Still unable to sleep—even after what feels like hours later—I go down the hall and peek into my parents’ room. Dad’s sleeping on the pullout couch. The bed is unmade and vacant.
A book lies splayed open on the table beside him. I move closer and shine my phone’s flashlight over the title: Father Failure. He’s dog-eared a page to a chapter called “Absence.”
Mom is absent too. I go downstairs and find her sitting in the living room with my doll in her lap. The full moon streams in through the window glass, blanketing her with light.
I clear my throat to get her attention.
She looks up, startled to see me. Her fingers curl around Pammy’s leg.
“Why are you up?” I ask her.
“I couldn’t really sleep.”
“Was Dad tossing too much? I saw him on the pullout.”
She manages a smile, but her eyes can’t lie. “Your father and I have been on two entirely different schedules lately. Sometimes it’s just easier to sleep in separate beds so we don’t disturb one another.”
I feel the tears all the way to my gut; a chain reaction that causes my stomach to convulse, my throat to constrict, and my upper lip to tremble—and not because of the obvious problems my parents are having but more because, despite her own angst, she’s still trying to protect me.
I turn away so she can’t see my face, trying to protect her too. “Do you still talk to Dr. White?”
“I do, and Daddy’s going to start coming to sessions too. Would you like to make another appointment?”
“I think I may have someone else in mind.”
“Anyone I know?”
“Can we talk about it tomorrow? I should really get back to bed.”
“Want me to make you some Sweet Dream Tea? Remember? Like when you were little…”
I do remember. On nights when I was convinced that ghouls and goblins lived under my bed, Mom would make the magical tea, and I’d drift off to heavenly sleep. “You used to sit by my bed until I nodded off.”
Mom snuggles Pammy closer and kisses the crown of her head.
“Do you think you could do that now?” I ask. “Sit by my bed until I fall asleep?”
Mom looks up as though checking to see if she heard me right. When I don’t say anything to correct the words, her eyes fill.
She stands up, setting Pammy down, still hesitating, still not quite believing. She places her hand over the hole that is her heart.
We go upstairs. Mom lies beside me on my bed. It takes me a moment to notice the box of brownies between us, as well as the broken piece of drywall propped against my headboard—the one with the tally marks. Mom doesn’t mention either of them, and neither do I. We simply face one another like bookends with a library of self-help topics between us.
She begins to hum the song about favorite things from The Sound of Music. I close my eyes and picture some of those things (gold-trimmed notebooks, blue-frosted cake, gel pens, novels, and Lemon’s wide hazel eyes), remembering how, back when I was little and Mom used to sing the song, she’d add in all of my favorite items, the way Maria does in the movie.
Part of me is tempted to share my current list so she could do the same now. But instead I roll onto my side and drift off to sleep.