Just as I felt the room spinning around me, I heard their voices and the smell of bacon wafting through the house.
“Mommy!”
“Mother!”
“Mona Lisa!”
When I came to, those three faces stared down at me. How had I not believed in magic, in the power of signs delivered in something other than words? “Is it real?”
“Is what real?” Bradley asked.
“Can you see it? The spider. Is the spider real?”
William's eyes grew large. “No, mom. The spider's not real. I can't believe you thought it was real.”
I sat up and did a 360 of the room. Yep. The decorations were all still there. Whoever did this must've taken hours. “So you're telling me that none of you can see what I see? The house is full of Halloween.”
“Crazy holiday,” da Vinci said. “But boys say lots of candy, so I trick or treat with them.”
“Mom, the house is full of Halloween,” William said.
“It's like the good old days,” Bradley said.
“I can't believe your father did this,” I said, though I wasn't sure it was out loud until I saw the expressions on my son's faces.
William's lids filled with tears. “Mommy, Daddy didn't do this.”
“ We did. As a surprise,” Bradley said.
I looked from one boy to the next, noticing how much they'd changed this year, their faces less babylike, their baby teeth being replaced by the larger ones that seemed much too big for their mouths. Even their voices were losing the cuteness they had when Joel was alive. Could he hear them? Could he hear the change like I could? How ever were they big enough to pull off decorating just as their father had done?
“I helped,” da Vinci said. “Da Vinci is tall.”
“Well, were you surprised, Mom? Did we do a good job?” Bradley asked.
I couldn't speak-the chakra stopped up again, and I patted and kissed them atop the heads, except for da Vinci, whom I only looked at with dismay, wondering if he knew what he'd done. In one fell swoop, he had replaced Joel in not one, but two ways. I excused myself to go cry in the shower, my flow completely and utterly gone.
When I joined my clan at the table, they were busy eating our traditional breakfast, and I tried to act normal, as if the decorations hadn't bothered me or that da Vinci had not only taken Joel's job, but mine, too. I was the short-order cook around here.
I filled my plate with bacon and eggs, poured coffee and sat down at the table, prepared to eat in silence, thinking how unfair it was that I was so close to becoming a Normal only to have the Griever take over my body again.
I chewed my bacon, vowing not to give da Vinci credit for making it crispier than my own or how much I liked the Tabasco sauce in the scrambled eggs, when Bradley looked at me with a straight face and asked, “Mom, did you and da Vinci have sex last night?”
I could not tell a lie. Which is why even when it came to the Tooth Fairy and leprechauns and the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, I'd always been rather vague about their existence. “What do you think?” I would ask my boys, which would cause them to launch into elaborate fairy tales about the tiny Tooth Fairy kingdom where all the fairies bring the children's teeth to polish and shine and then build themselves pearly mansions, or how Santa probably contracts with NASA, or at the very least, FedEx, to help deliver gifts quickly all over the world.
So when they asked me about sex, and in particular sex with da Vinci, which unlike those fairy tales, had actually happened, I couldn't lie. Instead, I said, “What happens between me and da Vinci is our own personal business. We like each other very much.”
I'm not sure if the boys took that as a yes, but it did seemed to satisfy their curiosity for the time being. They stared at each other, stifled a giggle, then earnestly ate their pancakes.
Of course I'd made a huge mistake. As fabulous as the night before had been, how I'd felt the stirring of my soul within me as I allowed passion to be unleashed once again, I knew as a mother I'd made a bad choice. The boys liked da Vinci, had welcomed him into our home, at our table, breaking bread together, laughing and going on as if we were gelling as a family. I couldn't believe I'd allowed it to happen-it was all so soon, wasn't it? How one day you can feel like you're living in a dark cave and the next it's filled with light and you can't believe you've managed to move that boulder all by yourself, yet the world outside of it is so bright and scary. I shuddered. I had to be careful.
“I think it's marvelous,” Barbara said six hours later as she viewed my son's Halloween displays, “If it makes them happy.” I wondered if she would say the same about me and da Vinci, but I had no intention of telling her anything was going on and I had made the boys' promise not to talk about us, either. Suddenly I was sweating bullets over a simple family meal. I wondered if my nerves had to do with something else, too.
“I think they're in love,” Barbara said, referring to Rachel and Cortland, who were a good three minutes late according to my father's watch. “Wouldn't that be lovely to have a spring wedding? Is it too soon? Oh, certainly not. It's not like a second wedding would be an elaborate affair. Now that Rachel's famous, do you think they'll cover their wedding in the society section? I bet Austin Living will want a cover story! Do you think the governor will come?”
I let my mom go on and on about her own fantasy while I prepped the tenderloin for the oven. Dad and da Vinci were in the backyard tossing the football with Bradley while William stayed on the patio playing Sudoku. I glanced at them every few minutes to make sure nothing mischievous was going on. (As if I could tell if they were talking about sex.)
When Cortland and Rachel arrived (now fourteen minutes late), my mother went on as if she hadn't seen them in ages. It might make some people feel good to be greeted like those at the airport with the signs and the tears and high-pitched sentiments, but it just made me feel sad. Grievers need more than a cheerleading section to feel good about reunions when you know the one person you truly wish to be reunited with can never happen.
Cortland surprised me, planting a kiss on my cheek and hugging me tightly.
“Oh,” I said, patting his broad shoulders. “Yes. Good to see you, too. Wow, this is festive, right?”
“Where's the birthday boy?” Rachel said, practically doing cartwheels on her way to reach Dad.
Zoe shook her head and shrugged. “He's not a boy, he's a man,” she pointed out. “But whatever.”
I winked at Zoe and she helped me whip the mashed potatoes in the kitchen. She only got a home-cooked meal when she visited me or her grandma, so helping in the kitchen was her favorite thing. And to think, she didn't have to wear makeup or sequins to get the attention she so craved.
As we were seated around the dining room table set for nine (squishing in a chair for Zoe), I could feel the palpable presence of Joel in the room. I'm not sure if it's because we were surrounded by the Halloween decorations he had so carefully hung each year or because I simply couldn't get him off of my mind.
Both Cortland and da Vinci pulled my chair out for me, one on each side, and da Vinci stiffened as though only he had the right to do so for his lady. As was ritual, Noble began the prayer and we all followed suit. Afterward, forks clanked and my mother began to take a sip of her wine, but holding it in the air, said, “I'm so glad you two are friends.”
Da Vinci nodded, lifting his wine glass to propose a toast. “To friends and lovers,” he said.