Page 22 of A World Without You
I glance at the rooftops surrounding my parents’ yard. Mr. and Mrs. Hanson live directly behind them. They have an obsession with cocker spaniels and petunias, and two kids who are now in college. Mr. Ackman lives to my parents’ right. He’s been a widow since I was seventeen and spends his days mowing his grass and checking on the neighborhood from his perch on the driveway. To my parent’s left is Sylvia Windmere. She’s been married three times and managed to make it out of each divorce with the same house. Props to her. I’m once divorced and lost literally everything. I have approximately a thousand dollars to my name. I left my pension and the love of my life in the city in exchange for a magical life in the country, and I lost all of that too.
The thought makes me laugh out loud.
“What’s so funny?” Mom asks, wiping her hands on her apron and grabbing hold of her coffee mug.
“Everything,” I answer with a sigh. “I left my life in the city for the country and somehow still wound up in the suburbs.”
“The suburbs are fine. Don’t be rude,” Mom says, though the glint in her blue eyes would indicate she’s teasing.
“The suburbs are full of has-beens and swingers,” I counter, and Mom spits her coffee back into her mug. Her composure betraying her even as she tries not to laugh.
“I saw pineapples on two porches driving into this neighborhood alone,” I add.
Dad lets out a howl of a laugh and covers the soon-to-be cranberry sauce with the pan’s lid. “I don’t think she’s wrong,” he says, to which I add, “And not to mention all the people who peaked in high school.”
“Became swingers?” Mom asks for clarification, and I choke on my laughter. It isn’t what I meant, but I completely understand how it came off that way.
“You know, I heard the Porters have taken a liking to swinging. That’s why they’re always on double dates and inviting couples to their beach house on Fox Island.”
I drown my shock in my coffee.
“I always liked them. Ruth always made amazing spaghetti... You remember her spaghetti, right?” Dad asks and Mom snorts out a laugh.
“That’s how she gets you. Entices you with her pasta and then...” Mom raises her eyebrows suggestively and laughs.
“Oh God,” I groan, looking at my coffee and wondering if I should have chosen a mimosa. “This is too much information.”
“You started it,” Dad says.
Mom laughs harder, dabbing her eyes with the corner of her apron.
I sigh and take a bow as I say, “Just here for the comedic relief.”
Mom pats my back and ushers me out of the kitchen to get ready.
Twenty-seven minutes later, I’m showered, dressed, and curling my hair. Despite the catastrophe of my marriage and divorce, and the sobbing that followed last night, my eyes aren’t all that puffy, and I thank those gold under-eye patches for working their magic.
Just as I’m about to release the curling iron from my last face piece, I hear a stampede of three-year-olds coming down the hallway.
“Auntie Livvie!” Melanie’s twins, Mason and Matty, shriek as they slam into me, inadvertently making the curling iron hit my face. The simultaneous sting and burn of the flesh on my cheekbone makes me wince, and I draw in a sharp breath with my teeth.
“Hey, boys. Happy Thanksgiving!” I say, squeezing them tightly and placing the hot curling iron on the counter.
“What happen you face?” Matty asks with a twisted three-year-old brow.
I glance at myself in the mirror. Sure enough, there’s a crimson streak that runs from the end of my left eyebrow down to my cheekbone. “Guess I burned myself with the curling iron,” I answer, grabbing a washcloth and wetting it with cold water.
“You should be more careful!” Mason says, and I force a smile, nodding to agree.
“There’s the woman of the hour.” Melanie appears in the doorway of the bathroom with a bright smile on her face. She’s wearing dark denim jeans and an olive green off-the-shoulder sweater. Her auburn hair cascades over her shoulder like a velvet curtain. She may have five years and two kids on me, but she found the fountain of youth somewhere along the way—my guess is the corner of Botox and Juvéderm.
“You look so pretty,” I say as she dives into my arms.
“You do too!” she says, her tone is motherly—like she’s speaking to a child. “But what happened to your face?”
“Bumped it with the curling iron,” I say, again not wanting to call out a bunch of toddlers for being kids.
“Want some burn cream?” she asks, then leans back out of the bathroom, and yells, “Hey, Mom! Where’s the burn cream?”
