“I got these fowr Mischief,” Molly announces proudly.
“Good job,” Emily says, patting Molly’s apricot belly. “How about we put them in my backpack?”
“Good idea,” Molly says, undoing her bib so the apricots tumble to the ground.
As the three of us squat to put the apricots in Emily’s backpack, Tom throws a stick for Gus, laughing as Gus, uncertain of his target, attempts to retrieve the root of a tree instead of the stick, tugging at it with all his might.
“Mom, look,” Tom says, pointing to the comedy, his first words since he got home, totally unaware he said them.
Like a switch, his voice has returned, and relief floods my heart as it does every day when those first blessed words escape. I’m so worried that one day his ability to talk will dry up altogether, not only at school but at home as well.
Beside me, Emily fills me in on her day. I call her the queen of Ridgeview Elementary School, little miss popular, a kazillion friends, captain of every team, class president. Today they dissected worms in science. None of the girls in her group would touch it, so she got to do the cutting. She tells me about the small stomach called a gizzard, and how the intestine was filled with dirt because that’s what earthworms eat, and how Willy Jones tried to freak her out by wiping worm guts on her arm, but that she got him back by putting her dissected worm in his lunch.
In the distance, a big rig rumbles toward the freeway, causing Emily to stop her monologue and snap her head toward the sound. She squints down the road and I squint with her, both of us straining to see if the cab is yellow with black stripes.
It’s not, and my heart resumes its pulse, my jaw sliding forward as I pretend to be glad it was someone else’s truck, that I didn’t want it to be Sean.
Emily looks at the dirt, not concealing her disappointment at all.
I put my arm around her and kiss the top of her head, the air heavier as the reality of our life slogs back into focus. He is gone, and unless a miracle occurs, in two days, we’ll be gone as well.
3
Emily is riding Mischief, and Molly, Tom, and I are in the barn with Bo. Molly clambers onto Bo’s lap and rests her hand on his shoulder. Bo doesn’t look up, but simply adjusts his position to accommodate her weight and threads his right arm around her so he can continue his work.
Tom shifts from foot to foot like he needs to go potty, but I know his restlessness has nothing to do with his bladder.
When Bo finishes punching the last hole in the harness, he says, “What you got?”
Tom puffs out his chest and says with great theatrics, “I challenge you…” He points from himself to Bo for added effect. “To a throwdown.”
“Motown thwrowdown,” Molly squeals, leaping off Bo’s knee and clapping her hands.
Bo’s left eyebrow lifts. “You sure?” he says. “If I remember right, last time you challenge me to a throwdown, you and your sister got your lily white heinies whooped, and the two of you ended up mucking out stalls for the rest of the day.”
Molly’s brow furrows as she listens. Bo’s thick-tongued words make him difficult to understand even if you’re older than four and have mastered the English language.
I feel Tom’s heart pick up its pace. A Motown throwdown is a dance challenge. Loser pays. If Bo loses, which isn’t often, he shells out five bucks each to Tom and Molly. If Tom and Molly lose, they need to clean five stalls. To even the playing field, only one of the two kids needs to beat Bo, and they each get three mess-ups before they’re out.
Tom nods. He’s ready. He’s been practicing every day for a week. I know his motivation. The Croon just released a new album, and he’s hoping to earn enough money to buy their new songs for his iPod shuffle. Molly’s motivation is always the same, money for chocolate ice cream from the Baskin-Robbins downtown.
Bo stands and stretches his arms over his head, his body creaking as he forces his ancient bones to unfurl.
“Time for a hoedown Motown thwrowdown showdown,” Molly says.
Bo is the one who turned Molly onto rhyming, and since she could string two words together, she’s been Dr. Seussing her comments. Each time they’re together, he gives her new rhyming phrases to add to her repertoire.
Like now, he answers with, “Slow down, Motown, old Bo need to go down for a few lowdowns before he’s ready for a throwdown.”
Molly grins ear to ear, her eyes flicking back and forth as she catalogues the new rhymes for later use. Bo bends over to touch his toes, straightens, then whirls his hips around a few times.
Before Bo went into the horse boarding business, he had been a dancer, and when he got too old to dance, a choreographer. He’s too bent to do any professional boogying these days, but whenever he and Tom are together, he teaches Tom what he knows. And like Molly does with everything, she just joins right in.
“Okay, honkers, let’s get this on,” he says.
He starts off with a simple shuffle-hop-step that Molly easily imitates then tops with a toe-heel scuffle. Tom goes next, adding a three-beat tap.
On and on they go, round after round, each adding a step or two until they’re tapping and kicking and twirling a routine worthy of Fred Astaire. Molly messes up way more than three times, but Bo generously only notices every third one, causing Molly to nearly squeak each time she gets away with her blunder unnoticed.
Bo finally calls Molly on her third miss right after Tom gets his second. “Aw,” she says, really believing she had a shot at it. She shuffles over to where I sit on a bucket and plops to the dirt beside me.
“Could still call it off,” Bo offers Tom.
“You scared?” Tom taunts.
“Whooee, boy. Fine, have it your way. Them stalls calling your name. Your turn.”
Tom nails the routine that Molly just missed then tacks on a move I’ve never seen before, a bizarre hip thrust that makes it look like his legs have left their sockets.
Because Bo is a fossil, ground flopping, head spinning, and gymnastics are off-limits. But this isn’t any of those things. It’s just a bizarre move that seems to require the suspension of gravity and the liquefaction of muscle and bones.
Tom grins like a Cheshire cat. He planned this as his kill move.
Bo cracks up, a cackling laugh that shakes his whole body. “You think you gonna beat me with that?” he says. “I taught Michael that move.”
And sure enough, Bo not only matches the routine and Tom’s kill move; he performs the move better than Tom did, his chicken legs literally rubberizing as he thrusts out first the left then the right.
Tom’s face deflates, his features melting with his disappointment.
“Shoot,” Bo says, scratching his bald head. “Dang it, I lose.”
Tom’s brow furrows, then his eyes bulge and he shouts, “You lose. You didn’t add a move. You lose. I win.”
“I win too,” Molly says, leaping to her feet.
“Mmm, mmm,” Bo says, shaking his head. “Must be losin’ my touch.”
From his front pocket, he fishes out a money clip and peels off a five for each of them.
“Now let me show you how to do that move right. Shake out them vanilla genes and pour in a little smokin’ hot chocolate.”
Molly giggles. I don’t think she understood a word he said, but the way he said it was worth a laugh.
4
It’s an emotional good-bye, Emily taking it the hardest. She’s the oldest and therefore leaving the most behind. Since I told her we were leaving, she hasn’t spoken a word to me, her hateful glare telling me all she cares to say. How could you let this happen to us? To me?
I’m trying, I want to scream. I’m doing the best I can.
Molly’s most upset about leaving Gus behind. She doesn’t fully grasp the concept of us living somewhere else and for that I’m thankful.
Tom pretends to be sad, but a glimmer of hope radiates from his feigned malaise, an anxiousness to get on the road, driven by a thin optimism that things might be different fo
r him in LA, better for him there.
“What about Dad?” Molly asks just before we set off.
“Don’t worry, baby, he’ll find us,” I say as I pray like hell that Sean shows up and doesn’t have a clue where we went, getting a healthy dose of his own medicine and feeling firsthand the decimating hurt of being abandoned and left behind.
I look in the rearview mirror to find Molly’s saucer eyes filled with concern, and my hate softens, my daughter’s love for her father reducing the vengeful spite to a longing for the truth to be different than it is, for Sean to be a different man than he is, for life to not be so hard, for him to have stayed, and for none of this to have happened in the first place.
We merge onto the 10 freeway, a direct artery from our old life to our new, seventy-five miles of asphalt that might as well be a thousand for how different the world we’re going to is from the one we’re leaving behind.
“Wiwll Mr. Bo tewll him whewre we went?”
“Yes, baby,” I answer, adding to the long list of lies I’ve told the kids since Sean left, protective instinct or cowardice stopping me from telling them the truth.
The kids know we are on our own, recognize that I’ve been working more, understand that money has grown more precious, but there was no blowout fight or emotional family gathering where Sean and I sat the kids down and told them we were separating or getting a divorce, and for the most part we have gone about our lives as if nothing has changed. Their dad left for a trip, but instead of returning a week or two later like he usually does, he hasn’t come back. To their questions about when he’s coming home, I’ve given noncommittal answers like, He’s on a really long trip this time or I’m not sure. I’ve considered telling them a big lie, like he joined the military and is fighting in some faraway land, or even telling them he’s dead. But that would only simplify things until the day he shows up very much alive.
And he will show up. I know Sean. It’s only a matter of time before he comes back looking for us, either to beg forgiveness and return to the fold or to check in on his progeny while passing through.
I should probably tell the kids the truth, but the truth seems impossible to explain: Your dad wasn’t cut out for this life. He never wanted to get married or have kids—he never wanted you. I tricked him into it by getting pregnant, and he ended up loving you, so he tried, but then it got too hard—you got too hard—so he left.
I hit the brakes to slow down for traffic, and the van sputters and coughs like it has a chronic case of bronchitis. The mechanic explained the problem is a cracked head, which made me imagine him wrapping gauze around the engine and giving it some Advil. Unfortunately the fix is not that simple, and the cost to repair it is more than the van is worth. So each day, I top off the radiator and pray it lives another day, knowing we’re living on borrowed time, and that at some point, the head is going to split open, and its brain matter will explode all over the road.
“Wlook,” Molly says, causing me to turn where she is pointing.
On the other side of the freeway, a mother duck waddles across the road, four ducklings waddling behind her as cars swerve and blare their horns to avoid them. Bravely the mother does not take flight. Her feathers ruffle with fear and she honks, but valiantly she continues on, leading her tiny family through the gauntlet. And I wonder if, when she chose her path, she realized the danger or if, like me, she was oblivious, but now she’s in it, halfway across the road and with no choice but to trudge on, to lead them as best she can, hoping and praying they make it to the other side.
5
My mom and I are in the hallway outside her condo. She’s been going at me nonstop for the past twenty minutes.
“…so you stick your head in the sand and pretend it’s all okay?” she says.
I haven’t seen her in a year, but the woman doesn’t age—not a thread of silver in her blond hair, her light skin lineless. At some point, I’m certain I will catch up to her, and we will look more like sisters than mother-daughter—her, the older, stronger, more competent, better-endowed sister—me, the younger, less capable sister whose body and life never filled out the way everyone thought it would.
“Did you even try to track him down, get him to give you some money, garnish his wages? You know there are groups that do that, track down deadbeat dads…”
The kids are inside catatonically plugged into the television. No dog, no orchard, no yard, nothing to do. We’ve been here half an hour, and already they’re bored out of their minds.
I focus on my breathing, in and out, reminding myself of the sacrifice my mom is making by taking us in. And when that no longer works, I tell myself that this is for my kids and that I would walk over red-hot coals for my kids, that I can do this.
“Have you even filed for divorce? Or what, Faye, are you still pining away for him, waiting for him to come back and take care of you? What were you going to do if he showed up, welcome him back with open arms?”
No. No. No. No.
No, I did not try to track Sean down because I know exactly where he is. He’s shacked up with Regina, a woman he met in Albuquerque. No, I did not try to get him to give me money. I didn’t feel like wasting my breath. No, I did not have his wages garnished. He owns his own rig, good luck with that. No, I have not filed for divorce. Divorce is for people who can afford a lawyer.
Yes and yes.
Pathetic as it is, yes, for months after he left, I prayed he would come back, and, yes, I would have welcomed him home.
My mom can’t understand this. She never had to go it alone, went straight from husband one to husband two to husband three, then she had me and her marriage to my dad stuck. She has no idea how overwhelming and scary it is to be on your own with three kids to support.
At first you think your anger will sustain you, but it doesn’t. It wears out quick, and you get tired, the kind of tired that makes your bones hurt and your mind numb until you feel like you’re a hundred instead of only thirty-two—so done in that you can’t imagine continuing the way you’re going. And that’s when the fear sets in: What happens if I don’t hang in there or if something goes wrong? I’m all they’ve got, just me, and there’s no way I can do this. I’m going to fail. Then what?
So, yes, you start to miss him…him, the one who caused this, but also the one who created this. The one who made promises you believed, words you staked your life on, vows to love and cherish—a dream faint but remembered. The one who looked at you adoringly when you delivered his first child, his lips grazing your forehead as he whispered, Well done, we’ll name her Emily because the name is as beautiful as her mother.
My mom continues on with no sign of slowing, the rant saved up since I confessed to her two months ago that Sean had been gone three months. “For whose sake?” she says. “The sake of appearances? Who are you trying to impress—your neighbors, the school, me? You think we’re all sitting around judging you? Or is it because you still want to be right, too stubborn to admit that Sean turned out to be exactly the loser I knew he was? I knew it the moment I met him, spineless, worthless. How you ended up with him…”
Perhaps walking over red-hot coals would be preferable to standing here like a five-year-old being scolded by my mother. At least it would be quicker. I return to counting my breaths, silently congratulating myself after each one I manage without detonation, wondering what sin I committed in some past life that condemned me to such harsh penance, because being forced to live with my mom is certainly too severe a punishment for anything I’ve done in this life.
“Or maybe that’s not it at all, and instead it’s exactly what it’s always been with you, you’re just muddling your way through the way you always do. No plan, just bebopping along whichever way the wind takes you, things always happening to you instead of you making things happen. It’s not like how you end up pregnant is a mystery, yet you’re surprised every time…”
I nod. I married Sean at nineteen because I was pregnant with Emily. Three years later, life alr
eady hard, I got pregnant with Tom. Then four years after that, Sean, who was already taking more trips and staying away longer each time, came home vowing to make things right, a promise that fell apart almost immediately but lasted long enough for me to end up pregnant.
She’s right, I’m an idiot.
6
We survived the night, and this morning I’m determined to take control of my life. And to do that, I need money.
“Come on, kids,” I say after a quick breakfast of Cheerios, the only breakfast food in the house. Food has never been high on my mom’s priority list, and if I don’t get a job quick, I’m a little concerned we might starve.
“Whewre we going?” Molly says, sliding off her chair and pulling on her Crocs, clearly excited to be leaving the confines of the condo.
Tom stands as well but looks less than enthused. New experiences don’t suit him well, and meeting new people doesn’t suit him at all. Bo taught him to think of it like a throwdown, one move at a time, don’t get too ahead of yourself. I see him doing that now. Stand up. That’s all. One move.
Emily remains in her chair, her arms crossed.
“Coming?” I ask, challenging her, my sympathy used up. My fault or not, she’s being a little skunk, and for all I care, she can stay home and brood.
“Come on,” Molly says, yanking on Emily’s crossed arms.
Emily allows her sister to pull her from the chair. The truth is, she’s as antsy to get out of the condo as the rest of us, and Molly just gave her the excuse to give in.
* * *
As if releasing the strings of a corset, the moment we’re back in the van, I exhale. If I keep this up, I’ll die of asphyxiation before the first week is through. The van is like a haven, the closest thing to a home we still have. If I could afford the gas, I’d simply drive around, enjoying the reprieve, but the tank hovers near empty, and if I don’t get a job, it’s going to stay that way.
No Ordinary Life Page 2