1. “To Build a Home”

1

"TO BUILD A HOME"

THE CINEMATIC ORCHESTRA

T he blink of my cursor mocked me, the pages of my ‘Great American Novel' as empty as my house since everyone but me grew up and left. I stared out the window of my second floor home office, admiring the vibrant green of the grass and all the life that was happening on the other side of the glass. Some neighborhood kids were riding bikes in a figure eight around two bright orange buckets in the cul de sac. The muted sound of their laughter that had at first distracted me took me straight back to Saturdays past when I'd put away my little boy's laundry in that very same room.

Back then, I'd been in a hurry to finish so the four of us could all go outside, but there was nothing and no one to hurry for anymore. I looked up to the ceiling, the edges blurring on my imagined future—a gray, slushy expanse of another winter in Madison. Alone.

Well, not alone alone, but no one but the dog to keep me from fully disappearing within the four walls.

My eyes slid to the puddle of fur at my feet. I wondered how long I'd been sitting there and whether Roxy needed to go outside. As if hearing her name in my thoughts, Roxy turned her head, her floppy strawberry-blonde ears sliding across the wood floor, and looked up at me expectantly from where she lay sprawled on her back under my desk. I sighed, placed my hands across the top of the screen, and slowly closed my laptop. No writing would get done.

Again.

I stood up and stretched, prompting Roxy to scramble to her feet.

"I spent a lot of time accomplishing exactly nothing today, Rox," I said as I bent forward to scratch behind her velvety ears. I didn't really expect a response, and I wasn't disappointed by her silence, but I knew it was time I spoke to someone with better communication skills. With that thought, I grabbed my phone off the top of the drafting table that had at one point been my son's desk, checked the time, and slipped it into my back pocket. Kari would be calling soon.

When my oldest, Jason, had left nearly six years before with his visions of the skyscrapers he'd yet to build poured deftly around the jars of peanut butter and packs of Ramen he was taking to college, I'd pictured him returning to this room four years later. I'd assumed I would help him draft his first resume, practice his first interview, and pack his lunch for his first day of work as I had done every day through twelve years of school. Life had other plans, because during his senior year of college, Jason earned an internship with the largest architecture firm in Boston. They ended up hiring him directly after graduation, and the abandoned drafting table became mine. If I hadn't been so damn proud of him, I might have called the table my consolation prize.

Possession being nine-tenths of the law and all, I took it over when it became obvious he wouldn't need it. And the room—in which I had at one point endlessly rocked and nursed a colicky baby boy—became my ‘den of creativity.'

Around that time, my daughter, Anna, left for college and my husband had already put us in the rearview, so it seemed as if it were my time to shine—on my own. I had big dreams of turning the experience I'd gained working from home as a marketing content specialist into a career as a novelist, so I moved my laptop into my ‘new' office and assumed it would be a simple transition from copywriter to published author. Over the next two slow, increasingly painful years, that had proven not to be the case. I had excelled in my role in writing marketing copy… and had failed spectacularly at writing anything else.

A quick trip down the stairs with Roxy at my heels and I was standing in the kitchen. I crossed the room, let a very antsy golden retriever out the back door, and headed for the junk drawer to begin my nightly ritual of rifling through the takeout menus. Spreading them across the counter, my mind wandered again to the past, to the days before the takeout menus had replaced defrosting meat and pages upon pages of homework strewn haphazardly across every surface. Looking up, my eyes landed on the dusty Vitamix. I had always wanted one, but could never justify the expense. As soon as it was only me I had to justify anything to, I bought the damn thing, but once it was in my kitchen and out of the box, I could never figure out what to do with it. Much like the free time that stretched out in front of me like the dark and endless highway miles on an overnight road trip.

Insert the off-key crooning of a tiny violin.

I shook my head to sweep away some of the malaise, and took a good look around the kitchen. During ‘better days' my ex-husband, Mark, and I had gutted the whole kitchen and fully renovated it to reflect the visions of stainless steel and slate blues and sleek grays in my head. For the next five (mostly) glowing years, the four of us had gathered around the expansive pewter-streaked granite countertop as we all talked over each other, sharing the most important bits of our day while I put the finishing touches on dinner. Jason habitually spun in circles on the center barstool at the counter as he recounted the points he'd made at soccer (or basketball, or baseball, or football) practice that day. In her younger years, Anna had floated by in a brightly colored tutu, waving her magic wand to transform each of us into ‘fairy princes and princesses.' As she got older, she sat beside her brother and engaged in a bit of sibling competition over the records she'd broken at the track meet, the spike that had won the volleyball match, the ground ball that had slipped past the pitcher and the shortstop at softball practice.

But without a warning, the last of those busy, loud, magical days of parenthood had slipped through to the bottom of the hourglass. The barstools sat idle. The magic wands, spent. I looked around me and marveled at how, without me noticing, the glow had worn off in their absence. The room was tired, and I had absorbed its colors.

Two short years after Jason left for college, Mark got the twenty-seven-year itch and was the next to leave. He simply came home from work one day and told me he wasn't in love with me anymore, packed a bag, and left. Anna and I sat there stunned as he walked out the door, and it was months before I finally understood why. I bumped into him in the produce department looking quite cozy with the personal trainer he insisted he needed when he turned fifty. He didn't even have the decency to find somewhere else to buy his kale. Like perhaps Mars.

I wondered sometimes if my need to sleep with the window open was the straw that broke commitment's back. Menopause was a bitch. Maybe sometimes I was, too. I didn't think so, but I'd never be a hundred percent sure. What I was sure of was the fact that as hard as I had tried to be the best wife I could possibly be, I had failed at marriage twice—the first being a hormone-fueled twenty-year-old-girl's attempt at proving her independence—and I had no desire to ‘try again.' None.

Mark had been gone for four years, and one by one the kids had grown and flown from the nest, and there I was. Three half-finished books under my belt and a growing angst heavy enough to sink a ship.

I knew I should have been in therapy. It was no secret that I had some adult-onset abandonment issues I needed to work through, but I had spent the last thirty-six months trying to convince myself that finishing a book would be the cure for my persistent melancholy. It was the finishing part that had proven itself to be the biggest challenge.

Roxy scratched at the door and barked at the same moment my back pocket began singing about milkshakes and boys in my yard, a practical joke courtesy of Anna, the night before she left for Washington State two years later. Empathetic, silly, and thoughtful to her core, she'd secretly changed my ringtone while I cooked our last dinner together before the big world swallowed her up. When it began ringing as we loaded the dishwasher together that last night, she'd laughed like a hyena.

"Every time your phone rings, you're gonna die of embarrassment, then laugh. You better laugh," she'd said.

I couldn't bring myself to tell her I wasn't sure how much laughing I was going to be doing once I dropped her and her luggage off at the airport the next day. But I had humored her because, as parents, that's what we do, and the ringtone had stayed the same for almost three years.

That night, it had been my parents on the phone, calling to check on us (probably mostly me) and they sounded delighted to hear laughter in the background.

"Paige. It sounds like things are going well over there." my mom exclaimed. "Is Anna all packed up and ready for tomorrow?"

"Oh, yes. There's a stack of suitcases as tall as me by the front door." I had played along, not wanting to tip her off to my wilting spirit.

"So.... two? Is that going to be enough?"

Mom's one joke of the year and it had been at my expense. I wasn't sure if I should be offended or honored. I may not have grown past 5'1", but I made up for it in spades with my wit and determination, or I did at one point, anyway. After talking to Anna for a few minutes, my mom had passed the phone to my dad so he could wish our girl a safe trip and crack a total Dad joke before we hung up.

The next time the phone ‘sang' that night, it was Kari, my ride or die since we'd met at sleepover camp when we were ten and found we were practically neighbors back home. We had been inseparable ever since. She had called that night to check on us (me)... and continued to call at five o'clock every night after.

My trip down memory lane was cut short as the milkshakes brought me back from my reverie. The clock on the wall gave me a pretty good idea of who was on the phone before I even had it out of my pocket. It was a little after five o'clock. Kari was calling, but for the first time ever, she was late.

"What did they do today?" I asked, turning back to the door to let the dog in. Kari's twin boys, Matt and Alex, were always up to something, and I was looking forward to a little comic relief courtesy of my godsons.

"These freaking knuckleheads are going to be the death of me. You are not going to believe this. After almost eighteen years, you'd think I'd learn to expect the unexpected from them, but this takes the cake. Are you free? You need to see this for yourself."

"I'm on my way."