It was true. The house was full of light.
“My house used to have the same layout,” the agent
continued. “But I bumped out the kitchen. I don’t even
know why I bothered. This is perfect. Great for enter-
taining. Cozy for staying in. And the cherry on top? Best
block. I’m over the moon that you found us.”
“So am I,” Lane said because she wanted the words
to be true.
“I’m not supposed to have favorites,” the realtor con-
fided. “You won’t tell anyone will you?”
“No.”
“I knew I could trust you. I have a good eye for good
people. You’ll fit right in on this block. You have a kid, right? I’m pretty sure Nathan told me you have a kid.”
She nodded. “A six-year-old son.”
“Perfect. There’s dozens of kids on this block. Always
playing outside, having good old-fashioned fun.” She
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Nancy Star
stopped herself. “But it’s not an old-fashioned suburb.
Honestly, it gets more like Brooklyn every day. Brooklyn
with space.” She seemed unsure again. “But not ob-
noxious Brooklyn. The perfect amount of Brooklyn.”
She smiled and walked to the window that looked out
onto the street. “I love everyone on this block. There’s
not a single person I don’t love. Sounds crazy but it’s
true. Everyone is great. Except for me. I talk too much.
Which—professionally speaking?—not a good idea. Except
in this situation, what’s bad to say? I love the block. I love the house. I can totally see you living here. Come and
see the playroom downstairs. There’s so much space there
you could invite the entire school to your son’s birthday.
By the way, the schools here are the best. The kids turn
out so interesting.”
The playroom convinced her. It wasn’t set up as a
playroom yet, but with some paint and a colorful rug,
Lane could imagine it: a birthday party for Henry’s whole
class. Henry talking to everyone. “It’s perfect,” she said.
The agent smiled and then got serious. “One pos-
sible hiccup. Not a lot of rentals like this come on the
market. You’re going to have to move fast. I heard there
are three families interested. If you’re motivated, if you really want this house, which I hope you do, you need
to tell Nathan immediately. Can your husband come by
tonight to look?”
“My husband’s dead.” She saw the shock on the agent’s
face. “I am so sorry. I should not have said that. It’s nothing to joke about. I mean it’s true, but I shouldn’t have
said it like that. I haven’t been myself.”
“Of course you haven’t.” The agent put her hands to
her heart. “I’m the one who’s sorry.” She patted Lane’s
arm. “Don’t you worry. I’m going to call Nathan as soon
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Rules for Moving
as I get home and tell him he has to rent this house to
you. And he will. Nathan is a total mensch.”
h h
h h
Her sister listened quietly while Lane told her about the
house she’d rented. When Lane was done describing it,
Shelley said, “I’m happy for you. Really. I am.” She was
silent for a moment and then her voice got serious. “Listen, Lane, I talked it over with Quinn and Melinda and they
agree. You don’t have to worry anymore. About … if.”
“If what?”
“You know.” Shelley waited for Lane to understand.
“You’re kidding. You’re going to make me say it?”
“I guess so.”
“If something happens to you. I’m not saying it will.
A person can only have so much bad luck. I know right
now you’re a happy little Team of Two. But a Team of
Two needs a plan B for if it ends up a Team of One. So
now there’s a plan. Henry will come here. Melinda is
totally on board. The fact that she even heard what I
suggested is a shocker. You don’t have a teenager so you
have no idea.”
Lane didn’t know what to say to that, so she said
nothing.
“Come on, Turtle. Don’t get that way. I’m trying to
help. I know you don’t like to talk about bad things and I know you worry. So now, you don’t have to. God forbid
something happens, we’ll take care of Henry here.”
Lane had not yet let herself think about that particular
bad thing. But okay. Now she didn’t have to. Her sister
had it covered. “Thank you. I appreciate it. I have to go
pack.”
Nancy Star
“Remember: Take Only What You Love. Moving
Forward Means Never Looking Back. If You Hold the
Door Open for Dragonflies, Dragons Will Come In Too.
Tread Lightly So You—”
“I know the rules.”
“Okay. We’ll hang up on three. One, two—” And
Shelley was gone.
That night Lane lay awake for several sleepless hours,
going through the list of catastrophes as they presented
themselves. Some, but not all, were theoretical. In the
end the thought that cycled through her mind in a loop,
was that her sister might be right. A Team of Two was
probably not enough.
h h
h h
On their last night in the apartment, Henry asked Lane
if she thought he’d like their new house.
“Definitely. But if you don’t, there’s always Grandma
Sylvie’s Fourth Rule for Moving. Tread Lightly So You
Don’t Leave Tracks. That means if you don’t like where
we move, we can always move again. Deal?”
“Deal.”
In the morning when the movers came, they said
what movers always said when they came to move the
Mecklers. “This all you have?”
Lane heard her mother’s voice as she replied, “This is
all we have. This is all we need.”
138
PART TWO
Essex County, New Jersey
Spring 2017
April 15, 2017
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Dear Roxie,
My eight-year-old daughter has a new friend who
is very quiet and polite, which is great because my
daughter is a loudmouth except for when this friend
comes over and then I don’t hear a peep. They like to
go down to the basement and make projects. Col-
lages, decoupages, puppets, clay thingies. They’re
very creative and not only that, they clean up. It
used to be when my daughter’s friends came over
something always got broken. A lamp. A tooth. A toe.
There were always tears and whatever they did they
made a mess. With this girl, it’s peaceful and clean
and I love it.
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Nancy Star
My only
complaint is about the girl’s father. I have
a very bad feeling about him. Don’t get me wrong. He
hasn’t done anything bad. But every time he picks her
up, she looks scared. Also, he’s very big. An intimidat-
ing kind of big. And he’s unfriendly. He never comes
inside. He just stands on the front steps and waits. He
looks angry waiting even though he never has to wait
for long. His daughter always comes right away, which
I don’t think is normal. When I used to pick up my
daughter from her friends’ houses, I would wait twenty
minutes, minimum, for her to stroll to the door. I say
“used to” because with this new friend they only play
here, at our house.
I have no proof the dad has done anything wrong.
It’s just my gut talking. Which I would ignore except
this morning the girl’s mother, who I’ve never set eyes
on, called to invite my daughter for a sleepover. Mind
you, my daughter has never stepped foot in this girl’s
house.
Maybe it’s not reasonable, but I don’t want my
daughter to go on the sleepover. Except how am I sup-
don’t have a good reason? On the one hand I think I
should make up an excuse. Maybe we’ll go to her
grandparents that day. They’re always happy to see
her. On the other hand I think I should ignore my gut.
Because probably he’s fine. I should say yes and hope
for the best. Probably nothing will happen.
No choice seems good. What do you think I should
do?
Yours,
Queasy
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Rules for Moving
Dear Queasy,
It’s official! You’ve got a dilemma on your hands.
Let’s talk for a minute about your gut. If you’re a reg-
ular reader of my column you already know I’m a big
fan of guts. Guts are smart. The biggest problem with
them is that sometimes they’re so quiet we don’t hear
them. But not yours. Your gut is screaming. Why ignore
that? Why do any of us ignore our screaming guts?
Mostly it’s because we worry, what if our gut isn’t
right? What if we accuse someone of something and
we’re wrong? Mistakes happen. Misunderstandings
abound.
Take this dad. You think he’s unfriendly. Maybe he is.
Or maybe he’s painfully shy and self-conscious about his
size. Could the reason he stays outside on your doorstep
be that he knows his size makes him look threatening?
Take the girl. You think she looks scared. Maybe she
is. Or maybe before she came over to your house and
was all quiet and helpful, she was rude to her mother
and neglected her chores. Could she look scared be-
cause she knows when her dad comes to pick her up,
she’s in for a talking to?
You admit you don’t have proof of bad behavior.
You can’t be sure your suspicions are warranted. May-
be the fair thing to do is to give the dad the benefit of
the doubt. Here’s the rub: when it comes to our kids,
doubt is not okay. When it comes to our kids, we can’t
afford to take chances.
Ask yourself this: Which would you regret more:
that you offended an innocent stranger or that you put
a child at risk so you could appear nice?
What should you do? Here are a few suggestions.
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Nancy Star
Make a rule: No sleepovers if you don’t know the
family. Then get to know the family! Invite them to
dinner. You might learn something you didn’t expect.
Maybe you’ll learn that once he’s comfortable, the fa-
ther is hilarious. Or maybe you’ll learn the family is new to town and you are the only person who’s reached out
to them. Maybe this dinner will change their lives.
What do you do if they decline your invitation?
Wait a week and try again. If after three times, they still say no, that’s it. Tell your daughter you tried. The ball’s in their court. The rule holds.
What do you do if they accept your invitation and
over dinner your gut is even more insistent that some-
thing is amiss? Wait till they leave and tell your daugh-
ter, you’re very sorry but she can’t sleep there. Tell her the truth: that you can’t put your finger on it but your
gut is telling you something isn’t right. Use this as an
opportunity to teach your daughter the importance of
listening to your gut.
But wait, there’s more! The next time this girl comes
over, let her know that if she ever needs an adult to
talk to, she can talk to you. Be prepared though; if she
shares something that makes you think she’s in dan-
ger, you’re going to have to do something about it. I’m
sure you don’t want this to be how it plays out, but to
protect a child, you have be ready. Get the number for
Child Services now.
One last thing: I would be remiss if I didn’t caution
you about throwing around words like odd or weird.
People come in many flavors. What’s weird to you
might be wonderful to me. It takes a village.
Yours forever, or at least for now,
Roxie
144
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Lane caught the scent of it in the kitchen: rising damp.
If that was the worst of it, a hint of mildew, it would be fine. It was a fact of life she learned when she was young: most houses held smells. Some were easier to live with
than others. The tang of ammonia from the old plaster
walls in St. Louis was better than the trace of rot in the bedroom of the woman who died in her house in San
Diego, a week before they moved in.
“Why do you have to let everything bother you?”
Marshall grumbled when she gagged at the smell in the
San Diego house. “Don’t breathe so hard. You’ll be fine.”
Compared to that smell, which still made her gag
to remember, mildew was nothing. Bleach and vinegar
would handle that. She added those items to the shopping
list on her phone and turned around to look for Henry.
He had been right there, behind her. Circling back, she
found him in the foyer, waiting.
“Am I supposed to take my shoes off here?”
Of course he’d ask that. In their apartment they al-
ways took off their shoes in the front hall so as not to
track in city grime; now Henry wanted to know if city
grime was a problem here as well. Another reminder of
how different life was in the Meckler household, where
the rules, once made, were never rescinded. A No Shoes
145
Nancy Star
rule that was made in the house with the cream-colored
carpet remained in effect in the next house, which was
carpet-free. And when Lane and Shelley took to skating
in their socks across the shiny wood floors in the carpet-
free house, Sylvie made a new rule: No Shoes and now No Socks. From that house they moved to the one where the
wood floors sat on a concrete slab. With nothing below
to warm the floors above, the floors were always cold.
But fr
eezing feet did nothing to change the No Shoes,
No Socks rule.
“Don’t come near me with those ice-cube toes,” was
Marshall’s theme song in the frigid-floor house, the same
way, “Don’t breathe so hard,” was his theme song in San
Diego.
Whether or not a house would have a theme song was
not something Lane knew right away. Things like that
took time to know.
“Shoes can be on or off,” she told Henry now.
“Whichever way you want.”
h h
h h
After an hour of waiting for the movers, Henry started
to worry that they weren’t coming.
“Why wouldn’t they come?” Lane asked.
“Because maybe they stole our things. Like in the
letter you got from Ripped Off.”
“You remember that?” While it was true that on oc-
casion Lane read a Roxie letter aloud to Aaron, she didn’t do it when Henry was listening. Except maybe Henry
was always listening.
“I remember Ripped Off wrote that when she moved
to her new house the movers never came because they
146
Rules for Moving
stole all her things. And you said, ‘Probably you had too
many things anyway.’ And everyone got mad at you.”
That was pretty close. As Lane remembered it, the
specific advice Roxie gave was, “Look on the bright
side. Now you can start fresh!” Either way, the end was
the same. Readers grumbled. One accused her of being
both clueless and cruel. She objected to cruel—she was
never cruel—but being clueless about how most people
felt toward their possessions? Guilty.
The problem with that letter was she never should have
picked it in the first place. It hit too close to home. “Off to a fresh start,” was what her mother said every time they moved and while the rest of her family seemed to believe
this was good news, for Lane all a fresh start meant was a new place in which she would not feel at home.
“You should try acting like you belong,” her sister
would counsel when it was time to start a new school.
“Try and look worth knowing.”
Shelley was full of advice like that, the kind that
sounded good until Lane thought about it. How exactly
would a person go about looking worth knowing?
“You’re too quick to settle,” her sister complained one
day after seeing Lane eating lunch with an awkward compan-
ion. “Don’t glom on to the first person who shows an in-
terest. Wait a week to pick who your friends are.”
In Lane’s experience, picking friends was not an op-