For today, anyway. What a whirlwind. She just dropped Sabrina and her friends at a bat mitzvah in Great Neck, and someone else’s mom is picking them up at midnight. She ran to the mall with Samantha to get a birthday gift for a friend, then delivered her and the gift and a trio of other girls to the birthday girl’s sleepover. Shannon won’t be home until tomorrow and Sean won’t be home until Christmas and Kevin is still at the hospital and God only knows when he’ll be home.
She texted him earlier to make sure he’d seen the billing statement for Sean’s spring semester tuition. No response. He’s probably in the OR. She’s used to that. He nearly missed the delivery of their fourth child because he was miles away in surgery when her water broke. The contractions progressed so quickly that she was pushing by the time he got her message.
The labor room nurses reassured her that he’d be there on time for the birth—-and in the end, they were right—-but everyone else seemed more disturbed by her husband’s absence than she was.
I can take care of myself. I’ve never needed anyone there holding my hand or, God forbid, looking over my shoulder . . .
Rowan called her cell phone twice today; called the house, too. Not urgent, according to her messages.
As always, the thought of her younger sister is accompanied by an intermingling of nostalgia, affection, and deep--seated antagonism. Her relationship with Rowan is perhaps the most complicated one in her life—-and considering the state of her life at the moment, she’s in no hurry to return her sister’s call.
In the master bedroom, she folds the jeans she’d worn today back into the bureau drawer and hangs her silk blouse in her walk--in closet. She pulls on a cozy long--sleeved T--shirt, a pair of fleece--lined yoga pants, and soft yarn socks. At times like this, small doses of comfort go a long way.
Downstairs in the butler’s pantry that connects the kitchen to the formal dining room, she takes a hand--blown crystal goblet from a glass--fronted cabinet. It’s part of an elegant set of four she and Kevin received for their wedding, courtesy of his long--dead great--aunt Martha. They’d registered at Tiffany’s to please his family and Macy’s to please hers. She wound up returning nearly all the gifts from her side in exchange for store credit, which she never did use.
The irony is that she never used most of her Tiffany’s gifts, either, including these glasses. She was always afraid they would break. Tonight, who cares? Everything is fragile; everything is breaking.
She picks up the bottle of Pontet--Canet Bordeaux she pulled from the wine cellar when she got home and inserts a butterfly corkscrew imprinted Mundy’s Landing Wine & Liquor. She took the corkscrew from a drawer at her parents’ house after her father died. He didn’t just use the bottle opener on top to pop the caps off his beer bottles; he opened cream sodas for Noreen and her brothers and sister on special occasions.
She made sure Rowan didn’t see her pocket the corkscrew that day as they were cleaning out the kitchen—-not because she thought her sister might want it, but because she didn’t want Rowan to know that she did.
She twists the cheap corkscrew into the cork and pulls, gratified when it glides out with a slight, almost celebratory popping sound.
She really should let the Bordeaux breathe, and she really shouldn’t be drinking alone, but to hell with rules tonight. She tucks the corkscrew back into a drawer beneath a stack of linen dish towels, pours some wine into her crystal goblet, and sips.
She plunks the glass on the counter a little too hard, but it doesn’t crack. Nor does her face, when she allows a smile to touch her lips for the first time all day.
There, see?
Better already.
Sometimes, you can discover more about a stranger just by watching her from afar for a little while than you’ll ever know about loved ones.