Page 37 of Goodbye Paradise
“Now, our room and the new baby’s room are upstairs. But down here there’s a living room,” she pointed toward the front of the house. “And your room is this way.” She turned toward the rear, and we followed.
“The laundry room is there,” she pointed toward the right as she passed a doorway.
“We could, uh, stand to use that,” I said.
She turned around, stopping our progress. “Any time, Josh. I’m not kidding. I mean for you to make yourselves at home. And I brought a couple of Daniel’s things downstairs…” she stepped into the room at the end of the hallway, “and left them on the bed. I think Josh can fit these clothes, but I’m not sure about Caleb. We’ll hit a Target store tomorrow or the next day.”
We all came to a stop in a sunlit room with a queen-sized bed and a blue quilt. “This dresser is empty,” she laid a hand on an antique piece of furniture, “for your things, when you have some. But there’s no closet, so I put that armoire against the wall. And the bathroom is the nicest part. See?”
There was a narrow little door in the corner. When I peered inside, I saw a sunny bathroom with a big clawfoot tub. “Nice.”
“We put that in ourselves. The laundry is on the other side of that wall, so the plumbing was easy.” She clapped her hands together. “Obviously, the only real drawback here is that there’s only one bed. For some reason it never occurred to me that the first people to show up would be two guys.”
There was a beat of silence while I wondered what to say. I’d been practically sleepingonCaleb these past two nights. But I’d never admit it. “Maggie, we’ll befine. We shared a smaller room than this with four guys in it on the Compound. There’s plenty of room here.”
She tapped her chin. “I suppose one of you could sleep on the sofa if you weren’t comfortable.”
“There’s no problem,” Caleb said quickly. “We spent two nights in a truck, scared out of our minds. This is like heaven.”
“Okay. Caleb built this bed just for this room, and his parents have stayed here before. They live in California. But maybe if his business slows down, he could make a couple of twin beds. He’s pretty busy right now.”
“Busy is good,” I said, eager for the change of topic.
She lifted a pair of sweatpants off the bed and held them up to Caleb. “These will do, if only for laundry day.”
“You have no idea,” Caleb said, “how much this means to us.”
She tilted her head sideways and took in the both of us. “Actually, I do. Someday I’ll tell you about my runaway days. But right now, I have to make some lunch. Help yourselves to the washing machine.”
Caleb and I closed the door to our room and changed into Daniel’s clothes. I put on the jeans, which fit me well, as long as I turned up the cuffs once. It was great to pull on clean socks, even if poor Daniel’s closet had been raided on our behalf.
I gathered up all our stale-smelling laundry in my arms, and Caleb put his hand on the doorknob. When I came close, he kissed my cheek. “We’re going to be okay,” he said. “You know that, right?”
“Yeah. Even if this is weird.”
He opened the door, and then the two of us went into the laundry room to puzzle over the settings on Maggie’s washing machine. “The choices are normal, casual, or delicate,” Caleb said. “Which one, do you think?”
I dropped my voice. “We’re definitely not normal.”
Caleb snickered. “Casual?”
“Sure?”
“Fine. But now we need to pick hot, warm, or cold.”
“Um…?”
Maggie poked her head in the room, grinning. “I just realized that you would have no idea how to operate a washer. Did you put in soap?”
Caleb shook his head. “Didn’t get up to that part, yet.”
“How funny are you two? I forget, honestly. It’s been five years. Iforgetthat a man never touches a washer at the Compound, or sets foot in the kitchen. Now I get to teach you both to cook, right? It’s a life skill. And it will amuse me.” She giggled to herself, grabbing a bottle of detergent off the floor. “Fill it just to here,” she showed me a line on the cap. “And let’s see… those settings are fine. Pull that dial out to start it.”
I gave the dial a tug, and felt the washer kick into motion. And it felt like the start of a whole new life.
Ten
Dear Washington,
