Page 18 of Again, In Autumn

“Helping Daddy unload the car,” Francesca answers.

We watch her bound out of the room, and I take a sip of the freshly brewed coffee. “How was the drive?”

Francesca exhales, tucking her jean-clad legs under the covers and resting her back against the headboard beside me. “It was nice actually. I thought it would be weird.”

“To be in a car together?”

“To do family things again.” She grips the handle of the blue mug that she set on the side table. Her newly manicured nails scrape against the ceramic. “This is our first thing as a family. We haven’t even had dinner together in the house in over a year.”

“I thought you guys have been doing dinner three times a week?”

“We eat out. Or at David’s apartment.”

“You went to Six Flags. And soccer games.”

She nods. “Yeah, we’ve been doing that kind of stuff and everything’s been good. Great. Dave’s been…he’s the greatest, always has been. And apart from us still living in separate places, it feels like things are getting back to normal, just a better version of it.”

She stares into her coffee, and I notice her eyelids are powdered with brown shadow and her eyebrows have been tinted. She’s wearing a new cream-colored cable knit sweater and her hair bounces when she tips her head back.

“You look nice, Francesca,” I offer. She doesn’t respond, she doesn’t care about my assessment. It’s not for me, it’s for her. It’s part of the effort she promised to make to herself.

“But what if this trip is a bad idea?” she asks, meeting my eye. “What if it’s too much?”

My mouth opens and closes.

She adds, “What if I’m not ready to be here and I can’t handle the weight of it? I can’t let anyone see it crush me. I can’t afford for it to crush me.”

Crushing weight is on more than one mind.

I look out at the window across from me. This large, perfect bedroom has a great view of the new sun shining atop tree branches and sparkles stretches of lake water. I imagine the cool smell of Fall air and the sound of leaves crunching under the kids’ feet.

“I’m glad we’re all here.” I keep staring ahead. “It’s not a mistake, you’re going to be fine. You and Dave have loved each other for twenty years. You were married for ten. One year semi-separated won’t make you strangers, especially not with all the work you’ve both been putting into yourselves and your relationship. It was never supposed to be over, right?”

“Just a break,” she sighs. “We were always going to come back together when we were stronger individually. Now it’s like a big test I’m afraid to fail.”

“You’re not going to fail,” I tell her.

“I just don’t want this trip to be a mistake.”

I’ve been wrestling with the same question, I want to say. I’m worried being here is a huge mistake and all my regrets and self-hate will drown me in the middle of a family holiday. One look at the house next door and I almost got back in the car and booked it out of the trees.

But I can’t tell her. I still don’t want her to know about that summer. I don’t want to talk about it or be the subject of anyone’s scrutiny.

“Well, I can take this bedroom off your hands,” I offer with a yawn, stretching my arms. “It might be too awkward for you to share this room. You don’t want to move too fast.”

She rolls her eyes. “We need this giant room because we need space. I’m not sleeping in a room next to Kate. She’ll stick her ear to the wall just waiting for us to have some big blow-up and come running in to tell Dave that I’m toxic and –”

“When do they get here?”

I’ve known David’s little sisters for most of their lives. They’re in their early twenties. They’ll have the energy for Alice that I can’t muster.

“Tomorrow,” she groans. “Katie had to get her hair cut.” She pauses, flipping her hair dramatically. “By the way, I saw several mixing bowls on the drying rack.”

I pull back the comforter and stick my feet into slippers.

“Did you have a good night last night?” she continues. “Stress baking all alone, up here, in the house you’ve refused to step foot in for fourteen years.”

“Yes, actually. And I wasn’t stress baking.” I walk over to my bag and pull out a knitted cardigan. “I was baking baking.”

---