Entering Normal Read Online Free

like the sun. It’s like having a fresh start every night.
    A woman would notice something like this right away, but of course Ned hasn’t mentioned one word.
    He has been gone about an hour and she is coming up the stairs from the basement, walking sideways so the basket holding the laundry won’t get stuck, when the phone rings. She lets it ring about five times while she decides whether or not to answer. She recognizes the ring. People think that a phone sounds the same no matter who is calling, but it isn’t true. It has a specific sound depending on who’s on the other end and what they’re calling to say. A call from a friend has a markedly different ring to it than the call from one of those telemarketing people who always phone when you’re eating dinner. Or a call announcing bad news. After Todd died, she began paying real attention to matters like this.
    It makes people nervous when she says things like “after Todd died.” As a rule, most people, Ned’s sister Ethel for example, prefer words like “gone” and “departed” when they mention him, as if he has just run off on a short trip and any minute now will come walking through the door wearing his red high-top sneakers and asking what’s for dinner. Of course, the real truth is Ethel would be happiest never having to hear his name again at all, like there is some kind of contamination to it and she doesn’t want it to rub off on her boys, though you notice she was happy enough to have them wearing his clothes. Well, he is not off taking a trip. He’s dead. “Dead” is a good word. It sounds just like it is.
    Now, by the pitch of the phone’s bell, she knows it is Anderson Jeffrey. He has been calling on and off all month—he’s more persistent than you might give him credit for—and it makes her physically ill to think that he might call sometime when Ned is home. How could she explain a call from a teacher when she has told Ned this exact same teacher has canceled the writing class because he had to leave town on an emergency?
    The class was Ned’s idea. When he found the college catalog on her dresser, he latched on to it, hung on to it the way he insisted on cleaving to hope. Dorothy Barnes, the regular checkout clerk at the Stop and Shop, had given her the pamphlet, shoving it into her shopping bag along with the weekly sales circular. If Ned had handed it to her, or Doc Blessing, she would have thrown it away without taking a second look, but since it came to her by accident, she kept it, even gave it a quick glance, scanning the listing for the fall semester Adult Education courses at the local community college. As soon as Ned saw it, that awful expression of hope spread over his face, as shiny and conspicuous as if it’d been drawn on with engine grease.
She’s finally going
to return to normal.
That is his phrase: “Return to normal.” As if a state of mind is easy to find, as if all you need is a road map. But things aren’t as simple as men like to think.
    â€œWell, now, Rosie,” he said when he picked it up. “Aren’t you just full of surprises.” He stood in their bedroom, leaning against the bureau, looking over the brochure. There were about a dozen classes listed: small engine repair, upholstering, personal computers, creative writing, conversational French, emergency first aid, and quilt making. She could see what he was thinking—what he was hoping—see it as clear as day.
    â€œIt’s nothing,” she said. “Just junk.” Still, she has to admit the quilt-making class caught her attention. All the sewing she has done and she’s never made a quilt. She could almost see herself taking the class, cutting up pieces of everything she’d ever worn, shaping them into little triangles and squares. She’d use some of Todd’s things too, items she had managed to store in a box before