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July 26, 2005

it's a simple message so I'm leaving out the whistles and bells

As his father wants to Get Out Of Town, Moo is leaving for my sister's suddenly, unexpectedly early by a few days. The expanse of time that seemed so generous at the beginning of the month, stretching out empty in front of us, has telescoped into a few hours, and the knowledge that we squandered most of it is depressing. Moo's habit of staying up all night and sleeping all day long curtailed any activity before, say, dinner time; and having gotten up at 5:00 a.m., dinner time was when I'd start winding down. On the weekend I'd go out and he'd sleep. During the week he'd watch television and I'd sleep.

Nevertheless, we find ourselves at the kitchen table this evening realizing that he's leaving tomorrow morning. "I'm going to miss you, Mom," he says. "It's going to be awful." I think at first he's kidding, trying to get me to say it so he can tease me. But no, he means it. I feel a knot in my stomach. Am I going to cry? Am I going to turn into the kind of mother who cries over her children? After he leaves the house will be big and empty and quiet and all the time will be mine alone. I should be looking forward to it, but right now I'm not.

We go out, buy crickets for Argo, buy batteries for Moo's cd player, fill up the tank with gas. Come home, put our bathing suits on and go down to the lake in the still evening air. The water is warm, and lowering myself into it is hardly more refreshing than standing on the dock looking at it, but once I'm in it feels wonderful.

I float on my back and tilt my head so that I see the lake overhead and the sky below. The water is black and smells like the lake. The sky is a blue bowl fading to gray. Overhead the little bats that live in the trees start to swoop down over our heads, catching their dinner. Something nibbles at my foot. The natural light dims and on the shore the house lights come on. "Why didn't we swim every day?" says Moo. There isn't any reason; we just didn't. But we are swimming right now, all alone on the lake. We talk and toss a tennis ball back and forth until it gets too dark to see where it's landing and I keep getting hit on the head. Time to go up, time to pack. I'm going to miss you, too.

Posted by JudyLa at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)