Old Maid For My Room, Young Maid For His Bed, I Kicked All Three Out novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Thermos
In the hospital after her second loss, Joanna hears her son say the young maid came out of Daddy's room, then goes home early and chooses to say nothing.
My phone rang at nine in the morning, while a nurse was still taking the plastic bracelet off my wrist.
It was Eli, calling on video from his dad's old phone.
I had lost the baby the night before last.
I had not told him why I was in the hospital, only that Mommy was sick and would be home soon.
"Hi, buddy," I said, and tried to make my face look like a mother's face.
His front tooth was still missing. He was sitting on the floor of the upstairs hall in his dinosaur pajamas.
"Mommy, can I tell you something? Don't tell Daddy."
"You can tell me anything."
"Last night I got up to pee and I saw Britt come out of Daddy's room."
I did not say anything.
"She didn't have her uniform on," Eli said. "She had Daddy's big shirt. And she looks way younger than you."
The hospital room was very quiet.
Down the hall a cart rolled past. I could hear my own pulse in my ears.
"Eli, honey, what did Britt say?"
"Nothing. She put her finger on her mouth. Like this."
Behind him, a door opened.
I heard bare feet on the hardwood, and then Craig's face filled the screen, close and bright and smiling.
"Hey, there's my girl," he said. "Did our guy wake you up? He's been having the strangest dreams all week."
"It wasn't a dream, Daddy," Eli said.
"Kids, huh?" Craig laughed and ruffled his hair. "Go find Britt, bud, she's making pancakes. Mommy's coming home soon."
Eli was gone from the picture before I could say his name.
"Don't worry about a thing, Jo," Craig said, softer. "Dorothea's on her way with your tea. Rest. I've got everything under control."
He hung up.
I sat there holding the phone.
My husband had answered a question about a shirt with a question about pancakes.
The nurse looked up from my wrist. "Everything okay, hon?"
"Fine," I said. "My son has a big imagination."
Dorothea arrived twenty minutes later.
She was fifty-nine, small, gray cardigan, round glasses, the kind of woman who calls everyone "dear" and means it.
"An old pair of hands for your room," Craig had said when he hired her. "Someone who can sit with you."
He had hired Britt the same week, to run the house and look after Eli.
I had thanked him for both.
Dorothea set a steel thermos on my tray table and unscrewed the lid.
"Chamomile and a little ginger, dear. Just the way you like it."
"The nurse said no outside drinks," I said.
"Just this once." She poured the cup herself.
When the nurse leaned in to check my IV, Dorothea turned her shoulder so the cup was out of sight.
I picked it up.
It smelled sweet and a little bitter. The cup was warm in my hands.
I put it down again without drinking.
"I'll have it when I'm home," I said. "I want to leave today."
"Craig said you'd stay till Friday," Dorothea said.
"I know what Craig said."
It was the first time in four months I had said something like that out loud.
The doctor wanted me to stay. I signed the form that says you are leaving against advice, and I did it with my own hand, in my own handwriting, while Dorothea watched.
I took a cab.
I told the driver to let me out at the corner, and I walked the last half block.
The house was my house.
My mother had left it to me four years ago, red brick, wide porch, a ficus in the front window she had watered every Sunday until she died.
Through the kitchen window I could see Britt at the stove.
She was twenty-four, blond ponytail, freckles. She was humming.
She saw me come up the steps and her whole face opened.
"Mrs. Granlund! You're home! Here, give me your bag, you shouldn't be lifting anything."
She took it out of my hand and set it down very gently.
Her hair was wet at the ends. She smelled like my shampoo.
Upstairs, behind a closed door, someone was singing in the shower.
It was Craig.
"He didn't say you were coming," Britt said brightly. "Oh, he's going to be so happy."
"I wanted to surprise everybody," I said.
I smiled at her.
Eli came flying down the stairs and hit me at the knees, and I held on to him with both arms.
Over his head, I watched Britt turn off the burner and take two plates from the cupboard.
She had set out three plates, for Craig, Eli and herself.
None for me.
I decided right then, with my son's face in my stomach, not to say one word until I knew everything.
At ten that night Dorothea brought the tea.
I thanked her, waited for the door to close, and poured every drop into the fern on my dresser.
Then I picked up my phone and began recording the house.
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