been and gone

My beloved children came home for Easter dinner tonight, each bringing a best friend who is also like family.  I spent the morning chopping, stuffing, peeling, riding my bicycle to the Gerrard Street Chinatown for more provisions, because even with a 13 lb. turkey and a mountain of stuffing, broccoli, potatoes and gravy, there wasn't enough food.  

Then there they were - noise, laughter, teasing, joking, insults, phones ringing, giant shoes and one stylish small pair piling up in the hall.  Sam, who's hungover, is showing me a clip of himself on YouTube sucking on helium balloons and singing rude songs; Anna, whose hair is much darker than it was last time, is taking pictures with her phone when she's not talking or texting on it; Heyward wants feedback on a short story he has written about a bad boy getting revenge on Santa Claus, and Giles is slicing sweet potato and drinking a bottle of his own homemade wine.  

How many turkeys have I cooked for us to eat together, the kids and I and usually a friend or three?  At least fifty, and I still rejoice when the food is laid out, ready to go, for those few moments before it disappears.  Afterwards the boys helped clear up and then watched "The Simpsons," while Anna helped me choose clothes to take on my upcoming trip.  ("Mum, for God's sake, give that jacket back to George Michael and the eighties!") For a few hours, it felt like they had never left.

But they have left, and they did so again.  They packed up their mail, their tubs of leftovers, the microwave I bought Sam at a garage sale, the TV a neighbour is passing on to Anna, and they went home.  And now the house is silent once more, and I can go back to work.  

Since the kids happily moved out, leaving me with two rent-paying tenants and a computer called MacZine, I have plunged into work in a concentrated way I've rarely been able to muster in the last 27 years.  The reason is simple: the house is quiet, and I have no one to worry about except the voices on the page.