In the tradition of Marisa de los Santos and Anne Tyler comes a moving debut about a young mother's year of heartbreak, loss, and forgiveness...and help that arrives from unexpected sources
Four months after her husband's death, Janie LaMarche remains undone by grief and anger. Her mourning is disrupted, however, by the unexpected arrival of a builder with a contract to add a porch onto her house. Stunned, Janie realizes the porch was meant to be a surprise from her husband — now his last gift to her.
As she reluctantly allows construction to begin, Janie clings to the familiar outposts of her sorrow — mothering her two small children with fierce protectiveness, avoiding friends and family, and stewing in a rage she can't release. Yet Janie's self-imposed isolation is breached by a cast of unlikely interventionists: her chattering, ipecac-toting aunt; her bossy, over-manicured neighbor; her muffin-bearing cousin; and even Tug, the contractor with a private grief all his own.
As the porch takes shape, Janie discovers that the unknowable terrain of the future is best navigated with the help of others — even those we least expect to call on, much less learn to love.
Tuesday, April 24
Today wasn't so bad. Carly seems to have made friends with the bottle finally. When my milk stopped she went on a hunger strike, pushed formula away like it was vinegar. Then she'd only take it from Aunt Jude, of all people. Never thought I'd be so happy to see her on a daily basis. But now even I'm allowed to feed her. Time marches on, I guess.
This isn't working.
Father Jake is now officially in the deep end without a lifeguard.
Thursday, April 26
Dylan's pretending to play Monopoly. He just likes rolling the dice. I'm not allowed to play because I ruin it; he says he can't think what rules he wants to have when I'm watching. I know how he feels. I can't think what rules I want to have when I'm around, either.
Not sure why I'm trying this again. (See, Aunt Jude? Occasionally I do try.) Options seem to be dwindling since I jumped ship on the grief group she found on the Internet, Googling her way to my happiness. But, please, it was worse than bad. That facilitator was so annoying. Her lipstick was orange, her shoes were pointy, and she looked like an upscale elf. That constant sympathetic nod she did made me want to throw my drippy tissue wads at her. Add six or eight people wailing in self-pity, and you might as well crack open the Chex Mix, because hey — it's a party!
I might tell Father Jake not to come anymore. Pretty much a waste of time, though I suppose it's good cover. After the grief group didn't work out, I figured Aunt Jude was planning an intervention. But all I got were visits from the boy priest, Father Listener.
He's the one who came up with this journaling idea, which is gimmicky and hideously '70s. (What's his next idea — a mood ring and a shag haircut?) If he had handed me one of those cheesy blank books with teacups or inspirational sayings on it, I would have dug out Robby's blowtorch and lit it up on the hood of that boring gray sedan Father drives.
Actually I would have just given it to Dylan with a box of Magic Markers. "Grief" makes you sound so melodramatic.
Janie closed the 89-cent black-and-white-speckled composition notebook. It reminded her of one she'd had in third grade for the purpose of practicing her cursive writing. She would sit at Aunt Jude's kitchen table after school, gripping the pen as if it might get away from her and do some certain but unspecified damage. All those loops and slanty lines. So messy and complicated compared to the clear clean strokes of the printing she had been used to.
The doorbell rang, jolting Janie from her memory. She tucked the notebook in the cabinet above the refrigerator and forced herself to face the intrusion, hoping it wasn't another pity offering of quiche or lasagna or baked fucking ham. Friends and neighbors had stopped coming by, sensing, she knew, that their company was all but unbearable to her. It was just too hard to answer that stupid question over and over. "How are you?" She could barely keep herself from saying, Still shitty, thanks for asking. Care for some ham? God knows I can't eat it.
The man who now stood at the door carried nothing but a smudged manila folder. He scratched his fingers through the caramel-colored hair over a recently healed scar on his forearm. "Hi," he said, squinting into the room's relative dimness, the faint lines around his eyes clustering against each other. "Rob around?"
"No," said Janie.
"Uh, well, can you give him this?" He held out the folder. "I told him I couldn't start 'til summer, but then another job got postponed, so I'll start here next week. Permit's already pulled." He checked his watch, the crystal so scratched it must have been hard for him to see the face. "I'll pick those up tomorrow. If he...
