The dishes fell. My heart dropped to the floor with them as I watched the painted peacocks split into tiny bits. I didn’t immediately bend down to save the plates. Instead, I watched them, for a moment, hoping they might pull themselves together and realize they had made a mistake by succumbing to gravity so cheaply. Placing a hand over my mouth, I tried to be quiet about the whole thing.

“Addy, what happened?” Harry appeared in the kitchen doorway, a sympathetic look across his face.

“I didn’t do it on purpose.”

He put an arm around my shoulder and laughed. “Oh, sure.” He nudged my arm. “You didn’t think to yourself, I’m going to rid this kitchen of the bitch’s marriage plates once and for all?”

He picked up the pieces and threw them in the trash. “We’ll get them picked up before the kids see.”

“They’ll be upset they’re gone.”

“Not in the least,” Harry said, tossing a large piece into the waste bin like an easy foul shot. “But it’s better we pick up the evidence that you tried to destroy all the last memories of their mother by trashing her plates.”

I punched him in the arm. I knew he was joking, as he often was. But, I felt guilty. I did have frequent moments when I wished her gone. Away from the doorways and bedrooms, the couch- with her wine-stain on the bottom side of the cushion. Absent from the pictures on the walls. I wish I didn’t know there was a nude photo of her still sitting in a box in the back corner of the garage that Harry had taken with his old Canon. Sometimes I wished her gone from the color of Teddy’s eyes or the curve to Janie’s nose.

“What’s all the commotion?” said Teddy, full name Harry Theodore Kess, Jr.

Harry rubbed the boy’s head. “Oh nothing, Addy was just cleaning up.” He winked at me and laughed. Harry’s laugh always sounded a bit like he was choking with a gurgling giggle behind it.

“Right.” Teddy laughed with his daddy, not sure what the joke was, but he had always liked the sound of his father’s laugh.

I took the trash out. The porcelain bits clinked as they slid to the bottom of the bag. Teddy wouldn’t notice or care, but Janie would do both.

She plodded into the kitchen. For a small, skinny girl of twelve, Janie’s footsteps could match those of an elephant treading through the bush.

“What was that noise?”

“Nothing.” Teddy answered, proud of the knowledge he managed to gain before his big sister.

“It sounded like dishes breaking.” Janie scanned the room; no details escaped her Terminator stare.

I relined the trashcan. If I didn’t answer, the question would pass.

Harry took Teddy outside to start gathering their camping gear in the last bit of daylight. The days felt shorter faster as we headed into late September. The New Hampshire mornings had begun to greet us with a chill, foreshadowing the imminent winter, although during the day it could still reached seventy degrees. The leaves were changing into their fall dress, diversifying the area’s outdoor color palate. The next morning, they would leave early for their annual camping trip. Harry liked to pack the car the night before. It was just one night in the woods a few towns away, but the kids looked forward to it all summer. I took a Tupperware dish from the pantry and scooped in the strawberry-apple crisp I had made for them to bring on their overnight.

Janie stuck her nose into the pan, left on the counter to cool. “My mom’s wasn’t as spicy.”

“Janie, you haven’t even tried it yet.”

“I can just tell by the way it smells.” She wrinkled her nose up. “And she never used strawberries.”

I slowly inhaled and let the air out of my mouth quietly.

“I thought the strawberries might make it interesting and different. For a change.”

“Maybe.” Janie moved into the living room and curled into the loveseat in the corner.

I had time for baking like I hadn’t before. I was home with the kids. With classes scattered throughout the day and evening, Harry’s full time teaching job at the college kept him from being able to have a regular nine to five. With some hesitation, I stopped my work at the publishing place in Concord, so the kids wouldn’t have to be at home with a sitter. But, it was good for us- Harry liked to say.

Teddy and I were good. Buddies. Janie and I got along. For the most part. She talked to me about school and her friends. We giggled about silly seventh grade boys. But, I still had to pass her little tests. Reminders for me to remember my place.

Harry and I had been married for five months. The month before our wedding, I moved into the house. Thrilled to leave my crappy mouse-infested studio in downtown Manchester. A year before that, we had met at a coffee shop in Concord. Both new to an acoustic open mic night, we sat in the corner, our guitars between us, chatting. His looks caught my eye first: blue eyes and dark, gray speckled hair. His laugh turned me off at first. It shocked me. The sound of a choking child squealing in delight amongst some kind of excruciating pain. Now, I love it. I wait to hear it.

After a few dates, he learned that I was an only child with no family, except a mother who had passed away a few years before. Used to being on my own, taking care of myself, it interested me to find that he was a widower, fifteen years my senior, with three young children. His wife, Karen, had died of cancer a year before. I felt sad for him.

He joked with me, saying that “a young honey” like me would be just the thing to kick-start his foray back into living life. I met Janie and Teddy and things slowly progressed as we started to relax with one another. One night, after we’d been dating for a few months, Harry and I were out to dinner, and he was unusually drunk. Slurring his words and making rude comments at me and at our overly peppy waitress.

Later that night, while I wiped puke from his chin, he said, “I’m a liar.” He choked a bit on the words. Or perhaps it was the vomit. “I’m lying to you. I’m lying to my children. But, she made me. I couldn’t say no. It’s better. Isn’t it?”

I had no idea how to answer that question. Harry’s speech slurred as he continued to spew out incoherencies. When he was able to sit up and drink some water, he told me the story.

“She had been growing distant. Began not getting together with her girlfriends and not wanting to do things out of the house with the kids. Janie couldn’t understand why Mommy would get so sad when just that morning she’d been laughing her head off. I started to think she was manic-depressive because of all the mood swings and the strange comments about me and the kids. One moment she would be coddling the kids and with no warning she’d be screaming at them. It was so unlike her. The kids were her biggest fans, and I was there to serve as the Lieutenant. But all of a sudden, it just wasn’t like that.” His voice trailed off. “I’m glad the kids see now how I can be. We do fun things, don’t we?”

“Of course. Yes, you do. The kids adore you. But, Harry, what are you trying to say?”

He sat up, taking a sip of water. “One weekend, she disappeared all together. I called everyone we knew. No one knew. When she returned, she was happier, for a time. She played with the kids like her old self, so I didn’t ask where she went. Maybe she just needed a little time.”

Harry’s face looked pained as he spoke. “Then, one day, she took Janie to a park for an outing of hiking in the trails. Karen returned to the house without her. I screamed at her, got right in her face. I asked her what the fuck was wrong with her. All I remember her saying was: ‘I’m sorry.’ And she locked herself in our room.

“I had to get Janie, so I put Teddy in the car and drove. Thank God, Janie is a smart girl. When I arrived at the trailhead, she was sitting calmly in the ranger station. ‘I guess Mom forgot I was with her.’ She said it so matter-of-factly.”

I had heard this story before. Janie’s version was a bit different. Less harsh. More forgiving. A funny story about Mom.

Harry then explained how he tried to get help for Karen. Not wanting to go to the psychiatrist, Karen skipped the first few appointments. When she finally went, they went together for counseling; she spoke in rushed sentences to the doctor about her children and their future and their after-life and about their innocence. Her rant ran out of steam, and she became silent, staying that way for the rest of the day. She came to him the next day to say she was leaving.

I paced the room listening to Harry’s words. The longer I listened, the slower I paced. Weary of his words, I wondered, where was the punch line?

“What do you mean leaving?”

“She told me she wanted to leave. She told me that it wasn’t working for her.”

“I’m confused, Harry,” I said with a softer tone. “I don’t get this.”

“I know.” He took my hand. “I told her she didn’t have to leave. I told her I loved her.”

I drew back from his words.

“I told her the kids needed her. None of it worked. She wouldn’t go back to counseling. I physically wrestled her into the car one day to make her go. She locked the car door before I could get to the drivers seat.”

Harry sat next to me on the bed. “She left the next day, left divorce papers in my underwear drawer. Obviously, she’d been planning to go for longer than she let on. There was a note in our bathroom sink. It told me she wasn’t coming back, but she loved the kids. It ended with: Don’t tell the kids their mom abandoned them. I truly, with my whole soul, believe that will hurt them more than if I left unwillingly. Harry, tell them I died.” Harry’s eyes searched for a flicker of acceptance in my eye.

I knew my mouth was slightly open, and I hadn’t blinked. If I moved even in the slightest, I might realize I wasn’t dreaming.

Shifting back and forth on the bed, Harry’s eyes tried to meet mine. “I didn’t know what to do, Addy. She left me to decide, I had no choice. I felt like she was right. Either the children have a parent die by accident or they have a parent leave them on purpose. I chose death because they can’t blame themselves for their mother getting hit by a car.”

Harry stood up. He had always been restless and could never sit for very long. Even in the most engaging of conversations or the most riveting movie.

“It took me a while to figure it all out.” The look on my face caught his eye. “Just like it’s hard for you to swallow. I didn’t know what to do. What to tell the kids. Initially, I explained to them Mom was away at a retreat. After about a week, I told the kids Mommy had a bad car accident and passed away. I told them I wanted them to remember Mommy as she had been to them. The car accident had made her not look like Mommy, so she was cremated. That’s when I showed them the urn.”

“They believed you? And her friends and family believed you?”

“Her friends weren’t her friends anymore. She had none. Family? None. I think so many of her fears as a mother were wrapped up in never knowing her parents. She grew up in foster care.” He took a deep breath and began to pace on the same track I had followed in the rug. “Teddy and Jamie were shocked, and they fell apart. Especially Janie. She wouldn’t leave the house. Just sat by the door, waiting.”

I blinked at him. One thought pushed to the forefront of my mind and settled, in that moment, as the most important issue:

“Then whose ashes are those in the living room, Harry?”

My stomach contracted from the stench of his vomit still in the room.

“I got them out of the fireplace.”

“Oh.”

Harry walked into the bathroom. From the bedroom, I could see his face in the mirror above the sink. A sickly tint to it.

I walked to where he stood by the bathroom sink. Putting my hand on his shoulder, I spoke close to his ear. “Don’t you think they will find out? One day.”

“I’m protecting them, Addy. They’re my children. What else can I do?”

I went back to my own apartment that night, and we didn’t speak for a few weeks. I screened his calls, mad at the guilt I felt listening to his pleas and apologies. Janie had a piano recital and had asked me to come. Harry and I started over there. With a newly established truth.

Since then, I have listened to the kids talk about their mom, cringing at what I know is the truth. Maybe Harry did the right thing. They talk about her and her laughter. The story of when Karen left Janie at the park is a fond memory. “Oh crazy Mommy. She was so funny.”

I moved around the kitchen, taking myself out of my thoughts. Cleaning the mess from the apple crisp.

Teddy tugged on my skirt. “Addy, can I have some apple crisp?”

“It’s for your camping trip.”

He has his father’s blue eyes; they could convince me of anything.

“Okay.” I handed him his plastic fish bowl and matching big-boy spoon.

Harry came in from the porch. He took a bowl, kissed my cheek and sat next to Teddy on the couch in the living room.

Poking my head around the doorframe between the kitchen and living room, I watched Janie eyeing her brother and father munch and slurp.

Janie came to get her bowl. I gave her extra ice cream.

She let a small smile escape her lips, “Thanks, Addy.”

The next morning Harry and I packed the kids up into the Explorer. In some ways I would have liked to go. Growing up, it was just me and Mom. No camping trips. No annual excursions. Just work and baby-sitters. Microwave dinners.

I worked at shoving a cooler of camping friendly foods into the trunk. Harry slipped his arms around my waist and kissed my neck. It shivered down my back. “Mmmmhh.”

“You sure you don’t want to come, Addy. Seriously, the kids would be okay with it.”

“It’s okay. Really. It’s your tradition. Karen didn’t even go, did she?”

“No.” He nuzzled my ear and kissed down my cheek to my mouth. I tasted the salty sweat on his upper lip. “I’m just wishing you could come.”

“I will be right here when you pull back into the driveway tomorrow.”

Teddy ran up and threw himself into the back of Harry’s legs. “Let’s go. Go. Go.”

“All right, my man. Let’s hit the road.”

Teddy hopped into the car. Janie had already manned her position in the front seat. Teddy was too small to sit there so he wouldn’t bother trying to fight her for it as much as he’d like to. Even I sat in the backseat when the four of us went anywhere. I stood on the front stoop and waved until they were down the driveway and out of sight.

While they were away, I had the day to start rebuilding the garden in the back yard. It had been Karen’s. That summer I let it grow out to see what was in it. It hadn’t been well tended, so most of what was there wasn’t very verdant. That morning, I planned to weed and take out all that wasn’t worth saving. I dug around the tomato plants. Healthy tomatoes had started to grow in late May and were still going. I spent an hour or two weeding and digging. Working the garden space, thinking of what I would add the next spring that could really bloom. Add some of my favorite vegetables and herbs.

“Looks like those tomatoes have done well.”

I turned. A woman stood behind me. Her brown hair sat in a messy bun at the nape of her long neck. She wore yoga pants and a brown linen shirt. Immediately I noticed the broken strap on her sandals.

“Do I know you?” I asked, although I already knew.

The freckles on her face followed a sort of path that led down a familiar curve of her nose.

“How are my children?”

“That’s direct.”

“I guess so.” She moved so the sun wasn’t in her eyes, directly behind me. “I could have talked to you more about the tomatoes and how I got the seeds from The Martins up the road. I knew they’d produce some good plants. Big tomatoes. Don’t you think?”

“They were red and juicy this past month.”

She smiled.

“They aren’t here.” I said. Almost as a warning. Not sure of what.

“I know.” She paused then added, “They always go camping this weekend in the fall. I knew they’d be gone.”

I watched her. She observed the house: the trellis I had worked hard to groom back so the roses would grow more healthfully next season, the trim and the shingles Harry and I had painted. I chose the green color from the drab gray it had been when I arrived.

“Can we talk?” she said.

I hesitated, staring at the house for an answer. What was she doing here? Deep breaths attempted to compose me. My hands shook. Stuffing them into my pockets, I realized I wanted to talk with her. I wanted answers. Not sure what exactly I hoped to find out, I said, “Sure” before I could second-guess it. Unconvincingly, I motioned to the house. Karen didn’t make a move to follow.

“Maybe just out here on the grass?”

Relieved, I moved to a place in the shade and sat. She picked a shaded place across from me. The way she maneuvered onto the grass made me feel she had sat there before. As though that was her spot.

“Why are you here? I thought you moved far away.”

“He told you.”

I looked her in the eye. “Of course he did. We’re married. Never mentioned that you stayed around here, though.”

“He’s doesn’t know.”

“Oh.”

I couldn’t read her face, her smile. My heart pounded in my chest.

She took a deep breath, as though she wanted to have enough air to get through what she was about to say. “I couldn’t stay here any more. As much as I loved my kids, love my kids, I had to go. I wasn’t what I wanted to be or should have been. And I was lost.”

I kept still; afraid if I moved, I’d scare her off. Like a doe caught grazing in my flowerbed. I worried, if spooked, if she might not finish what she was saying.

“Really, I just need to know how they are doing. I saw you a few months ago picking them up from school. They looked happy. Bigger too. They looked bigger.”

She fidgeted with the frayed bottom of her yoga pants. Up close I could see they were faded and worn in the knees.

“So, you watch the kids.” The words came out hesitant and awkward. She wasn’t a stalker. She’s their mother. “Have you seen them recently.”

A smile passed over Karen’s face but quickly returned neutral. “I have. I need to. Every once in a while.”

I shifted my position on the grass, sitting up on my knees. Maybe if I gave, she would give back.

“The kids are good. Teddy is the sweetest boy. So caring. He takes good care of his daddy. He loves sports. Really, anything his dad loves. He and Harry have a real bond. Janie is good.” Something dark, maybe a cloud, passed over Karen’s face. “She misses her mother.”

Karen got up. I wasn’t ready for her to go.

I stood and tried to maneuver myself between her and the entrance to the driveway. I didn’t see a car. She must have walked. From where?

“I miss Harry.” A weakness behind his name. Her voice quivered.

I started to speak, to tell her about him. Karen cut me off.

“Please, don’t.” She moved around my position and started towards the end of the drive. “Thank you for talking to me about them. About how they are.” For the first time since she arrived, she looked at me directly, in the eye. “Don’t tell Harry I was here.”

Her words held in the air.

“I can’t do that.” I wondered if she sensed the hesitation. Something about her- her disheveled bun, her broken sandals- told me that telling Harry might not be the right choice either.

“Well, maybe.” I conceded.

“Please.”

“I do know things are better for the kids.”

Karen stood before me, softly wounded by my words. Her hands clenched into tight fists, bracing for more as she spoke, “Perhaps it’s better for them all.”

She walked onto the sidewalk and turned to move away from the house. “When you make the crisp, use the apples from the trees down the path behind the house.” Her voice cracked a little.

Surprised by her comment, I responded quietly. “I didn’t know there were any.”

“They’re good apples. Every fall.”

“Okay.” I glanced back in the direction of the path. As I turned back around, Karen had made it a ways down the road. Running towards her, I called out, “Karen.” She stopped on the road.

“Are you okay?”

Karen turned, squinting into it. Without pausing in her step, an odd smile came across her face. “Not really.” The sun felt hot on my neck.

Behind me, chickadees sang their ditty. She continued down the road. I didn’t try to stop her for more or pepper her with questions. Even in the cool autumn air, sweat ran down my back as I stood there in the road. Karen was long out of sight by the time a neighbor drove up the quiet country road. He paused at the end of the driveway to ask me if I was all right. I nodded and walked back to the house.

Upon entering the kitchen, I wondered: Will she be back? I tried to memorize a portrait of her. The images blurred into one another, her sandal strap look frayed with no attempt made to mend it - no slipped stitches or gooey remnants of duct tape. I saw an outline of her disheveled figure in the bushes that lined the driveway. If she wanted to hide there, she could fit and still see the house clearly.

I shivered some in the sun and went inside for a glass of water.

That night, for dinner, I cooked some penne with the Prego tomato sauce from the open jar in the fridge. What was left in a box-o-wine suited the Prego and generic pasta just fine for my mood. I stood by the sink to eat and sip the translucent, red liquid dressed up in a crystal glass. A wedding present from Harry’s sister. While washing the dishes, every movement in the woods behind the yard caught my attention, every creak in the old house. The kids talk about Mrs. Hines, the woman who lived here before. She died in the living room. If we forget to shut off the lights when we go out, when we return Teddy always says, “Oh, Mrs. Hines was nice to leave a light on for us.” Maybe ghosts are real, I thought to myself, pouring the final drops of red from the box.

In bed, I put on my headphones. A habit from trying to get to sleep with noisy roommates in college. The music struggled to hold my attention and distract my thoughts to soothe my brain to sleep. For the first time in our relationship, I felt no longing for Harry to be home. Dread piled up in my stomach with the Prego and penne, sloshing in the wine.

Feeling ill, I moved to the bathroom. I lay next to the toilet even though the upset feeling in my stomach had quieted down. The tiles felt cool against my bare legs. What would I tell Harry? I couldn’t keep it to myself. What if she came back again, but a time when the kids were here and they saw her? Saw a ghost. I sat in the bathroom staring at the tile patterns in the floor until the sun shown through the windows.

I was sore from lying on the tiles. A walk would stretch me out. I made it to the end of the street and had to turn back. I couldn’t lie to him, but I might have to. Anger about how Karen had thrown this at me mixed with the guilt. I made it to the bathroom just in time.

After washing my face, I cleaned the house. Grading my students’ essays and outlines was never enough distraction. I worked my way through the house for the rest of the day, focusing in on the tedious work. Hearing the crunch of the pebbles in the driveway, I stopped scrubbing the scum from the bottom of the tub.

I went to the window in the upstairs hall. Outside it had become dusk. My shoulders relaxed at seeing the headlights of the red Explorer pull in. I took a deep breath and went to meet my family.

Teddy ran to hug me. “Addy, we almost got eaten by a bear.”

“Not quite, buddy.” Harry kissed my forehead. “Almost.” He smiled at me, winking. “We just about had a little run in with a mama bear.”

“Really?”

Harry unloaded things from the car and piled them by the door. “Yeah. She came into camp making a bunch of noise. Nothing too scary. I caught a glimpse of her cub. I think she wanted to let us know she was there and not to mess with her.”

“I’ve never seen a bear up close like that.”

Janie got out of the car. “It was pretty cool. You should come next time.”

“Thanks, Janie. That would be fun.”

Harry gave me a knowing nudge as he passed to get more from the car.

Teddy leaned against my leg. “We waited until the mama bear left. She didn’t eat our food.”

I hugged him again. “That’s good.”

“We were just walking back to camp from a hike, and she was sniffing around.” Harry added. “She took off when we got there.”

“That’s good. They can be volatile can’t they?”

“If provoked.”

We put the kids to bed. Tired from their adventure, they were asleep after little fuss. Harry came into the kitchen and opened and closed all the cabinets, foraging.

I knew what he wanted. “Harry, I think the wine’s all gone.”

“Oh. Maybe there’s something in the fridge.” With a shrug, he pulled out some apple juice and poured it into the glasses. We sat on the screen porch. It was chilly but a few blankets kept us cozy. Although, it felt to me as though what I had to say or not say was holding a fair amount of space between us even if our shoulders touched as Harry caressed my knee under the wool.

“What’s on your mind?” He squeezed my knee. “Something’s wrong. What is it?”

“Karen came here yesterday.” I wrapped the blanket more tightly around me. “Into the garden. I was digging, she walked right up and asked how the kids were.”

“Wait. Karen?” He moved to face me. “What? What happened? Was she looking for the kids? Wanting to see them? What did you say?” His hands shook, gripping the blanket on his lap.

Suddenly, the scratchy wool stifled me. “Well, she didn’t want to see them. Not talk to them. I mean she has seen them.” I kicked the blanket off.

“When? What did she say? What, exactly?”

The more questions Harry threw at me, the more jumbled the scene with Karen became. The things I would have said or had wanted to say but didn’t. The things she could have said.

“Addy, what did she say?”

“She had these broken sandals. Well, one of them was. And, I don’t know, she seemed thinner than in her pictures. It didn’t take her long to ask about the kids. She mentioned having seen them, talked about how much bigger they looked. And, she misses you.” I watched Harry closely as I said the words.

His look turned sad. “What else?”

“I told her a little about how the kids were doing.”

A flash of anger crossed his eyes, replacing the sadness. “She has no right to know. I can’t believe you told her anything.”

“What was I supposed to do, Harry? I mean I was here alone, and she blindsided me.”

He pulled me into him. My head rested in the space beneath his shoulder, against his chest. “I know,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. But-” He took a deep breath and moved away from me on the wicker couch.

Intellectually, I understood. The best-case scenario for the kids would be to have their parents together and “alive”. But, I knew I wasn’t the best-case scenario.

“Do you think she’ll come back?”

“I don’t know.” I said, though, I felt sure she would.

“Addy?”

I turned away from him. “I’m going outside.” I put on my robe and clogs.

“Outside? Now?”

“Yes, now.” Closing the door behind me, I’m not sure he heard what I said, but I know he watched me walk away.

The moon sat high in the sky providing enough light that I didn’t need to turn on the walkway light. Pulling my robe more tightly around my waist, I walked along the short path and knelt down in the garden. I pulled a few weeds from around the edge of the bed and from between the tomato plants. The tomatoes seemed bigger in the light of the full moon. I tore one from the plant. I squeezed too hard around its forgiving skin and it burst open in my hand; the juices dripped in between my fingers and down my arm. I don’t know how long I sat there like that, staring at my hand.

Back in the house, I put the tomato down the disposal and washed my hands. With a blanket from the hall closet, I curled up on the couch and tried to sleep. I pretended to be out cold when Harry came down stairs around 3 AM. He stood over me; I could feel his breath as he bent down to kiss my forehead. I flinched a little.

As the sun rose, a red tint crept in through the windows. I remembered a saying my sailor father used to say as we checked the weather for boating when I was little: “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning.”

Warning taken, I wasn’t ready for morning.