It has been quite a week. I have a tooth infection that is going to require oral surgery and Uncle Coop died. My one sister Maria, who is trying to get pregnant, found out that the second round of trying didn't work. My other sister Emily did finally get pregnant after years of trying, which was the one wonderful splash of light in an otherwise dreary week. But then I told my mother the news before Emily had a chance to, and she got really upset with me and I couldn’t blame her. ("No one can keep any secrets in this family," she said. "I'm so sorry," I said. "Next time maybe don't tell me first.”) So everything feels up and down and last night while everyone else was down the street at Hazlenut eating dinner and I was upstairs working, Dawson made a run for it.
We had all gone out to dinner, me, Tommy and the boys plus Maria and Dave. Dawson (age 2) was being a complete pill: loud and squirmy and refusing to eat, so finally, after two stern talks outside, I took him home. I put him into his pajamas and then in Liam’s bed since we’re trying to see if he’s ready to start sleeping in a big boy bed. I waited until his eyes were closed and then I went in to my office to do some work.
I thought I heard some kind of a commotion outside, and just to be safe I went to check on the baby. His bed was empty. I ran downstairs and he was at the bottom looking just a teensy bit guilty, while a woman I didn’t know was standing in my sister's kitchen saying, "Hello?! Hello?! Is anybody here?"
“I’m here! I’m here,” I said. “Was my son outside?!!”
Apparently the boy had crept quietly out of bed, down the stairs, out the door, and onto the sidewalk in his footies with a book and a stuffed dog that says the Lord’s prayer in Spanish. (I think it came from my mother, who got it at Taco Bell.) He was headed back to the Hazlenut when the woman who was now standing in my sister’s kitchen wanting to make sure she didn’t return a random child to a random house, found him
“I was upstairs,” I said. “I didn’t hear him leave his room. Thank you, thank you thank you.”
“I just wanted to make sure I brought him to the right place,” she said.
Oh my God. We’re so lucky nothing happened to him. Our house is so huge and haunted looking, this woman must have found the whole thing very strange--a little child in pajamas, wandering around the street and then walking confidently into a seemingly empty house. As if he lived there alone, and sometimes went out for a stroll by himself before bed.
I’ll admit we all thought it was kind of funny once Dawson was safely back in his crib, and I was even a little impressed at his single-mindedness and streak of independence.
But then later that night, at 3 am I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. I kept thinking what if Dawson had tried to cross the street, or there had been a car coming out of one of the driveways he walked by, or if someone less kind had found him? I should have locked all the doors, I should have put him in his crib. How did I not hear him? Dawson is the loudest child in the world and usually I can hear him breathing when he comes down the hall. How did he get past me? And then I thought of one of the things my Uncle Coop said the last time I saw him. He was talking about a guy he’d known once who tried to set someone else’s chair on fire at a bar, and he said, “And you know, it’s like I always said, ‘Don’t worry. As stupid as you think the thing someone did today is, tomorrow someone will do something even worse.”
I found that very comforting. Unless the person who does something even stupider tomorrow is me.
At least I didn't leave him at a gas station somewhere because his feet were so smelly, like one of my friend’s mothers did.
That's the news from Main Street.
Runaway
Paperback came out today.
Yay! Although, actually, it's very quiet around here. Not sure what I expected. It's so strange to have a book out in the world living its own life. And there's really no way to keep track of it. I got my first royalty statement (from sales to September last year) the other day and it seems that by the end of September enough books had shipped to make back my advance and then some. But all of that's in reserve because bookstores can return books and so there's only a certain amount that have sold for sure. The headline on my horoscope had said to enjoy the uncertainty of the day, but I like my numbers to be a little more concrete.
"Book returns!" I said to Domenica and Justin at the coffeeshop yesterday. "What a horrible idea." I had gone there to work because Liam was home from school and Tommy was watching him, which meant that Liam kept coming into the office, hanging on the lamp and asking me if he could watch Madeline on TV. (The boy watches an appalling amount of TV when he's home.) Anyway I went down to the coffee shop, and there were my favorite distractions, Justin, Domenica, and my neighbor Katherine.
"What would the bookstores do if someone stuck gum inside the pages and stuck them together?" Justin asked. "Could the books be returned then?"
"I don't know," I said.
"Because we'll do it," Justin said.
"We're at your service," said Katherine.
I thought that was very nice of them.
They all started discussing Katherine's love life but I had to go sit at another table in case Tommy and Liam walked by and caught me chatting while I was supposed to be working. (This takes on a whole new meaning when one part of the couple puts work aside to watch the children so the other can work--which usually doesn't include meeting friends at the coffee shop.)
Later I went home and spent a half an hour with Liam doing an art project with lentils.
"What did you design?" I said.
"A bridge." he said. "What did you make?"
"A cat," I said.
"It looks like a garbage can."
Now really. A garbage can? I mean I could see that it didn't quite look like a cat, but even pile of garbage would have been more accurate.
