I laugh because I’m nervous and uncomfortable. I wish I could be as flippant as he is—as carefree—but I know those scores matter. They will determine what school she goes to, what stream of classes, everything.
I pray that her eyes stay blue.
Chapter Three
It’s supposed to be natural. It’s expected. But I’m chasing motherhood down an endless pit. It’s always just out of my grasp. I’m forever spinning, tumbling out of control with nothing to hold onto.
A tear drips from my cheek and lands on Rosa’s dark little face that’s contorted from her cries. It mixes with the others already pooling in the corners of her mouth and running into her ears. I’m trying so hard, trying to be calm, to be patient, but she won’t stop crying and nothing I do seems to placate her. When she screams like this, I want to shake her… and this thought shocks me. It burrows deep into my core and accuses me. Bad mother. My fingers grip the blanket that’s come loose around her ankles. I want to run away.
I take a deep breath and sigh out as much frustration as I can. Because I won’t shake her, I can’t. And I have to wait until Pelo gets home.
Sitting on the itchy, woven couch, I stare at the door like its keeping secrets from me. I wipe my eyes again, rocking her as she screams. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I don’t know why she hates me.
I stand and go to the window, pulling back the rough calico curtains to reveal just a slit of the outside. The sun is pouring down the pathways, filling up this concrete bowl with inescapable heat. I swipe the sweat from my forehead and loosen Rosa’s blanket, pulling off her socks and blowing her forehead. As I fan her head, she begins to calm. The doctor told me to wrap her. I’ve been doing what they say because I am new. I am struggling.
I move under the rattling air conditioning vent. Warm air seeps from it gently, blowing a stray spiderweb in front of my eyes. The air hits my damp face, and it does give some relief.
“Is that better, darling?” I whisper. She makes a strange fluttering noise in her chest and her eyes close. She’s worn herself out from crying so hard. Her ribs are probably sore from battening out her caterwauling. I pat her stomach and feel her tiny breaths rise and fall so rapidly it scares me. She scares me. I don’t feel ready for this.
I pull her away from the vent and take her to her bedroom, stepping over every creaky floorboard like a thief. I can’t bear her waking up again. It’s been two hours of screaming. It’s been six months of trying to care for her, trying to learn what it is to be a good mother, and I’m still floundering.
Pelo is so much better at this than I am. I wish he were here.
I ease the door open with my foot and shuffle inside. Gently lowering her into her crib, I back out of the room slowly without breathing. Outside, I can hear someone noisily dragging a bin down their path, and I want to run out there and punch them.
I’m too busy listening to the plastic wheels catching on every stone and sounding like a ton of bricks being dropped from the sky to watch my step. My foot catches the edge of the rug and hits the ground too hard. The noise is muffled by the carpet but still my heart stops beating. It hugs itself in anticipation.
I pause. Still as a stone, each breath working its way out of my lungs like a rolling pebble.
A rustle, a cough, and then she starts crying again.
I stare up at the ceiling, fighting back tears and sinking to the ground. A barbed cry spins up from my stomach and catches in my throat. No one told me it would be like this. In the posters of happy mothers cradling cherub-faced babies, their All Kind hair and skin glowing, everyone looks peaceful, fulfilled. I feel the opposite, I feel like someone has scooped my insides out and buried them somewhere I’ll never find. I feel like a failure.
I look down at my hands, dark over the blood red rug. Curling them into fists, I whisper words that no one will ever hear, “Why are you doing this to me?” I hit the floor and go back into her room.
A knock at the door startles me in my chair. Rosa snores, hanging limply over my shoulder. My heart pulses and stretches to a gallop when I think it might be him, but then it slows to an ooze when I realize, it’s most likely them.
I stall, hoping to hear a key turn in the lock, but it’s just another sharp knock, a much more impatient one.
It’s them.
I get up, my legs stiff, my back even more so. I’m not sure if I fell asleep in this chair—I could still be asleep. I can’t even remember when I last ate. I shuffle to the front door as the knocks get louder. Rosa’s head jerks at the noise, and she wakes. She doesn’t cry though, which is a huge relief. I know that’s not what they’re measuring, but I need quiet to deal with what’s coming.
I open the door, confronted by a middle-aged man and a young woman. The man smiles at me, and the woman scowls. Her thin lips pressed into a tight line that wrinkles the skin around her mouth. I feel stupidly satisfied by that.
“Mrs. Bianca?” the man says, glancing down at a clipboard.
I nod. “Yes.”
He pulls his sleeves up awkwardly; he’s drowning in the oversized brown suit he’s wearing. I make a mental note to ask if he wants me to adjust it for him after the meeting.
“You need to let us in, Mrs. Bianca,” the young woman says, bending her head in and around my arm, which is defensively barring the entrance. “I’m Miss Varela and this is Mr. Larson.”
I step back and let them into the living room. Rosa is still on my chest, and I make a point of not letting them see her face just yet. I know it’s silly, they’re going to see it eventually, but I’m not ready.
“Welcome. Please take a seat,” I say formally, my head nodding too much, sweat rising on the back of my neck. “Would you like a cool drink?” I ask.
“That would be lovely,” Mr. Larson answers.
At the same time, Miss Varela says, “No. We don’t have time.”
I sway back and forth, dancing, straddling the tiles and the carpet, and then decide to get the drinks. I place Rosa on the floor and hand her a rusk to chew on. She grabs it and starts drawing circles on the floor with it instead.
From around the fridge door, I hear, “So how are you coping with motherhood, Mrs. Bianca?”
I lie. “Fine, thank you.”
“Any concerns you want to address?”
Not to you.
“No, nothing,” I reply, flatly.
I bring a tray of drinks to them, place it on the table, and rush back to the kitchen to grab Rosa under her arms, her legs swinging and kicking me in the stomach. I take two steeling breaths and bring her to the lounge.
I sit down opposite them on the squeaky armchair, one rebellious spring sticking into my thigh, with Rosa on my lap.
Miss Varela examines Rosa’s face, her big, blinking eyes, and runs a hand through her short, caramel hair, gasping. Her head drops to her file, flipping through it with perfectly painted fingernails. She finds what she’s looking for and taps it once, jabbing her partner with her bony elbow. “It says here the child’s eyes were blue when she was born.”
I can feel the pencils sharpening, ready to condemn my daughter to a lifetime in the middle to lower classes. “Yes. But her father has heterochromia,” I say slowly, barely containing my irritation.
Miss Varela leans in and takes my daughter’s face in her hands, tipping it from side to side. Rosa laughs. It’s husky, devilish, and beautiful. But to Miss Varela, it’s the plague and she releases Rosa suddenly. She pulls the form out from between two pieces of cardboard. It’s pink again. Thin like milk skin. She waves it back and forth, and then lays it across the folder balancing on her knees. She glances to Mr. Larson. “I’m not sure what to do in this situation. It’s a first for me. Which eye do we score?” she says with a wobble to her voice.
I cover my mouth before I let a laugh slip out. “Can we not just leave them as blue?” I ask a little desperately, knowing it’s probably a futile request.
The Mr. Larson shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Bianca, b
ut rules are rules.”
Pelo, where are you?
Rosa squirms from my grasp, and I let her slip to the floor.
Miss Varela’s pencil is suspended in the air, searching for that box to tick that doesn’t exist. “So what do I write?” Her voice is angular, pointed towards my daughter’s ruin.
Mr. Larson gestures calmly at the page and says, “Put a cross in the other box for eye color and where it says ‘explain’ write abnormal.”
My face is set in concrete. My anger has slid off, and now I am stone.
He turns to me apologetically and says, “I know this is upsetting but given the child’s skin color, her scores were always going to be low. Don’t despair. This is her lot in life—the sooner you accept it, the sooner you can move on. There’s always the next one.” He pats my arm and leaves a slimy trace of sweat on my skin. I shiver despite the heat.
If Pelo were here, he’d fight for her. He would think of some way to persuade them to change their minds. That or he’d yell and lose his temper, making things worse. But at least he’d do something, not nothing. I always do nothing.
They fill out the rest of the forms in silence. The air thickening as we all become more and more uncomfortable. Mr. Larson makes three copies. Scans my wrist tattoo and the barcode on the form. It’s done. I feel thin as the forms and just as condemning.
They leave quickly, half-finished glasses of lemonade warming on the table. I watch the ice melt and wish I could disappear with it. I forgot to ask him about his suit…
I’m so sorry, darling. You got the worst of both of us. My dark skin and your father’s eyes.
Once they’re gone, the fuming begins. Pelo was supposed to be here, and he wasn’t. Without him, I didn’t stand a chance.
Chapter Four
I wish my heart were stronger. I wish it would beat independently, draft its own lines, keep its own time. But I am small inside. There’s a space to fill that needs him too much.
“It doesn’t matter!” Pelo snaps, his hands flat on the tiny, kidney bean-curved kitchen bench. He painted it bright red one day on a whim, saying if it’s a kidney, it should be kidney-colored. I was always half wondering if he was crazy or just passionate. Maybe both. “She’s remarkable. She’ll be remarkable, regardless of her scores.” He continues, pushing back from the bench and striding over to me. I’m trying to convince Rosa to eat a spoonful of mashed-up peas, hitting her scrunched-together lips absently with a spoon. Blobs of food fall into her hands, which she delights in rubbing together between her fingers.
“It’s not paint. Rosa, please eat something,” I plead and sigh. My arms ache from holding her all day. The pink plastic spoon shakes in my hand, and she’s chasing it through the air.
Pelo collapses in the chair next to me, making a weird air squishing noise as the cushion compresses, and distracts us both. He runs a hand over my hair and cups my chin, pulling my face towards his own. My heart stammers. My brain tells me I’m still angry with him.
“I can tell you’re worried, Esther, but it’s going to be okay,” he says smoothly.
I shake free though it feels like pulling from a warm bath into an ice-cold wind. “You should have been there. You promised you would be. I don’t think I said the right things. I tried but…” My head falls into my palms, and I mutter against my skin, “You’re better at that kind of thing than me.”
He rubs my back. “I’m sure you did the best you could. I’m sorry. I got distracted. They were having a meeting out in the front of the grocery store. You know Nelson? Yes, of course you do. Anyway, he was talking about the state of the smaller school. And really, you know, it is atrocious…” I lose him. And I know there’s no point in talking to him right now. Right now, he’s in a swirl of passion as the way he’s tracing patterns on my back becomes absentminded and kind of hurts.
Rosa gazes at him adoringly. A look I know is reflected in my own eyes. I plunge my hands into that cloud of ideas and enthusiasm, pocketing some of it for myself. He finishes his story and calms, his hand never leaving my back as he gently takes the spoon from my hand and begins feeding his daughter. He starts another story. I let his words wash over me and let him take over because I don’t have the energy to fight or to feel less than. I know I am anyway. I know that without him, I’m a shell.
Some small piece of me slides forward on its knees, looking up and trying to get me to listen. It says, Are you sure this is love?
I shake my head. It’s the best I was offered. It’s the only love I know.
“You don’t agree?” Pelo asks me suddenly, jolting me back to reality.
I gaze down at my fingers, pricked and calloused already, and I’ve only just started working as a seamstress. “No, I’m just tired.”
He twists from his impassioned rant and turns to face me, examining my hollow eyes and messy hair. “Oh darling, I’m sorry,” he says gently, his voice like rich, hot coffee, a sound I can almost wrap my hands around. “I’ve got this. Why don’t you go take a bath? Relax those aching muscles and overactive brain of yours.”
I stand. I want to say, Aching muscles yes, overactive brain, no. That’s you, Pelo. I’m not you. But then he might ask me who I am, and I don’t have an answer. Wife? Mother?
As I let the dark hall fold over me, I start to remember how angry I am that he didn’t show up today. And then I think of all the times he didn’t show up, left me waiting, gave me an excuse that wasn’t really an excuse, just a story he wanted to tell, and my hands tighten to fists. Fists that want to turn on their owner, because it’s my fault.
I’m always wearing his personality like a second skin. It doesn’t fit me but without it…
I’m not enough on my own.
I don’t know how to be alone.
I wish I could be stronger.
Chapter Five
I check the window one more time. I’ve already pulled the edge of the curtain from its rungs in nervousness. The clock bangs sharply like its fighting against time. It’s one am. Where is he?
Rosa is sleeping on the couch, curled up in a c-shape, and I dare not move her. Positioning herself with a book and a prime viewing position of the front door, she nodded off, waiting for him to come home. She does this every night.
I creep over and kneel down by her head. Her chubby arm hangs limply off the couch, and I gently lift it to place it against her chest. She’s only three years old, but in some ways, I feel she is more grown up than her father is. After our dinner of scrambled eggs on toast, she’d turned to me and said, “Daddy’s late. Daddy’s always late.”
I’d turned my back to her to stir the pot of custard on the stove because I didn’t want her to see my heart splitting like someone had pulled a loose thread at the top and couldn’t stop. “He’ll be home soon,” I’d whispered.
Now she’s stubbornly waiting to give him the telling off that I can never manage to do myself. I pull the blanket hanging on the back of the couch over her and kiss her cheek. She jerks and rolls over, always restless but strong. Then I slowly pack up the discarded picture books of perfect All Kind kids doing perfect Woodland activities and take them to her room.
Rosa’s room is like the inside of Pelo’s brain. On one side is the crib with the sides pulled down because we can’t afford a proper bed. He started painting it purple but then changed his mind and painted part of it orange. “Like flames, like passion!” he’d said. So now, it’s the color of a rotted pumpkin.
Banned books sit underneath the bed, their spines facing the wall. I have to thank him for these though. The stories are from another world, a better world. The colors aren’t gray, the trees are tall and willowy, or harsh and strong, elves and fairies live inside their trunks. They give her something no one else has, food for her imagination.
Stacks of empty boxes with tinfoil, leftover fabric, and paper plates stuck to them are piled in the opposite corner. Rocket ships, boats, and cars lovingly crafted by father and daughter. She loves to build things. I have to laugh wh
en I nearly trip over the box she made called the ‘helli chopper’. She presented it to me last week, an invention to help me cook dinner. A hole at one end where I would place a carrot, and a slot at the other where a perfectly chopped up carrot was supposed to come out. The scowl on her face when it didn’t work was hard not to smile at. The glare I got for smiling was even harder not to laugh at. She’s sensitive like him, creative and willful. I’m her outer covering, what she looks like. I struggle to see any of me in her personality. I can’t decide if that’s a good or bad thing.
I sigh, stack the boxes, and clear a path to her bed so I can put her to sleep at some stage.
A bang at the door startles me. It’s not a knock; it a dull thud like something or someone is ramming it with their shoulder. My lungs expand and hold. I’m frozen, gripping a rocket ship with streamers for fire hanging out one end. I don’t want to go to the door. I don’t want to know what’s on the other side.
I hear tiny footsteps running to the door and turning the knob. “Rosa, no!” I shout. I hurry down the hall in time to see a dark figure fall with the opening door and collapse in the gap.
Rosa turns to me as I stand still in horror, tears welling in her innocent eyes. She squats down on her haunches and pats the man’s head. “Rosa, get away from him,” I shriek.
There’s blood on her fingers, and I rattle like an ice cube in an empty glass.
“Daddy’s home,” she says quietly, still patting his head. A three-year-old shouldn’t see this. A wife shouldn’t have to keep seeing this.
I’m impacted by a solid square of panic. It hits me in the chest and pulls my breath from me, landing on the floor.
The Willful Page 2