Chapter 2 of Preschool Confessions

 still July 12.

Tom walked in the door at 5:15 on the dot and was promptly brought to his knees with a flurry of hugs and commotion. “Daddy! Daddy’s home!”

The girls always hear him arrive. It doesn’t matter how quietly he opens the front door, or if he sneaks in through the kitchen sliding door—they can sense his presence and immediately run full force right into him, until forced to kneel down or sit on the couch. Paige, our three-year-old was explaining the difference between the letter ‘m’ and ‘n,’ while Brooke, 21 months, sat on Tom’s knee, and sucked her fingers.

“Smells great in here. What’s for dinner?” Tom asked when he was able to unwrap the girls and walk into the kitchen.

“Nothing fancy. Frozen pot roast and potatoes.”

“Sounds good. I like pot roast.”

Tom seemed a bit distracted. He picked up the pile of mail, and opened the PennySaver. Tom has never opened a PennySaver in the 15 years I’ve known him.

“Tom? Things okay?”

“Yes. Well, no. Well, we’re moving.”

And that was that. I learned that his company had grown too big too fast, and the local economy couldn’t support the growth. I learned that people were getting laid off. People I knew. People I knew to have families, to have mortgages, to have healthcare bills. I learned that in order to continue his current employment status we’d have to move to a bigger metropolitan area.

I learned that I needed to go back to work.

There wasn’t time to freak out. There wasn’t time to do much of anything—Tom had called Patty, the realtor from the car, and she was on the way over. I nodded as I served tiny pieces of meat and potatoes in sectioned plastic dishes to the kids. I nodded as Tom explained how “good all of this would be for us.” I nodded as he pointed out that I had wanted to go back to work for a while. I nodded as he explained we’d be closer to family, and have more opportunity to go out by ourselves, to get away from the kids.

I nodded as I cleared the dishes, filled the dishwasher, and started the coffee pot. I remembered Patty liked super strong black coffee.

I nodded along as I got the kids situated on the couch with their blankies, and started Toy Story 2.

I nodded and signed my name and then initialed wherever Patty told me to.

I nodded and agreed to show the house within 30 minutes of a realtor’s (any realtor) phone-call. I agreed that in “this economy” we couldn’t be picky, and I needed to drop everything in order to show the house. I nodded and agreed to pack up most of the kids’ toys—I agreed there was no need to pigeon-hole our house as only a home for young children.

I quietly cried myself to sleep that night.