The Last House on Sycamore Street

by Paige Roberts

  But more than that, Amy didn’t want to say or do something that would encourage other people to label her kid a “nerd.” He was, but in the best possible way, and she didn’t want his intelligence to hold him back socially, like it had for her in her childhood. She was never nearly as smart as Noah was, but then it was always harder for smart girls, especially when she was a kid. Sometimes she wondered if she hadn’t been quite so precocious and openly geeky in elementary school, maybe her social life in high school would have been a little better (or frankly would have existed at all). She’d started afresh in college and had blossomed as a social creature, but that seemed like an awfully long time to wait. She knew all the exclusion and heartache she experienced as a teenager had made her the person she was today (a lesson in resilience, character building, and so forth), but a part of her wanted to save Noah having to go through all of that if he didn’t have to. He didn’t need to feel isolated—or worse, get bullied—to become an enlightened human.

  “If you’re looking for something for Noah to do, I bet he could still enroll. Ethan only started this week.”

  “You think?”

  “Sure. I could talk to the owner, Donna. She is the sweetest. It’s like a ten-minute drive from you, so it would be convenient, too.”

  “How much does it cost? Is it expensive?”

  The hat hid some of Grace’s face, but Amy swore she saw her cheeks turn pink. “Not too bad, I don’t think.... You can check the rates online. Green Hills Day Camp.”

  “Cool, I’ll do that, thanks.” She felt a tug on her shirt.

  “Mommy, can I go play now?”

  She examined Noah’s lunch. Nothing was left. “Of course.”

  He jumped down and scampered off with Ethan.

  “It’s like he’s a different kid,” she said.

  “Why, what was he like in DC?”

  “Introverted. A little quiet. But ever since we closed on the house, he’s like Mr. Social. Some days I can’t believe what I’m seeing.”

  “Maybe it’s the house. It changes people.” She paused for a beat. “It did us.”

  Amy smiled but noticed Grace wasn’t really smiling back. She looked wistful and a little sad, and Amy wondered if the house had changed the Durants for the better or, as Grace’s glum expression indicated, for the worse.

  Chapter 4

  Amy enrolled Noah at Green Hills Day Camp, if only to give Noah something to do other than watch her unpack boxes all summer. They could only afford to send him three days a week, but since Ethan only went three days, that was just as well. The two had become nearly inseparable since the move, and Amy knew Noah would have little interest in Green Hills if Ethan wasn’t there.

  On at least one of the weekdays Noah wasn’t at camp, they would meet up with Ethan and Grace for an outing of some sort—a museum, a park, a playground, an ice cream shop. They never met at each other’s homes. Amy was self-conscious about inviting Grace into her old house, a house Amy had changed in small ways that Grace would surely notice (new wall colors in the bedrooms, updated hardware in the hall bath). Grace also hadn’t offered to have them to her new place, though Amy got the distinct impression in their conversations that wherever the Durants were living wasn’t a permanent situation.

  On the days Noah was at camp, Amy continued to set up the house, but she was also able to devote more time to work, or at least some semblance of it. She had left her job as an education analyst at a nonprofit about a year after Noah was born so that she could freelance, the idea being that she could spend more time with Noah and also pay less in childcare while still bringing in a bit of money for the family. She would write and edit grant proposals, help with promotional materials, and analyze pending legislation. None of it was super exciting, but it had given her the balance she was looking for at the time. That said, drumming up freelance work wasn’t easy, even in DC when her clients were often a quick Metro ride away. Now, in the suburbs of Philadelphia, she was finding it even harder.

  By the time Noah had been going to camp for two weeks, Amy decided to buckle down and get going on editing a proposal for yet another education nonprofit. She also planned to send out friendly reminder e-mails to a few clients to attract new work. For a time, it was true that she’d been too busy with the move to devote any time to these things, but by now, she knew she was using unpacking as an excuse. It was time to get serious.

  She had just opened the Word document on her computer when her cell phone rang. It was her mom.

  “How’s the house coming along?”

  Amy had only spoken to her mom once since they’d moved, which was more than a month ago now.

  “Pretty good. I’ve finally gotten to the point where I can think about something other than boxes, so that’s a promising step.”

  “I think I have a box or two in the basement that I still haven’t unpacked from our move thirty years ago.”

  “I feel pretty comfortable saying you don’t need anything in those boxes if you haven’t opened them in thirty years.”

  “You never know. Could be something useful in there.”

  “You say that as if you have no way of knowing.”

  “How am I supposed to remember? It’s been three decades.”

  “You’re not supposed to remember. You’re supposed to open them. Then you’ll know. Mystery solved.”

  Her mom groaned. She always acted as if Amy was lording her superior stature over her. Yes, Amy had gone to college, which her mother, Ellen, had never done, and yes, at her peak Amy had earned more than her mother could ever have hoped. But Amy never felt superior. If anything, she felt grateful for the opportunities she’d had and humbled by the sacrifices she knew her mom had made. Ellen never seemed to see it that way, though. On some level, she always seemed a little resentful that Amy had done things she’d always wanted to.

  “Anyway,” Ellen said, “I’m calling because . . . you know how last time we talked I said I was supposed to get a raise in July? Well, I guess they changed their minds, or I guess not changed their minds, but decided on a lot less than I’d hoped, which frankly, if you ask me, is bullshit because I’ve been their receptionist for a zillion years, but anyway—”

  “How much do you need?”

  Her mother paused. “Just two thousand.”

  “Just two thousand? Mom . . .”

  “I’m still digging out from Timmy’s rehab costs, and you know—”

  “I thought we’d settled that.”

  “Well, we’d settled his first time, but I’m still a little in the hole from the second.”

  “He went back?”

  She cleared her throat. “In May. He didn’t want me to say anything—you know how your brother is. But he relapsed, and he couldn’t afford another go, so I helped him.”

  Amy took a deep breath. She didn’t blame her mom for helping her son—as a mother now, Amy couldn’t imagine ever turning her back on Noah—but the truth was, they weren’t really talking about the “first” and “second” times Tim had gone into rehab. They were talking about the first and second times this year. Tim had been in and out of rehab for what felt to Amy like his entire adult life, but what had probably been more like the past ten years or so. It had started with prescription pills and had progressed to heroin, and Amy lived with a constant, low-level fear that someday her mother’s call would be to tell Amy that Tim had overdosed and was dead.

  “I’ll talk to Rob,” Amy said.

  “Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. You know I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t really need it. Tell Rob that Timmy is serious about getting clean.”

  “He always says that.”

  “And you always act like he doesn’t mean it. It’s a disease. Don’t you understand that? He wants to get clean. He just can’t silence whatever demons make him do that stuff in the first place.”

  “I know. I do. It’s just . . . we’ve been through this so many times. Sometimes I wonder if he’ll ever . . . if it’s even possible . . .”
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  “It’s possible. This was a new place. It’s supposed to work wonders. You don’t know what it’s like up here. You’re living in your little yuppie bubble. But up here, these drugs . . . they’re just everywhere. They’re ripping families and towns apart.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t know. Not really. I’m sure you’ve read about it in one of your magazines or newspapers. But we’re living it every single day.”

  Amy rested her forehead on her palm. She knew her mom was right. Amy’s knowledge of the opioid crisis didn’t extend much beyond her own family and the stories she read in various news outlets, from The New York Times to The Philadelphia Inquirer. But she did have that knowledge. She had watched her brother go from a sporty, fun-loving teenager to an aimless junky, and she had already invested a large amount of her own time and money to help him. She may not be living the crisis 24/7, but it had touched her personally more than it had anyone else she knew.

  “Okay, I’ll let you know what Rob says.”

  “Thank you. I really think this could be the last time.”

  Amy hoped her mother was right, but she wasn’t holding her breath.

  * * *

  “Where’s my favorite guy?”

  “Here, here, here!”

  Noah came bounding down the stairs and greeted Rob, who stood in the foyer. Rob crouched down as Noah leapt at him and threw his arms around Rob’s neck. Amy smiled. Their bond made her heart swell.

  “How was camp today?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “Only pretty good? What did you guys do?”

  Noah shrugged. “I don’t know. Games and stuff.”

  “Did you play with Ethan?”

  Noah rolled his eyes. Amy couldn’t believe how much he acted like a teenager lately. “Of course I played with Ethan.”

  “Then that’s more than pretty good, right?”

  “I guess. But then Carter and Henry wanted to play with him, too, so he played with them at the end.”

  “Didn’t you want to play with them, too?”

  He shrugged. “No, I just wanted to play with Ethan.”

  Amy’s and Rob’s eyes met. They’d talked about how happy they were that Noah had finally made a good friend but also how they worried he’d become a little obsessed with Ethan as his only friend.

  “Sometimes it’s good to play with other kids, too,” Rob said.

  “I don’t want to play with other kids.”

  “Why not? I bet Carter and Henry are pretty cool.”

  “Carter doesn’t even know what Minions are,” Noah said, as if this proved Carter was completely socially unacceptable.

  “Maybe you could show him.”

  He looked at the ground. He always got sulky when he felt Amy and Rob were trying to pressure him socially. Amy backed off because she knew she would have reacted in the same way.

  “Anyway,” Amy said, “why don’t you let Daddy get changed, and we can talk more about camp over dinner.”

  “I don’t want to talk about camp.”

  “Then we can talk about whatever you want,” Rob said. “But not until I’ve gotten out of this monkey suit.”

  Noah giggled and looked up. “Monkey suit?”

  “It’s what they call a man’s dress suit sometimes. What, you don’t think I look like a monkey?” Rob began scratching under his armpits and making loud monkey sounds. “Ooh ooh ooh, ah ah ah!”

  Noah threw his head back and laughed. “You’re silly, Daddy.”

  “But adorable,” Amy said, and leaned in and kissed Rob on the lips. Even after eight years of marriage, she still felt a rush of attraction every time she looked at him: those big green eyes, that dirty-blond hair, those strong shoulders and defined waist. He was the cutest. And he was such a good dad to Noah. He could always lighten the mood, even after a long day at work. His days had been longer and more intense since they moved, but that almost never soured his mood, at least toward his son.

  “Ewwww, yuck,” Noah said as their kiss lingered. He burrowed between them.

  Rob pulled away and smiled at Amy. “Good day?”

  “Not bad,” she said. “I talked to my mom.”

  Rob raised an eyebrow. “All okay?”

  “We can discuss later.”

  He glanced down quickly at Noah and back up at Amy. “Ton frère?”

  Amy nodded. They didn’t like to go into detail about Tim’s problems in front of Noah. They used to, albeit in very vague terms, but about six months ago he started asking questions that made it clear he understood more than they’d thought. Now they either waited until Noah was in bed or spoke elliptically, often invoking a foreign language.

  Rob rubbed Amy’s arm. “We’ll talk. Oh, but before I go up, these things came in the mail for Julian. When are you next seeing Grace and Ethan?” He handed her three letters.

  “Yeah, Mommy, when?”

  “Friday.” She glanced at the letters. They’d received mail for the Durants nearly every day since they moved—some of it standard junk, but some of it serious and official, from the likes of tax agencies and banks. She’d pretended not to notice how much official (and seemingly urgent) mail they received every time she handed it over to Grace, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. One of these letters said “FINAL NOTICE” in bright red letters. She’d have to be blind not to see it.

  “Has she said anything?” Rob asked, lowering his voice as he pointed at the red lettering.

  Amy shook her head. Grace had seemed a little awkward the last few times Amy had handed over the mail, more in her demeanor than anything she’d explicitly said. But Amy told herself the discomfort could stem from embarrassment over not having properly forwarded their mail. Amy knew that if Julian had done it through the Postal Service like he has supposed to, much of this mail would have ended up at their new address and not at 120 Sycamore. Certain things would have fallen through the cracks, sure, but not this much. They were obviously living somewhere, though Amy still wasn’t sure exactly where. Why hadn’t they simply forwarded their mail there? It seemed odd.

  “See if you can find out any details on Friday,” he said.

  “It’s none of our business,” Amy said.

  “It will be when some debt collector comes knocking at our door, demanding payment.”

  Amy rolled her eyes. “Let’s not get carried away.”

  “I’m just saying. You don’t have to ask anything specific. Just see what you can find out.”

  “Okay, Mr. Nosey Neighbor,” she said, nudging him in the side, but the truth was, she wanted to know what was going on just as much as he did.

  * * *

  Amy circled around the library parking lot three times before getting out her phone to text Grace.

  “Mommy, what are you doing? Let’s go!”

  “Noah, stop it,” she snapped back. She knew her reaction might make Noah cry, but she didn’t care. She’d had a rough morning—an e-mail had arrived from one of her regular clients saying they wouldn’t need her help this quarter—and now she couldn’t find a parking spot. The lot was about half the size it should be for such a big library, and being unfamiliar with the area, she wasn’t sure where else to go.

  “Are we here?” he whined.

  She shot off a text to Grace and put down her phone. “Yes, but I’ve never been here before, and I don’t know where to park.”

  “There’s no spaces?”

  “Not that I can see. But Grace says the story time is supposed to be really fun and lots of kids come, so I’m sure there are other spots somewhere.”

  Her phone trilled with a reply from Grace.

  * * *

  Ugh, sorry, parking is a bitch here. I usually park across the street. Fifty cents for an hour.

  Amy sighed and pulled out of the parking lot and into a metered spot across the street. It was a blazing ninety-three degrees that day, which meant even the short walk from their car to the entrance felt like walking through fire, bu
t they were greeted by a welcome blast of air-conditioning when they passed through the automatic doors into the library. Grace was waiting by the circulation desk with Ethan.

  “Ethan!” Noah shouted.

  Amy shushed him. “Remember, this is a library. You can’t yell.”

  “I wasn’t yelling,” he said in a loud whisper. He let go of Amy’s hand and ran toward Ethan.

  “Hi, guys,” Grace said as they approached. She had such a warm smile. She always made Amy feel at ease, even now, when Amy could feel Julian’s mail burning a hole through her tote bag.

  “Sorry about the parking,” Grace said. “I forgot to mention that.”

  “Don’t worry about it. We found a spot across the street.”

  “But we almost melted on the walk,” Noah chimed in.

  “So did we!” said Ethan.

  “Oooh—pretend you melted into the carpet,” Noah said, “and then you needed me to spray you with ice, and then when I did you turned back into Ethan.”

  Ethan smiled and started doing pretty much exactly what Noah suggested. Amy looked at Grace, who shrugged.

  “Oh, to be four . . .” she said.

  Amy watched as Noah pretended to blast Ethan with ice, then glanced up at the clock. It was nearly 10:30. “So where is the story time?”

  “Right through there.” She looked at her watch. “Ethan, sweetie, story time is about to start.”

  “I’m covered in ice!” He groaned as he rolled around on the floor. Amy looked around and saw a few older patrons in the adult section frowning at them. Were Noah and Ethan making a scene? Probably. Sometimes Amy forgot what it was like not to have kids. Her baseline had become so much more chaotic than it had been before having a child.