“They didn’t immediately spring to mind, but I guess it makes sense. They’re paper.” I waited for him to ask me how I was.
“These are unopened, uncutVoguepatterns from the fifties and sixties. My mother apparently meant to sew her own clothes, but she never got around to it. Dress patterns are like baseball cards. They’re worth money. Sydney’s been Googling.”
Sydney. Why did I keep forgetting that his daughter was part of the great clean-out?
“Are you losing your mind?” I asked, half hoping he would ask me if I was losing mine.
“Not really. We found the baseball cards, too. My father’s, mine.”
“Did you call the service that takes everything away?”
“No, the patterns kind of killed that idea. There’s a lot of nuance to the sorting process.”
“But won’t that take the rest of your life?”
“Not the rest of it.” He sounded more cheerful than he had the last time we’d talked, which felt like a month ago but had only been yesterday.
“I called Eddie,” I said.
“Did you? I’m glad. You should get together. He seemed like a nice guy.”
I waited for a minute. Jonathan had started talking to Bea.
“Go,” I said. “You’re busy.”
“Let me call you later,” he said. “Keep your phone on for a change.”
I told him I loved him because I did. I did love him.
There was always a period of adjustment after school let out, a sudden realization that once again my time was my own. Every year the ghost memory of obligations followed me well into June (I have to grade papers! I have to look atPersuasionbefore class!) until finally I shook them off, though the dreams in which I was late, unprepared, or in the wrong room speaking the wrong language never left me.
It was strange to have so much to think about and so little to do. I thought about weeding the raised beds in back and then going into town to buy tomato plants. I thought about cleaning the refrigerator. I thought about finding a book I would never dream of teaching or recommending to a teenage girl. Old Philip Roth novels! Our house was full of them. I could spend the day on the couch reading.
But I called my mother instead. This story had gone on too long without giving her an entrance.
“Daphne?” she said.
“It’s me,” I said. “How are you?”
“Fine, thank you.” Why did my mother always make me feel like a telemarketer calling to rope her into a time-share?
“Good,” I said. “Good. Listen, Mom, I was thinking I might come see you.”
“Are you in town?” I caught the edge of nervousness in her voice, as if I were on my way over to discuss the time-share now.
“No, I’m home, but school is out and Jonathan’s gone to Wisconsin to help his sister clean out their mother’s house.”
“Where is his mother?”
“She died,” I said. “You know Jonathan’s mother died.”
“I didnotknow Jonathan’s mother died! That’s terrible. I would have called him. I would have sent him a note.”
Was it possible I hadn’t told her, maybe to keep her from calling him or sending a note? No, I must have told her. “I was thinking maybe I could come to see you,” I said, letting the other thread of conversation lapse.
“When?” I could almost hear her stepping back.
“I don’t know. Soon? Tomorrow maybe?”
