Remember the time: Life at Jenny’s

Time eluded me as I rushed my husband out of Jenny’s so I could set up his surprise party, set to start two hours later.

He had just finished final sanding of old wood floors in his childhood home, and we were wrapping up our three-year rescue job of the place, three years after Jenny — his mom —died there.

The floors were still covered in fine dust as I shoved him out the door and I had to vacuum it up, believe it or not, before I could get in party mode.

My party timing was a little bit off, I admit, but there was little time to spare to worry about it as I started sweating, in my party clothes, over the floors. He had noticed I looked nice, though not enough to figure out it was for his party that night.

The invitations asked guests to arrive at 7, and he was set to be back at Jenny’s, well, at 7. He couldn’t be convinced to leave the floor job any longer than that — it still needed several coats of varnish — even to “help” our friend who had spent hours there with him the night before. So yeah the timing was tight.

Sisters and mom, thankfully, started arriving soon after he left to help hang decorations and here came his sister carting two big crock-pots of pork barbecue and a huge birthday poster with pictures of my husband when he was a baby. But my dad?! Is that my dad walking across the lawn from the neighbor’s house?

Sure enough, he surprised me by showing up for the party, driving all the way from Jersey with my baby brother to boot, arriving near Jenny’s when my husband was still working inside. Thankfully, they went to the wrong house.

Tick-tick-tick, the appointed time was getting closer and hey, here comes his high school friend walking up to door and he’s already prime for partying if ya know what I mean. More and more guests arrive — my husband’s family, my family, lots of friends — and it’s getting pretty crowded up at Jenny’s.

Music turned up, his high school friend is watching the door, and, hey, the sky is starting to look pretty dark.

“He’s here!!”

Everyone rushes into Jenny’s old bedroom and I run out to greet him, stopping at the foot of the driveway so he won’t see the decorations in the backyard.

“There’s a problem,” I tell him when he asks why his brother and nephew’s trucks are parked out front. They gave us the final push needed to get Jenny’s habitable again and so it was a completely feasible lie: something had gone wrong — again.

Staying close to him as we enter the front door, he jumped back at the HUGE “surprise!” immediately looking down at his filthy clothes, the ones he was wearing to sand the floors. But there were no worries now — I had pulled it off. I really got him.

It started to pour rain almost immediately, chasing off at least two guests who arrived minutes after my husband and right as the heavens opened. The storm passed after about 30 minutes though and the party spilled outside into the wonderfully large and lush green yard, which I always thought was the best part of Jenny’s house.

Right up in the middle of town, the party went later and later and time blurred. The cops came at one point, but only because a lady’s bag was stolen from her car in the store parking lot across the street.

They told us the music wasn’t too loud, go figure. My husband’s high school friend, somehow, served as party spokesman to the authorities, and it was all pretty hilarious.

Our country-style meal was delicious even though I barely had time for a bite. All of the champagne punch, requiring five bottles and completely filling up Jenny’s beautiful scalloped punch bowl, got drank. My entire family — all 10 of us — was present and accounted for along with about three dozen others.

By 11 p.m., one of our friends had pulled his SUV and its stereo into the driveway for a Michael Jackson dance party that was quite consoling, I must say. Time melted by until it was about 2 a.m., by which time a tent had been set up in the yard. Several people set up makeshift beds inside and were sleeping and I was ready for the same at our home a few miles from town.

My husband looked at me, amazed at the evening behind us, forgetting he was still in his work clothes. But back to work at Jenny’s it would be on Monday.

Yes, he took care of sanding and finishing the old floors in two bedrooms, but there was still the paint-speckled, grime-covered, lopsided living room floor to do and the sander wasn’t going to work on that one. I was going to have to manhandle it with Brillo pads and a razorblade — on my hands and knees and sopping wet with wash water.

It took eight hours and I think I blacked out at one point. By night’s end, my hands were unbelievably pruned. Many, many cuts and scrapes on my hands were sorely evident by morning and I spent the next week at work typing with Band-aids on my fingers. I felt like a laborer. I was tired.

Working at Jenny’s was our labor of love, it had to be love that kept bringing us back; though I’ve said it before it begs repeating. That house almost took my soul.

But there’s life over there again, and the ghosts have dispersed. A lovely family, our family, now calls the place home and we couldn’t have done it without them. I’m still not over missing Jenny, but she’d be happy with the state of her place.

Now that we’re finished, we can focus on improving our own house (I’ll give my husband a few months) or maybe my sweat investment at Jenny’s is worth a down payment on my own house in town. I think I deserve it.