“Why, I think he has to jump.” I feigned a crouched position.
With a laugh, Davy jumped onto one of the wooden four-poster single beds with its cream bedspread and single pillow.
In one fell swoop, I imagined our life in that house. I saw the boys’ clothes and books scattered around the bedroom with its high ceilings and windows facing out to the street. I heard the piano music and laughter. I saw us cuddled together reading and talking.
“This way to your room,” Mrs. Bagley said.
Davy jumped from the bed and Douglas followed, down the hallway with its white paint and detailed moldings. I walked into a bedroom where a queen-size bed dominated the center of the room. A brass chandelier surrounded by an ornate and gilded medallion was lit by only one bulb; the other four were out. There was a dark wooden dresser with six drawers and a cracked mirror hanging over it. I imagined framed photos of our new little family, of London and Oxford, sitting on it along with my hairbrush and bottles of cosmetics. I was already living in the bedroom I hadn’t yet moved into.
Back in the main room, I spied the French doors that opened to the backyard, or what might pass for a backyard but was merely a courtyard of dried and deadened plants. But that didn’t matter. I knew how to plant a garden; I knew how to make it more than it appeared. I turned around to face Mrs. Bagley with tears puddling in my eyes. I reached to take a swipe, knocking my tortoiseshell glasses off my face and onto the floor. Davy picked them up and handed them to me.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” I said. “This is a home. And we three most desperately need a home.”
She took both my hands and held them in hers. “You are welcome,” she said. “I once needed the same, and we must all help one another.”
The boys and I moved in the next morning. We unpacked our things and then settled into our bedrooms for naps. We all fell into a sleep so deep and dreamless it was as if we’d been waiting for it. When I awoke, the boys were still facedown in their clothes with the roar and honk of London traffic outside their windows.
I let them be and settled down at the tiny kitchen table, where I started a letter to Bill. I had agreed to rent this annex, but I also knew the facts: I didn’t have enough money to make it if he didn’t send money or I didn’t make some myself. We’d made it this far: the house sold, the divorce moving forward, the ocean crossing with my boys, and now a place to live. One step and then another and then another.
I would be brave enough; I must.
Dear Bill,
You cannot do this to your boys. You must not deprive them of your money to punish me. I’ve decided that they must go to public school here . . .
I lifted my pen as a rustling came from the front room.
“Mommy?” Davy’s voice called out.
As I jumped up, a shot of pain from my left hip sent me crashing into the table. I shook it off and ran to his voice.
“Yes, my dear?” I asked as I entered, the late-afternoon sun rushing into the room in the evening of foggy London, all muted and gray flannel.
“Where am I?” He sat in his little bed, rubbing at his face.
Douglas, in the bed next to him, stirred also and sat, looking around. “We’re in our new room in London.”
“Yes.” Davy dropped back onto his pillow. “I just forgot.”
I hopped onto Davy’s bed. He snuggled into my softness. How had I left them for even a moment? The curdling conscience and anxiety I’d had last year had not been for missing Bill. It was for my children.
Douglas thumped down from his bed and wandered to the window, pulling aside the damask curtain to stare out at the streetscape. “Does it stay foggy all the time?”
The disappointment in his voice made my heart squeeze tight.
“No, darling. In fact, I only saw it once when I was here last time. When it clears, and spring arrives, you will think you are in a land of fairies. It is the most beautiful country in all the world.”
“You can’t know that,” Douglas said and turned to me, dropping the curtain to fall back over the window.
“Oh yes, I can.” I laughed and jumped from the bed to hug him close. “Just you wait and see.”
“Mr. Lewis’s house will be like that too,” Davy said.
“Yes, yes, it will,” I agreed.
Douglas walked toward us and rubbed his stomach. “I’m hungry.”
“Well then, I have some mulligatawny soup. We can heat it on our new gas circle.”
“I don’t like that stuff,” Davy said in a defiant voice. “I heard you tell Mrs. Bagley that we don’t have money and you can’t get a job yet. Do we have enough money for something else?”