8:46 p.m.
An hour ago, I avoided the desire to burn the house down and joined my family for dinner.
“I want to go outside,” Jess says. “I’ll miss the snow soon, and I still haven’t played in it!”
I try to sound like a mom. “Sure, Jess. Let’s all go out and play around in the snow a bit before you go. Your dad can turn on the big outside lights so we can even get a picture of you for your new fiancé.” I may want the photograph for myself too.
Jess falls to the rug like the dancers from that competition show (of which she made me watch all twelve seasons). They celebrate good news, such as getting fake plane tickets to the next round of scrutiny by throwing themselves onto a hardwood floor. She slips her flimsy fashion boots on and hops back up.
“Dad? Did you hear that? You’re on light duty. Also, get your snow gear on! We’re playing in the woods.” I never said anything about the woods. Secrets are buried in my woods.
“No woods; we stay in the yard.” It’s firm. Maybe Taylor discovered one of my secrets once upon a time. It would explain a lot.
I feel Jess’s, “But Daaaad” coming on. Taylor quells it with a look. She puts on her leather gloves. Silver buttons run along the outside and wrap around the wrist. Like her boots, the gloves were intended for impractical, fashion purposes, not actual use in freezing weather, so they have no liner. The chill of the metal will be fire when the wind blows. I walk over and peek out of the blinds. Jess will be miserable.
10:15 p.m.
Her laugh is the music behind a story I’ve heard Taylor tell a hundred times. “And your mother—” Two deep breaths. “Your mother told him she’d rip you out of her so they could fight if he didn’t back off.” This story shows more of me than I want to share, and I’ve told Taylor that.
“Mom! You didn’t! You threatened to get rid of me?” Jess’s cold pink nose flares as her eyebrows disappear into her atrocious haircut. She half-heartedly throws another snowball at the branch Taylor declared their target. A shiver interrupts her laughter, whether from the cold air or the coldness of dear Mom, I’m unsure.
“I was eight months along. I was trying to tell the man that if he was going to try and take the wallet of a pregnant woman, we should be on even footing. I suppose I sounded crazy enough because he ran away. Honestly, I was scared out of my gourd,” I say. I wasn’t. The gun in my face caused a rush, similar to the one I get when I collect.
Jess’s eyes are still wide. They remind me of a staring contest we had when she was young. After only a few seconds, she broke her gaze away. I knew she could’ve lasted longer, so I asked what was wrong; I pretended to care more back then. Her answer: “I don’t like what I see.” Fair enough, I thought.
“Why didn’t you just give him your purse?” Jess asks. “Why bother with the grandstand? You were a woman alone.”
So many things my daughter doesn’t know. Can’t know. “I was pregnant,” I say. “I cannot be held responsible for my actions.”
“She’s right. Your mom was a little batshit when you were cooking, Rugrat.” And after. Taylor’s arm is a mechanical toy as it winds up—tick, tick, tick—and nails the target. Again. We don’t clap this time.
“Can we go in? I can’t believe how cold it’s gotten,” I interject to avoid further conversation. I clatter my teeth and rub my hands together.
“Good!” Jess lets out a sigh of relief. “I didn’t want to say it first.”
“It’s not that bad.” Taylor mocks us but is the first one to the door.
Inside, I shake off a snow-crusted coat and step out of my boots. Relishing the warmth, I head straight for the kitchen. Before I can reach for anything, Jess has three mugs, the drinking chocolate, and milk out on the counter. Melting snow and dirt clods trail from the door to where she’s standing.
“You didn’t take off your boots,” Taylor points out.
She shrugs. “I want cocoa. Everyone wants, I assume? Mom, you feel up to it?”
“When you take off your boots.” Eleanor is my next order of business, not mopping up your mess. Without Taylor to do the cleaning, I have so much more work on my hands.
“Sounds good. It’ll be my last bit of sugar until next year.” Taylor jokes. “Are you sure you don’t want one of us to make it?”
Jess kicks her shoes towards the door. “No. I want to make another cocoa for us all before I go.” I want to ask if we need any more cocoa.
“Okay, can mine have some whiskey?”
“Of course.” Her lip quivers for no real reason. She’s seven-years-old and faking a knee scrape for a popsicle. She’s eleven-years-old and needs a purple bike; her pink one’s too girly. She’s sixteen-years-old and desperate for the green mini skirt in the shop window.
“No tears, Jessica,” Taylor says like all of those other times when she got what she wanted. “You’ll see us in a month or two, right? For Christmas or Second Christmas? Maybe both?” The hope in his voice is disgusting.
Second Christmas is a faux holiday that happens anytime after December 25th and before February 1st. Taylor made it up so it would sting less when Jess inevitably skipped out on seeing us throughout the years.
Disappointment still clings like a skin suit as our daughter says, “Yeah, Second Christmas. Cole and I are staying in Prague for a while. We’ll be with his parents for First Christmas. I’ll miss you so much!” I hear nothing about school in her extended vacation.
“Us too,” I say with all the sincerity I have when I sing to my sweethearts.
Muffled from the bedroom, I hear, “We’ll miss you too, Rugrat.” When did Taylor leave?
“Mom, can you grab the whiskey again? I thought it was with the oils and vinegar, but it’s not,” Jess asks, dividing my attention.
“Sure, yeah. Why would it be there?”
She shifts the pot, and it scrapes along the stove. My ears wince. “Because it’s for cooking.”
“It’s for drinking, Jess. We put it in hot cocoa, so it’s in the cupboard above the stove with the rest of the booze.”
“I forgot about that. Ooh! Tequila. Let’s have a shot before I go.”
Taylor emerges in a set of our shared flannels. “No, no shots.” Since Jess is leaving in less than an hour, I can’t see a reason why Taylor would stay. The snow’s been much worse, and we’ve gone grocery shopping. I table that conversation for forty-five minutes from now.
She sighs. It was a stalling tactic. “Mom, I’m really going to miss you.”
“Me too, Jess.” I rub circles on Jess’s back, one of my mother’s nurturing gestures before she took to hanging my dolls from a tree in our backyard. The motion numbs my hand, and I think of Laura and the tissue-filled Saturday night I rubbed globs of menthol on her chest and back.
The whisk clangs against the pan, and Jess smiles. “Thanks, Mom. You always know what to do.” Do I? “Chocolate and liquor incoming!” She pours the thickened cocoa into mugs picked out for nostalgia’s sake. Mine has a green T-Rex with an open mouth. In a thought bubble, it shouts, “ROAR! I love you, Mom!” It’s blurry, and the mug’s innards have cracks underneath the glaze; still, I’ve held onto it. It’s a nice size and holds a value I can’t put my finger on. “Here you go.”
She hands Taylor the next cocoa in a blue mug with etched pine trees and a cabin that looks like ours on the front. “Thanks, Rugrat.” A small sip. A sigh. “Perfect drinking temperature, as always. And just the right amount of spike.”
“Glad you like it! Did you see which mugs I picked?” Her left eyebrow wiggles, and she holds hers ceremoniously. “It’s been a while, right?”
“It has,” I agree.
During a paint-a-thing party Jess’s friends put together “ironically,” I painted the mug Jess holds. Three gingerbread people are connected paper doll accordion-style with “Jess” scrolled below it. She and her friends were so caught up, she didn’t notice me painting it. Nor did she notice the gingerbread people had eyes the colors of her friends: green, blue, brown, and the hair colors of my last three sweethearts. When asked why they didn’t look like us, I shrugged. “Artistic license?”
Jess proposes a toast to the last winter she’ll be unmarried. I have questions about that, but like Taylor’s pajamas, I let it lie. She said winter, not month. It doesn’t have to be today’s problem.
As soon as the taxi arrives, we help Jess put her bags into her car. It happens so quickly, I barely register it. Mixed emotions swirl in my stomach like the snow still coming down outside. I’m weightless, floating above the scene of her leaving.
Taylor wishes her a safe flight and kisses the top of her head. I hug her goodbye, and the edges of her bobbed hair smack my mouth. I wish I had cut a piece of it while she was sleeping last night. Even in its wrongness, I want to keep its new, adult smell forever.
I try to clutch this moment, like last night’s dream. Then, too, I floated. I wore a peach dress with flowers, and Hailey sat at the edge of the backyard pool. A small puddle of blood lay on the chlorine water like oil and soaked my dress between my legs. The warm sun slowed my heart. I didn’t scream as Adelynn sunk beside me. As quickly as my dream came and went, so did Jess.
“I love you both! I’ll call you when I land,” she lies. We all know it. There’s a comfort in it though, even for me. If I can’t have her ugly hair, at least I can have her lies.
“I’m exhausted,” Taylor announces, grabbing a blanket before I can speak. “Mind if I stay on the couch again?”
“I do, actually.” I need to spend a few hours with my map. I didn’t have a chance to add the heart marker for Lori. I’ve already picked out the colored pencil I’ll use: Mid Green. I also need to plan a new route for my latest hopeful. And, as when anytime anything vaguely emotional happens, I figure I’ll have the dream where I’m drowning; I’ve been trying to see the end it since 1992. I thought I’d go to bed early in case that would help. “Jess is gone now, so you need to go back to wherever you were staying. You made your choice. A divorce is in the works.” I try to sound a little affected but am genuinely uninterested in anymore overly emotional exchanges for the evening.
“Alrighty then.” Taylor drops Mami’s quilt on the ground with watery eyes and trudges towards the key bowl, scooping up a neatly stacked pile of clothes on the way. “I wish we’d talked more.” Was the divorce a bluff? Was I supposed to push back for our marriage? “I tried.” What?
Opening the door and ushering Taylor out feels nice. I don’t have it in me to navigate the nuances of this situation. “Sure. Goodbye, Taylor.”
“Goodbye, Sam.”
A cluster of nerves in my chest unwinds when I press into the lock and click it to the right. Safe now.
11:21 p.m.
Holy shit.
My bedroom has been ravaged. Drawers gape open. Pajamas and jeans lay scattered on the floor. Hangers dangle naked, their clothing in piles on top of open boxes at the bottom of the closet. The basket that holds my book, reading glasses, nail scissors, and a small jar of lotion is upside down. The contents of my bag are strewn out on the bed.
Where is it? As I rifle through my chapstick, wallet, and receipts, I violate myself. The nail file is there, licorice, pack of gum, ibuprofen, check. There are only a few items, yet it seems to take an eternity to find—the mint tin. The mint tin is gone.
Panic sucks the moisture from my mouth, and breathing becomes a luxury.
Taylor found Lori’s hair.
“I tried.”