And then she wiggled right back into Rex’s embrace.
16
Willow sat down in the school cafeteria with her lunch bag, her body still tense. She was uncharacteristically shaken up by her morning with her dad storming through her mom’s house. She no longer liked seeing her two parents in the same room.
Willow focused on her lunch and uncurled the tinfoil on her peanut butter and jelly sandwich. A handwritten note rested right on top of the white bread.
See you by the far fence at recess time!
I love you oodles and oodles of noodle poodles.
—Mom
Willow ate her sandwich in a few excited bites, then ran out to the fence as fast as she could, stumbling only twice. At the fence her mother skipped hellos and leaped straight to the purpose of the meeting.
“I realized this morning that I’ve never taught you how to climb a tree.”
Willow felt a buzz in her blood.
“I also haven’t rescued you from school yet this year! And what kind of daughter of mine can’t climb a tree? Come on, hop this fence. I know a perfect spot.”
And without another thought, Willow wrapped her fingers and toes around the cold chain links and started to climb. Her left leg slipped once, but her mother’s supporting hands and spirit were right there with her as she urged her over the fence and then into the front seat of her car.
Rosie and Willow drove with the windows down to the park around the corner as Willow filled with happiness.
“There it is,” Rosie said, pointing at an enormous willow tree with its waterfall of tiny leaves pouring toward the ground while all of the other trees were bare. Its strong dark trunk radiated into dozens of thin branches that supported thousands of dripping leaves. The afternoon light crawled through its rich green leaves in smooth golden rays that cut through the chill of late autumn. Rosie stood there, so still, admiring the tree. Inhaling deeply. Exhaling deeply. Willow could see a faint cloud of breath form and then dissolve at the tip of her mother’s red lips. Her eyes were so wide and Willow thought she saw a tear forming in one of them.
A force of something moved Rosie from both the outside in and the inside out as she took her daughter’s hand with an unwavering grip and walked toward the tree. Rosie hoisted her daughter onto the lowest branches and helped her with every move to climb deeper into the willow. Right hand, this branch. Left foot, that branch. Willow wrapped her fingers around each branch and pulled her body up, up, up. She pressed her black Converse into the willow tree’s sturdy trunk. Its coarse bark kept her foot in place as she climbed up, up, up some more. It felt so strange for something so rough to feel so safe, but Willow welcomed the tree’s jagged embrace. And oddly the higher Willow climbed, the more comfortable she was feeling. The more those draping leaves shielded her and enveloped her. Created another secret space with her mom. Just like the tree house. But this one was in the daylight.
And finally her mom was just below her. When they had reached the thinnest branches they could sit on, Willow and Rosie stopped climbing. They sat on top of the branches and let their feet dangle weightlessly.
And then Rosie looked at her daughter with a rare expression of seriousness. A rare lift in her earlobes and stillness in her cheeks.
“Did I ever tell you why your father and I named you Willow?”
Willow shook her head side to side.
“Your father and I had our first kiss under a willow tree while we were both living in New York. I think we already loved each other right then. Even though neither of us knew that much about the other one.”
Willow was already surprised at what her mother was telling her. It was hard to imagine them happy together. Her mother so full of energy, loving her father so full of intensity. Her father so full of rules, loving her mother so full of fun.
“And one day, I taught him to skip stones not too far from that willow tree. Imagine that, baby. Your father skipping stones. And me teaching him how to do it!”
Rosie straightened her spine as she shared the anecdote.
Willow nodded as her mother’s words floated out of her mouth, through her ears and out into the abyss beyond the leaves. She kept her eyes locked on her mother’s lips the whole time. With her head gently nodding. With her heart forward. Not moving an inch of her little body. Even as the tip of her nose got cold.
“We lived in an apartment together near there too. Not too far from Central Park in Manhattan. Your father picked it out. It had wallpaper on every wall, and a different knob on every door. I remember when he surprised me. We danced in the entranceway and slept on the floor because we didn’t have any furniture yet. Yes! And he got me a locket. An old golden tarnished locket. I couldn’t believe he picked it out all rusty like that. He even got the address engraved right on the back. I loved that locket so much I hung it right up on the wall,” Rosie said slowly as she continued tracing the memory down the long dark tunnel in her mind.
“And that’s when I told him we were having a baby. That’s the first time he knew about you, noodle.”
A pause. Another little cloud of hot breath meeting cold air.
And then Rosie drifted off somewhere.
“Yeah. The very first time.”
It was no longer clear if Rosie, vacant brown eyes looking out past the dangling leaves, was talking to Willow or herself. To the tree or the air around them. To something else entirely. Because there was a sadness deep inside her mother. A sadness Willow had never seen before.
Rosie blinked and focused her bold eyes back on her daughter. And then she came back to the branches.
“There’s a poem I like by e. e. cummings. He says love ‘is most mad and moonly,’ and I think he’s right. Your father calls it a crazy love poem. But I think he likes it too. Because love is crazy and magical. It’s right and it’s wrong and it’s simple and it’s complicated. But no matter what, you feel it all over, you let it in, and it twists through your insides. I loved your father back then in New York. It was definitely ‘most mad and moonly.’ And I love you and Asher. And that love is the ‘most mad and moonly’ kind too.”
Rosie stared off blankly over Willow’s back and into the leaves, drifting again.
And Willow thought about what it meant to be loved in a “most mad and moonly” way. What it meant to love in a “most mad and moonly” way. In her mother’s fierce and magical way.
Willow looked back at Rosie but didn’t have any words as her mother drifted. Drifted and said things Willow did not understand. As Rosie said things she wasn’t sure anyone could understand. Not even Rosie. But still, Willow sat on that branch and continued nodding slowly. She was still so present, so alive, trying to take Rosie’s words in. But when she looked at her mother, Rosie was barely there. She was off somewhere else in the invisible distance with that rigidity in her body again.
When Willow looked in her mother’s eyes, she knew she had to say something to bring her mother back. She knew her mother needed her to say something to help her back into the cocoon of the leaves of that willow tree. Something to keep her from floating away permanently to that invisible place.
So Willow came up with the truest thing she knew to say.
“I love being up here with you, Mom.”
“Me too, baby. Me too.”
Rosie pulled Willow’s entire body into hers, tucked her chin over Rosie’s shoulder and closed her eyes. Willow had probably been hugged by Rosie one million times, but never like this.
Willow watched her mother soak in all of her attention and all of her love. She could tell how much Rosie loved the way she was listening to her mother up in those willow branches. She could tell how much Rosie loved how wholly Willow breathed in her mother. Here, in these branches, and all the time. With every song, every story, every dance move, every crayon, every kiss. She could tell by the buzzing calm of her mother’s beating heart. The
warmth radiating from her as they hugged.
“You and me, Willow. We’ll go back to that apartment in New York City together.”
Rosie stayed like that for a few seconds, breathing deeply, and then pulled her arms even tighter around Willow. There was a heaviness to Rosie’s embrace that Willow hadn’t felt before. It wasn’t the light and breezy intimacy she was used to. It was intense and sharp. But, even still, Willow took it all in. The magic and the love. Just like her mother said to.
“Yeah, baby. Maybe we’ll even stay there in that apartment.”
Rosie’s voice had slowed and moved to a whisper as she kept her arms and heart wrapped around Willow. And then she pulled away and looked straight at her daughter.
“I know you don’t like it at your dad’s. I wouldn’t either. All those rules. All that toughness. You need a relief. I did too.”
A short cold breeze came and rattled the leaves and branches.
“I even still do sometimes. I wish I didn’t. But I do. From your father and from everything.” Rosie hugged her daughter tightly again. And this time, Willow got the sense that her mother was pressing a secret into her. Trying to move it from her body into her daughter’s. But Willow could not decipher what it was.
Rosie looked at the swinging leaves, blinked hard and then continued.
“And one day, when it’s right, we’ll go to that apartment and live happily ever after together. I promise.”
Rosie gripped her daughter so tightly. And Willow hugged her mother tightly back, but she had her eyes open the whole time.
“We can eat candy all day, noodle,” Rosie whispered softly. Her lips were already right at her daughter’s ears.
And Willow made a silent vow that wherever her mom went, she would follow. And eat candy and feel loved. And feel happy.
As Willow hugged her mother half as tightly as her mother was hugging her, she was so close to seeing what was going on behind her mother’s words. So close to seeing the pain and the worry pressing up against the two of them.
* * *
But unfortunately, when Willow made her silent vow, she had gotten it wrong again. Because even though her mother had candy, it didn’t mean Willow would be happy.
17
Ten Years Ago
As soon as Rosie told Rex about his baby, their baby, he wanted to prepare everything. He wanted to make sure it was all going to go just right. Because that’s the kind of man Rex Thorpe was. He was a good man with strong morals and a plan. He was a man of preparedness and information. He was a forward-thinking man with firm ideas about his future. And while a baby at thirty-three with a woman like Rosie was not part of his early vision, it was his reality now. And unlike Rosie, who was energized by adventure, unlike Rosie, who could casually dip her tiny toes into the unknown without flinching, Rex was terrified.
Could he do this? Could he do this with Rosie? Did he have the patience? A heart that was big enough? A mind that was open enough?
Rex wanted so badly for the answers to these questions to be yes. He willed them to be yes. Because the woman he loved was carrying his child in her belly. And that child would carry pieces of him in him or her. And they would be a family. So the answers to those questions had to be yes.
In his head, Rex started crafting a list of rules for his future home. He started building out the structure, the spine of his future life. Because when Rex got scared, or felt out of control, following the rules worked best for him. And Rex was so scared. Not as much for himself, but for his future child. Rex shared his ideas about sleeping schedules and healthy foods and the differences between pacifier brands with Rosie, who smiled and rolled her eyes.
But then Rex got serious and focused. About the challenges of raising a child in Manhattan. Where there were distractions and small spaces. Polluted air and gum-stained sidewalks. Honking cabs and rushing pedestrians.
And so Rex decided that they should move to Virginia, where he grew up, and he would tell his clients he would be available remotely. But first he would visit his favorite things in New York. His favorite painting at the Met. His favorite scone at the coffee shop down the street. He would say goodbye to his friend Roy over their favorite burgers and a long, tight hug. And then, they would go. To suburban Virginia, where he was comfortable and it was quiet. Where they could have a big backyard and kind weather. Where Rex could work from a home office and Rosie could have a room for her art. And Willow could have a big quiet room to herself. And a home full of toys. Where Rex would buy the safest crib and most comfortable stroller and the most advanced baby monitor. And there would be a library of children’s books that they would read to their daughter. And there would be schedules and bedtimes. And music lessons. And puzzles. It would be the best, safest, environment for his daughter.
It would be the best, safest, environment for Rex as a father.
Up until this moment it almost appeared as if Rosie had shaken Rex to his core. May have un-Rexed him. But as Rosie’s belly grew, so did all the Rex inside of Rex. And all things Rex bubbled right back up to the surface. And before Rosie could twirl around and ask questions or kiss the Rex away, a new home was purchased and the moving van was packed.
* * *
Rosie waved goodbye to the printed wallpaper and mismatched doorknobs and walked through a big heavy door into a spacious home in Virginia with box-shaped rooms, smooth hardwood floors and naked walls.
It had the clean lines Rex envisioned all along. And even though Rosie didn’t like it, she felt that this was a concession she could make for the baby growing inside her. A concession she could make for Rex. Just this once.
But the moment Rosie stepped through her new, thick, heavy front door, she knew it felt so wrong. The bare walls, the stillness in the air, the distance from their neighbors. The silence. The manicured lawn. The trees planted in precise rows. She needed crannies. She needed quirk. And noise and buzzing and energy. And there was none of that in this home. She tried pushing those thoughts aside, for Rex and for Willow.
She tried and tried but no matter how much Rosie didn’t want to want those things, she did. She wanted them so badly. She needed them. Because they were the things that kept Rosie, Rosie. The things that kept her breathing. The things that kept her alive.
* * *
When Rex looked at Rosie in his new home with her swollen belly, he loved his girlfriend and his daughter so much. He had a feeling that there was a little girl inside of Rosie. He had that feeling because Rosie willed there to be a little girl in there. And the world around Rosie usually bent to her. Like plants toward the sun. And even though Rex would have preferred baseball gloves and science experiments with a son, he didn’t mind the idea of a little girl. He already loved her so much.
And when Rex slipped a diamond ring onto Rosie’s finger on their first Sunday morning in bed in their new house, it was for his daughter. Yes, he was in love with Rosie. But no, this was not the woman he envisioned himself marrying. A man like Rex found comfort in stability.
He didn’t want the walls of his bedroom to be a new color every other week. He didn’t want every topping in the shop on his ice cream. He didn’t want a ticket to the movies to turn into a triple feature. He didn’t want to have a thirty-minute chat with the homeless man on the corner about his favorite pizza place. He didn’t want to be force-fed poetry. He didn’t want Pixy Stix for breakfast. He didn’t want to cover his face in makeup on Halloween. He didn’t want to feel boring for liking plain white walls. He didn’t want to go to a museum and look at a single painting the entire time. He didn’t want to waste all of Sunday skipping stones.
Rex thought about that e. e. cummings poem Rosie loved. All the crazy things it said love was. He thought about all the crazy, loving feelings he felt now for Rosie and that little girl in her belly. All the “most mad and moonly” love he felt for Rosie and their baby.
He felt it
especially when Rosie turned over, finger sparkling, smiled her biggest brightest smile and said, “Okay, yeah, let’s do it!”
Even though both Rex and Rosie were willing to give so many things up, it still made the day Rex asked Rosie to marry him in their big new house in suburban Virginia the beginning of the end of their relationship.
And somewhere inside, Rex knew this. Because the day they arrived in Virginia, he decided he would not put the apartment on the market. And then he tucked his and Rosie’s keys to 299 East 82nd Street into the back of his desk drawer.
18
The next time Willow boarded Bus #50, she was surprised when Robbie Hawkins lobbed a Brillo pad at her. She had made it all the way through the beginning of November, and she hadn’t had one of these thrown at her once yet this year. It was Robbie who started the “Willow, Willow, hair like Brillo” chant last year. The chant that caught on like a hot burning fire on Bus #50. All those hot and burning words as it spread from fifth grader to fifth grader, row to row, until the whole bus was yelling it. Willow hadn’t thought about that day in a while, and didn’t want to now. So she pushed the Brillo pad off her lap, put on her big purple headphones, hit Play on her CD player and ignored the taunts. She bobbed her head to the sound of Fleetwood Mac’s “Rhiannon” and started digging around her backpack for her book of word searches. And then that piece of silver duct tape stretched across the seat caught her eye again.
She slowly peeled it back purposefully and willfully. A zing of excitement went up her fingertips and into her cheeks when she reached into the seat and pulled out two more Pixy Stix. Both grape. Same typed-out note that simply said, “For Willow.”
A typical fifth grader might think she had a secret admirer in the back of the bus. A secret admirer waiting and watching and leaving her treats. But not Willow. She didn’t think she had the kind of secret admirer who would watch her from the back of the bus or the other side of the classroom. Or the kind who would send his friends to ask her if she liked anyone. Or the kind who might invite her to play hide-and-seek at recess. Or pass her notes in the lunchroom. Willow had a different kind of secret admirer. The kind of secret admirer she thought was simply her mother. Her mother who loved her in a better, more fun, more special way than any fifth grader could possibly love another fifth grader. Willow tucked her Pixy Stix away and saved them for later. For later when she would inevitably need something good to distract her from another day at Robert Kansas Elementary School.
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