by Kelly Rimmer
up my mind. The only part of parenting I’ve mastered so far is
breastfeeding. It’s the one thing that’s working, the only way to
get Noah to sleep sometimes…the only reason I remember to
hold him some days. The reality is, breastfeeding is providing
all the structure to my parenting at the moment and I’m pretty
sure if I remove that, the entire operation is going to collapse.
“But we could pick up a can of formula at the supermarket,
and it will just make your life so much easier—”
“I said I’d think about it, Chiara. That’s the best I can do.” I
cut her off, and her face falls. She closes her mouth delicately,
then offers me a weak smile and motions to take Noah from my
arms. I hand him over, then turn to leave.
“Aren’t you going to say goodbye to your son?” Chiara
prompts me, pointedly but not unkindly. I squeeze my eyes
closed, take a deep breath, then turn back to her, smile fixed
in place.
“Of course. Silly me. Goodbye, Noah,” I say, then I brush
a quick kiss on his forehead before I escape out the front door,
into the safe silence of my car. As I reverse into the street, I don’t
look back. I know Chiara will be sitting by that fire, toasty and
warm with Noah on her lap, staring down at him with adora-
tion, cooing and talking and generally just loving on him.
When my friends meet Chiara, they inevitably tell me I’ve
hit the mother-in-law jackpot. She’s caught up in a passionate
love affair with cooking so she’s constantly preparing the most
amazing food. Even so, she’s humble about her culinary skills
and is always enthusiastic at my own cooking attempts, even
when I inevitably under or overcook the dish. Chiara is gen-
erous and gentle and kind, even if she can be just a little over-
bearing sometimes. She’s patient and sweet, and she seems to
genuinely like me, which I find to be very strange, considering
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I’m still not sure how I’m supposed to relate to the woman. Is
your mother-in-law supposed to be a friend? Like a close aunt,
if your aunts had a vested interest in your spouse? A parental
figure…a second mother?
I think that last one is why I’m still so confused. While I hold
a handful of precious memories of Grace Walsh, I hardly had
the chance to know her. I do have a few memories of Dad’s aunt
Nina, who helped care for us for a few years after Grace died,
but she was old and frail and distant—often caring for us with
the help of one of the babysitters Dad hired.
I’ve never real y had a mother figure, and if the dynamic that
exists between Chiara and me is what a motherly relationship
should feel like, it’s bewilderingly alien to me, even after a de-
cade.
In all those years Hunter and I spent desperately trying to
achieve parenthood, I just wish we’d stopped even once to con-
sider the possibility that a motherless woman might not know
how to be a mother.
I stop off for some packing and cleaning supplies, then head
straight to the house. I park in the drive, and as I begin to walk
toward the front door, I take a trip down memory lane. I re-
member the way that Tim and Jeremy dumped their bikes on
the path as they ran. I remember sitting on the steps with Ruth
eating Popcicles late on hot July nights. I remember kissing Jason
White, right on the stoop after our first date.
I remember opening the front door after that kiss, and find-
ing Dad standing in the hallway, lurking just where he thought
I wouldn’t notice him. And when I ran to the toilet and threw
up, he was right on my heels, making sure I was okay. I’ve al-
ways been a nervous vomiter. That night with Jason was prob-
ably one of the most terrifying nights of my life—he was the
student council president, popular and handsome, creative and
clever…and there I was—pale, quiet, way out of my depth. It
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Kelly Rimmer
was a great kiss as far as first kisses go, but it’s not all that sur-
prising that I lost my dinner afterward.
Dad and I sat in the kitchen after I emerged from the bath-
room. He’d perfected a recipe for apple cake that summer, and
every time we ate our way through a cake, he’d immediately
whip up another. That was one of Dad’s quirks—he wasn’t the
world’s greatest cook, so when he got the hang of a dish, we’d
eat it ad nauseum until he found a new recipe. That night he’d
just finished baking, so the kitchen air was heavy with cinna-
mon and apple and I perched beside Dad at the breakfast bar for
a talk. I nibbled at my cake and sipped the overly sweet tea he
liked to make in times of crisis, and in his subtle way, Dad made
sure I was okay. He was a man ahead of his time when it came
to parenting. He made sure that Ruth and I understood that we
were our own people—he taught us to stand up for ourselves
and to make decisions that we could be proud of.
As I step into the house now, I open my mouth to call out to
greet him—then I remember that he’s gone. I feel that knowl-
edge right in my chest—a dull ache that I know I’ll have to ad-
just to because Dad isn’t coming home, and the pain is going to
get much, much worse before it gets better.
I walk along the hallway, peering into the rec room on the
left, the study on the right, and then the massive, window-lined
living area at the back of the house looms before me. It’s as tidy,
as it always is. I can’t ever remember seeing this space messy,
except on Christmas mornings. Especially since Dad retired,
he liked to run a tight ship. He baked his own bread, made his
own beer, grew an extensive garden in the backyard…and ev-
erything always had a place, and everything was always in its
place. Even this past year when language began to deteriorate, he
only became more regimented—almost compulsive. On the one
hand, that was going to make packing up the house a lot easier.
On the other hand, moving those things from their special
place, putting them into boxes and giving them to charity or
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distributing them to my siblings…that is going to feel all kinds
of wrong.
But it has to be done. So I make myself a hot cocoa, I set up
some boxes and then begin the task of dismantling my child-
hood home.
It’s not long before I have a plan in place to pack up Dad’s
house. I’ll work through the bedrooms and the attic over the
next few days, then deal with the living areas after Christmas.
I start with the main bathroom because it’s the least nostalgic
place in the house. I imagine the real estate listing as I clear out
>
the extra shelves Dad installed over the years. Unique and much
loved family home on a quiet, leafy street. Five generously sized bed-
rooms and three large living areas. Generous storage. Actual y, so much storage, it’s bordering on ludicrous.
In the end, I pack every moveable item in that bathroom into
boxes, and then marker in hand, I take a deep breath and write
Trash on every single one. I have to be ruthless with this pro-
cess, or my siblings and I are going to drown in needless mem-
orabilia and maybe nostalgia, too.
One room down already, I decide I’ll reward myself by wan-
dering through the rest of the house and daydreaming a little.
My bedroom was the closest to Dad’s, probably because I was
the youngest and likely still waking up at night when we moved
in. There are posters of The Monkees curled and yellowed but
still fixed to the wall, and the duvet cover on the bed is a ghastly
orange, green and aqua pattern that I remember falling head-
long in love with when I was fifteen. My shelves are all full of
what I suspect will be intensely dusty books.
I wander into Ruth’s old bedroom next. Her walls are bare—
she was never one for obsessing over bands or movie stars. There
aren’t any books in Ruth’s room—instead, there are half-fin-
ished wooden creations. Dad was nervous about a teenage girl
taking on a carpentry apprenticeship in the seventies, but Ruth
being Ruth there was no deterring her, and it turned out she
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didn’t care one bit about being the only woman on the team
for most of her career.
Jeremy’s bedroom is by far the most chaotic. His shelves are
lined with rocks and gemstones, and even a few vials of dust
he’d deemed necessary to keep after research trips. Jeremy lived
at home far longer than any of the rest of us because he com-
muted right up until he finished his undergraduate degree. He
had no interest in supporting himself with a part-time job as
the rest of us did during college. Instead, he was content to live
with Dad for free and use the hour-long commute each way
for reading time. Dad always said that if Jeremy hadn’t fallen
in love with science, he’d probably have wound up in jail. Jez
had made something of a career of mischief until he belatedly
found some ambition when he reached his sophomore year of
high school. It’s fair to say that the only discipline my brother
has ever taken to is of the academic variety.
Tim’s bedroom is going to be the easiest to clean out. Much
like Tim himself, it’s orderly and neat. He’s the oldest, and he’s
always taken a somewhat parental role over the rest of us. I can
remember him threatening to ground me when I was nine or
ten because I hadn’t taken my dirty clothes to the laundry room
so he could wash them. My parents had us in quick succession,
and Tim is only three years older than I am, but he always re-
lated to us as if he were the adult in the group.
I don’t go into Dad’s bedroom. I’m not ready to think about
that room being empty. Instead, I head to the stairs that lead
to the attic.
The massive attic was one of the most unique features of our
family home. It was unfinished storage space when we moved in,
but Dad converted it into a huge, usable room that runs the en-
tire length and breadth of the house. There are peaked windows
all along the walls, a high cathedral ceiling, and highly polished
floorboards on the floor, dotted with several mismatched rugs
that had been purchased over time in attempts to reduce the echo
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in the room. When he retired, Dad converted this space into
his art studio, but as his heart function faded, so did his ability
to walk up the stairs, and I’m pretty sure he hasn’t painted in
over a year. As I mount the final steps, I wonder if I should take
some brushes and paints with me when I visit him tomorrow.
I put my hand on the doorknob and turn it, then bump into
the door—completely caught off guard when it doesn’t budge
at all. I twist the handle hard, and push my shoulder against the
door, but when this makes absolutely no difference, I look down
at the lock and frown. This is a new handle—and it sports a se-
riously heavy-duty deadlock.
But why would he need to lock the attic? Dad must have
installed this lock when he lived alone—otherwise we would
have noticed. Was he locking himself in, or locking the world
out? It was almost certainly during the period when we didn’t
realize he was developing dementia. I can’t stand the thought
that Dad might have been afraid of something and completely
alone with that fear.
There’s no avoiding Dad’s bedroom now—it’s the logical place
to find the key. I wander back down the stairs to his room but
I pause at the door, then take a deep breath and force myself to
go inside.
Here, more than anywhere, I feel his absence. The room
smells like Dad—his aftershave and deodorant linger in the
air. This scent is warm hugs on sad days, and laughter over the
breakfast bar, and suffering through the sheer boredom of the
old black-and-white movie marathons he so loved to inflict
upon us on rainy weekends.
Dad. Oh, God, Dad, how am I ever going to survive with-
out you?
My sadness swells again, but I can’t let it distract me—I have
to focus on finding the key. Dad’s furnishings have always been
about function and comfort, with no consideration for style, and
that’s never been more evident than when I consider his bed-
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room. The dresser doesn’t match the bed frame; the curtains
are the tattered remains of a coarse, cream-and-brown gauze.
I pull the curtains open to let some sunshine in and turn to
survey the room. Every surface is pristine; not a speck of dust
can be found. I open drawers and find perfectly folded clothes,
exactly in the right place, but I looked through these same draw-
ers last week when I was packing for Dad and I didn’t notice
any loose keys. Then again, I wasn’t actually looking for a key,
so I’ll have to search again.
My efforts become steadily more vigorous, but I’m trying
not to make a mess, as if Dad might find me rifling through
his things. After a while, though, the reality sinks in that Dad
is likely never coming back to this room, and I begin to take
clothes and objects out of drawers and shelves and to rest them
haphazardly on his bed. When I’ve searched his entire room, I
shift my attentions to the rest of the house.
Another hour passes, and now I’ve given up on keeping the
place pristine
and I’ve made a huge mess. I’ve tipped out drawers and dumped the contents of shelves onto the floor and benches.
I’m frustrated, and when I finally concede defeat, I belatedly
realize that I’m sweaty, dusty and exhausted. I pour a glass of
water and walk to the phone to dial the first number I ever
learned by heart.
“Walsh Constructions,” a chirpy voice on the other end says.
“Hello there, Janet, it’s Beth. Is Ruth available?”
Predictably, I wait almost ten minutes for my sister to pick up.
I’m important to Ruth…but everything is important to Ruth.
She’s become the kind of woman who habitually juggles an im-
probable number of balls, makes it look easy, and then unwit-
tingly shames everyone who can’t quite manage the same feats
of endurance. School wasn’t Ruth’s forte, but everything else
in life seems to be. Ruth is the perfect mother to three unruly
sons, but to hear her speak about them, you’d think she was
purposefully crafting them that way. Ruth has the world’s most
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perfect husband in Ellis—a man who genuinely seems to live
and breathe to make her dreams come true. Ruth has a mag-
nificent family home, one that she designed herself, and then
of course, she managed the building herself, too.
Even now, at almost forty, I sometimes feel like a miserable
failure compared to Ruth. She has shiny, chestnut hair, beau-
tiful amber eyes and a figure most women would die for. I’ve
been breastfeeding for five months but I’m still somehow flat-
chested, and my frizzy, dark brown hair has been even harder
to tame since pregnancy. I have the most ordinary set of blue
eyes that you’ve ever seen and my skin tone is either porcelain
white or sunburned—there is no in-between. There isn’t enough
mascara in the world to give me decent eyelashes, while Ruth’s
have always seemed unnaturally thick, unnaturally long. Despite
years of working on building sites with teams of less-than-so-
phisticated tradesmen, Ruth is still so elegant and capable. Worst of all, she has the audacity to be funny and kind, too. Except
when she’s reminding me how utterly busy she always is—and
when she finally answers the call, that’s exactly where the con-
versation begins.
“Beth, I’m so sorry it took me so long to get off that other