Full House

A winning hand for us all

Two weeks ago, I had my last night home alone.

I tried to soak in the privacy, the tranquility, the ability to pee with the bathroom door wide open.

But I didn’t mind relinquishing those benefits for a bit of company. The silence—seven days at a time—felt suffocating.

Evie came back to me Friday after school. Then my stepdad, Don, moved the last of his belongings in on Saturday while she and I were gone all day for a dance recital. By the time we came home, he was officially our roommate.

Evie washed off her stage makeup and invited a friend over. They perched on barstools at the kitchen island, mixing up homemade slime and giggling, while I made dinner. Don brought boxes in from the garage to unpack at the built-in desk by the pantry: mugs filled with pens and pencils, piles of checkbooks, his ancient Dell laptop. Wally lingered underfoot, hoping to catch a stray bite of penne.

The house felt full and a little chaotic. Alive.

Four people and a dog isn’t “full” or “chaotic” to many people, especially those with two or more of their own children. But compared to the eerie museum I’ve been living in every other week, it was a whole different world.

I struggled on my weeks off, and particularly on those transitional Fridays. I learned to schedule something fun shortly after the handoff—like a hike or dinner with a friend—to ease the mental and emotional whiplash of going from busy mom to free agent.

When I was a full-time employee, wife, and mom to one daughter and two dogs, I would’ve killed for any stretch of time alone in my home. And it is nice to clean my kitchen and have it stay that way for more than five minutes, to watch whatever shows I want without fear of little ears hearing things they shouldn’t (Heated Rivalry? Turn it up!), to not run the dishwasher for several days because it takes forever to fill with only one person eating.

But once I experienced, that first Saturday night, the peace of going to sleep knowing all the bedrooms in my home were filled with people I love, I would always, always, always choose that.

The third bedroom used to hold bunk beds to accommodate two of the previous owners’ three boys. Since then, it has always been empty at night, save for the occasional guest.

I thought I was okay with that. I agreed to it after many tearful conversations, after adjusting my vision of what a complete family looked like. Yet the emptiness always felt wrong to me, and Evie’s intense desire for a sibling never helped.