Augusta’s childhood home sat on a quiet side street in a diverse neighborhood of working-and middle-class families. It was only a fifteen-minute drive from her old place with Chris, but it felt like another world. At least four bathtub Marys welcomed her back with outstretched arms, and American flags and seasonal banners fluttered from porches. Pulling up in front of the two-family house with light blue vinyl siding and neatly swept patio, Augusta turned the ignition off and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, her resolve faltering.
At least getting out of the apartment hadn’t been too bad. Chris had never returned after their fight, and Doug had been holed up in his room and hadn’t come out to say goodbye. There had been no awkward conversations, no chances to second-guess herself. It was better that way. A clean break, a fresh start.
Except that her fresh start included moving back to her childhood home with her mother and facing all the ghosts that still lingered there. After her dad had died, she’d been desperate for a change of scenery, but her mom had insisted on staying in their family home. The real estate developers would just love for her to move out, her mother would always say, but they would have to pry her dead body out of her reclining chair before she gave them the satisfaction of turning the house into luxury condos for yuppies.
As if on cue, her mother threw open the screen door. “There’s my girl!” She was wearing house slippers, but padded out to the sidewalk to meet Augusta and pulled her into a tight embrace. Holding her at arm’s length, her mother studied her. “Look at you! Have you lost weight?”
“Um. Maybe.”
“I hope you’re hungry because Ginny from next door brought over a Tupperware of sauce and I’m making meatballs.” Her mother grabbed a suitcase and started carrying it inside.
“I’m vegetarian, Mom,” Augusta said, hurrying to catch up.
“No wonder you’re so thin. Well, I have some chicken breasts in the freezer. You’ll eat chicken, won’t you?”
Augusta followed her mother down the hall, half listening to her steady stream of chatter. The Podos house could have been a museum in its own right, a time capsule of family life from the 1980s to the 2020s. The hallway carpet was still faded and stained from the infamous Kool-Aid Spill of 2003. An unfinished needlepoint—on which her mother refused to admit defeat—was still propped up half-heartedly on the mantel. Maybe in two hundred years a harried tour guide would usher tourists through the living room, pointing out the robust collection of snow globes on the bookshelf and speculating about the people who had collected them.
“What about lemonade? Should I make some lemonade?” Her mother had already moved on from unloading the car to bustling around the kitchen. Her frenetic energy was always a lot for introverted Augusta. A pediatric nurse at one of the hospitals downtown, Pat Podos was tough as nails, and didn’t suffer fools lightly. She always wore shirts with slogans or puns when she wasn’t in her scrubs, and today’s said I CAN’T KEEP CALM—I’M ITALIAN!!!
She caught Augusta looking at it and grinned. “Isn’t that a riot? I got it at Savers.”
Augusta frowned. She’d never heard that saying before. “Are we Italian?”
Her mother waved her off. “Don’t they say everyone has a little Italian in them?”
She had no idea where her mother had heard that, but she nodded as if she agreed. After they set the table—her mother insisted on using the “good” china—they sat down to eat. Augusta had barely picked up her glass when her mother raised the dreaded topic.
“So what happened with Chris? Did he break up with you, or was it mutual?”
“I broke up with him,” Augusta mumbled into her lemonade.
Her mother shook her head, gold hoop earrings jangling. “I always liked him—so good-looking and so polite,” she said with a wistful sigh. “Why didn’t it work out?”
“I don’t know,” Augusta said between gritted teeth. “It just didn’t.” How could she tell her own mother that her boyfriend was an asshole and had treated her like crap? Having to explain everything out loud only made it all the more mortifying that she had stayed so long.
“Okay, okay. Message received. I know when to leave well enough alone.” But Augusta could tell it was killing her mother not to have all the details.
Augusta ate around the chicken on her plate, pushing her food around while her mother brought her up to speed on all the neighborhood gossip. When Pat paused long enough to take a breath, Augusta took the opportunity to broach something that had been on her mind. “So I thought while I was here, I might go through some of Dad’s stuff.”
The fork stilled in her mother’s hand and there was a beat of silence. She pressed her lips. “If you want.”
At some point over the years, her father had become a taboo subject between them. Augusta wasn’t sure why exactly; her mother had seemed to get on with her life after his death, had even dated sporadically. Everyone grieved differently, but something told her it was more than just grief. Coupled with the fact that her mother had always been hesitant to talk about their relatives and family even before her father’s death, Augusta was starting to see little red flags everywhere.
“I mean, yeah, I do want,” Augusta said, a new sense of determination giving her courage. “I feel like we’ve just shoved Dad under the bed and agreed to not talk about him. I don’t want to do that anymore.”
Setting down her fork, her mother pinned her with a stare. “Augusta, you are a grown woman. If you want to go through your father’s stuff, I’m not going to stop you.”
Augusta didn’t have a chance to respond before her mother abruptly pushed her chair back and stood up. “I’m doing a Paint and Sip party tonight with the girls at that new place by the mall,” she announced, her dark expression gone. “Will you be all right here alone? Do you want me to run to the store first to get you any snacks?”
Still rattled from her own outburst, Augusta answered without looking up from her plate. “No, I’ll be okay, Mom.”
After her mother had left, Augusta changed into some sweats and headed to her old room. She had thought going through her dad’s stuff would be a good distraction, but the pile of boxes was bigger than she remembered, and suddenly she felt exhausted from the emotional whirlwind of the day. She had envisioned sitting at the kitchen table with her mom, dumping everything out of the boxes and going through it all together. Doing it alone was not only daunting, but she wasn’t sure she was emotionally prepared for what she might find. Well, the boxes would be there later. For now, all she could manage to do was push aside the pile of teddy bears and decorative pillows on the bed, slip under the covers, and close her eyes. Now that she was home, there would be time to talk to her mother, to really talk to her. And maybe, just maybe, she would find the family she had always been denied.