“Tom. Right. He worked on the gardening crew with us. He was going to help me get that chair for Mrs. Beamon.”
“Ah, so he’s a lifesaver then!” Fred crossed the kitchen in two brisk strides and shook my hand. I could feel the waxy scar I had given him just behind his knuckles. “I’ve had this twinge in my back for weeks and can’t seem to shake it. In thanks, we’ll send you home with thirty-five to forty pounds of leftover tuna noodle casserole.”
He turned back to Mom and clapped his hands together.
“Now! My dear one. My sweet. I’m sorry to say it, but the time is almost upon us.”
“Seriously?” Mom whined. “Can’t we just skip it and run away somewhere? Come on, it’ll be all mysterious.”
Fred laughed, and then, when he saw that I didn’t understand, he said, “We promised our friends that if they brought their instruments, Sara and I would kick off the dancing. She’s nervous.”
“I know it’s silly,” she said. “But I’m positive that I have two left feet. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. I’m going to be a disaster.”
“You’re going to be wonderful,” Fred said.
“I just have to pull myself together.”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “Bourbon’s in the cupboard,” he said. “I’ll go stall. Tom, thanks again. Feel free to come over and lift heavy things for me anytime.”
There was another rush of noise as he opened the porch door and closed it behind him. I followed as Mom moved to the living room, to a window that looked out onto the backyard. Fred was circulating through the crowd, catching up everyone around him in great bear hugs and then laughing.
“Not long after I met Fred, this guardsman was going door-to-door,” she said. “He had a stack of papers, and he was telling everyone who they were. Fred already knew who he was by then, but I didn’t. When the guardsman came to our house, I had Fred tell him to go away.”
“Why?”
Mom’s forehead wrinkled with concentration. “When I try to look into that place, into the time before, I have this feeling that . . .”
She shook her head, frustrated.
“What?”
“There were good things then,” she said carefully, as if she were making her way across an old bridge, testing each step before she committed to it. “I know that. There were people I loved, who loved me. But there’s something else in that place too, something that . . .”
Mom took hold of an edge of the dusty curtain and crimped it between her fingers.
“I was helping Fred cook once,” she said. “I went to chop some carrots, but as soon as my hand touched the knife, I started crying and I couldn’t stop. Every time I try to think about why, it’s like I can’t breathe.”
Tears came into her eyes. Outside the window Fred and some of their guests were clearing an area in the middle of the yard. Fred must have felt Mom looking at him, because he turned and waved expansively, like someone hailing a ship. She smiled and brushed away her tears.
“When I was first getting to know Fred, it was like . . . it was like I was walking by a pool on a summer day. I wanted to run right at it and dive into the deepest part without looking. Just to get cool as fast as possible, you know? I think maybe that’s how I did things before, but I didn’t want to do that with him. I eased in.” She smiled again. “As much as I could, anyway. Everything seems so simple now. We’re just happy. It’s like learning to walk. It seems so obvious once you know how.”
Mom swept away the last of her tears and then her hand fell to her side. I thought she was going to pull away when I took it, but she didn’t. Her fingers curled around mine and pressed into my palm.
“You were right,” I said. “We did know each other. Before.”
Mom didn’t say anything for a long time. She didn’t move. The air in the house became perfectly still. Outside, her friends seemed to move in slow motion.
“How?”
When I didn’t answer, she turned around.
“Will I be better off if I know?”
In that second it seemed like our whole life streamed by. Mom dancing. Mom bent over a garden washed in sunlight, her hands buried in the soil. Mom collapsed on her knees on the other side of your body.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I really don’t.”
There was a round of applause outside, and then the musicians started to play. Fred lifted his arms and mimed a waltz, grinning up at the window. I let go of Mom’s hand.
“You should go,” I said. “You don’t want to miss your dance.”
Mom looked into a mirror that hung by the window and smoothed her hair. When she was done, she crossed to the porch door, pausing there with her palm pressed against the glass.
“Do you remember a game called Monopoly?”
I nodded.
“We have a tournament every Monday night,” she said. “Fred and I and our friends. Maybe you could join us sometime. And then we could talk more. The three of us. I think I’d like that. I think we both would.”
A chant started up outside. “Sa-ra! Sa-ra! Sa-ra!”