Chapter 1

"Gobble, Gobble, Gobble."

"Wahbo, Wahbo, Wahbo."

"Gobble, Gobble, Gobble."

A month ago I would have been yelling at them to keep quiet or to find something else to do or to go to their room and play. God knows I'd heard it enough times over the last three days. But they really weren't bothering anyone and they were all playing together. And they were happy.

This time it had been Laurie who initiated the game and my two who followed but each of them had started it countless times over the weekend. I wondered if it would die out of its own volition or if it would become a cherished ritual between the three of them; something that would continue well into their old age.

"All right you guys, get over there out of the way before you get run over."

That was Jill, the foreperson of this job. The job was to empty my apartment and take all my stuff over to her father's house, as quickly, efficiently and neatly as possible. Zero damage was the goal. Charlie, a longtime friend of hers who just happened to be going with her boyfriend's sister had gotten five friends together to haul my stuff down the stairs and into the 18' U-haul I reserved yesterday. Jill, the cute little girl three years younger than any of them was keeping them moving like some Australian sheep dog, nipping at their heels when they strayed or slowed down. What was surprising was how much they seemed to love it. We'd been loading the truck for over an hour and a half and the closest thing to resentment I'd seen was a sheepish look or two when she chewed out somebody for goofing off.

Mary had done a wonderful job in getting all the loose stuff packed. Mary? She's Charlie's girlfriend. Jack's sister. Jack's the guy who's going with Jill. I work for Jack and Jill. So far it's just been Jack because he's the only one who's actually done any work, even though the law says he can't be held responsible for anything he does. Sometimes the law's screwy. But that's not what I was talking about.

Mary had one of those big packing tape dispensers like they use at UPS that seemed to be glued to her right hand for the last two days. She had a bag with five or six rolls of 2' tape in it when she started and I think she was almost down to two rolls. Mary was in charge of packing all the loose stuff. It's amazing how much you accumulate over the years.

The first thing she did when we got home yesterday was to put the kids to work. All three of them were there and it didn't matter to any of them that none of the stuff was Laurie's. She was part of the gang and she joined in and was a big help. Since she'd moved into the same house not that long before, she was busy letting them know all the things to expect. Mary put them in charge of getting all the extra stuff from their room into boxes. Under her supervision, of course.

Each of my kids had a big Rubbermaid storage box for their toys. Both of their toy collections had outgrown their boxes a long time ago. Mary had them fill their toy boxes as full as they could, then she put the lids on them and taped them closed. She opened up a couple of the boxes we got from the U-haul and taped the bottoms. The kids worked as a team, first with the remaining toys, books, CDs and DVDs in Annette's half of the room and then the stuff from Billy's half. Yes, they went into separate boxes because, for the first time in their lives, they were each going to have their own rooms. The only exception was the stuffed animals. They all went into a dishwasher size box and would be sorted at our new home.

Most of the rest of the kids' things were left alone. The things in their dressers were going to be moved in the drawers with some newspaper taped over them to keep them from falling out. Annette had a small collection of ceramic animals that were wrapped in socks and put in with her underwear. There were a few family pictures that went in with the T-shirts in the drawers. The clothes hanging in the closet would stay on the hangers and go on a bar that was going to be put across the back of the truck just before the door was closed. Their sandals and slippers went into a box with my shoes. They wore their tennies.

Mary was quite inventive in her packing. She used the newspaper I bought to wrap my cups and glasses. She also wrapped newspaper around each type of silverware, then ran tape around it. All my miscellaneous serving silverware, knives, spatulas and spoons went into my food storage containers. Dishes and pots and pans were wrapped in towels, though, taking care of the linen closet while reducing the amount of newspaper needed. My cleaning supplies all fit in my wastebaskets. They would not be needed for the apartment because my new landlord was going to get a cleaning crew in here as soon as we emptied the place.

Speak of the devil. He came in the door, looking like he just stepped out of a shower after playing golf and taking a sauna. He nodded toward me, then picked up my son, buried his mouth beneath Billy's chin and said, "Gobble, Gobble, Gobble."

That started it all over again and all three of them got the same treatment, although the girls pretended to protest.

He came over to me. "Is all that stuff in the truck yours?"

What an odd question. "Of course it is."

"Hmm. You know, I don't think you're going to need a lot of it."

"What do you mean?"

"I've got beds in all the rooms, there are three couches in the house, I have no idea where we'll put the kitchen table," he said, pointing at mine. "If you want to put the TV in one of the bedrooms, I suppose you could. I just think it would work out easier if we put most of it in storage. We can always bring anything you need back home later."

"I can't see paying to store it all. Most of it was third or fourth hand when we got it. I don't know, though. It would be a shame to throw it all away."

Mary came over, waving her tape gun. "Garage sale."

I looked at her. "Excuse me?"

"We'll hold a garage sale. Don't worry about a thing. Jill and I can take care of it. Rent a storage place for a month. Figure out what you want to keep at the house, which stuff you couldn't live without, then we'll hold a garage sale and get rid of the rest of it."

"You really think people are going to attend a garage sale around Christmas?" John asked her. That's John O'Hara, my landlord, Jill's father and Laurie's adoptive father. Jill and Laurie are half sisters but it's the other half. They share a mother who happened to abandon Jill and John when Jill was two. She recently showed up out of the blue with Laurie and a terminal case of cancer. Laurie's biological father is unknown. Whether or not that was the case with her mother is a moot point. Any secret died with her.

"I didn't think of that. Maybe you'll need to rent it for two months."

"Just as well. That U-haul place where we rented the truck has a first month free deal. I can pay for the second month and get the first one free. Who knows? You may decide you can't stand living with me and you'll be glad to still have your stuff. Two months should be plenty of time."

Two guys walked past us carrying kitchen chairs. There was another fellow in the kitchen, kneeling down, removing the legs from the bottom of the table. Mary gave him a baggie. "Put all the screws and little stuff in here. When you're done we'll tape the legs together with the baggie."

Jill came over to me. "Myra, let's take a walk through the place. I'm pretty sure they got everything."

That's me. Myra Crawford. Mother of two, widowed for a little over two years now, close to disinherited by my parents, just about ensuring complete disinheritance after making this move. Even though it was going to be strictly a landlord / tenant and employer / employee relationship, the idea of me sharing living space with a man I'm not married to alone would be more than enough to guarantee me a place in Hell as far as they're concerned.

Jill and I walked through the apartment. As I looked at the empty closets and the indentations in the carpet where furniture had been, I wondered what it was about these people that made me trust them so much.

I had seen John once or twice before I went to Jill's for Thanksgiving dinner. There I go, calling it Jill's. She's a fifteen year old kid but she's so dynamic, so confident, that she takes over any space she happens to occupy. She and Jack live in a recently built apartment above his mother's garage. In fact, my understanding is that the garage apartment was built as a place for Jack when they took in a friend of Jack's who was battered by her parents. Before the construction was half finished, it was decided that Jill was going to move in with Jack. I don't think either John or June, Jack's mother, were consulted. It just kind of happened. If you stick around Jill for any length of time, you'll see a lot of things like that.

Anyway, Jill invited me over to June's for Thanksgiving. At first I thought I would be imposing and didn't think June would appreciate it if I showed up. After talking to June, I realized the offer was genuine and I brought my kids over with me. We actually went over to the apartment a bit early because they wanted to watch the parade and my cable had been cut off. I think they may have watched it for 10 minutes before Jill had them working in the kitchen, first making breakfast, then afterwards, helping out with the dinner itself. Jill's got this idea that a child is never too young to help out. It sure seems to work. It's amazing what a difference it makes to take Billy on my lap and guide his hand as we stir a bowl full of eggs instead of telling him to go off and play because I'm busy and he's in the way. You know, I could wait an extra ten minutes to eat any day just to see the smile on his face when he's convinced he's helped out.

John was playing Santa Claus that day. He brought over an insurance check for Jill from her mother's life insurance plus a validated declaration of emancipation for Jill. From what I hear, there's a judge out there somewhere who's breathing easier now that she got that check and can prove financial responsibility. She just about tore him a new one when he stamped her Emancipation 'Provisional'. Tore him a new one. That's something Jerry used to say. Jerry's my husband. Or was until he got in the way of a car bomb in Iraq.

So, John had a fancy coffeemaker like Jill's that he gave to June and a top of the line laptop computer for Mary because she watched Laurie every day when he was in a bind. He also started that Gobble Gobble thing with the kids and they thought he was the greatest thing ever. I didn't know what to think when he asked me if I could spare a couple of minutes to talk with him. Me? Spare time to talk with him? The idea that there was any question about it seemed ridiculous. He was a doctor, my boss's father. All he had to do was ask and I would spend whatever time he wanted.

He thanked me when I told him I could. Talk about weird. He thanked me. We sat down at the dining room table, away from everybody else. He said he had an idea that things were tough for me raising my two on my own and I told him they were but I knew things were going to get better now that I was working for the kids. He said it looked like I got along good with Laurie and that my two also did. I agreed with that. Then he said he had been looking for someone he could trust to take care of Laurie.

I told him I appreciated the thought but I was already working for his daughter and her boyfriend and needed to be available when they needed me and I really didn't have a whole lot of room at my place for a third kid during the day. The next thing I knew, I'd agreed to move into his house, with rooms for each of us, including the use of two bathrooms. I was expected to watch over Laurie the equivalent of 8 hours a day for 5 days a week. I was free to take Laurie with me to work for either of the kids and count that as part of my 40 hours. Since I already had to take my two with me, bringing Laurie along was no big deal. In fact, since they were less of a handful when she was around, it would work out better for all concerned. I was expected to make three meals a day for Laurie and to include myself and the kids for those meals. No junk food allowed. If I happened to have dinner at the house, I would be expected to make enough for him. If I wasn't going to eat at home, he wanted a phone call so he could make other plans. He would attempt to call me if he wasn't going to be home but he warned me he wasn't very good at following through with that. I would get the use of three bedrooms, two bathrooms, the living and TV rooms, kitchen, pretty much everything in the house but his room and bath. I'd have a credit card for food and would be expected to make sure plenty was always on hand. I would also get $200 a week for personal spending money. He did make it clear that I was expected to clean up after the kids as needed, Laurie included.

I'd seen him twice, we talked for fifteen minutes and here I was, walking through my now empty apartment, about to move into a house I hadn't even seen yet. My parents would have told me I was crazy in addition to guaranteeing myself a trip to hell if they knew the details. But somehow it just felt right.

I felt kind of silly, walking around an empty apartment, looking for things that were missed. I did find half a red crayon in the kids' closet. Annette wanted it as soon as she saw it and she and Laurie both seemed excited about it so I didn't think of it as wasted time. I went to get the half roll of toilet paper that was hanging in the bathroom but Jill reached out to my wrist.

"Leave it. Daddy buys the big box of TP at Costco. I'm sure one or more of the cleaning people will be happy to see it when they have to use the toilet."

I did give the refrigerator and the oven a good check since they were going to be left here. I reached around and unplugged the refrigerator.

"Jill, I feel weird about not cleaning the oven. I left it a mess."

"Have you got some oven cleaner that you can find?"

Mary said, "I can."

"OK. Go for it."

She closed the oven door, spun the dial and turned to me. "This place have a lot of memories?"

"Some."

"Oh, I thought maybe you and your husband..."

"No, nothing like that. Let's see ... Jerry spent a total of three days here. I found it after he went overseas. He'd been gone for six months when Billy was born. He tried to get back for Billy's birth but they couldn't coordinate his leave. He got here when Billy was about six weeks old and was only able to stay for three days before he had to head back. Annette had just turned one when he left the first time. She has some recollection of him but not much. You know, Jack's the closest thing to a father figure either of them have had. And now your father. Sometimes I have to pinch myself."

"Got it!" Mary came in waving my can of Easy Off.

Jill put her arm around my shoulders. "Do you need to look at anything else?"

"Nope. It's empty. Just let me spray that stuff..."

"No can do. I need you downstairs. Mary, do me a favor and spray that all over the inside of the oven and close the door. Turn it off before you start. It should be hot so be careful."

She turned me around and led me downstairs.

I pointed at the laundry room, over in the next building. "That's one thing I'm going to miss."

"What's that?"

"Having a laundry room. I could just put the clothes in and do something else. You pretty much have to sit around and watch them when you go to a laundromat."

"Whoa, you think you'll have to go to a laundromat?"

"Well, yeah."

"Myra, my father's got one of the best washers on the planet. You can practically put a mattress in there. That's the one thing I miss in our place; I have to use that tiny washer and dryer in the closet. I used to go to the laundromat maybe four times a year when I'd take all the bedspreads and put them in that huge tub washer they have there. The rest of the time, the one at the house was fine. He's also got a high capacity dryer and I had Alex put up a clothesline for me a few years ago when they did the remodel. I use it for sheets and blankets. Nothing smells like a sheet that dried outside in the fresh air."