Asher pressed his face against the oven for at least twenty of those minutes. And he licked his lips and made slurping noises while Rex quietly cleaned the dishes and Willow quietly set the table.
Willow hadn’t known cooking could be so structured. So serious. So silent. But for tonight, it beat her lonely word searches on her lonely beanbag chair.
And when the oven timer dinged, Asher held a fork up next to his face and stretched his eyes so wide. Rex tilted his head, looked straight at his son and tapped the final highlighted direction of the recipe three times.
“We have to let it cool for fifteen minutes, Ash. It says it right here.”
Asher frowned dramatically, lowered the fork to his side and slumped over his plate.
And when exactly fifteen minutes passed, Rex sliced the lasagna into a perfect four-by-three grid and served each of his children the dinner they had made with their father.
“GWOSS!” Asher shouted and spit his mashed-up mush of pasta and cheese and vegetables from his mouth onto his plate. He marched over to the pantry and grabbed a bag of Parmesan Goldfish and shoveled its contents into his mouth.
Willow waited for Rex to shout. To force Asher to finish his dinner anyway. But he didn’t. He just stared down at his plate and forked bite after bite of bland lasagna into his mouth. The pasta wasn’t good.
All three of them knew it.
With a growling tummy, Willow jammed her fork into her rectangular pile of lasagna and looked forward to the next Spaghetti Sunday.
* * *
When Spaghetti Sunday rolled around, Willow had to face the truth of what was in front of her. Because up until now, the formidable wall of denial she had built was so high Willow almost couldn’t see over it. But tonight, her mother’s emptiness stared her right in the face over several cartons of uneaten Lo Mein from the Chinese take-out place around the corner.
Earlier in the evening, unprompted, Willow had donned her favorite apron and helped Asher into his. They raced each other upstairs, bumping elbows and laughing the whole way up to get their mother.
“Spaaaaaaghetti time!” Asher shouted when he reached Mom’s door. But the door was shut. Again. Willow tried twisting the knob but it stuck rigidly in its place. Again.
“I ordered Chinese,” Rosie forced out from the other side of the door. But she spoke straight from her throat, too tired to put any diaphragm behind words. “It should be here soon. Go play. I’ll meet you down there in a minute.”
Asher nonchalantly slid down the railing but Willow lingered. She pressed her ear to the door. She couldn’t decipher any sounds but she could feel her mother’s tears saturating the air. She could feel the damp depression of the room behind the closed door. It had happened. The fear had its way with her heart. And now, in front of that closed door, Willow’s heart was torn in shreds by the claws that had been progressively sinking themselves deeper and deeper into her.
Rosie joined her children at the table for dinner, but only in body. She swirled her soy sauce around with a chopstick as she leaned her head on her arm. There was nothing left of the mother she used to be inside of her.
Asher stuck his face into a pile of white rice and sat back up with several grains stuck to his face. “Rice fweckles!” he shouted, revealing his big tooth gap. Willow looked over at her mother. This was the kind of thing Mom loved. Used to love. The kind of thing she would laugh about, and then replicate on her own face. The kind of thing she would do every subsequent time rice was put in front of her.
But Rosie didn’t react at all. Even Willow could see there wasn’t a thing in this world that could bring a smile to her face.
And without intending to, Willow absorbed her mother’s sadness from across the table. And she sat there in her seat at the kitchen table as her mother pushed a single grain of rice from one edge of her plate to the other. Over and over and over again. Over and over and over again until she went upstairs and slipped under her empty sheets.
* * *
Willow fell asleep in her bed slowly and in tears but woke up suddenly to the clicking of the first rain of spring on her roof. She felt her full bladder pressing against her belly. “Don’t go,” Willow pleaded with herself audibly as she felt her bladder swell. “Please don’t go.” But before the fear of the storm was going to cause Willow to wet the bed again, she unraveled herself from her covers and ran to her mother’s room. The purple glasses would help. She burst through the door to Mom’s bedroom. But her mother’s bed was empty and uncharacteristically stiff. The sheets were still ruffled and the pillows were still scattered, but there were no signs that a body had been curled up in there. And the pillow had no indent to indicate a head had been pressed into it. It was all so firm and cold. So unlike the bed that Willow had tucked herself into next to her mother so many times. But at the sound of another wave of rain drumming on the roof, Willow wrapped herself in Mom’s taut sheets and squeezed her eyelids shut. Even though she was alone in there.
Thoughts began to orbit and then swirl so fast Willow was dizzy with it. Dizzy with the knowledge that things were never going to be the same with her mother.
I need those glasses.
I need Mom.
I need those glasses.
I need something.
From anyone.
Something.
Anyone.
Something.
Anyone.
I need those glasses.
I need Mom.
I need those glasses.
I need something.
From anyone.
Something.
Anyone.
Willow’s bladder pulsed again as she lay frozen in her bed, afraid that any movement might shake the urine loose. “Don’t go,” Willow said to herself, now more forcefully. “Please don’t go.” And thoughts of her mother continued to swirl all around until she fell back asleep.
But before she even drifted into another dream of her mother the way she used to be, Willow half woke up to a pair of strong hands sliding gently underneath her back. She forced one eyelid open a crack. It was her father. Curling her up in his arms. Draping her wrists over his shoulders and around his neck. Pressing her cheek into his chest. Willow’s body was still heavy with sleep and she let her dad carry every ounce of her weight. Her torso bounced up and down with the steady cadence of her father’s steps.
From Rosie’s bedroom doorway to his car in the driveway, Rex carried Willow so gently and so lovingly. And for that same distance, Willow allowed herself to be carried. Feeling that gentleness. Feeling that love.
As Rex placed her delicately in the back of his car, Willow felt her father’s lips on the top of her head. A little kiss. A little, gentle, loving kiss. Willow smiled and drifted right back into sleep with her seat belt resting on her chest and her head on the warm leather of the car seat.
35
Three Months Ago
Nothing special had happened the day that Rosie decided that she wanted to start over. But she made a decision that she wanted to be the old Rosie. The old Rosie with Willow and Asher next to her.
And she made a plan for doing it that did not include this house or Rex or anything in Virginia. A plan that would take her back to that apartment in Manhattan where she was once so happy. Where she felt love in Rex’s arms. Where she felt love with Willow in her belly. Where she envisioned what her family would look like. Where she hung that locket on the wall and expected to be that happy forever.
Rosie was so excited about her thought, so resolute in making it real, that she drove straight to Robert Kansas Elementary School to share it with her daughter. To tell Willow all about the new life they would have. Rosie would finally use that key to 299 East 82nd Street. The one that Rex left on her bedside table years ago. That key Rex left beside her in her saddest moment. That key that promised happier times again once she had the c
ourage to start over.
But when Rosie saw her daughter’s wobbly legs running toward her through the backyard of the school, Rosie’s insides churned and her resolve broke. She knew the old Rosie was gone. She knew she could never make it back to 299 East 82nd Street no matter how much she wanted to. She knew it even as she once again led Willow up into the branches of that willow tree and told her daughter she would take her with her to that apartment. She couldn’t stop her words from flowing out of her body and into Willow. She couldn’t stop wanting it to be true. Willing it and saying it and saying it and willing it. She wished everything she said would just stay there up in that tree with her daughter. That she could keep Willow and those words hidden by the cold leaves.
Rosie knew that her fantasy was irresponsible. And she knew that sharing her fantasy with her young daughter was even more irresponsible. But she ached for the Rosie in that fantasy. She ached for it in her blood. In her marrow. And saying it out loud breathed life into it. Infused it with attainability. But the whole fantasy was just that, a fantasy. No matter how terribly irresponsible it was to say those things to her daughter, it still warmed her heart to share them with Willow in that tree.
It still warmed her heart when her daughter believed in it. When her daughter believed in her. When her daughter wanted to go with her. When her daughter listened to her and hugged her and told her she loved being up there with her mother.
Rosie knew she shouldn’t have said those things, but she wanted another chance at effervescence. She wanted another chance at immortality. And even if her spirit might not be recovered in this world, it could still be celebrated by Willow somehow, somewhere.
But by the time Rosie got back home a couple hours later, her fantasy turned into guilt. And that guilt turned into another three white pills sliding down her throat even though there was only another hour until she had to pick up her children from school at the end of their day. And once the Vicodin was coursing through her blood, her fuzzy mind couldn’t stop her from driving all the way up onto the curb of Robert Kansas Elementary School.
She knew it was all so bad. She knew she was spinning out of control.
The next day, while she waited quietly at home before picking her kids up from Rex’s house, Rosie promised herself that she would never again drive high. Especially if her children were in the car. And she promised herself that she would never parent while she was high. And she pulled herself off the couch and marched upstairs with the intention of flushing every last white pill down the toilet.
She opened the top drawer in her closet, twisted the cap off the translucent orange tube and dumped a handful of pills into her palm. She balled her fist so tightly, so intently around them, and walked into her bathroom toward the toilet. She balled her hands so tightly in her hatred of those little white pills. Her hatred of the damage they had caused her. To the damage they had caused her marriage and her husband. The damage they had already caused her children.
But on the way, she caught herself in the mirror and looked straight into her own eyes. Straight into her tired, vacant eyes.
And then she watched those tired vacant eyes fill up with tears as she dropped four white pills into her mouth. She fell into her bed and let the tingly high overtake her arms, and then her legs, and then her fingertips, and then her eyelids. And then she stood up, pulled her feet across the carpet of her bedroom and then across the wood flooring of the staircase, and then the asphalt of the driveway, and got into her car.
* * *
Even though she was stoned.
Even though she promised herself she wouldn’t do this.
Even though she wished none of this was happening.
Rosie drove to Rex’s house to pick up her children.
* * *
Rex had already made sure that Willow and Asher had packed everything they needed for their mother’s house when Rosie pulled into his driveway and honked the horn twice.
“Be good for Mom,” Rex said as he let his children out the front door, all the while quietly hoping that their mom was going to be good for them.
Rex expected Rosie to give him the coy wave from the front seat she always did. He expected her to tip her oversize sunglasses down onto the tip of her nose and say, “Hey, Rex.” He expected her to get out of the car and hug her children. He expected her to get her red lipstick all over their cheeks when she kissed them hello. He expected her to take their bags and toss them casually into the trunk and drive away with Prince vibrating through the speakers.
As Willow and Asher maneuvered themselves into the back of Rosie’s car, Rex’s insides twisted and his face started tingling. Something wasn’t right here. Something wasn’t right with Rosie.
He watched Willow tug the heavy door twice before she was able to get it to close. And then Rosie began to drive away. And as she did, one tire rolled onto the cobblestone edging that lined the driveway before the car swerved back onto the pavement.
Rex knew exactly what it meant when he saw his ex-wife’s car moving like that. He knew how Rosie talked, and walked, and sounded, and drove when she was high on those little white pills. And this was it. This was exactly it.
Rex’s chest tightened and he lost his breath. His ears got hot and his fingers tingled. His jaw tensed and his spine straightened. The divorce had already brought so much anger, so much sadness into Rex’s body. But the sight of Rosie driving stoned with his children in the car filled him with a fiery rage. It burned through his whole entire being.
He would do anything to keep his children from drowning in Rosie’s wake. From suffering one more ounce. He would do anything at all. Anything at all to save them.
And for Rex, anything at all meant brute force. Of body and soul and will.
36
As Willow opened her eyes, she was comforted by the idea that she knew what she would see. Those blue walls. That wicker dresser. The gray lattice carpet. The set of lacy throw pillows on the floor next to the bed.
But today, when Willow’s eyelids separated and she inhaled the morning, all of her senses filled with something new. There was an unfamiliar airiness around her. There were pale yellow walls and light wood floors. There was a light salty breeze rattling the old windowpanes. There were thin white curtains undulating freely in the wind.
Willow rubbed her eyes in an effort to bring some clarity to the scene. But those yellow walls, that salty taste in the air, that creaky wooden bed. They were all still there. She peeked her head out the window and saw ocean. Blue, swirling, rhythmic ocean. Willow made her way down the thin staircase cautiously. Her left knee buckled and she tightened her grip on the wooden railing.
There was Dad, posed at the kitchen table with his steaming coffee. Right leg crossed over left in a nearly familiar scene. But as Willow scanned the room, all the differences revealed themselves immediately. There was already the breeziness and the lightness of the walls. But there was also a pile of eggs and a game of Candy Land poised to be played on the kitchen table too. Willow rubbed her tired eyes again and when she lifted her hands, Asher had already popped his head out from underneath the table.
“Finally!” he shouted, shoveled a forkful of eggs into his mouth and moved the plastic orange Candy Land figure to its starting position block. Willow took a seat at the table and looked at her father, and then at Asher, and then at her father, and then, without any questions, moved a purple plastic figure next to Asher’s and slipped into this new kind of morning with Dad. This new kind of Wednesday morning with Dad in a T-shirt and breakfast on the table. With board games and open windows. With the April air swirling around her. With the sound of waves tumbling onto the sand.
There were questions Willow almost wanted to ask. Where are we? How did we get here? Why are we here? Are we going to school? Where is Mom? How long will we stay here?
But as she pulled her first card from the stack in the middle of the ga
me board, she let those questions slip out to sea with the receding tide she could see from the kitchen window. Willow didn’t want the moment to unravel. And there was a sense that the lightest tug on any loose string could unwind this precariously woven but beautiful moment her father had crafted.
The three of them turned over game cards and counted spaces until Asher made it to the Candy Castle at the end of the board. And all the way along, they giggled over setbacks and fortuitous color jumps. Over Gramma Nutt and her peanut brittle house. Over Lord Licorice and his sharp chin. Over Mr. Mint and his candy cane legs.
And Rex and Willow and Asher all swirled around in their laughter and happiness. They allowed themselves to be enveloped in each other’s laughter and happiness. They allowed themselves to stay so present in it. And when the game was over, and it was about to get quiet, Dad kept the fun flowing. Kept the love flowing.
“Want to head down to the beach?” he asked casually and hopefully. “It’s usually just warm enough in April.”
Willow nodded her head and her wild hair bobbed around. Asher exposed the big gap in his teeth with a full smile.
But then Willow’s chin sank down. “But I didn’t bring a bathing suit,” Willow said to her father. He was always disappointed when they weren’t prepared.
But today was different.
“I got ’em right here for both of you,” Rex told his daughter. And Willow noticed how her father’s chest puffed out at these words. She noticed how his chest puffed out at what fatherhood could also look like if he were just a little bit less demanding of structure and perfection. If he were just a little bit more open to fun. A little bit more willing to love freely.
Asher and Willow cheered and dived into their bathing suits and then the ocean. The water still had some of its winter chill in it, but it felt so good as it first shocked, and then soothed Willow’s skin. There was splashing and diving and toes covered in sand. There were boogie boards and breath-holding contests and cartwheels. There was fun. Unadulterated wholesome all-consuming fun.
Rosie Colored Glasses Page 17
