Looking back with Lot's Wife

September 20, 2000 Cheap, cheap, cheap, go the little birds flying around in our brains. They tell us that somewhere, somewhere I don’t know about, there’s a deal, the deal of the century, just waiting for me. It might be motor oil at 50 cents a quart, or giant bags of cheetos for 10 cents. Somewhere they’re giving away diamonds and furs and buy-one-get-one-free cars, to those who say the ad and got to the store early. We jump through all kinds of hoops to save money. We drive into the special dark and firey place that is saved for those sending in a rebate, complete with the proofs of purchase and circled receipts and stamped self-addressed stamped envelopes, all to get a quarter back in the mail six weeks later. Fastidious, well-dressed women carry around tattered files filled with coupons for diapers. People who can’t find their children at 11 o’clock at night can remember that they have a 23-cent coupon for orange juice that expires on October 30. These aren’t prizes or lottery win...

September 6, 2000 Day One. There is actually room on the dining room table to eat now that the piles of laundry are gone. The computer manuals are finally off the coffee table. There’s room to park the car in the garage. No one will be coming home at 2 in the morning. Excuse me, I think I’m going to bawl again. After the bustle of finding empty boxes, extra hangers, towels, sheets, soap, our last kid has flown the coop, lit out on his own, gone to college. The car is filled with the sound of our quiet sniffles as we drive home from Cedar City. I keep thinking about all the things I thought we were going to do when we were alone: eat salmon (Ew, not fish! The whole house stinks mom”); go to bed early (“I’m sorry to call so late, mom. Did I wake you up? I’ll be home in an hour”); walk around naked in the living room (just kidding.) I want to keep his room as a shrine. If I could find his bed, I’d sit on it and cry. I can’t believe he’s really gone. It’s all over, I’m never going to be an...