CHAPTER THREE
It’s late enough when I get home that not only did I fail to pick Mackenzie up directly from school like I’d double, triple, I’ll-get-it-right-this-time promised, I didn’t even get to tuck her in. By the time I’m off and out, she’s not even at my house. I have to go to my parents’ and pick her up. I tell myself that if she’s asleep, I’ll just ask Mom and Dad to keep her and try again in the morning. I’ll have to find some other way, if that happens, to make myself feel better. I have several ideas how to do that. None are good.
Dad is reading the paper when I arrive. He lowers it slightly, peering at me over the top of his glasses.
“Hey, Baby Girl.”
“Hey, Dad. Where’s Mom?”
“What, you don’t want to talk to me?”
“Okay. What’s up, Daddy?”
“Inflation,” he says then folds the paper with an air of the-world’s-going-go-hell-and-what-you-gonna-do, takes off his brown-frame glasses, and sets both aside. “I thought you were done with double shifts. You must really like it there.”
“As if. One of the girls cut herself, so I had to stay and take over for her.”
“Well, that was really good of you, Pumpkin. She gonna be okay?”
“I’m sure.” I look around. “Where is Mom?”
“I don’t know. Making more doilies to sell on the computer.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
He shrugs. My dad doesn’t understand technology. Even the technology he should understand, and he’s not superold. I mean, it’s not like he was Methuselah when AOL came online. I always understood on an intellectual level that I was born late and that my siblings were nearly old enough that they could almost have been my parents, but to me, Mom and Dad were just Mom and Dad, not old Mom and Dad. In a way, the fact that they’d been around the block with the others before me was a real advantage because they’d already seen it all — and on the flip side, hadn’t seen anything like me. I’m sure my brother and sisters never sneaked out of the house at night, so they never saw it coming when I did. I was good at being quiet and never got caught, until I got caught in the most obvious way possible, when Mackenzie started stirring inside me.
“Thanks for picking Mackenzie up.”
“It was good timing. I’d just finished up the green Victorian.” He brightens and sits up. “You want to see it?”
“Maybe tomorrow.”
“Oh. It’s a lot like that first house. The one I made you?”
“I remember.” How could I forget? I pretended to be into dolls for years after I’d stopped caring about them just so Dad’s gift would get use. Then I set it up as a kind of shrine, furnished but not active. It’s still up there, in my old room, where Mackenzie is probably sleeping now.
“Lots of black kids at that after-school program,” Dad says, as if it’s something to ponder. Something to jaw about while you smoke around the old barrel with other white men.
“Daddy!”
“What? There are.”
On cue, my mother enters the room. She’s wearing a house dress, and her hair is somehow … well, not up, per se, but still definitely in a mess above her head that I would never think to attempt. I can see dried glue on her hands. I want to ask, but I’m a little afraid she’ll tell me today’s Etsy craft involves gluing googly eyes to clamshells. It’s happened before.
“What are you going on about now, Arthur?”
“I just said there’s a lot of black kids at Mackenzie’s after-school program.”
“Oh, yes,” says my mother.
“That’s … that’s nice, you guys.”
“Am I supposed to pretend there aren’t black kids there? I like black kids.”
“That’s even better. Maybe you could get a sign that says as much, and put it on the side of your van.”
“Maya, be nice,” Mom says.
“I don’t know why this is a problem. I just made a comment. It’s not like I said there’s anything wrong with it. Lots of black folks in Inferno Falls in general these days. Mexicans, too. Didn’t used to be this way when you kids were growing up. But I don’t have anything against them. They’re mostly just like us. I say hi to all of them when I find them.”
“Jesus, Dad.” He makes it sound like a vaguely racist scavenger hunt.
After I speak, they both look at me. I flinch and sense a reminder not to take the Lord’s name in vain, but after all this time the stare does plenty. The understanding filters between us, and I stay mute in penance, my eyes flicking down despite my impatience and the stress that’s still threatening to make me do things I know I’d better not do. I feel torn, and the tear makes me feel like confessing in the holy spirit that’s rippled through the room. Because I want them to tell me Mackenzie is still awake so I can take her home — but I want just as badly for them to say she’s gone for the night and I may as well go home alone. I feel horrible that half of me wants my daughter unavailable, but the pressure is hard, right now, to deny. And this despite my earlier convictions. I can’t help it. After all this time, it’s almost a hardwired response. I don’t know how else to deal, how else to make the darkness retreat when it knocks.
An unfair thought flicks through my mind as I stand on my parents’ carpet, feeling horny and horrible:
Damn you, Grady.
But it’s not his fault. It’s not even close to his fault, something soft within me screams. Even if everything would be different, now, if he’d never left. I’m broken. For a while, Grady loved me in spite of how I am, but now he’s not here.
“Is Mac awake?”
“I just put her down,” Mom says. “She heard your car pull in.”
“But you put her to bed anyway?”
“I wasn’t sure if you wanted to take her back with you tonight or not.”
Shit. I hate the way she put that. Now it’s a decision. I can leave her here in order to knock off the dust of a difficult day if I’d like, but doing so would make me a monster. She’ll be happy here, and I won’t let my bullshit touch her. Nobody will know just how selfish a choice that would be, except me. And as someone whose dignity and self-respect have taken a beating for the past nine years, I can’t afford to think bad of myself right now. I want to feel good. I need to feel wanted. But I can’t be the mother who leaves her daughter just so she can score her two-legged drug.
“Of course I want to take her home.”
Mom shrugs. I feel like I should get applause for making the tough choice, but nobody can know I’ve made it. Like any professional addict, I hide my addiction well. Everyone thinks I’m a good little girl. A girl who goes to church with her parents every now and then, who still manages to volunteer in the scant time she has. A girl who believes in God. But I’m none of those things. Not for real. I never have been and never will be. To my parents, I was a sinner just one time. It was a slip. Their denial won’t let them believe that I was always wild, that I’ve slapped their convictions in the face hundreds of times before and after, over and over.
When no congratulations come — when Mom and Dad both act like I’ve said something obvious that involved no internal deliberations — I walk up the stairs. The plodding is hard because until I’m at the top, I’ll only want harder. It was a hideous day and an even more terrible second shift, wherein Ed rode me like a rented mule. Roxanne practically pushed crap onto the floor in my path until she left for the night, and did so with a sneer … and, somehow, a reminder that she makes better tips than I do because she’s a better waitress and much prettier.
I got a smoking-hot customer during my second shift. He had an ivory smile and wasn’t shy about flashing it. Most guys who eat by themselves are shy or awkward or all business, preferring to be left alone. This one wasn’t. He seemed to be eating only to tempt me. He wasn’t wearing a ring. He told me he thought my hair was like fire. He said his name was “Chadd with two d’s,” all in one phrase, like the full thing was what everyone called him. He didn’t try to give me his phone number. But I know where he is right now.
I can still turn around. I can still take it back. In fact, I can talk to Mackenzie, tuck her in, and make her think it’s her decision to stay. Grandma makes chocolate chip pancakes, and if she stays over, they’ll be waiting for her in the morning. I’d never make chocolate chip pancakes as a matter of course because they’re not very healthy. And I always do what’s best for my baby girl.
Like not disappointing her, yet again, by making a promise to pick her up early so we can do something together then breaking it.
Like not leaving her in perfectly capable and loving hands, if the reason is because I want to satisfy my carnal itch.
Still, despite beating myself up, the last few steps aren’t easy. I’ve conditioned myself that when things get hard, a release follows. I feel terrible and guilty. Those awful feelings feed my lust. The worse I feel, the more inclined I am to slip, and do something that will make me feel so much worse.
Like I am what I fear I am.
Like I’m a bad mother. A bad daughter. A bad friend. A bad person.
But when I arrive at the guest bedroom door — which used to be my bedroom, with my trusty escape tree still right outside the window — I find my little girl sitting up with the covers pooled around her waist. This was a rescue from daycare, so she’s still in her day clothes.
“Mom!” she says, her face brightening.
I feel something shatter inside like a dropped vase. All the wrong impulses flee in an instant, and I almost want to sigh with relief. Already, I can’t believe what I was considering. Leaving my daughter here so I could run off and find a hot guy who smiled at me? What kind of a person would do something like that?
I go to her, smiling. Mackenzie is and always has been a smile maker. She’s the kind of person who brightens a room, and not just because she’s a kid. I’m sure she’ll be as much of a beacon when she’s an adult. One of those people others love to be around because she makes them feel better about themselves, their world, their future, everything.
When I look into my little girl’s eyes, I can almost believe that everything will be all right.
I won’t be alone forever. We won’t be alone forever.
Mackenzie isn’t going to grow up with her father for sure, but maybe there’s someone else out there, somewhere, who’ll fill the job. Not someone like Chadd. His hotness isn’t the same as tenderness and responsibility. We deserve someone kind. Someone who loves us both. Someone who’s enough for me every night, even if all we’re doing is only sitting side by side. I’ve never had that — that simplicity of a proper adult relationship.
My parents have been together forever, and interestingly it’s the boring moments between them that fascinate me most. The way Dad reads his paper and Mom ignores him to make her stupid crafts to sell on Etsy. I’ve never been in a relationship that had enough breathing room — enough confidence in itself — to be boring. With Grady, things were always fun and exciting. With everyone else, even when I’ve tried to have dates, I’ve usually let them settle to the lowest common denominator. Interestingly, what intrigues me most today is the idea of a relationship that sometimes just is. A family that has the space, in its abundance of unity, to take itself for granted.
To have so much love, affection, and comfort that there simply isn’t any way to make it all riveting. A normal life, with as many stand-stills as thrilling ups and downs. Yes, I could do that.
When I look into Mackenzie’s eyes, I can almost believe it’s all possible. It’s all likely. I took a decade’s detour to have my kid, waitressing to make ends meet. But any time I want, I can resume studying in the time I have. I can go back to school and pick up where I left off.
Mac and I can travel like I always wanted to. We can get out and see the world.
It’s not a pipe dream.
It’s not impossible.
It’s not like we’re living day to day, paycheck to paycheck, as I refuse to take my parents’ charity.
I’m so conflicted as I hug her — hope and desperation brewing, with accents of hurt and guilt and even the echoes of longing — that I want to cry. And it must show because after I let go, she’s inspecting me with her big blue eyes, an older-than-her-years stare assessing me as if I’m transparent.
I’m sure she’ll tell me about her day. About Grandpa picking her up and bringing her here, to take her on a tour of his latest dollhouse.
I’m sure she’ll ask why I was late, without judgment or blame or disappointment.
I’m sure she’ll wonder if we can do something tomorrow, which is something I’ll fall all over myself to promise, for sure, without reservation, of course, because I’m not a monster, really I’m not.
But Mackenzie says none of those things.
Sitting upright in my old bed in my old room, seeing my tears, she says, “It’ll all be okay, Mommy.”