kitchen re-do

On Thursday night, as I lingered over the goodnight routine with Gabriel, stretched out next to him on the bottom bunk in his cozy third floor bedroom as I am wont to do, we reviewed the events of the following day. I would drop him off at school in the morning, at which point we would say goodbye until tomorrow. He would go home with his friend after school for a sleepover, get dropped off in the morning at his basketball game, and then play with other friends. I would drive after work to meet a friend to enact a radical plan we had cooked up over the past month: a little overnight adventure in the wilds of Bel Air, Maryland, a site chosen for no reason other than it's convenient location midway between Lancaster, where I live, and Annapolis, where she lives and where we once lived, before the cancer came. So tomorrow night Gabriel would be here, and I would be there. Until lunchtime on Saturday.

But I'll miss you. Don't go.

You'll be having so much fun, I don't think you'll miss me much.

Don't go anyway, Mama.

Just think, you'll be at James's house! It's so nice there...and they have that great big kitchen...and didn't you say James loves cookies so they always make big batches of homemade cookies to have on hand? It's just that kind of house.

Yes. But when our kitchen is done, we'll always have cookies too, you know.

An aside: we've been working on choosing new flooring and paint colors for our kitchen. I want a brilliant green marmoleum floor and bright white cabinets. We have a fantastic helper on this project and are slowly and steadily moving towards execution of the vision. Even the kids have gotten into the selecting and planning.

It's the first time I've been able to feel simple excitement about something to do with this improbable house where my husband never lived. Every time a close friend visits us here I faux-casually ask if it feels like a place Mike Brogan would live. A place Mike Brogan would like to live. Does he fit here? Is there plenty of room for him to sprawl on the couch and read? They always say yes, of course, but I feel uneasy all the same. I do think he'd like my kitchen plans. Maybe that's why I can feel confident and happy about pursuing them.

But anyway. Back to our program:

Oh yes. Once the kitchen is just right, it will always be clean, and we'll always have cookies.

It will be magic, said Gabriel. When we have the new, nice kitchen, everything will be just right. The kittens will never scatter litter all over the floor or knock over the recycling. You won't ever find knives that aren't all the way clean in the silverware drawer.

There was a pause while he gazed up at the slats supporting the mattress above us, feeling around for the thread, in order to keep following. Then he picked it up and it slid quickly through his fingers.

Papa will still be alive. All our friends from Annapolis will move down the street. They can work at F&M.

Uncle Noel will buy Wendy Jo's just like we wanted him to, and they'll all move here too, and whenever he comes home from Market he'll drop off cookies on the front stoop. Like, you know there used to be a milk man, and a spot for him to leave the milk? Uncle Noel will be the cookie man. We'll have a box on the front porch. And we'll still live here but in a bigger house - not too big, not too big that you get lost, but big enough to really play in.

I felt so peaceful and close to my boy, envisioning a world that made perfect sense, watching it unfold from the bunk bed.

This sounds so good, Gabriel.

Yes, and Robert will actually live in our house. In some wing on the third floor that we never really use. And sometimes when you come down to the kitchen in the morning, he'll be sitting there in his bathrobe, drinking coffee and reading the paper.

I love that idea. He will be twirling the end of his moustache, quiet as a mouse, just waiting to say good morning.

And what else? Gabriel's old teacher will still be his teacher; his principal that retired will still be the principal. Many other far-away friends will move right to our block. Gabriel will no longer be a beginning guitar player; he'll be a guitar god, and we'll play music all the time. We'll host poker games and make big dinners and have a dog.

Everything lost will be restored. Everything distant will be close. The counters will gleam, and there will always be cookies.

Papa will still be alive. 

I think we were describing heaven.