Done Adulting Vol. 1 Ch. 87

Autumn days are good days to rest. The cooler air reinvigorates, but it does so best when well rested and in no hurry. That first real autumn day, that intruder that doesn’t know it’s not quite time for clouds and cold, is a prime candidate for such a day.

Rebecca found Jamie asleep still, unusual for him, when she went into his nursery to get him up, and he didn’t assist much in getting into something dry and warm. He opted to stay in his room and fell back asleep in his recliner, and it was mid-morning when he stumbled into the living room with his hair sticking up, rubbing his eyes with one hand and holding his bear with the other.

“Looks who’s finally awake ... sort of,” Amanda said upon seeing him. He was still in a sleeper and looked like he’d spent the night on a little food bender.

“Where’s Mom,” he asked. His voice was dry and strained.

“Out running errands. Why?”

“Just wondering.”

“C’mere.” He shuffled over, and Amanda picked him up and put her hand to his forehead. “Do you feel okay? You’re not hot.”

“No, I’m fine. Just tired.”

“And wet. Let’s go take care of that and then get you some breakfast ... or early lunch,” she added when she saw the clock on the microwave. She carried Jamie back to his nursery and laid him on his changing table where he hugged his bear but participated in the change.

“Manda, I, uh, don’t remember doing this.”

“What? Wetting your diaper? You said a while ago sometimes you forget.”

“Yeah, but I think I was asleep.” Amanda had initially been afraid Jamie would start to actually need diapers, but now it didn’t seem like such a big deal, at least to her.

“Does that bother you,” she asked, wanting to know if it distressed him.

Jamie wasn’t sure if it didn’t bother him at the moment only because he was so tired. He wanted it to bother him, but that it didn’t bother him also didn’t bother him. “Not really,” he yawned.

“Then I guess it’s a good thing you wear diapers to bed. Do want clothes, or are you good in your PJs?”

“This is fine,” he said, still sounding exhausted and disoriented.

“Would you rather be eaten by one giant hamster or a thousand regular ones?”

“Whatever we have is fine,” he mumbled with his eyes closed again.

“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

“Yeah. It’s just the weather.”

“Maybe some food will wake you up. How about I cook something real?” She took Jamie to the kitchen and set him in his highchair with a sippy cup of water. “How about an omelet?”

“With cheese?”

“Do they come without cheese? I’ve never had one of those before. Sounds terrible.” Amanda raided the fridge and came up with ham, onions, peppers, mushrooms, and cheese. Jamie would have needed two hands to carry the onion. It still freaked him out a little, how big some of the food was. He didn’t understand what made it so disconcerting.

In short order, Amanda served up two omelets and toast. “Thank you. Good work,” Jamie said.

“You too.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You didn’t get it all over your face and clothes.”

“I never do that,” he said indignantly.

“You’re also never so spaced out.” She wiped his face for him anyway; she couldn’t help it. “Do I need to let the beast out?”

“Huh?”

“The tickle beast. She’s pretty good at getting you to wake up.”

“No! I’m fine. See?” He opened his eyes wider and smiled.

“We’ll see,” she responded suspiciously. Do you want to do anything?”

“Not really.”

“Then how about you come watch a movie with me in the living room?” Still holding his bear, they collected Jamie’s set of blocks from his room. He hadn’t played with them in a while. Jamie liked to play with blocks while watching movies. Most of the movies they thought he would enjoy didn’t hold much interest for him, and the ones Becky and Amanda liked weren’t his favorite either. Becky had ears like a wild animal when it came to watching any movie she deemed inappropriate for a little, and while it bothered him at first, he had started to enjoy life with fewer screens.

“You’re kinda attached to that guy today,” Amanda remarked about his bear.

“I just like him.”

“Any more thought to giving him a name?”

“Not really.” He didn’t feel a need to, and every time he tried to think of one, it felt forced. He figured he hadn’t thought of the right name yet, or else his bear didn’t have and didn’t need a name.

Amanda laid out a blanket on the floor and arranged Jamie and his toys on and around it. She flipped through the channels until she found a movie she liked that was just starting.

“What are we watching?”

“Chick flick about a group of lifelong friends who go on a trip together.”

“Think I’ve seen that one,” Jamie mumbled.

Within twenty minutes of the start of the movie, just as the group of friends was setting out on their road trip, Amanda got down on the floor with Jamie. “What are we building,” she asked.

“A ... castle.”

“What kind of castle?”

“Um, German romantic era.”

“What’s that?”

“There was this king named Ludwig who liked castles a long time after they stopped being useful, and he built a few in this exaggerated style that was more out of a storybook than what real castles actually looked like.”

“People must have liked that.”

“He bankrupted his kingdom, and they found him floating in a lake.”

“Good thing we don’t have lakes in the house then.” She started by handing Jamie pieces. He’d place one, and she’d have the next waiting for him. He didn’t ask for any; she just picked the next one, making herself the architect and him the engineer. With a solid platform and base, Jamie spaced out the second tier so there was room between the uprights, making arrow slits or windows or maybe just a drafty German romantic-wannabe-medieval castle. Or perhaps French or English. He couldn’t tell. It may even have been Welsh, he mused.

“Where are they going,” Jamie asked, nodding at the TV.

“To a resort their families used to go to together during the summer.”

“Why do they have such big hair?”

“That was the style twenty years ago. Maybe we can find some pictures of Mom from back then, if she hasn’t burned them all.”

The next tier went back to pieces flush against one another. It was just tall enough now to be delicate. Jamie was taking longer to place the pieces, spending more time watching the movie. “Jamie,” Amanda asked to get his attention.

“O, sorry.” He took a triangle piece and laid it along the top edge of the upper tier. “Why is that one mad at everyone?”

“She’s not really mad at them. She’s mad because her friends were right when they told her not to marry her husband.”

“Why?”

“He cheats on her.”

“Bastard,” Jamie muttered. Jamie scooted back so he was resting against the couch, leaving Jamieberg unfinished. He was absorbed in the movie. Amanda left and came back with salty snacks; she knew how to watch movies. She sat on the floor and put Jamie in her lap.

The group relived their younger days, splashing in the lake, sharing beds, staying up talking long into the night, eating too much junk food, flirting with random men, drinking too much, skinny dipping, gossiping, all interspersed with moments of pathos as the women talked about their husbands, exes, kids, careers, lack of careers, and aging parents. When the conversations grew intense, the one who seemed to be the leader would steer it back to a lighter topic. Jamie had seen this before, except the actors were human, it was set at the ocean/mountains/farm instead of the lake, and it took place at Thanksgiving/Christmas/Labor Day. But it had all his attention. Amanda was finishing the bowl of snacks herself.

Mid-scene, Amanda felt something warm and different on her leg. She cocked her head and looked at Jamie from an angle, but he was focused on the screen. Does he know he’s doing that, she wondered. The sensation stopped, and she waited the customary few minutes.

“Are you done?” When she asked, it was a genuine question; when their mom asked, it was rhetorical.

“When the movie’s over,” Jamie replied.

“What?”

“I want to see the end.”

“Okay.” It wasn’t much longer; his pants could wait.

Amanda shifted him off her lap. She’d seen the movie many times. The castle needed a roof; she returned to the work.

The women were all asleep when one of them called out for help. Her friends found her in the bathroom on the tile. She couldn’t stand up. Jamie was alarmed; they called an ambulance.

In the next scene, the group was having a late, sedate breakfast, having skipped over whatever happened during the night. The woman had been released from the emergency room; everyone looked tired and teary. The one who had gone to the hospital told them to cheer up. Another smacked the table with her fist and got angry. How could she say that? This was happening, and she couldn’t ignore it anymore.

The leader tried to intervene. The sick woman got angry back. Who was she telling? This was happening to her! She didn’t want their last day at the lake to be about that! The group split up, some going to pack, others going to walk by the water, some to call their kids and others to talk with one another behind closed doors. The day was grey and misty and they were all wearing sweaters.

Jamie didn’t like that they were fighting, or that the woman was sick. What was happening to her?

Amanda decided her castle needed towers.

The woman who got angry and the woman who was sick were on the dock together.

I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have ... This is your weekend, the woman who got angry said.

It’s our weekend. I’m just sorry we waited until now to do this, the woman who was sick replied.

It’s life. People get busy … People grow apart.

We said we wouldn’t. I guess that makes us all liars.

Just people. I don’t know how you can be so calm about it.

What’s the alternative? Go to pieces? Get angry?

Yeah.

Well, I did. For a little bit I did. I went to pieced and I got angry, and then it … Still sometimes, I do; when I’m alone and can … But I still have kids who need a mom for ... for ... as long as ...

They both started weeping, sitting on that bench looking out at the water. Not big, melodramatic tears. The kind that run in long trails down your cheeks until they reach your chin and form drops that fall free as you work to hold in a sob or a scream or a wail. They regained some composure.

I’m just glad we could do this, be together here again. We were so happy here. Didn’t think it would end. Couldn’t ... apply the idea of aging to ourselves. Remember that, the sick woman asked.

That we’d never be as old as our parents? That we’d always be young and beautiful and never have bills to pay? All the good things, great schools, happy careers, hot husbands. We talked about that stuff all the time, but we didn’t … see ourselves as ever getting older. Like we’d be twenty-five and just stay that way. Time … just isn’t a thing when you’re a kid.

Everything seemed to last forever back then right up until it was almost over. Summer especially. It seemed like it lasted so long. It was like forever. Weeks back then just ... They went on forever.

So did this place. Ten days here felt as long as the entire summer.

I don’t remember it being such a dump.

I don’t think they’ve painted a thing since we were here last.

Should’ve brought the kids up here.

You took them lots of places. They’ll remember those forever.

Yeah, but ... I don’t know. This place just seemed special.

It is. We’ll ... we’ll bring them up here. Next summer.

The sick woman broke down into sobs and tears again. I can’t ... it’s not fair to them. They shouldn’t ... They should get to have their mom.

Amanda’s castle was missing crenellations.

The sick woman leaned over until her head was in the other woman’s lap. She stroked the sick woman’s hair and wiped at her own tears, trying to mask that she was crying too.

They’ll have us. Always. All of us, the sick woman’s friend promised.

The sick woman sobbed so hard, the sound carried across the lake. Her friend bent down and rested her cheek on her hair, no longer trying to hide her tears. The rest of the friends heard the sick woman’s anguished wail from their rooms and stepped to their windows and balconies, watching the two of them at the end of the dock, shedding a tear or two of their own as the sound of unbound grief filled the foggy silence of their happiest childhood playground. The scene faded and the credits rolled. But there was still the sound of crying in the room.

“Jamie? O, baby,” Amanda said as she turned over her shoulder and saw Jamie full on sobbing, complete with chest-wracking heaves and a running nose.

“Honey,” she said as she picked him up and laid him face down against her chest. “It’s just a movie. Shhh. You’re okay.” He sobbed into her shirt. He couldn’t help himself. He felt ridiculous, but he couldn’t help himself. She rocked him and let him cry it out until he was just sniffling.

The door from the garage opened in the kitchen, and Rebecca walked in. Jamie was still gasping for the occasional breath as his diaphragm cramped. His eyes were red and puffy, his PJs and Amanda’s shirt were a wet mess, and Amanda was still rocking and shushing Jamie.

“What happened,” Becky asked in concern.

“We watched ‘Lake Island Resort And Boat Rental.’”

“O, geez. Why not just show him a kitten being euthanized?” She held out her arms, and Amanda handed her Jamie. He laid against her but was done crying. Now he was tired again.

“He liked it until the last ten minutes.”

“Everybody likes it until the last ten minutes.” She patted his full diaper and twitched her nose. “Are you done, baby?”

“It still needs outer fortifications,” Amanda answered.