Rise: How a House Built a Family(45)

Because Drew needed it, we framed out one long, windowless, doorless library wall before we called it a day. The top and bottom pieces for the wall were sixteen feet long, just like they had been in the shop, but they were six inches wide instead of four in order to better insulate the house. I marked every sixteen inches on the top and bottom plates while Hope lined up the eight-foot-tall boards between them and Drew locked them in place with the nail gun. We couldn’t push it upright, because we weren’t sure how to brace a solitary wall that was eight feet off the ground at the base, but even flat on the ground it felt like progress.

Daylight was fading and Roman had gone cranky. “Let’s head home. We’ll look at the walls again tomorrow. Maybe get a couple set in place.” I wanted to build the walls as much as Drew did, but my understanding of framing the corners, doors, and windows was shaky. There were precious few purely straight walls in the open floor plan.

“Doesn’t look like we did a thing,” Drew said as we pulled down the driveway.

“Some days the work is invisible, but taking time to set it all up will make the next few days a thousand times more productive.”

Roman named things out the window all the way home. “Horse! Red truck-truck-truck. That pond. Kid. See that kid? Motorcycle. Horse. That a school. School.”

No one else spoke. Building was hard work, both inside and out. Without realizing it, we had learned to be very comfortable flat on our faces in the mud, where a fall wouldn’t hurt as bad. Now that we were stretching upward, redefining ourselves, a backward tumble would really hurt. And when you’ve had a lifetime of people sticking their legs out on the school bus to trip you, it’s hard to really believe this time will be different. This time you won’t fall flat. This time you’ll build higher and higher until you’ve built yourself a safe place.

While the kids showered, I made a chicken stir-fry with extra water chestnuts because Jada and Roman giggled over the way they crunched. It was the sort of night extra giggles might be needed. We’d all become pros at looking forward instead of back, but exhaustion slowed our forward momentum enough for the past to nip at our heels.

I pushed the stir-fry to rest on the back burner and ran to take a shower while the rice finished. Over the past seventeen years I’d become master of the speed-shower.

The kids were wet-headed and soapy-fresh when I came out. Hope directed Jada and Drew to set the table and move the food there while she made cherry Kool-Aid.

“Juice?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“Milk?” But I waved a hand as soon as I asked. We’d used the last of that for breakfast. The to-do list was long enough that things were falling off the tattered ends.

“Don’t pour any Kool-Aid for me. I’ll have water.” I knew we’d run out of sugar next.

Jada and Roman were kneeling and standing on chairs at the dining-room table, peering into the stir-fry, when I carried drinks in.

“Oooo I see dem crunchies!” Roman said, clapping. The doorbell rang and he jumped, face stretched back like he was saying Eeeeeeee. He leapt from the chair toward me and I barely managed to catch him under one arm. He swung out and back again before I secured the other arm and pulled him close. I kissed his forehead, and he dropped his head to my shoulder, holding tight.

We were brushing at the edges of feeling safe and secure, but we weren’t there yet. A neighbor boy selling discount shopping cards for his baseball team still set us all on edge, wide-eyed and pale. At least for now, only our hearts were running at marathon speed. Our feet were firm and unbudging. We were planting roots.





–12–

Fall

The Art of War

Hope was in middle school, Drew in elementary, and Jada in preschool when I put our home, the home we had shared with Adam, up for sale. I’d had a final divorce decree for several years by then and a restraining order for just as many, but Adam had never recognized either piece of paper. It was starting to look like nothing would keep him away.

“Some lady was looking at the house about an hour ago,” eleven-year-old Drew said when I pushed through the front door after a too-long day of writing computer code.

“You didn’t let her inside though, right?” I asked, scalp tingling, heart galloping.

“She knocked, but I ignored it. She was out by the sign mostly. Looked like she was doing something to it.”

“Maybe it was the realtor?”

He laughed. “No. It was definitely not the realtor. She was wearing this big yellow beach hat, and maybe a bathing-suit top. Really weird. It’s not even hot out. And it’s cloudy.”

I had a long commute in those days. Even though Hope was only twelve, she was in charge of Drew and seven-year-old Jada for almost two hours before I came home. Roman wasn’t around yet. Most days my mom arranged her work schedule to be there when I wasn’t, but she wasn’t there that day. “It’s good you didn’t answer the door. You guys have to stay inside until I get home. Don’t forget.”

The strange lady in the yellow hat didn’t set off alarm bells, but I walked down and checked out the for-sale sign by the mailbox. It was bright and cheerful, with red and blue bubble letters, but the idea of selling the house still made me sad. My kids had learned to crawl and walk there; we had celebrated a dozen Christmas, Easter, and Halloween parties there. And I wasn’t leaving willingly for greener pastures. I was running away.