Neighborly(12)

“You don’t want to be part of the cleanup crew? That’s when you’ll get the best dirt on our new neighbors,” I tease.

“Nah. We’re the guests of honor. Besides, whatever dirt there is, maybe we don’t want to know. Maybe they can all just stay pristine.” He calls out, “Thanks, everybody! You throw a hell of a party!”

A chorus of exclamation points comes back: “Thanks for coming!” and “Glad to have you in the neighborhood!” and “See you soon!” and “You’ve got to come watch a Giants game with us!” and “No, an A’s game!” and “No, Giants!”

I behold the street, with all the industrious worker bees cleaning up and then disappearing inside their beautiful houses. I take in the banner they put up in our honor. I’m one of them. I’m home.

A feeling comes over me, starting in my stomach. It tells me that all that light has to have a shadow, that all the camaraderie and the community could just be a mirage, a cover for something darker. That maybe the AV is too good to be true after all. That we’ve made a colossal mistake, and it’s going to cost us a lot more than our life savings.

No. This is just an example of what Dr. Morrison told me, that I have trouble believing I deserve good things. It took me a long time to trust Doug, and look how that turned out.





CHAPTER 3

“Did you meet Tennyson? Really hot and, later in the party, really drunk?” I whisper.

“No. I met her husband, Vic.” Doug speaks at normal volume. He says that’s one of the benefits of having Sadie down the hall in her own room. I still wish her crib were at the end of our bed like it was in the old apartment. I miss her like a phantom limb.

“I met Vic just for a second,” I say. “He seemed like a nice guy. But what’s with the clown outfit? And I hear he’s the Easter Bunny, too. Oh, and Santa Claus.”

Doug laughs, and I fight the urge to shush him.

I’m enjoying the spooning and the talking (we’re usually too tired to do much of it), but there’s a bit of a disconnect in terms of our moods. Doug is in a state of pure, unadulterated happiness, convinced he did the right thing for his family by moving here, and I want to be where he is, I really do. Yet a tiny but significant part of me remains unsettled.

I’m about to ask Doug if he noticed anything unusual about our neighbors, if they seemed just a little too friendly with one another, when he says, “My dad called.” Is it just coincidence that he picks that moment to roll away? “I should probably hop to it and call him back.”

“Now?”

“That’s the deal, right? He calls, I jump.” He adds, “We jump.”

It’s only eight thirty at night, so it might not be that unreasonable for Doug’s dad to expect a callback, but it seems that way to me. Meeting all those new people and trying to make a good first impression takes its toll. Any other parent would understand that, but Doug’s parents don’t have to understand anything. That’s part of the deal, too.

I haven’t mentioned the note to Doug. I don’t normally keep things from him—well, present-day things; the past is a different story.

I just don’t want to tell him that I’ve already managed to piss off one of our neighbors. I’m pretty sure I figured out who wrote the note and why.

First the who: it’s got to be Gladys.

Someone who’s that territorial about a parking space she doesn’t even use obviously has a screw loose. The good news is, she’s got to be eighty years old. She’s harmless. She’s a joke. At the block party, people were literally laughing at her.

But it’s my fault that her ire is targeted toward me. Since we moved here, I’ve been nothing but neighborly, except for that one time, that one lapse in judgment.

Yesterday morning—barely morning, four a.m.—I’d woken up from the chronic sleep deprivation and the stress of the impending party. You could argue I hadn’t been of sound mind.

I’d gotten out of bed carefully and creaked into the hall. I had to fight myself because the pull toward Sadie’s room was so strong. Yet I knew that opening her door was likely to wake her and trying to catch a glimpse would just be selfish. Doug says that he and I need to have our intimate space back, that we’ve been living like roommates since Sadie. But I have so much tactile connection with her that I feel sated. I can’t tell him that, though. It would be too hurtful.

Sometimes I can’t believe I’ve inhabited motherhood for only four months, this strange land with its own customs and vocabulary (sippy cups and breast shields and onesies, oh my!). It seems like I’ve been living in disorientation, exhilaration, and anxiety for much longer. It’s such a different love than I feel for Doug. He’s fully formed, but I have the power to screw her up totally.

These are four a.m. thoughts.

Once downstairs, I peeked out the window, marveling at the beauty of our neighborhood in the half-light. It was dimmer than that, actually, more like two-thirds dark. No one was out, and I assumed no one was up.

I couldn’t help seeing the twelve full garbage bags and untold pounds of cardboard that I’d broken down the day before and that now rested against the front of the house, way too much to fit in the cans that Doug had lined up neatly along the curb. Doug’s plan was to let all the garbage accumulate and then schedule a big pickup. “It’ll be hauled away in one fell swoop,” he’d said, doing an expansive motion with his arm to underscore the point. Wiped clean, all at once. It was an appealing idea. But I was staring at an ugly reality. That’s when I thought of the block party, and I went into a true what-would-the-neighbors-think? panic.