“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Ben was rocking on his feet.
“I’m just going to make a quick sweep of the place before we head out. You coming?”
“Nah. I’m going to say good-bye to Tommy.”
Tommy was our next-door neighbor and one of Ben’s closest friends. They had grown up together and gone to the same school since kindergarten. They’d already had a proper good-bye yesterday, but I guess another quick one couldn’t hurt.
“Don’t be too long, ‘kay?”
“No, Dad,” Ben called out over his shoulder, already halfway across the lawn to Tommy’s.
“Meet you out here in five minutes,” I called after him.
He didn’t reply, just waved his hand.
I walked inside through the front door. The place that had felt like home for all these years felt foreign, empty like this. When Ben and I first moved here, we were a mess. Zoë had been gone for a little over a year, and I’d had to face the hard reality that she wasn’t coming back. I had moved into this home, deciding Ben needed to get out of the cramped one-bedroom apartment I had been in with Zo. This place had a backyard, two bedrooms, and was situated in a good school district. It was the perfect home to raise a kid. But moving here meant Zo was never coming back. Those first months, I was a disaster. I waited a year in that dump of an apartment, hoping Zo would realize the mistake she had made. I mean, Ben was our kid. How could she leave him? But after a year, I figured out I was wasting my breath. That realization killed most of the love I had left for her, and it almost killed all the will I had left to go on. I was a kid when Zo wound up pregnant. We were stupid. But we had a kid, and we needed to grow up. At least, I did. But Zo couldn’t handle motherhood. Not that she didn’t love Ben. She just couldn’t handle the everyday responsibility of being there with us.
I walked through the living room and open kitchen, noticing the small markings on the wall where we’d kept score of Ben’s height over the years we’d lived here. I didn’t have the heart to paint over it. The new tenants would have to take care of that.
I did a sweep of my bedroom and walked through the bathroom into Ben’s bedroom. A pang of memories hit me when I noticed a spot on the wall. Ben had been six and really into marbles. He’d been so excited to show me how he’d managed to hit the marble into the wall repeatedly until he’d dented the wall enough to embed the marble in the wall. He thought it would be the greatest thing to have a marble in his wall. Turned out he got that sucker in there so tight, the only thing I could do was push it a little deeper and add some putty over it and repaint the wall. But I still could tell where the marble was. And Ben learned his lesson when I made him sand the putty and paint the wall with me. We’d had a ton of fun that day.
I closed the door and took a deep breath. We were doing the right thing, but that didn’t make it easy. Leaving the only place that had ever felt like a home for Ben to move to a new place was both scary and exciting. The new job had my insides in a bundle of knots. I knew I was up to the challenge, but I still had to prove that to everyone else. I didn’t have any experience as a superintendent.
The only bright spot in all of this was knowing Shelley would be close by. Somehow knowing that she would be around to help out with Ben if I really needed it made the weight on my chest not feel so heavy. Not that I wanted to count on her, but Ben adored her, and it felt comforting to know we at least knew someone in Palm Springs.
I walked outside, closing the door and locking all of the memories up as I turned the key. I pulled out my phone and sent Zoë a quick text letting her know we were moving today. I’d called her a few days ago and told her about the job and move to California. I promised to keep her in the loop. I always did. She was still Ben’s mother. And as long as she was aware of what was going on, I felt safe she wouldn’t swoop in and change things for us. Not that I would oppose Zoë having a relationship with Ben, but I couldn’t deny that fear that resided at the back of my mind that one day she might show up and take him from me.
“Ready to go, Dad?” Ben leaned on the van. He didn’t even look up as he spoke. He had his phone glued to his hands as his fingers typed at lightning speed. I’d decided to surprise him with a smartphone as we were moving. I thought it would be a good way for him to stay in touch with his friends here. He’d had that thing in his hands almost continuously since he’d torn through the wrapper. Give me strength.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” I echoed Ben’s words from earlier, feeling the muscles in my shoulders bunch together.
“Let’s go.” His voice rose as he tucked his phone in his pocket.
“What are you doing standing here, then?” I added an extra dose of excitement to my voice, clapping my hands together, and opened the van. Ben climbed in and buckled up. I turned the ignition, and one of Ben’s favorite songs poured out through the speakers of the van, filling the cab with a loud beat. He cranked up the volume and started bobbing his head to the tune. That was my cue. I shifted into drive and pushed the gas pedal. Taking one last glance in the rearview mirror, I soaked up the final view of our old life. Ben started singing along with the chorus, drawing my attention back to him. I set my eyes on the road in front of me and focused on what lay ahead.
A whole future was waiting for us.
“Ben, can you grab that box over there and take it to your new room?” I indicated the box that held his books as I stacked two boxes for my bedroom and set them inside to be unpacked later.
“Sure thing,” Ben replied, being even more helpful than I was used to him being. I was glad for his current mood. I needed all the help I could get. I started my new job on Monday, leaving only three days to get us settled in.
“Hello,” a voice called out from downstairs. “The door was open, so I walked in.”
“Auntie Shell. You need to come up and see my room.” Ben bolted through the hallway and down the stairs, almost taking me down with him in his path.
“Hey, walking here with boxes, buddy,” I said through clenched teeth as I balanced two more boxes for my room, but he ignored me, too focused on our visitor. I followed him downstairs. There was more than enough to do there anyway.
“Come on,” he said, slightly out of breath as he took a hold of Shelley’s hand, tugging her forward.
“Let me just put this in the kitchen first.” She lifted a large bag, hefting it up and dropping it on the countertop on the one part that wasn’t littered with boxes and pots and pans.
“Can we first get the dessert from my car, Ben? My hands were pretty full earlier.”
“You made my cupcakes?” Ben’s voice boomed through the kitchen, echoing off the bare walls of the hallway as I walked into the cluttered entryway.
“Of course I did. And your cookies as well. I promised, remember? Here.” Shelley pulled out her keys from her back pocket and held them out to Ben. “Why don’t you go grab the box from the trunk?”
“All right!” Ben snatched the keys from her hold and ran out of the open front door, hopping over boxes as he went.
“You know,” I started as I walked into the kitchen, shuffling around all the clutter still littering the floor, “Ben’s not used to people following through.” I met Shelley’s blue gaze and swallowed the lump in my throat. Zoë had yet to reply to my text from this morning. I could tell she’d read my message, but so far she hadn’t responded. I was glad Ben hadn’t noticed me texting her before we left. He still held out hope his mom would show up one day. I hated being the bearer of bad news all the time.