A quiet house

I don’t appreciate my children enough. 

It’s raining. The house smells of floor cleaner and wet dog.

Not as unpleasant as it sounds. It has been worse.

If my children were home, they'd be singing to themselves in a happy, repetitive way that infuriates me. Or they'd be arguing with each other until I felt the need to intervene. They'd leave their socks in the crevices of the furniture. Their dishes would pile up somewhere other than the kitchen sink. They might even be complaining about losing at Fortnite, and how some kids' parents are getting them, online coaches, the emphasis being on but not my parents.

But they aren't here.

The house is so silent. It’s eerie.

Aside from the resident canine, the place is clean. Or as clean as an old house can be after the children who live there have packed up all their prized possessions and disappeared with them for a parent-less visit with grandma in Maine.

As they soak up the sun at the beach on that first day away, I will have soaked up whatever remains of a spill no one mentioned, and left to fester under the bunk bed.

That won’t be the only surprise. A discovery of seven teaspoons and six crusty cereal bowls will solve a dishwashing mystery that’s hounded me for weeks.

I will strip the sheets and launder the blankets. Gathering rumpled clothes into one big pile on the floor.

For the remainder of the day, the washer will mimic the comforting sound of the ocean.

I will rid their rooms of a years-worth of debris: packages and tags, bits of wrappers and cellophane that probably date back to the Christmas before last.

I will vacuum and mop. I will fluff and fold. I will tuck things neatly into drawers and smooth out fresh linens over their beds.

Upstairs, downstairs: I will go from one task to another without taking a break. 

On that first day, I will be too busy to miss them.

When they call, later on, we will talk about their day and how it was filled with sand and surf and too much sun. The boy will be brief, wanting to get back to his spare allotment of time for his treasured devices.

The girl will take her time, explaining in detail how much fun she’s having balanced on how much she misses me ... mostly, this complicated calculation hinges on how she didn't appreciate how my lack of structure has increased her overall sense of independence.

But mainly because our seasonal rescinding of bedtime rules has been rendered null and void under this “new management.”

Maybe we should intervene, my husband ventures over dinner out. The second restaurant meal since the children’s departure.

I shake my head.

“When in London you have to drive on the left.”

He looks at me blankly.

What I mean is: It won’t kill them to follow someone else’s rules.

It may even make them appreciate us more.

They may not have fortnite lessons, but they have a grandmother, an ocean, and parents heading their way. Maybe grandma can get them to pick up their socks.