Rosie Colored Glasses

by Brianna Wolfson

  Willow felt the back of her throat tighten and the familiar pressure of tears forming behind her eyes. Ever since that day at Mom’s house packing up boxes, her tears almost always stayed stuck right there behind her eyes. They would try to force their way out and run down her cheek, but Willow kept them back there. No matter how much they would relentlessly press and press, Willow held them back there.

  She held them back there when she tied her shoes in the morning. And when she took off her jacket and hung it in her cubby. She held them back there when she was walking down the hall to gym class. And when she stared at the clock. Willow held them back every afternoon when she pressed the heavy door to Dad’s house open. And when she completed the afternoon checklist. When she retreated to her room with her word search book. And when she set the table for dinner.

  She held them back when she swirled her pasta around in its bowl. And when she brushed her teeth and washed her face before bed. She held them back when she slipped under her sheets. But most of the time, when it was late and dark and quiet in her bedroom, Willow couldn’t fight the pressure anymore as the tears came. For a moment, they would stop at the hurdle of her eyelids, but when it was late and dark and quiet in her bedroom, her tears would fall down her face.

  But here, on the driveway, looking at that five and a half pieces of ceramic piggy bank and that pile of crinkled bills, Willow couldn’t hold the tears back as she hoped to get to five hundred dollars.

  So Willow sat there, deliberately counting each one of her bills, tear after tear streaming down her face. She picked one up, pulled it straight and placed it in a neat pile. She counted her bills, and then counted them again to make sure. She was relieved to be reminded of the hundred-dollar bills she got for her past birthdays from Roy. “Save it for a rainy day,” he told her each time, and then winked. Willow was happy she listened. Four hundred and sixty-four dollars. She didn’t have so far to go. And even though she had barely done anything yet, all this thinking, all this feeling, all this dreaming about ways to put her life back together had already started to exhaust her.

  Willow placed her elbows onto her knees as she sat legs crossed on the concrete. And let her palms handle the burden of her heavy head for a moment. She let her hands carry the weight of all that thinking and feeling and dreaming and aching.

  It had only been a couple of days, and she was already tired of waiting. Because there was only so much happiness a dream could infuse into the day-to-day happenings of a life. The waking up. The morning checklist. The bus ride to school. The empty lunch table. The lesson in American history. The bus ride home from school. The time at the desk with homework. The nighttime checklist. And although she had her plans, and although Mom was in her future, Willow was living a soul-crushingly lonely present. Because she had nothing in her present world but the little steps leading her toward Mom. Nothing else in her present world was getting her through the day-to-day happenings of her life.

  With her head in her hands and her eyes closed, Willow didn’t realize that her father had been watching her through the kitchen window this whole time.

  Willow carried her small stack of dollar bills and few pieces of broken piggy bank upstairs. She knew she needed more money and she knew she needed it fast. She fell into her beanbag chair and thought up ways to do it.

  The other kids in Willow’s class had always been getting money for things. They sold brownies so that their basketball team could get new team jerseys. They got in shorts and a T-shirt and stood on Main Street offering five-dollar car washes so that their cheerleading team could afford their annual trip to Disney World. When they were in their earlier years of elementary school, these same kids had set up on their front lawn with cups of store-bought lemonade and made enough money to buy new charms for their bracelets or laces for their sneakers.

  Willow thought this was something she could do too. Willow, Asher and Mom had baked a billion things together—cakes, and cookies, and pies. And they would always use an ingredient that wasn’t listed in the recipe—sprinkles or Reese’s Pieces or a handful of Cocoa Puffs. Sometimes they would dye the whole batter a different color with one firm squeeze of food coloring. And while these additions never made their cakes or cookies or pies any tastier, they made them way more fun to eat. That surprise burst of peanut butter when you found a Reese’s Pieces in your chocolate cake. Or the unexpected bite of crunchy sugar when you found a sprinkle in your cherry pie. The excitement of eating a bright orange cookie. Yes, her classmates would share in this kind of silly delight. So just like that, Willow’s Bake Sale was born.

  She opened her box of crayons for the first time since Mom died, left, and scribbled “Willow’s Bake Sale” in big purple letters on a big piece of cardboard she found in the basement. She drew a red cookie and a blue cake and a green pie. She scribbled and scribbled with her hair bouncing and her tongue out. She scribbled so hard she had to peel the paper back on the Purple Mountains’ Majesty, Razzmatazz, Screamin’ Green and Blizzard Blue Crayola crayons. And when she was done coloring in all of her block letters, and all of the cookies, and cakes, and pies, Willow propped her poster up against her desk using her non-scribble-sore arm and stepped back. It looked perfect.

  So Willow went downstairs to bake.

  It was already almost 9:00 p.m. and her eyelids were already heavy, but Willow was determined. She pulled her big purple headphones over her hair, placed them on her ears and jammed her pointer finger into the play button. And as “Raspberry Beret” filled her head, Willow bopped her head, tapped her right toe and got to baking. She measured and poured and mixed. She stirred and sprinkled and licked the spoon.

  And in no time at all, there was blue chocolate chip cookie batter with crushed up bits of Peppermints in it. And bright green oatmeal cookie batter with Apple Jacks hiding inside. And a flimsy but tasty cherry pie with chocolate chips floating inside. And they were each in the oven coming to life. They were each in the oven bringing her mother back to life. Bringing Willow back to life. They were each in the oven filling the kitchen with the sugary sweetness of Mom’s house. Filling Willow’s bones with the sugary sweetness of Mom’s love.

  Willow pressed her nose against the warm glass of the oven and watched her cake and cookies come to life as she daydreamed of her mother twirling around the kitchen holding a whisk at her lips like it was a gold-studded microphone.

  * * *

  The next day when she got to school, Willow brought her poster and cookies by the principal’s office before lunchtime for approval. Principal Rhoads pursed her red lips together and looked skeptically down at the neon cookies. Willow told her about the food coloring and candy surprises, and then was ushered into the cafeteria to set up for her bake sale.

  Willow sat in her plastic chair behind her plastic table and cardboard sign as fifth-grader after fifth-grader walked right by her.

  They looked at her cookies through the corner of their eye and kept walking. They turned their necks around and scanned over Willow and her treats while sitting on their cafeteria benches. And then they turned back around to their Oreos and Chips Ahoy! neatly rationed into Ziploc bags. Willow gripped the bottom edge of the table so angrily when Freddie Fisher, and then Kara Avett, and then Erin Simmons, and then Ray Callahan walked by. She gripped the bottom edge of the table so intensely that she got strips of plastic under her fingernails. But still, Willow waited and waited for someone to buy something. Anything. Because even one single purchased cookie meant she was a little bit closer to seeing Mom. She waited and waited as the clock tick, tick, ticked. She waited and waited as the other fifth graders bit, bit, bit into their cookies. She waited and waited as her classmates sipped the last sips of their juice boxes. She waited and waited and nothing happened.

  But with two minutes left of lunchtime, Amanda and Patricia walked toward her table with elbows interlocked, and then stopped right in front of it. They had their straight blond hair styled
the same way—tucked neatly into a headband with a bow just to the left side of center. They were both wearing pink skirts and white T-shirts and white platform sneakers.

  Willow unlatched her fingernails from the bottom of the table. Her first purchase was coming. She could feel it.

  Willow looked up at Amanda. And then Patricia. And then back at Amanda, who was holding a dollar bill. Amanda looked back at Willow, scanned over Willow’s treats. And then she laughed one loud laugh and yanked Patricia back into movement.

  As Amanda walked away, Willow heard her whisper in her best friend’s ear, “I bet you’ll get those dots on your arms and start tripping in the hallways if you eat her weird outer space cookies.”

  And then Amanda and Patricia giggled and giggled as they walked across the cafeteria perfectly in stride.

  Willow felt that pressure behind her eyes again. And she clenched her jaw and fists to keep from turning her plastic table upside down and ripping her poster into one hundred teeny, tiny pieces and throwing them all over the cafeteria. After all that planning, all that coloring, all that baking, Willow wasn’t a single step closer to 299 East 82nd Street.

  And it hurt all over.

  Willow Thorpe’s Bake Sale was never going to work.

  She now realized the flaw in her plan. The kids with the perfectly decorated posters with the perfectly crafted bubble letters and the jars full of cash at the end of the day were not Willow Thorpe. They were kids that other kids, and teachers, and parents liked. They were the kids that played together at recess and had playdates after school. They were the kids who were on the same weekend soccer team and who attended each other’s birthday parties. They were not the kid that peed in her pants or had hair that went boing. They were not the kid that tripped in the hallways or wore the same outfit every day or kept a book of word searches in her backpack.

  * * *

  She threw away her cookies and thought of new ways to make her money. She wondered exactly what she would have to do. How far she would be willing to go.

  51

  As Willow dreamed of getting to Manhattan, Willow saw her mother everywhere. In every willow tree she drove by. Every juice box she jammed her straw into. Every word she circled in her book of word searches. Every spoonful of ice cream, which were now few and far between. She missed her so desperately in all of those places. And whenever she felt that pang of missing her mother, she would imagine her mother in a loose-fitting floral-printed dress dancing around her apartment. She would imagine her stirring a big bowl of spaghetti as she bopped her head back and forth to “Little Red Corvette.” She would imagine her scribbling in her black notebook with her knees tucked into her chest in a pile of colored pencils. She pictured her doing all the things she used to watch her mom doing.

  But as time pressed forward, those full images of her mother started disintegrating in her mind’s eye. She couldn’t remember exactly how she crossed her legs when she sat on the floor. Or what shade of red her lipstick was. Or whether her hair fell to the right or left. Or what her favorite track on the Rumors album was.

  Willow had woven together an intricate image of her mother, and now the small pieces of thread were starting to fray. The whole image was falling apart. The whole vision of what it might look like for Willow to insert herself into that image again. And as it all grew fuzzier, Willow began to panic. And from time to time, the hope in her heart would flicker.

  But with each drip of doubt, the need to fill in those gaps intensified. Because the only way to have her real mother in her mind again would be to actually feel her. Ring her doorbell, see her face, and then feel her. Willow wanted to feel her. And she wanted to feel her now.

  Willow didn’t know it, but she got this fiery determination from her father. When Rex and Willow Thorpe wanted something, their blood ran thick with it. Their minds and bodies were taken over.

  But Willow and Asher still didn’t have enough money in their piggy banks or from their weekly allowance or failed bake sales. But she wanted her mother and she wanted her now. Now. Now. Now. She wanted to see her mother now. She felt entitled to it. And it had been long enough. And the first thing she thought of was the top drawer of Dad’s office. The drawer of Dad’s office with the ones and the fives he would pull out after Sunday allowance. Surely there would be enough cash in there to make up the difference.

  But Rex was always popping in and out of his office. It would be impossible for Willow to sneak in there with 100 percent certainty that her father wouldn’t see. So she would recruit her brother. Asher would ask Rex to play a game of catch. And while they were outside, Willow would sneak into that drawer.

  But when Willow shared the plan with Asher, he twisted his face right up.

  “No way, Willow. I’m not stealing!”

  “Well, you won’t be stealing, technically. You’ll just be playing catch or something,” Willow explained hopefully.

  “I don’t like it. I weally just don’t and I’m not gunna do it.” Asher folded his arms. He even tried puffing his chest out a little bit.

  That accidental w that usually warmed Willow’s heart had no effect on her.

  “Asher, you’re doing it.”

  “No way, Jose.” Asher closed his eyes and whipped his head back and forth, blond hair half a turn behind.

  “Yes way.”

  She grabbed Asher’s arm while she did it. Asher immediately stopped twisting and looked right into his sister’s eyes. He was trying to see what was happening behind them. What foreign things were swirling around in her body. What made her eyes go so wide like that. What caused all those sores on her arms. What had forced her to grab his arm so hard.

  But he saw nothing. Just her big, brown, serious eyes.

  “Ow, Willow,” Asher said, rolling over a lump in his throat. “Why did you gwab me? Why awe you acting like this?”

  Full tears were now streaming down his cheeks. They were so full that Asher didn’t even have to blink for them to fall over his eyelashes and down onto his chin.

  “Why can’t you just love Dad? Why can’t you be happy hewe? Please, Willow. Please just twy.”

  Tears. More tears. More big, heavy, wobbling tears. All the way down his cheeks.

  “I need you to twy. Please. Dad twies. I see him doing it and you don’t even notice. You just keep on hating him but please just love him. Please, Willow.”

  Willow didn’t know what was coming out of Asher’s mouth. And it could not be said for certain that Asher understood the profundity of the things he was saying either. But they were said. And now Willow’s heart hurt too.

  As Asher sat with his legs crossed on the floor with his wet eyes in his palms, pleading desperately with his sister, Willow realized for the first time that everyone in Dad’s house was in pain. Real pain.

  But in that moment, Willow thought her pain was the greatest. And she knew a way to end that pain and nothing would stop her.

  She scared her classmates. Kept secrets from her father. And today she manipulated her brother.

  And with far less coaxing than Willow imagined would be required, Asher, doing what little brothers always do, eventually conceded to his sister. And, just as Willow had planned it, Rex thought he was enjoying the simple pleasure of playing ball with his son while his daughter stole forty-six dollars in cash from the top drawer of his office.

  * * *

  On Thursday evening after school, Willow didn’t even consider how much she sounded like her father when she tossed a black JanSport backpack at Asher and said, “Put everything you need for Mom’s in here.” It didn’t occur to Willow that, just like there was no amount of things Willow could have stuffed into those two boxes that would make her feel at home at Dad’s house, perhaps a backpack stuffed with a pair of jeans, a few T-shirts, a Green Lantern action figure and a blankie wouldn’t be enough for Asher to feel safe on his journey to Mom. Or
comfortable once he stepped through her door. But Willow helped her brother arrange things in his backpack anyway.

  Willow tucked in Asher under his superhero-themed blanket. She kissed him on the softest part of his cheek and rubbed his silky blond hair.

  “I’ll see you in a few hours,” Willow said to her brother, whose eyes were closing.

  And then Willow tucked a pair of purple leggings and another black T-shirt with a silver horseshoe on it into the bottom of her bag. She propped her word search book on top of the pile of clothes, and twirled the cords of her purple headphones around her new CD player. She closed the two snaps and tugged on the strings and put all of the cash she and Asher collected into the front pocket.

  She looked down at her backpack and felt so ready. So ready to see Mom again. So ready for music and laughing and cooking and singing and hugs and kisses and love. So ready for everything to feel good again.

  She thought all about it as she got into bed. But she couldn’t sleep.

  When Willow’s alarm went off at 4:30 a.m., she was wide-awake and staring at her backpack. Her mind had been swirling with logistics all night.

  Walk to bus station. Buy ticket. Board bus. Get off at correct stop. Hail taxi. Give driver address. Ring doorbell. See Mom. Hug Mom. Sink into Mom.

  Walk to bus station. Buy ticket. Board bus. Get off at correct stop. Hail taxi. Give driver address. Ring doorbell. See Mom. Hug Mom. Sink into Mom.

  Walk to bus station. Buy ticket. Board bus. Get off at correct stop. Hail taxi. Give driver address. Ring doorbell. See Mom. Hug Mom. Sink into Mom.

  She played out her plan over and over again in her mind. Every ounce of Willow’s being was ready to move, ready to go, ready to burst. She could hardly keep the corners of her mouth from turning up toward her eyes even though they were scrunched closed.