I'll See You Again Part 34

"Why can't I stay?" I asked.

"They're going to put you in a psychiatric facility where you don't want to be. If you need an in-patient residence, we'll find one. But I repeat: Do whatever it takes to get yourself out. Now."

I hung up the phone and sighed. A temporary escape from home would be nice, but he sounded urgent and it seemed out of my hands. Melissa and Jeannine and Isabelle were bustling around, talking to the psychiatric residents and giving a.s.surances that I wouldn't be left alone. They had me out the door and back in Floral Park before I knew what had happened.

By the next day, I was feeling a little better. But thinking about what Dr. O'Brien had mentioned, I started researching private retreats. The problem was that with their mountain backdrops, infinity pools, and "holistic rehabilitation," they were wildly expensive-more for Hollywood celebrities than for me.

"If you really need to go, I'll get the money together somehow," Warren said.

"The places sound so nice," I said dreamily. "Do you think I should?"

"Not really," he admitted.

In general, Warren worried that if I went away, I would never come home again.

A few days later, I confronted Warren with a new idea.

"Let's move," I suggested. "Get a new house and a fresh start for the baby."

"I don't think it's a good idea right now," he said flatly. "Let's have the baby first. There's been enough change. You might want to stay here."

"Is it fair to bring a baby into a house with all these memories?" I asked anxiously.

"They were happy memories," he said. "I don't want to lose those."

He looked out the window and I suddenly saw again the summer evenings when we had family barbecues, Warren standing by the grill while Emma carefully came out holding a tray of hamburgers and hot dogs for him to cook, and Alyson and Katie watched him flip them onto the fire. After we ate, the girls would run around the backyard and I could still see Warren carrying Katie into the house when she got tired, snuggled in his arms, a look of contentment on both their faces.

His resistance to moving irritated me, but I didn't argue further because in truth, I still got some peace from being in the girls' rooms. Many days, I would lie down on each of their beds, one after another, and cry. But now I couldn't just worry about me, I had to think about this baby. Was it fair to bring her into a home where every corner was already imbued with memories of lost sisters? And why wouldn't my husband ever see another point of view?

Before the accident, Isabelle and I had talked about expanding our small houses for our growing families. We both considered moving elsewhere, but our neighbor-friends.h.i.+p was so special that renovations seemed like a better idea. The close connections between our children gave everyone so much joy that any house problems seemed irrelevant.

"I'd give up my house in a minute to have a neighbor like Isabelle," said my friend Kathy, who lived in a huge, exquisite house that made everyone's eyes pop.

"It's a deal!" I joked. "You get Isabelle and I'll take your house." But even as we laughed, I understood what she meant. Friends.h.i.+p trumped room size any day.

Isabelle is like the sister I never had and always wanted-funny and sweet and up for anything. Our husbands referred to us as Lucy and Ethel. We used to come up with crazy schemes together and in the days when our children played together regularly, Isabelle and I did, too. She was easygoing and laid-back and made everyone laugh.

As moms, Isabelle and I were usually running around with the kids, shopping or carpooling or making plans. But one spring when Katie was about four, Warren happened to pop home several days at the exact time that Isabelle was over. And each time he came in, he managed to catch Isabelle and me in a rare moment of relaxing.

"Where are the kids?" he asked one day when he raced in to pick up some papers and found us drinking coffee in the kitchen.

"In the yard playing," I said.

"No they're not," said Warren, looking out the window.

"Then they're in my yard playing," said Isabelle, stepping into the doorway and waving.

Warren just shook his head and muttered about the easy lives we had.

"How does he always come home in the five minutes we're not doing anything?" Isabelle asked, mystified. "It's like he has some magic radar."

The next time it happened, I jumped up from the table. "Pick up a sponge! Pick up a broom!" I called out to her. "Make it look like we're doing something!"

When Warren came in, Isabelle had her coffee in one hand and was idly holding a broom in the other. Warren looked at her strangely but this time didn't comment.

We weren't off the hook yet. A few days later when the kids were playing, Isabelle came up to my bedroom to see a big pile of clothes I'd just bought.

"Try them on, I want to see!" she urged.

So I stripped down and pulled on a new outfit. After getting Isabelle's approval, I took it off and reached for another one just as we heard Warren's car pulling up.

"Oh no, not again," I said, standing in my underwear and feeling very exposed.

"I can't believe it!" Isabelle said. "The radar again. He's going to make fun of us for goofing off."

"I don't want him to catch me trying on clothes," I said, scooping up my purchases and throwing them into the closet. "What should we do?"

"Get into bed!" Isabelle said. "Under the covers, quick."

Giggling, we both jumped into the bed-Isabelle fully clothed and me not so much-and pulled the quilt over us.

We heard Warren's footsteps on the stairs. A moment later, he stood in the doorway and looked at us, baffled.

"What are you two doing?" he asked.

"Watching TV," I said brightly.

"In bed?" he asked. "In the middle of the day?"

"We just felt like it."

He stepped into the room-and, of course, the TV wasn't on.

"We turned it off when we heard you coming up," Isabelle volunteered.

Warren looked at us oddly. He grabbed what he'd come in for and fled.

Isabelle and I tried to wait until he had gone back outside to burst into hysterical laughter, but we didn't succeed very well.

Now that I was pregnant again, Isabelle and I still laughed together all the time, and she regularly came over to visit. But beyond that, the gate between our houses stayed mostly closed. With their best friends gone, her children stayed in their own yard, traumatized by loss and not wanting to experience the pain of coming over. A therapist Isabelle consulted suggested that it might be helpful for Kailey and Ryan if they didn't have to stare into the empty bedrooms across the way anymore. But Isabelle wouldn't hear of it.

"I'm not moving away from you," Isabelle insisted loyally. "Don't even think about it."

She hired an architect who drew up plans to double the size of her house. Eight thousand dollars later, we studied the plans together.

"This is silly," I told her. "You'll have this giant mansion on a block that doesn't have anything like it. You'll never get your money back when you sell."