And now she had taken that small and magical thing and delivered it to the man who was in the center of that other world and she knew that by leaving it with him this part of her life would disappear. She turned right and began to make her way toward her mother’s house. Stopping at the end of each street and telling herself to go back though she damn well knew that she couldn’t go back after she had only minutes ago declared to him that she couldn’t come back. Not even to ask him to give her back that precious thing.
She moved across town. Driving and thinking about how she felt as she saw the note lying on the floor yesterday morning. Near the front door in the same place that the mortgage and the electric bill and the Christmas cards and other evidence of their existence fell every day except Sunday. How she had known who it was from and what it said before she knelt and picked it up and how she had read it once, twice, five, eight times as she stood in the quiet of the house in the earliest light. How she had read it over and over and how she had looked out the wide, rectangular window in the front door and imagined what he looked like in the night as he walked up her sidewalk and up her front steps and across her porch and to the door and how she had imagined what he looked like as he walked away from her door and down her steps and across her sidewalk, disappearing in the dark as he walked down the street with his hands in his pockets. And how as she stood there imagining him delivering the note, how she squeezed it between her fingers as if trying to get it to give one last drop and then hearing the first small voice of the day calling Mommy and then the other small voices following behind the first. Mommy, Mommy. And how she had felt as she smoothed the wrinkled paper on her thigh and then pulled out the waist of her pajama bottoms and stuck the note into the front of her panties as she heard the small feet hit the floor, preparing to come look for her. Helping to wash faces and brush teeth and then pouring cereal for the boys and sitting with the girl and helping her learn with her spoon as she felt the note flat against her skin as if it were his own warm hand against her soft flesh reaching down and touching her in a place that he knew. And how she was relieved when the big steps came down the stairs and the big voice came into the kitchen, giving good mornings and kissing heads and already prepped for the day with the tie tied and the face shaved and the smell of a freshly cleaned man. Your turn, he said. I’ll finish them up. She headed upstairs and she took the note from her panties and read it again and then she folded it while she hurried to get it together. In and out of the shower and hair and makeup done quickly and dressed and shoes and then the note folded an extra time and put into her pants pocket just as he called out. They’re ready. I gotta run. And how she sat down on the edge of the bed and then it occurred to her to take the ring and keep it with her until she found the courage to go and see him and how she took it from the back of the drawer where it had sat all those years and where it had allowed her to go through that doorway and into that other world. And she thought now that if she went back and asked for it then maybe he could somehow understand all these things that she had felt.
Her mother and the children were on the front porch. The boys tugged at each other and argued as they walked toward the car. The girl stood next to her grandmother with her arms up and ready to go. She said thanks for watching them and got them all to the car and got them all buckled in and she drove away quickly and knew she had to return. That having them in the car would give her an excuse to keep it running. Just get out and tell him it was a mistake and apologize and ask if he’ll give it to you and you know he will. Only make it quick. The boys would ask who he was and later on they might bring it up with their father in the room. Mommy stopped at some man’s house, one of them would say. And the other would say who was that man, Mommy? And then he might ask the same and she would say I stopped by so-and-so’s house to see if she wanted to go to a movie this weekend but she wasn’t there and so-and-so’s husband was pulling in and stopped and said hello before we drove off and so what are we going to do about supper tonight? She processed her answer and it felt fine so she drove toward Russell thinking of the best way to say it. She was nervous when she turned onto his street and defeated when she noticed that he wasn’t on the steps any longer. She slowed in front of the house and she noticed that the truck wasn’t under the carport. What are we doing? one of the boys asked and she didn’t answer him. Then the other boy asked the same question. What are we doing?
She was quiet as she stared at the steps where he had been sitting. Where she had been sitting with him. Where he had held her hand.
Momma? What are we doing?
27