“So, what’s it like living with Ben Rothschild? His work is amazing.”
“Well, I don’t exactly live with Ben and Marge. Luci and I have a cottage on the property. But he’s wonderful to work for. Very kind. Down to earth.”
“Did I hear from one of the other moms that you’re a sculptor, too?”
Helen wanted to know all about Olivia’s own work, and what medium she worked in. It was refreshing, being able to sit down with another woman and talk. Not about speech therapies or objectives. Not about Luci’s condition. But ordinary things, like her move to Connecticut and her work as a budding artist. Olivia settled back into the couch, her thoughts less interrupted by every pitter-patter or sound from overhead. The girls were fine. She could relax.
“You know, I have a friend who runs a gallery in Washington Depot. She’s always on the lookout for fresh talent. I should put the two of you in touch.”
Olivia leaned forward. Granted, it was perhaps friendly small talk. But she was touched by the thoughtfulness. “Really? That’s so nice of you. You haven’t even seen my work.”
Helen stood. “Then you’ll have to invite me over and show me.” She smiled. “Next playdate at your place?”
Next time. It was something Olivia rarely heard as a mother of a child with special needs. She stood and followed Helen out of the kitchen, grateful that she was able to brush away before Helen saw the stray tear that was threatening to spill down her cheek. “How do you like your tea?”
Olivia was about to answer. About to say, “Cream, no sugar.” About to suggest they get together again for a playdate at her place on Saturday, when there was an alarmed shriek from upstairs.
Both women pivoted toward the staircase. “Ruby?” Helen called. She glanced back at Olivia reassuringly. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
But Ruby screamed again.
By the time they’d run upstairs, Ruby was already standing outside her bedroom door in the hall, her hands balled in fists. “She did it!” Ruby cried.
“Did what?” Helen rushed into the room, Olivia on her heels.
Stuffed animals and dress-up clothes were strewn across the rug. Olivia spun around, taking in the four-poster princess bed, the pastel tea set on a table, the dollhouse in the corner. Luci was nowhere in sight. “Lu Lu?” she called.
Ruby grabbed her mother’s hand. “Look what she did!” Olivia watched in horror as Ruby dragged Helen to the bed and pointed to the chenille duvet. That was when she saw it. The large round stain in the center of the blanket.
Helen stiffened. “Is that…?”
Ruby whirled around to face Olivia. “She peed my bed! She ruined it.”
It was then Olivia heard it, a muffled sound coming from the closet. She yanked the doors open. There, pressed in the corner in a little ball, was Luci.
“It’s okay, baby.” Olivia reached in and scooped her up. To Ruby, she said, “Luci and I are so sorry. It was an accident.”
Helen was watching them both with concern, but also something else. “No, no. I’m sorry, too. I assumed she was potty-trained.”
Olivia closed her eyes, holding Luci to her chest. She could feel the dampness through her daughter’s pants. How long had she sat like that? “She is,” Olivia blurted. “But she must’ve had to go and didn’t know where the potty was.”
“She should have asked,” Ruby sputtered.
“Ruby,” Helen said. “You know she can’t!” Then, turning to Olivia, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean she can’t. What I meant was…”
Olivia shook her head. “It’s okay.”
It was all her fault. Helen knew about Luci’s mutism, but Olivia had forgotten to ask Helen where the bathrooms were located. It was her job to make sure Luci knew. To show her. To avoid disaster, like this. But she was so busy talking about herself and her art and her new life in Connecticut, she’d forgotten.
“I need to take Luci to the bathroom, and then I will help you clean up,” Olivia offered.
Helen looked at her sympathetically. “The bathroom is down the hall on the right.” Then, “Don’t worry about it. We can clean up.”
“Not me,” Ruby said, pulling her stuffed animals off the bed to safety. She glared at Luci, who was still in Olivia’s arms. “She’s gross.”
“Ruby!” Helen said. “That’s not nice.”
“I think we should go.” Olivia was not going to subject Luci to another second of this humiliation. Her wet bottom had already gone cold. Helen didn’t offer a change of clothes and Olivia wasn’t about to ask. All she wanted was to get out of there as fast as she could. “Thank you, again, for the invitation. I’m sorry about your bed, Ruby.”
She was halfway down the stairs when Luci whimpered into her ear. “I tried to ask, Mama. I tried.”
Olivia blinked back tears. Miss Griffin’s advice rang in her ears. Stay calm, address the situation with Luci in private. “It’s all right, baby girl. I know you did.”
This was what always got her. Just when Olivia let her guard down and began to enjoy herself like any other mother on any other playdate, something like this happened. Olivia pressed her lips to Luci’s temple, and they let themselves out into the blinding light of the afternoon. That was the thing Olivia could never let herself forget. They weren’t like everyone else.
Phoebe
She was not the kind of person who skipped dentist appointments. Every six months Phoebe rounded up the family and dragged everyone in for a cleaning. It was her least favorite day of the year.
So when the phone call came from the dental office, Phoebe was mystified. “You’re more than a year past due for a cleaning,” the receptionist said.
“A year? But that can’t be. Patrick just had a crossbite X-ray.” She had the bill to prove it.
“Yes. Your husband and children are all up-to-date. But we haven’t seen you in a while. Fifteen months, to be exact.”
Fifteen months! Phoebe scheduled her appointment with her tail between her legs, and also made a mental note: she was becoming one of those statistics. The mother who takes care of everyone in the family except herself. What was next? Would she be like that woman on Oprah who was so busy planning and packing for her family’s Hawaiian vacation that she boarded the plane and waited until she was in the middle of a surfing lesson before she admitted she was in full coronary distress? Phoebe was pretty sure Perry could supply her with all kinds of statistics on that woman.
So there she was, dutifully seated in the waiting room flipping through Architectural Digest, when she saw it. The claw-foot tub she’d been dreaming of. Phoebe held it out to the hygienist. “I’m in the middle of a house renovation,” she blurted.
She followed the hygienist to the chair in the back room, all the while holding the magazine. “Master baths are one place you can secure a hefty return on your investment,” she read aloud. The hygienist smiled and affixed her bib. Was she even listening?
“Do I want a walk-in shower? Or a soaker tub? What I’d like is to have both, but because space is an issue, should I just surrender and do a combo?”
The hygienist shook her head. “Not the combo.” So she was listening.
At that point Phoebe’s dentist, Dr. Kane, walked in. “How are we doing?” Then, seeing the bathroom design spread, he leaned in. “Ooh. Very nice.”
“I’m renovating our new lake house,” Phoebe informed him. “This is the tub.”
Dr. Kane squinted. “It’s an impressive tub.” Then, as the hygienist whisked the magazine away and the doctor turned to riffle through his set of tools, he asked, “What’s that going to cost you?”
Phoebe stiffened in the chair. If it was in this magazine, there was no chance it was in her budget. If she had time, she could stop at one of the box stores and see if there was something similar. She already knew that was a cool chance in hell.
At that moment, her phone buzzed. “Excuse me,” she apologized. “Just need to make sure it’s not the boys’ school.”
Dr. Kane nodd
ed patiently.
It wasn’t. It was Dave, her general contractor. “Phoebe. Sorry to bother you.”
“No bother.” She winced, ignoring the audible sigh from the hygienist.
“You need to come out to the house.”
“Is something wrong?”
Dave didn’t reply right away. Phoebe imagined him glancing up at the sky, and her chest did that pitter-patter thing. Yep, coronary affliction for sure. “We came across something regarding the foundation.”
“Oh? What was it?” Let it be a rat. Preferably dead.
Again, Dave paused. “This is something you should probably see.”
Two minutes later, Phoebe was trotting across the dentist’s parking lot, the copy of Architectural Digest shoved in her purse and an appointment card for her reschedule in hand.
When she pulled into the driveway, it was obvious something was wrong. The driveway was empty. Except for Dave, who stood on the front step like a sentinel.
“What’s going on? Where did everyone go?”
From the beginning, Phoebe had been glad she’d picked Dave for her general contractor. He didn’t mince words. He stayed calm in times she considered crises, like the day the roofers didn’t show up and they later learned they would not be showing up, ever. Which set them back a week. Phoebe was all too familiar with domestic mayhem. She had driven babies to the hospital in the middle of the night with 104-degree temperatures. She’d handled blown-out diapers in five-star restaurants (don’t bring a newborn out to your anniversary dinner), and she’d nursed their last dog through a case of bloat two years before. What she did not possess was the endless reservoir of patience that Dave seemed to draw upon when things went awry with the house. “What is it?” she asked again, hurrying up the path.
Dave smiled, but it didn’t quite reach the corners of his eyes. Phoebe liked Dave’s eyes when they did that. “I’ll show you. Why don’t you come down into the basement with me?”
Reluctantly, Phoebe followed him to the side of the house where the Bilco doors were located. They were flung open like the cover of a book.
“Watch your head,” Dave warned as she stepped down into the darkness behind him. The air was cold, and there was a slightly earthen smell that made Phoebe nervous. Had there been a flood? Some kind of burst pipe?
Dave flipped on his flashlight and the overhead beams came into dim view. “We’re right underneath the living room,” he explained. “When we began removing the clapboard siding around the front door, we noticed some rot. Which led to us discovering this.” He reached overhead and placed the flat of his hand against a giant square wooden beam. It had to be at least eight by eight inches thick. But as Phoebe looked closer she could see it was much thinner in some places, as if it had been chewed into.
“I don’t understand,” Phoebe blurted. “We had the house inspected.”
“Yes, but this wasn’t something an inspector would’ve been able to see until we removed the doorframe and exposed this section.” Dave pointed a screwdriver at the beam. “This is your front sill plate,” Dave told her. “These beams run all around the base of the house and rest on the foundation. They’re an integral part of your home’s structural integrity.” Phoebe watched as he tapped the length of the beam, jabbing the tip of the screwdriver along its length, to demonstrate its solidity. “From down here, the bottom of the beam looks pretty good. Notice how the screwdriver can’t penetrate? But when we removed the doorframe and exposed the top of this beam, I’m afraid we found evidence of pest damage and rot.”
“Pest damage? Rot?”
Phoebe shivered, listening as Dave explained what the beam did (supported the house), what was wrong with it (termites and decay), and what had to be done (tent the structure, spray it, jack up the house, rip out the rotten beam, replace it with a new beam, lower the house). Dave studied her carefully as he delivered the news. If she wasn’t mistaken, Phoebe was pretty sure he didn’t blink once during the delivery.
“This sounds expensive.”
Dave nodded toward the steps. “Let’s talk outside.”
“This is not reassuring me, Dave.” Phoebe trailed him out, her thoughts spilling. “Oh my God. I can only imagine what this is going to do to the build time frame.” Then, “Is this going to kill my budget?” Followed by, “Rob is going to kill us both.”
She followed him up the stairs and out into the fresh air again. Phoebe blinked in the daylight.
“Here’s what I was talking about,” Dave explained, as he led her around to the front of the house. The siding and doorframe had been removed, leaving a cavernous opening. The front of the house looked like an unsettled face, its mouth hanging agape. Which was exactly what Phoebe’s was doing as she watched Dave jab the end of his screwdriver into the newly exposed beam. The tool sank through the dark wood, and the surrounding area crumbled like dust. Phoebe pictured her budget doing the same.
“So, what is this going to cost?”
Dave let out his breath. “To treat for termites is only about three thousand.”
“Only?” Phoebe sputtered.
But Dave wasn’t done. “Your house runs thirty feet across. To jack up the house and replace the sill, plus labor, we’re going to be looking at about five.”
“Five thousand?”
Dave nodded.
“On top of the first three?”
“Correct. Around eight thousand in all,” he said.
Phoebe exhaled. “Excuse me,” she said, straining to keep her tone somewhere in the range of what her mother called her “good company voice.” “I’ll be right back.”
What Phoebe really wanted to do was run. A good scream would work, too. Instead, she pivoted toward the car. She swept her phone out of her purse and pressed Rob’s number. Then, thinking better of it, she hit cancel. Rob would have to know at some point. But to tell him now would mean also telling him that she’d borrowed money from the window budget to apply to the kitchen budget, both of which were already at the top. The man could shoulder a lot. But this would just be cruel.
Thinking better of it, she spun back toward the house. “Dave.”
“Yes, Phoebe.”
“Is there an alternative to the sill beam?” She paused, her thoughts spinning. “Perhaps some kind of different material? Or structural approach?”
Dave shook his head matter-of-factly. “You can’t have a house without a sill beam unless you want to all end up in the basement. And you need to spray for termites or you’ll have the same problem again down the road.”
“But we don’t have those numbers left in the budget,” she said. “I’m sorry, we just don’t.” She could be matter-of-fact, too.
Dave held her gaze. “Well, I realize that, based on our discussions of late.”
Was he raising an eyebrow, or was she just imagining that?
“This has to be done, but I suppose we could review the budget and try to make some cuts in other places. Though that means you’ll have to adjust accordingly.”
Phoebe brightened. Of course, they could adjust. She would have to let go of the claw-foot tub.
Dave was thinking out loud now. “We can try to whittle down the bathroom and kitchen tile. And the fixtures. But remember, we were hoping already to borrow from those for appliances.”
Damn, the appliances. Those, too, hadn’t made it into the original numbers. She figured they’d pick those up somewhere along the way. Maybe a bonus at work, or an unexpected savings in another line item in the house budget. After all, at Rob’s insistence they’d allowed an extra 10 percent to start with. But they’d eaten into that as surely as the termites had the beam.
Dave was waiting. “Should I go ahead and call the exterminator, or do you want to talk to Rob and call me after? Either way, the subcontractors can’t come back until it’s taken care of, and every day we lose them is a day we risk losing them to another project at another site. They get paid by the day, and they’re not going to hang around waiting if we don’t move fast.”
Phoebe’s stomach began to churn. “How long will all this take?”
“Spraying, about three days before the crew can safely return. Then the sill—probably two days. Three max.”
“So, about a week in all?”
Dave looked almost sorry to say it. “At best.”
Phoebe envisioned a paper calendar hanging on the wall, the days whipping off and blowing somewhere out across the lake. Just as her money was doing. Doing the sill repair and spraying the house were unavoidable, it seemed. Delaying things wouldn’t change that fact.
“Go ahead,” she said, staring at the cottage. How was it that all her careful planning could go so far off course? They’d done an inspection. They’d even had a structural engineer come take a look. And yet every board they pulled off of the siding or pulled up from the floor was like opening a new can of worms. Everywhere, worms.
To her further consternation she realized it was what Perry had said from the beginning: an old house is a Pandora’s box.
“Is there anything else you want to ask about?” Dave asked.
Phoebe shook her head. She tucked the issue of Architectural Digest she’d pilfered from the dentist’s office under her arm. There was no point asking Dave about the claw-foot tub. Though she could really use one now. Not to take a relaxing soak in, no. To climb in and sink beneath the surface.
Perry
“This is classic Jake. Jump first, don’t worry about the rocks in the water until you hit them.” He was sitting in bed, propped up against the pillows, a small laundry basket of socks beside him. The housekeeper had folded the socks the wrong way again. He rifled through the basket, looking for pairs that needed refolding. “This whole marriage idea is ridiculous.”
Amelia stepped out of the steamy master bathroom, her hair swept up neatly in a towel. She glanced over as he tipped the basket of socks across the bedspread without blinking. “I think it’s romantic.”
“You can’t be serious.”
He watched as she sat down at her vanity and unwrapped the towel. Her long dark hair spilled across the back of her bathrobe. Amelia had always been attractive, if in a slightly staid way. From the first time she joined his study group in graduate school with a sheaf of color-coded notes tucked under her arm and her hair pulled tightly in a no-nonsense bun, Perry had taken notice. Her nose had the tiniest bump in the center, a feature she later confided her brothers had nicknamed the “mogul” when they were children, but Perry thought it added strength to her profile, like an ancient Greek statue’s. Amelia radiated order, from her spartan sensibilities to her conservative attire. But every once in a while, a flicker of romantic whimsy exposed itself. Like now. “Why not?” she asked.
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