Second Chance. Elizabeth Wrenn

pizza. Didn’t Dad leave money on the desk?’

      ‘No, he said since you were home, you’d cook.’ Lainey was fingering the tie of my robe. ‘You know, Mom, I don’t like this color as well out of the store. You should have gotten the pink. Don’t take this the wrong way, but this purple kind of makes you look a little fat.’ She stood a step back from me, a sympathetic expression on her face.

      And just what was the right way to take that comment? I wanted to ask her. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to start crying again. What was it about adolescent girls that they thought some sort of verbal disclaimer made plunging a knife into your gut okay? It didn’t really help that I knew she wasn’t trying to be deliberately hurtful.

      I looked at Matt, who was crunching another mouthful of popcorn, his hand already back in the bag, gathering the next handful. ‘So, like, are we going to eat soon?’ he said, rather messily.

      My hands tightened into a chokehold on the Tupperware. Then, to punctuate the tenor of my evening, I felt the perspiration begin to ooze out the pores of my forehead and upper lip, the familiar temperature surge building in me like an overheating engine.

      I pulled off my bathrobe, grabbing the top of my worn pj’s, pulling it in and out rapidly, trying to cool myself. I looked at my kids. I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t planned anything. I knew I could always make a tuna casserole. But I hadn’t planned on cooking tonight. I didn’t want to cook tonight. The anger I’d felt upstairs surged again. I wondered if other women going through the change had anger flashes, in addition to hot flashes. I put the Tupperware bowl on my hip and ripped the lid off, losing my grip and inadvertently flinging the lid across the kitchen. It Frisbeed its way right into Hairy, who, his white fur spattered with chocolate pudding, stood, yowling and hissing at me.

      ‘Dammit!’ I yelled.

      ‘Maw-ahm!’ yelled Lainey, rushing toward Hairy, but stopping just short. ‘Poor kitty!’ She glanced back at me, eyebrows up. ‘And you owe me another dollar.’

      Matt bent forward, laughing and spewing little globs of half-chewed popcorn across the tile floor. ‘Now he’s a Dalmatian cat!’ He convulsed in laughter again.

      ‘Poor kitty,’ repeated Lainey, still not touching him, trying in vain not to smile.

      I handed her a wet paper towel. ‘Wipe him off, please, Lainey.’ I dabbed at the chocolate on my robe with a wet sponge.

      She took the paper towel from me but merely held it, as she was overcome finally with laughter. ‘I’m not the one who threw pudding all over him,’ she said, leaning on the desk and covering her mouth, then turning away, as if she didn’t want Hairy to see her laughing at him. He had a blob of pudding on one side of his forehead, a Groucho Marx eyebrow. I was worried it would go into his eye.

      ‘Okay, fine, I’ll clean him up.’ I snatched the paper towel from her, and she grabbed her stomach with both hands and bumped into Matt, who was also still convulsed with laughter. I wiped Hairy’s eye, then, with a grunt from both of us, lifted the enormous chocolate-spattered cat from the desk and took him to the sink. ‘Sorry, Hairy. It was an accident.’ He glared back at me, the angry-looking face that is every Persian’s lot in life now looking downright murderous.

      ‘I’ll be downstairs,’ said Matt breathlessly.

      ‘Me too,’ said Lainey. ‘Call us when dinner’s ready.’ Holding Hairy firmly in the sink, I watched, my mouth open but nothing coming out, as she reached over Matt’s shoulder into the bag of popcorn as they descended.

      In the next couple of hours I bathed the cat, put a bandage on the scratch on my arm, swept the kitchen floor, made and served a tuna casserole, and folded and put away some laundry while the kids ate. I wasn’t hungry after Lainey’s comment. While the kids watched a movie, I did the dishes, mopped the floor and dusted, all in the name of therapy.

      At nine o’clock I headed up to bed, wanting to be asleep before Neil got home. I wasn’t, but I again faked it. It was a mystery to me how I could perpetually be so tired and yet have so much trouble sleeping. But I was getting very skilled at playing possum. I lay still, on my side of the bed, the edge really, my back to the center. Neil came into the room, undressed, was in the bathroom for quite a while, then finally slipped in on his side. Thankfully, he didn’t reach for me.

      But pure guilt made me reach for him. I fulfilled my wifely duties then returned to my edge.

      I lay for close to an hour, frozen in my assumed position, till I was sure he was asleep. Then I silently slid out of bed, wrapped myself in my new prune-colored, fat-emphasizing robe, and went downstairs to the kitchen. I pulled out the tuna casserole, grabbed a fork, and shoveled in a big mouthful. Then another. Still chewing, I loaded up the fork again, gazing at the pictures and memos on the door of the fridge. An upcoming birthday party invitation from one of Lainey’s friends. A shopping list. Matt and Lainey’s wallet-sized school photos. A picture of Sam with his friends at a graduation party. Another mother had given it to me. And under a magnet from a car mechanic was an old snapshot of Rocky and Fordy, both going after a stick in the lake. I stared at it, holding in one hand the ancient white CorningWare we’d gotten so many years ago as a wedding gift, and in the other my laden fork. I swallowed what was in my mouth, looked at my forkful, and let it drop back into the casserole. I put the lid on and pushed the dish back into the fridge. I put my fork in the dishwasher and quietly closed the door. Tightening the tie on my robe, I walked down the second flight of stairs to the den. I sat, turned on the computer, ner-vously pulled at the cuticle of my index finger, waiting. As it hummed into being, the monitor’s dim blue screen softened the too-clean room. I clicked, typed, and clicked again, until the Google box appeared. I took a deep breath, then carefully typed in the letters, one by one:

      RAISING GUIDE DOG PUPPY

       FIVE

      I had just set the last, and biggest, bouquet on the coffee table of the sunroom. I’d been extravagant, buying two different bunches at Costco, mixing and arranging them anew into four bouquets, adding some of my daffodils that had bravely emerged in the early spring warmth. In the morning I’d put the finishing touches on some of the most furious cleaning I’d ever done. And for me, that was saying something. I’d even pulled out the toothbrush again, despite Elaine’s admonishments. I hadn’t told anyone about my ‘project,’ not even Elaine.

      At a little after two in the afternoon, I emerged from the shower, blew-dry and styled my hair, and put on a crisp white oxford shirt and my just-pressed khakis and stared at the mirror. God. Was this the best I could do? The fat, preppy look? I touched the gray hairs at my temple, the lines at my eyes. I wondered if I’d be judged too old to take on raising a puppy.

      By three o’clock I was ready for my first job interview in a very long time. I was glad it was in my home. If I’d had a résumé, my home and my kids would be the only things on it.

      ‘Wow,’ said Bill as we finished the tour and sat down to tea in the sunroom. ‘Your house is so pristine, inside and out.’

      ‘Thank you,’ I said, beaming. It felt so good to beam. And Bill, the local leader for the K-9 Eyes group, turned out to be someone who elicited beaming. He was tall, with thick dark hair and bright blue eyes, an irresistible combination. The sprinklings of gray in his hair looked sexy, not old.

      He looked down at his teacup, his brow furrowed, and said nothing else. My beam retracted.

      ‘Is everything all right?’ I asked. ‘Would you like some sugar for your tea? Or a brownie?’ I picked up the plate of my famous Death and Resurrection chocolate brownies and offered him one. ‘They have four different kinds of chocolate in them!’

      Bill averted his eyes. ‘No, thank you, Deena.’ He gazed around the room. When he finally looked at me he was smiling, but a cosmetic smile. A smile that is the Band-Aid in advance of the cut.

      ‘Deena, I’m not sure you’re