only because it would’ve broken her heart, and one broken heart is more than enough for the Francis women. Also, I’m really not a people pleaser anymore. I just left my husband, and not a single person I know is happy about that, including me. I shook my head, trying to knock these thoughts loose. Yes, Ben was in town, but there was little chance he’d moved back in with Reggie. He’d probably just been visiting when Hadley ran into him.
My mother had never changed the locks all these years, and I still had my old key. But I rang the doorbell anyway because I didn’t want to surprise her. I was beginning to wonder if she was even home when she finally buzzed me in.
A long hallway separated my mother’s apartment from the stairs leading to the upstairs apartment, which she rented out. All sorts of people had tap-danced above our heads over the years: families and couples and singles and roommates, and once, terrifyingly, a buttoned-up accountant who moonlighted as a clown. But for the better part of the last decade, Roger and Rohit had lived there. Hadley, Piper, and I took comfort in this—not only was the couple unflaggingly punctual in paying the rent, they were handy and had probably saved my mother thousands in home repair bills.
When I got to her door, she was standing there in a silk bathrobe and a matching hair wrap.
“Mom?” I said, remembering what Hadley had said about the nightgown she’d worn to Bashir’s. “Did you just get out of the shower?”
“No, dear,” she said, touching the wrap. “Why?”
I gestured to her getup.
“I’m comfortable like this. And I wasn’t expecting visitors.”
“You remembered I was coming, right?” I said gently.
She tilted her chin indignantly. “Of course, Laine. You’re not a visitor. This is your home.” Then she smiled and opened her arms to me.
As I embraced her, she smelled like gardenias and coffee, just like she always did. Her eyes were moist when she let me go.
“Why are you crying?”
She smiled again and dabbed the corner of her lids with her wrist. “It’s just been so long since I’ve seen you.”
Guilt washed over me. It had only been five months, but I wasn’t exactly vying for daughter of the year—especially compared to Hadley, but even Piper. Maybe I should have found a place to board Belle so I could have visited more often.
No, said a voice from deep within me. If anything, I wish I’d spent more time with Belle—not less. My mother was the one who followed her around like she was a toddler in a store full of blown glass, constantly fretting that Belle—who was nothing if not well behaved—was going to topple her tchotchkes. What I should have done was tell my mother the truth: the way she treated my dog hurt my feelings.
Well, I thought wistfully, it’s too late for that.
So I said, “I know. I’m sorry. But I’m here now.”
Her face lit up. “Yes, you are, my girl, and that means everything to me. Come on in.”
I don’t know what I was expecting, but the apartment wasn’t in any worse shape than it had been the last time I’d been in town. In the living room, the wall of bookshelves was still crammed full of books—like me and Hadley, my father had been a reader. In front of the books, my mother had shoved various glass and ceramic figures, picture frames, and an assortment of random items, including but not limited to a wine cork, a pair of nail clippers, and a bottle of prescription-strength ibuprofen that had expired in the late nineties. Sure, my mother had left a towel on a chair, and I spotted the corpses of several houseplants, some unopened boxes in the corner, and a plate with a piece of half-eaten toast on top of the piano. This was the way she lived. It made me want to immediately start putting things where they belonged, but I saw no sign of a declining mind.
“Not too bad,” I said to myself.
“Don’t judge me, Laine,” said my mother, flopping down on the sofa. She draped her arm over her forehead and paused before peering at me. “Your sister already does that enough for all three of you.”
“Hadley means well,” I said, because she had been doing most of the heavy lifting over the past year or seven.