The Last House on Sycamore Street

by Paige Roberts

  “Thanks,” Amy said. She and Rob stood up and shook hands with the Durants across the table. “Noah?”

  She heard Noah titter in the corner before Ethan whispered, “Your mommy wants you.”

  Noah gathered up his books and shuffled over to where Amy and Rob were standing. “Are you done?”

  “We are. Do you have all of your books?”

  He nodded. His mood had become less ebullient than a few minutes ago, but Amy figured he was probably just tired. He’d perk up when he saw the new house. At least she hoped so.

  She pulled her purse over her shoulder, when she felt something tugging at the hem of her shirt. She turned around and saw Ethan standing behind her, his wavy russet hair sticking out in all directions.

  “Can Noah come play sometime?” he asked.

  “Ethan,” Grace said, her head cocked. “What have I told you about—”

  “No, no, it’s fine,” Amy cut in. She didn’t mean to undermine Grace’s parenting, but she didn’t want Ethan getting in trouble for uttering words Amy longed to hear. A cute, normal kid with cool parents wanted to play with her son—her son, the introvert most kids at his former preschool overlooked because he was content playing word games by himself. Okay, so they would now be living in this kid’s old house, but never mind. A friend was a friend, and Noah didn’t have many, and certainly none in Philadelphia.

  “Of course Noah can play,” Amy said.

  “Yippee!” Ethan shouted and jumped up and down. Then Noah started jumping up and down, too.

  “Yippee!” he said, mimicking Ethan, and the two of them proceeded to hop around the room together, hooting and hollering and acting like silly four-year-olds.

  Grace slipped Amy a piece of paper. “Here’s my cell and e-mail. Let’s set something up once you’ve moved in and caught your breath.”

  Amy held the piece of paper in one hand while she squeezed Rob’s hand with the other. Life in Glenside Park was going to be even better than they thought.

  * * *

  Amy quickly realized that while life in Glenside Park might eventually be idyllic and lovely, any semblance of that life would have to wait until they finished unpacking, and at the rate they were going, that might be December. There were just so many boxes. How and when had they acquired so much stuff? She knew exactly how many boxes she had packed—and had a spreadsheet identifying each one by number and contents—and yet somehow there seemed to be more in Glenside Park than there had been in Washington. Had the boxes mated on the truck?

  The other problem was that although they had much more space, all of it was new. Had she been unpacking things into their apartment, Amy would know exactly where to put everything. The cutlery would go in the drawer to the right of the kitchen sink. The vacuum would go in the coat closet. The wedding china would go into boxes beneath their bed. But now there were multiple possible locations for every item. Unpacking wasn’t merely a matter of taking something out of a box and putting it somewhere else. It involved making decisions, and Amy had never been particularly good at that. She found the entire process excruciating and exhausting.

  Two weeks after settlement, she was still organizing her bedroom. As she arranged some framed photos on top of her dresser, Noah thumped up the stairs and stood in front of her with his hands on his hips.

  “When are we going to play with Ethan?”

  “I told you, sweetie. Once we’ve settled into the house.”

  “But we’ve been here for a thousand years,” he groaned.

  Amy couldn’t deny that, indeed, it felt that way. But she also knew that for all of Noah’s intellectual strengths, time was still a vague concept for him, and so in his mind, he probably thought it had actually been one thousand years.

  “It’s only been two weeks,” she said.

  “But I want to play now.”

  At the moment, the last thing Amy wanted to do was arrange a playdate. What she really wanted was a warm bath and a glass of wine. But she couldn’t remember the last time Noah had begged to play with another child. Wasn’t this part of the reason they’d moved? To make a better life for their son? And anyway, if she waited until she’d fully unpacked and settled in, it might be Christmas. She couldn’t make Noah wait that long.

  Amy sighed as she broke down an empty box. “How about this: I’ll call Ethan’s mommy after I take these boxes outside, and we’ll see what she says.”

  Noah clapped his hands together. “Tell her I want to watch Minions again on YouTube!”

  “Sweetie, Ethan might not want to watch Minions. He might want to play outside or go to the park or . . . I don’t know, something else.” She narrowed her eyes. She’d suddenly become suspicious. “Do you actually want to play with Ethan, or do you just want to use his iPad?”

  He gave her a look so brimming with irritation that for a moment Amy thought she’d time-traveled to the future and was conversing with a sixteen-year-old. “I want to play with Ethan,” he said, clearly indignant.

  “Even if he doesn’t bring his iPad?”

  Noah rolled his eyes. “YES!”

  “Okay, okay.” Amy searched for the piece of paper Grace had given her at settlement. She’d put it in her purse, but then she thought she moved it to the room they were setting up as a home office. Clearly she had not, however, because it wasn’t there. She made her way downstairs as Noah trailed behind.

  “Mommyyyyyyy,” he whined.

  “Noah, relax. I just need to find the—Ah! Here it is.” She pulled the scrap of paper off the counter, next to a stack of papers and lists. She dialed Grace’s number.

  “What does she say? Can Ethan play?”

  Amy shushed him. “She hasn’t picked up yet.”

  Amy hated Noah’s tendency to interrupt her when she was on the phone. She supposed from his perspective, he couldn’t hear anything on the other end—whether the person was speaking or the phone was merely ringing—so technically he wasn’t interrupting or talking over anyone. All he heard was complete silence. Still, it drove Amy crazy.

  “Has she picked up—”

  “Hi, Grace?” Amy held up a finger and gave Noah a stern look. “It’s Amy Kravitz. We’re great, thanks. I mean, we’re still buried under boxes, but we’re starting to see some light. No, no—nothing with the house. The house is great. I was actually calling because Noah has been asking about Ethan, and I was hoping we could get the two of them together.”

  “You’d come, too, right?” Noah began to look worried. Amy waved him away.

  “It’s funny you should say that,” Grace said. “Ethan has been talking about Noah, too. I figured you were up to your eyeballs with house stuff, so I didn’t want to bother you. But I know Ethan would love a playdate. What does your week look like?”

  “What day is it today? Tuesday?” Amy was embarrassed to admit she truly wasn’t sure. Without the structure of an office job, every day since the move had pretty much seemed the same: wake up, unpack, unpack some more, sleep, repeat.

  “Yes, the . . .” She paused. “Twenty-first.”

  “To be honest, we don’t have much on the schedule at the moment, other than unpacking. We can be free whenever.”

  “Ethan is at camp three days a week, but he’s home on Fridays. Maybe we could meet up at a playground this Friday? There’s a really cute one a few minutes from you—Montgomery Park. You can walk. We used to do that all the time.”

  “That would be great. What time are you thinking?”

  “I don’t know . . . maybe eleven? The kids could play a while, and then we could have a picnic.”

  “Perfect. I’ll see you Friday at eleven then.”

  “Yay, yay, yay!” Noah jumped up and down and pumped his fist in the air.

  “Oh, and I should mention—Ethan has a tree nut allergy. He’s fine with peanuts and almonds, actually, but he can’t have anything with traces of walnuts, cashews, pistachios, or pecans. We have an EpiPen, but considering the drama and cost of using one, I’d rather not have to
.”

  “Got it. No nuts.”

  “Why no nuts?” Noah asked.

  Amy shushed him. “See you Friday—looking forward to it.”

  She put her phone on the counter, and Noah crept toward her, his brow furrowed. “Why no nuts?” he asked again.

  “Ethan is allergic.”

  “Like Daddy is to shrimp?”

  “Yes, like that.”

  Noah’s eyes widened. “Then we definitely can’t have anything with nuts.”

  Six months ago, Rob had accidentally eaten a Thai dish with shrimp paste in it, and Noah had watched in horror as Rob’s face had puffed up like a balloon, his eyes had swollen shut, and his upper and lower lips had inflated like two cocktail sausages. Rob had immediately grabbed his EpiPen and stabbed it into his thigh, only adding to Noah’s terror. He’d had nightmares for weeks after that, and only in the last month or so had stopped asking Rob before every meal, “Is this going to make you explode and die?”

  “Don’t worry,” Amy said. “We won’t bring anything with nuts. I promise.”

  “Good,” Noah said. “Because Ethan is going to be my bestest friend, and I don’t want him to die.”

  Amy chose to ignore Noah’s fixation on death and instead focused on the positive: Noah saw a friend in Ethan, and for that, Amy was eternally grateful.

  * * *

  When Friday arrived, Amy decided she couldn’t have ordered better weather: seventy-nine degrees and sunny, with an occasional light breeze. It was perfect, and Amy hoped the favorable elements were an omen for what would be a perfect playdate.

  She finished packing up their cooler bag, which she’d managed to dig out of a box in their new garage. The house looked better than it had even two days ago, but they still had numerous boxes to unpack. At least the bedrooms and kitchen were finished. They’d hung Noah’s pictures, posters, and glow-in-the-dark planets, so as far as he was concerned, there was nothing left to do.

  Amy zipped the bag shut. “Noah, come on, we’re going to be late!”

  Noah came bounding down the stairs and rushed into the kitchen. “There’s no nuts in there, right?”

  “Nope, I triple-checked everything.”

  “You should check one more time.”

  “Noah . . .”

  “What’s one more than triple?”

  “Quadruple.”

  “I don’t think I can say that.”

  “Kwa-droo-pull.”

  “Kwa . . . droo . . . pull.” Noah beamed. “I did it! Kradoople!”

  Amy smiled. Part of her loved that he still mispronounced things. She knew she should encourage him to pronounce everything correctly, but given how advanced his vocabulary was, she let the occasional metathesis slide. He was only four. Sometimes she enjoyed the reminder.

  “So can I kradoople-check it?”

  Amy sighed. “I guess if you want to be late . . .”

  Noah frowned. He hated being late. Amy knew threatening tardiness was one way to avert a pointless food inspection. “Okay, fine,” he said. “Let’s just go.”

  They headed out the front door and held hands as they walked along the sidewalk to the park. Amy breathed in the grassy, summer air as she admired the hulking oak and maple trees lining their street. She’d always dreamed of living on a street like this, from her earliest days in Woonsocket. She’d grown up on a nice street, one that even had sidewalks, but it had lacked the Norman Rockwell quaintness of Glenside Park. There was plenty about Rhode Island that she missed—her family, coffee milk, clam cakes, chowder—but she could never envision herself setting down roots there. This, this was the sort of place she’d imagined for her family.

  The walk took less than ten minutes, and as Amy and Noah approached the wood-chipped play area, she saw Ethan flying down one of the slides.

  “Ethan!” Noah let go of Amy’s hand and charged toward the slide. Amy stopped momentarily and watched with widened eyes. She’d never seen Noah so excited to see another child. Ethan certainly seemed like a nice boy, but was he really so much nicer than the kids at Bright Futures Academy, his DC preschool? Maybe Noah liked that Ethan didn’t know anything about him. He could start fresh. Amy knew what that was like (hadn’t her entire college experience been a social reboot?), but she also knew the appeal of a blank slate didn’t usually apply to four-year-olds. Then again, Noah was advanced in so many ways. Perhaps he was more socially aware than she’d given him credit for.

  “You made it.”

  Amy snapped out of her trance as Grace approached, her head covered by a floppy straw hat. She wore a breezy gray-and-white sundress and another pair of stylish leather sandals. She even looks chic on playdates, Amy thought.

  “The walk isn’t too bad, right?” Grace nodded toward the parking lot. “Ethan couldn’t understand why we had to drive. He doesn’t quite get the concept of distance yet.”

  “Neither does Noah. He told me the drive from DC was at least five thousand miles.”

  Grace laughed. “I’ve done that drive. It can definitely feel that way.”

  “So where should I drop our stuff?”

  “I saved us a spot over here.” Grace nodded for Amy to follow her and led her to a picnic table beneath a maple tree, just beyond the monkey bars. Amy heard a squeal and turned to see Ethan chasing Noah up a ladder.

  “Careful!” Grace shouted. “Ethan?”

  “I’m a monster!” he shouted back. “ROAR!”

  “Does Noah like you being a monster?”

  “Yes!” the boys screamed in unison. Amy studied Noah’s face. He seemed thoroughly delighted.

  “It’s my turn next!” he said as he raced down a bumpy slide. Ethan took off behind him.

  Grace shook her head and took a seat at the picnic table. Amy laid down her cooler bag and sat across from her.

  “So are you guys finally settling in?”

  “I think so. It’s starting to feel more like our home, as opposed to . . .” Amy trailed off.

  “Our home?”

  “No. Well, I mean, yes.”

  Amy’s cheeks flushed. She knew it might be a little awkward socializing with the former owner of the house she’d just bought, so she’d made mental notes not to dwell on 120 Sycamore or any of the changes she and Rob planned to make. But already she felt as if she’d screwed up.

  “Sorry,” Amy said. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s fine,” Grace said, smiling. She had a way of making Amy feel at ease. “I went through the same thing when we bought the house five years ago. Only at that time the seller was this cranky old man who was totally horrible to us, so I felt like I needed to have a shaman purge the house of evil spirits.” She pulled on the brim of her hat. “Hopefully you don’t feel the same way about us. . . .”

  “Not at all! You and Julian made everything so easy. Oh, but that reminds me.” She reached into her purse and pulled out two envelopes. “These came for you.”

  She handed them to Grace, who glanced at them briefly before sticking them into her purse. “Sorry. Julian was in charge of forwarding our mail. You can see how that worked out.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ve already had an Amazon package delivered to our old apartment because I forgot to change my address on Amazon. I’ll just pass along anything that comes for you.”

  “Thanks. And if it’s junk, feel free to trash it.”

  The boys came barreling toward the picnic table and stopped right in front of them, both of them panting. “Mommy, I’m staaaaaarving,” Ethan said.

  “Well, you’re in luck because I’m staaaaaarving, too, and I have lunch right in here.”

  She opened up her cooler bag, and Amy followed suit. Amy laid out the carrots and hummus she had packed, along with some cream cheese and jelly sandwiches, a bunch of grapes, and some strawberry yogurts. She glanced at Grace’s offering, which included a large bowl filled with what appeared to be a lentil and butternut squash salad, a container of falafel, some sort of vegetable tart, berries, and oatmeal
raisin cookies.

  “Wow—did you make all of that?” Amy asked. She thought her lunch was pretty bourgeois, but Grace took it to another level.

  “Just the salad and the cookies.”

  “I’m still impressed.”

  “Don’t be. It’s basically last night’s leftovers combined with stuff I bought at Whole Foods. Frankly the only reason I made the cookies is because it’s hard to find a bakery that makes ones without possible nut contamination.”

  “None of this stuff has nuts,” Noah chimed in, waving his hand over the food Amy brought. “My mommy kadroople-checked.”

  Grace raised her eyebrows and gave Amy an impressed look. “Quadruple, eh? That’s a big word.”

  “It means four times,” Noah said.

  “I see.”

  “Anyway,” Amy said, trying to move the focus away from her son’s precociousness. “Our stuff is, indeed, nut free, so you are welcome to any of it.”

  “Same,” Grace said. “We have more than we could possibly eat.”

  Somehow Amy doubted Grace would have any interest in cream cheese sandwiches when she could be eating a delicious salad and vegetable tart, but she was glad she’d made the offer, if only so that she could feel justified in trying some of Grace’s food. She couldn’t stop thinking about how delicious all of it looked.

  In the end, Ethan and Noah ate the sandwiches and most of what she had packed, and she and Grace ate the majority of her spread, though the kids happily wolfed down the berries and cookies.

  “So how do you like camp, Ethan?” Amy asked.

  “Good,” he said.

  “What kinds of things do you do there?”

  He shrugged. “Games and swimming and stuff.”

  “That sounds great. Better than what we’ve been doing.” She looked at Grace. “A little too much TV and Y-o-u-T-u-b-e . . .”

  “I have not been watching too much YouTube!” Noah protested. “I don’t even have an iPad!”

  Grace’s eyes flitted from Amy back to Noah. “Wow, you’re a good speller, huh?”

  Amy shrugged timidly. She never wanted to seem as if she were bragging about Noah’s intelligence. Back in DC, whenever Noah would read something in front of another parent or demonstrate his early grasp of mathematical concepts, at least one parent would latch on to her with frightening interest: “What method are you using?” “Is he enrolled in a program?” “Have you had him tested?” Amy would shrink back and explain truthfully that Noah had pretty much done all of it on his own, which never seemed to satisfy the other parents. It’s as if they thought she was holding back some secret that, if shared, would be the key that would unlock their child’s future success. She didn’t want to get caught up in some helicopter parent rat race.