(book can be purchased here.)
Excerpt from the book:
Grown and Gone
Leslie arrives and I ask what she needs done today. She wants a wash and set but I tell her that she really needs to deal with those roots. She shrugs - clearly depressed. The twins look happy, right now, but I know that they will lose patience soon enough. They are almost two years old and have a tendency to feed off each other for good or ill. Me, I’m glad my four children are grown and gone. My eldest son calls weekly and stops by to make sure I’m doing okay. He fixes things around the shop if they need it. My second son is a teacher in B.C. He calls about once a month. My daughters live in town, but I hardly hear from them. My youngest is too busy with her daughters to have time for me but the other one? I don’t know. We never really got along. It’s a tough thing for a mother to admit. Whatever I was supposed to do for her, I failed to do. Enough said.
Leslie has set up the girls with crayons and colouring books in the waiting area and has sat in the chair in front of the sink. Tuesday mornings are always slow, but I am wondering why she is here at all on a weekday and why she didn’t leave the kids with the nanny.
“How is Jorge?” I ask as I check the water temperature.
Leslie shrugs. She starts to shake as I wet her hair. It takes a while for me to realize that she is crying.
I’m not sure what to do about this. Sometimes people cry during the shampoo because they seem to think it is camouflaged somehow. But this is foolishness. How could I not know? The contorted look. The shaking. If they are trying to hide it, it is best not to ask. But sometimes they want you to say something. They want you to nod and say how terrible it is and how you understand what they are going through. If there are other women in the shop, they chime in.
This morning it is just me and Leslie and the girls who are chattering with each other in a language that I have long forgotten. Leslie is too busy crying to translate and they aren’t really talking to us anyway.
As I wring out her hair, I say, “Now now. What’s going on in Leslie’s life that could make her cry?”
When she doesn’t respond, I say, “You know you have been working too hard. Between work during the day and taking care of the girls and your husband at night, you must be run off your feet…”
She sniffles something about not having a nanny, anymore, then withdraws. I won’t be getting any information from her, today. The girls seem subdued, now, too, as if they know what’s up.
As she sits under the dryer and the twins rip up a couple of old magazines I have donated to the cause, Leslie is cocooned in misery. I style her hair, but it is all I can do not to be dragged down with her. I can’t wait for them to leave.
As another customer enters the shop, Leslie says, “Jorge slept with the nanny.”
Well, now I am at ease because we have a problem to solve, and I have back up. The customer, Debra, sits in the next chair and leans in, ready to begin our work.
I come home this evening to an empty house. There are no lights on and so the atmosphere feels close, vaguely menacing. My husband is out at a church meeting. As I switch on the light, I am reminded of all of the things he neglects to do. I would never leave the house without making sure that a light would be on for him. Maybe it was time to give up on leading by example and just get a nightlight for the hallway or put a timer on the lamp in the living room. You can wait your whole life for your husband to become who you think you need him to be. Leslie’s situation is difficult but it’s not impossible. They can get past this. My husband and I did. He’s too old to sleep around, now, anyway. And he’s grateful that I didn’t’ leave him. Not that I could have with 4 kids. The shop could never have supported us and how could we have held our heads up in church? I never gave him an ultimatum. Never had to. If I had asked him to choose, he would have chosen us. But he appreciated that I knew that. That’s why we’re okay. Women today expect perfection. If this affair was Jorge’s worst flaw, it wasn’t so bad. Make him pay, of course, but don’t make it fatal.
There is a plate of food in the fridge, covered with shrink wrap. He did remember to leave me some dinner. My husband’s alright.
I sit at the table and gingerly remove the plastic, trying to leave as much sauce behind on the spaghetti and meatballs as I can. The kitchen feels like a cozy island in the dark house, big enough for six but far too large for two. My husband doesn’t want to move and lose his garden but the walls in this house are starting to push in, desperate to become a more reasonable size for an elderly couple on the brink of retirement. I’ve been getting up at 5 am every day for 40 years. Maybe it’s time to stop.
exerpt from Third Person by Sarah Barrett