by Cathy Lamb
At the end of the dream I was standing with my feet in the ocean, the waves breaking, a sunset full of luminescent color and puffy clouds ahead of me. Up in the clouds was a closet door. The door was open, the golden sun behind it.
I woke up, gasping, my sheets tangled around my naked body and my neck. I brushed sweaty hair off my face.
I left all the lights off as I shakily climbed down the ladder; opened the closet; pushed aside the sponges, detergent, and Baggies; and pulled out the DVD. With my whole body sweating as if I’d sprung a hundred tiny leaks, I inserted the disc into the DVD player and sat back on my couch, suddenly freezing.
Aaron opened with a smile and a greeting. I could tell he was sober.
“Hi, My Meggie.” He waved. “I miss you. I wish you hadn’t left me, but I get it. I understand why you did. I don’t blame you at all, love. But after you left me, it was like, I can’t live.” Those black curls and his feather brushed his shoulders, those dark eyes steady on the camera, on me.
“I tried to live, but I couldn’t. I’m in too much pain. I’m always in too much pain. I’ve been in pain since I was a kid and my dad went to jail and my mom, my drunk mom, had all those boyfriends, in and out, boyfriends. I didn’t tell you, but one of those boyfriends . . .” His voice trailed off and he shook his head in disgusted disbelief. “Let’s say that men should not be doing that stuff with boys, and it went on for two years. It happened after my eighth birthday. It hurt, can’t tell you how much it hurt.” The calm left, to be replaced by that raging anger I was so familiar with. “He’d hold me facedown on my mom’s bed when she was at work, arms above my head. I told my mom. She didn’t believe me. She never believed me. Said I was a liar.”
He gritted his teeth, trying to get control, then teared up and ran his arm across his eyes. “Yep. She didn’t believe me, so it kept going on and on. It only stopped because he was arrested for kidnapping some other kid.” His face scrunched up and he exhaled, jagged and harsh. “So, lotta pain, Meggie, lotta pain. I started drugs early, started drinking early. Not good choices, but I was trying to get him out of my head. I was trying to kill him out of my head. I was trying not to kill my mom for what she did. Actually, for what she didn’t do.
“You said that I should have told you before we were married that I had all these problems. The depression and the nerves and the times when I was younger and tried to kill myself. You’re right, I should have.” The calm was back, the anger gone. “I didn’t tell you about it because I didn’t think you’d marry me if I did. I know, that was wrong, but see, My Meggie, I was totally in love with you. I was in love with your brain, lady, and your heart, and your soul, and how you thought, and I was in love with how you loved me. I didn’t want you to know. It was selfish. All about Aaron. Always about Aaron.
“I know I wasn’t a good husband. You think I don’t know that? I do. I said so many mean things to you. I ruined many years of your life. I’m a nightmare. I know I am, and so often I could feel myself slipping, hitting the downward spiral, my brain on fire, my thoughts so fast I couldn’t even hold onto them, like they’re on a train and I’m not, and you paid for my being on that train.
“It might seem like I was always angry with you, but honey, I wasn’t.” He smiled, a gentle smile. “You didn’t cook chicken that well, though. Remember when you served that one chicken dish with rice and you forgot to turn the oven on? Remember the spaghetti that you left to boil until the water dried up and the pan was burning? That was so funny.”
I smiled back. Couldn’t believe it.
“But you were good, Meggie. Except . . . you were not good at documentary filmmaking.” I stopped smiling and felt the fire in my belly flare up. Aaron had done everything he could to criticize and demean my work.
“No, you weren’t a good filmmaker.” He pointed at the camera. “You were an excellent filmmaker. Beyond excellent. Better than me. We both know it. You were innately talented. You were perceptive and introspective. You knew what had to be pulled out of the film, what you had to make people see, and feel. Your success made me feel . . . less than a man, though. It wasn’t your fault. I’m not saying that. It was mine. I’m being honest. Don’t have anything to lose here. You were the best.”
He ran both hands through his black curls. They were longer than I’d seen them before. He was an awesome-looking man. Women had always loved him. I had, too.
“I’m sorry, My Meggie. That’s what I really want to say. I’m sorry for ruining your life when you were with me. I changed you. I saw it. You were different at the end than you were when we first married. I’m sorry for what I’m going to do, but I wanted you to know that it’s not your fault at all. It’s not my fault, either. Well, I take it back. Some of it is. I’m a shit, I know that. And if it makes you feel any better, I hate myself for how I was to you. I hate myself for what I’m going to do and how you’ll feel.”
I put my hands to my head. I had said the same words so many times. I hate myself. I hated who I had become when I was married to Aaron. I hated that I was staying in the marriage, that I felt trapped, that I couldn’t think rationally. I hated myself for hating being married. I hated that I left him, hated that he killed himself.
And all along, he’d hated himself, too.
“Living with this bipolar crap, you know, sometimes I feel like I can do anything, that I’m powerful and brilliant, better than the planet, and other times I feel like I can’t even lift my head off the table. It’s been going on forever and I know it will never change. I always feel like I’m being swung back and forth.” He fiddled with one of the chains around his neck. “I love the highs, but the lows, my lady, I want to put a bullet in my head. I can’t even explain how it feels, except to say it’s the rabid dog, hunting me down.
“I don’t want to live anymore. I can’t do it. I love you, Meggie, I always have. I want you to have a spectacular life. You deserve it. You were good to me and you stayed a lot longer than anyone else would have. This isn’t about you, or anything you did or didn’t do. It’s about me. Don’t blame yourself. Bye, baby.”
He used the camera to scan the bathroom, the filling tub, the razors he later used, the alcohol, and the pills.
“I’m sorry, My Meggie.”
He smiled slightly at the camera, resigned, defeated, hopeless. He winked at me, then pushed the camera closer and closer to his face until the only thing I could see was his eye, his right eye, huge, unblinking, staring back at me.
“I love you, babe. Tell my mother she should have believed me.”
The screen went black.
I ran outside to my deck, the rainbow of Adirondack chairs behind me, almost mocking me with their cheery colors, leaned over the rail, and retched into the dark night.
28
Tory, Lacey, my grandma, my mother, and I stood over the baby in her incubator.
It had been a hellacious week and yet it had ended sweetly. The baby was doing far better than the doctors thought she would, her lungs pumping. Tory was rebounding, although she was a difficult patient with her demands for “private time” with Scotty and martinis.
Lacey’s wrist had set well. Her bruises were purple, blue, and green, but she was healing.
“Look at that hair,” I marveled. The baby had a shock of black hair. Not brown like Matt’s hair, but black.
“Not surprising, the way genetics work,” my grandma drawled. “The generations are different, and sometimes a DNA mystery from the past pulls on through.”
I saw my mother elbow her.
“What do you mean?” Lacey asked.
“You never know what color hair a child will have,” my mother singsonged. “That’s all she means.”
“Sometimes you can look back to the grandparents,” Grandma said, crossing her arms. “That’s where you’ll find surprises.”
Yes. Surprises. From Sperm Donor Number One, Lacey’s father.
“She’s a beautiful baby,” my mother cut in, moving off the possible topic of S
perm Donor Number One, her least favorite topic, equal to the topic of Sperm Donor Number Two.
“We decided on a name,” Lacey stated, calm and joyful in a beige dress that she called her “skinny pregnant dress.”
“What is it?” I asked.
Tory said, “Why don’t you call her Martini? I like martinis. Or Rebel Child? Or, Impatience. You know, instead of naming the baby Patience, like in the old days, name her Impatience, because she came so soon. Her nose is scrunched. Call her Scrunched Nose.”
“Aren’t you clever?” Lacey said.
“Name her Satin,” Grandma quipped, her blue sapphires glowing on her neck. “You’re Lace, she’s Satin. You can call her Satin Buttons.”
“Name her for someone you truly love,” my mother said, knitting a tiny pink baby sweater, glasses on, her red curls back in a tight bun.
“Good idea, Mom.” Lacey patted the baby’s tummy, then looked up at Tory. “Because Tory, you saved my life, and hers, Matt and I decided that her first name is going to be . . .” She grinned. “Victoria.”
Perfect. The perfect name. Emotion welled in me like a wave. This was incredible. Tory’s mouth dropped open, and she whispered, all choked up, “What?”
“Her name is Victoria,” Lacey said, her voice quavering. “For you.”
Tory’s face crumbled, she sniffled, she bit her lip, she moaned, then the waterworks started.
“Tory’s not speaking,” I said, linking an arm around her bent shoulders.
“Enjoy the moment. It’ll pass way too soon,” Grandma said.
“I’ll stitch the name Victoria on her blessings quilt immediately,” my mother said, adjusting her glasses because her tears were making them slip.
“Are you friggin’ kidding me?” Tory asked, her voice wobbling over every word. “Victoria?”
“Not kidding, Tory,” Lacey said. “This one’s named after you.”
My heart actually skipped a beat, those hot tears streamin’ on out. Ah, Tory. Always felt like she didn’t belong, and she always had. And now, a baby named for her.
Tory made a gasping sound. She turned away, she turned back, then she did it again, her hands to her heart. “I can’t believe this!”
“Your namesake, Tory,” my mother said, completely undone, dabbing her face with a homemade lace handkerchief. “Your sister’s child, named after you. It’s a glorious day in this family.”
“It’s a miracle!” Tory cried, hands fluttering up in the air, completely overcome. “A damn miracle.”
“You’re the miracle,” Lacey said, hardly able to talk through her deep, endless gratefulness. “You saw the truck coming and I fell. You pulled me back up and then pushed me out of the way and took the hit.... You took the hit.... Oh my gosh, Tory. I know I already told you thank you, but thank you a zillion times, sister, a zillion times. Without you, we would not have baby Victoria. I know it, and the doctors know it, too.”
“You were heroic, honey,” my mother said.
“Superhero,” I told her. “The bravest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“Oh, stop it! Stop it!” Tory said, waving her trembling hands. “No more!”
My grandma put an arm around her. “Tory O’Rourke, you have been a gift to us your whole life.”
My mother stood, her legs not so strong. “Always, Tory. My daughter from the first day.”
“Yes, always, sister,” I said.
“This is getting ridiculous,” Tory said. “So cheesy. It was incredibly hard for me to push Lacey, what with all the weight she gained in her butt.”
We all laughed, in the middle of our tears, in the presence of baby Victoria.
Tory leaned over the baby, and one of her tears fell on her cheek. “Hell’s bells. I have a baby.”
The five of us hugged over the baby. She looked so angelic.
“She’s named after a rebel,” Lacey sighed. “When she’s a teenager, she will drive me to absolute distraction, I’m sure of it. My hair will be white, my face a mess of sags and bags from her wildness . . .”
“And I’ll sit back and laugh,” Tory said. “I’ll say, you go, Victoria! I’ll take her shopping for fashion-forward clothes and high heels, because if you’re going to be bad, you better look good doing it.” She reached down and held Victoria’s teeny hand in her own. “She is so precious . . . so precious . . . oh, my baby is so precious.”
“She’ll understand fashion, thank heavens,” Grandma said, as if that was the penultimate gift. “It’ll be in her DNA. Look at Tory.”
Tory leaned over and kissed Lacey’s cheek, then whispered, “Thank you, Lacey. I mean it from the bottom of my Jimmy Choos. Thank you.”
“No, thank you, Tory. I love you. And Mom, and Grandma and Meggie.” She looked up at me. Oh, what a neat sister I had. “I love you, too.”
“I love all of you crazy people.” Tory blew her nose. “And I need that martini badly. Come on, Meggie, let’s go slam a few.”
The next day, sitting next to Lacey at the hospital, both of us watching our beloved Victoria, Lacey received a call.
“Yes, this is Mrs. Rockaford.” Lacey sucked in her breath, her eyes flying open wide. “What? How is he? What happened? When? Where?”
“What? What is it?” I fluttered my hands to get her attention. “What is it?”
“We’ll be right down.” She hung up and stood, her expression despairing. “Hayden was beaten up at school.”
“Sit down.” I pushed her back down. “You stay, I’m going to the school. Call them and tell them I’m coming.”
“No,” she cried, her chin trembling, getting up again. “I’m going to Hayden. Matt’s two hours away in Eugene for work—”
“You are not going. You have to stay here, with Victoria. She can’t be alone without her mother. Don’t do this, Lacey, let me handle it.”
Lacey collapsed back into her seat. “Call me right away and bring Hayden home!” She broke into sobs, but I didn’t stay to comfort her. Our beloved Hayden was beaten up, so I would go to Hayden.
“What happened?” We sat in front of the principal in a semicircle. Next to me was Hayden with an ice pack on his eye, dressed in a beige, ruffled skirt and green sweater. He grinned at me.
Regan was sitting next to him, with an ice pack on his cheek. He had been crying, his face all blotchy and red. I assumed it was because he was in the principal’s office. He did not like getting into trouble. It made him feel, as he put it, “worried. Like a lost cat.”
“How’s B-B-Breadsticks doing?” he stuttered.
Next to Regan was Cassidy with an ice pack on her chin. Her skirt was too short and her top was too low. She smiled at me and whispered, “I am so excited for hors d’oeuvres class, aren’t you, Aunt Meggie?”
Cody, the tall and naughty boyfriend who spent the night in Cassidy’s bed, was holding Cassidy’s hand. He didn’t have an ice pack, but his knuckles were all scraped up. “Hello, Miss O’Rourke.” He stood and shook my hand. “Nice to see you again. I’m excited for hors d’oeuvres class, too. The pastries that Cassidy made me from dessert class were delicious.” He shook his head in awe. “She’s a world-class cook! World class! My mouth got all watered up looking at them. Don’t you just love Cassidy? I do.”
The principal, a man in his sixties with a bulging stomach, ill-fitting suit, and wire glasses, peered at me as we shook hands. “I understand that you are Meggie O’Rourke.”
“Yes, I am. I’m Hayden’s, Regan’s, and Cassidy’s aunt. Their mother is at the hospital with her baby who’s in the neonatal unit.”
He humphed at me. I wanted to groan. Uptight. Proper. Conservative. So much better if we’d had someone else....
“Can you tell me what happened, Mr. Harrison?” If he thought I was going to be intimidated by his glare and severe demeanor, he had another thing coming. I had faced off with far worse than him.
“Hayden has been coming to school dressed as a girl.”
“Yes, he has. He’s transgender. He’
s a girl.” I should have said “she’s a girl.” “What’s the problem?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hayden smile.
“The problem is that the other kids here were not prepared for his ... coming out.”
“So what? Hayden is not here on this planet to live his life according to what other people think he should and should not be or whether they’re ready for him to change. It’s not relevant.”
“But he had to be aware of what the reaction would be from the other students.”
“Of course. He’s not an idiot.” I heard Regan crying and muttering something about “poor, innocent frogs.” Cody the boyfriend reached out his long arm behind Cassidy and patted him on the back.
“Hayden is a young man wishing to be a young woman.” Mr. Harrison studied Hayden, as if he found him derelict in some way, something to study with dispassion, scientifically. I saw Hayden’s chin tip up.
“No, Hayden is a young woman. He was born with a boy’s body. I asked you what happened.” I sat up straighter. I am a screwed-up person, wracked by guilt and remorse. I’ve been chased by Aaron, black feathers, and rats for a long time, but I am hard into my No Crap Zone—especially when it comes to the kids.
“What happened, as I understand it”—the principal tapped his pen—“is that a group of boys—”
“Five boys,” Hayden said. “And one girl.”
“Yes, and one girl”—the principal agreed—“cornered Hayden.”
“Then what happened?” I turned to Hayden.
“One of the boys swung at me. I swung back and clocked him in the face. The second kid socked me in the stomach, and I went down, then came back up and hit him. But there were five of them, and I couldn’t get ’em all, and it’s hard to have good balance in heels you know, Aunt Meggie.”
“Sure is. What happened after that?”