her multi-thousand-dollar ortho-dontics worth it. “No. You’re not.”
“Just checking.”
“Hang in there, Mom. I’ll help you write thank-you notes.”
“Giving birth to you was the best idea I ever had.”
Olivia’s laughter lifted some of the awkwardness of opening gifts that felt like funeral party favors. More music mugs. Miniature golf clubs in case she found, as the card said, “a little time for golf.” A framed photo of Lucy, arms raised, directing her Christmas choir. “See there?” the giver noted. “It’s a clock face. Get it? Time on her hands?”
After two hours of that, SamWise wrapped his arm around his dad’s shoulder and told the crowd, “Hey, gang. Hate to break this up, but the family has dinner reservations tonight. So . . . thanks for coming. We know Mom has appreciated your support over the years, and—”
Olivia stepped in. “—and so do we. Don’t worry about helping with clean up. We’ll take care of that. Mom has longed for the day when her kids offered to clean up without being asked.” A smattering of guffaws served as a benediction. “Thanks so much, folks.”
Charlie helped steer well-wishers toward the door. When the last of them had exited, to waiting cars parked who knew how far down the block in order to sufficiently surprise Lucy when she’d walked in, Charlie closed the door, leaned his back against it, and said, “There. That helped, didn’t it? Nice party to kick off your newfound freedom?”
Freedom? Of all the words in all the world, the only one that came to her mind was a social media British word she couldn’t voice.
***
Dinner reservations were at their own kitchen table. Delivery pizza. Sam’s idea. Good son. Good son.
Charlie picked the last bit of Italian sausage from one of two pizza boxes while Lucy reached for the final mushroom. “So,” he said, “are you ready for . . .”
Don’t say it. Don’t say it, please. No, I’m not ready for the first day of the rest of my life!
“. . . the rest day of the first of your life?”
“What?” Her voice was harsher than she meant it to be. Had he twisted the phrase on purpose?
“More root beer, anyone?”
A Tuttle tradition. Pizza and root beer. Now that she thought about it, it sounded more disgusting than quirky.
“I’m switching to water,” Lucy said.
Charlie whisked Sam away to show him the website on which he’d found the best prices for worm farm supplies. Sam’s face looked like tolerance with a thin mask of interest.
Olivia crunched the empty pizza box as small as she could and stuffed it into the recycling bin. “Mom?”
“Hmm?” Lucy gathered paper plates and followed on Olivia’s heels.
“You hadn’t prewarned Dad that a retirement party was the last thing you’d want?”
Lucy opened the door of the dishwasher and loaded silverware. “It didn’t cross my mind.” She paused to rinse the pizza cutter. “Sometimes husbands think they’re helping when they’re not.” She eyed her should-have-gotten-her-PhD-in-psychology daughter. “In his mind, he was doing something thoughtful.” Thoughtful. She dropped another fork into the dishwasher basket. “I love him. Sometimes that has to be enough.”
Olivia searched for storage containers for the leftover desserts. “Do you have a lid for this one?” She held a rectangular container aloft.
“Bottom drawer near the sink. Toward the back.”
“Found it.”
Lucy closed the dishwasher and leaned against it. “Olivia, why didn’t you succeed in stopping your father?”
Her daughter turned, her eyes wide.
“Stop me from what?” Charlie asked, poking his head into the kitchen.
“Girl talk,” Lucy answered, drawing a smile from where it had been hiding. “What did you need?”
“Internet’s out.”
“Again? I’ll be so glad when they finish laying the underground fiber optics.”
“Where do we keep those big legal pads of paper? I need to sketch out my plans.”
Don’t ask me. I’m the planless one. “The closet in the office. Second shelf from the top. Right-hand side. Behind the—”
“I’ll find them. Thanks.” His head disappeared, leaving the women alone again.
Olivia’s eye roll joined her pert smile, the equivalent of a silent “Sure, he will.” Lucy counted down. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five . . .
Charlie reappeared. “Where?”
Lucy started the dishwasher with a practiced sigh. “I’ll show you.”
Olivia snapped the lid on another storage container of leftover desserts. “That’s okay, Mom. I’ll show him.” Then mouthed for Lucy’s eyes only, “Because I love him.”
The room emptied. Life had emptied. Now what? Tone down the drama, Lucy. Life isn’t over. It just feels like it.
She was too young to consider this stage retirement, too old to consider it a serendipitous opportunity to retool. But . . .
From this angle, one thing became clear. Life had just handed her time to repaint the kitchen. And it needed it. What else had she neglected?
“LucyMyLight?”
The man who loved her enough to throw her a retirement party when she’d been riffed. The man who committed his for-evers to her. The man who probably had no idea how his surprise had drained her. Or that he had pizza sauce on his chin. “Yes?” She swiped at a water spot on the faucet.
“Do you know what I think we should do?”
She waited. Buy an RV and travel all fifty states—well, the forty-nine accessible by RV, work at odd jobs along the way to pay for gas and teach music lessons from aluminum lawn chairs? Let the worms have the house and they’d move into the garage? Move to Nashville or New York where people care about music?
“I think we should invest in a better computer. I’ll be taking orders internationally, I imagine.”
“For worms.” So that’s what deadpan sounded like. She couldn’t retract the echo.
“Are you okay?” Charlie looked offended. Charlie looked offended.
She skirted around him and headed down the hall to the bedroom. “Okay? Not. Even. Close.”
Chapter 4
4
How
