I Liked My Life(9)
She transports the clothes with a luggage set I bought after my Christmas wish list was ignored in place of cashmere sweaters I didn’t need. It was a routine I didn’t mind. My friend Paige and I got what we really wanted during postseason sales, so what did it matter that our families were the world’s crappiest present pickers? It became a running inside joke. I looked forward to seeing what Eve and Brady came up with, knowing Paige and I would howl about it later over a glass of wine: fancy moisturizers for oily skin I didn’t have, holiday-themed clothing I’d never wear in public, IOUs scribbled on note cards we all knew would never be cashed in. I found their disregard for detail amusing, but as Eve comes across the forgotten gifts of celebrations past she rues her carelessness.
Her remorse is constant. She wears guilt like a jacket on a cold day, clutching it. She’s unable to eat a meal without lamenting that she never said thank you after I cooked. She can’t watch TV without chastising how frequently she cut me off mid-sentence when a commercial break ended. Eve was central to everything in my life, so from her limited view, she’s inherently culpable for my decision to leave. If only she knew what I really went through. I can’t stand the emptiness of her expression. I need to make her smile. It will be fuel for us both.
I focus on the old duffle bag tucked behind my long dresses. It was my go-to hiding place for gifts, and my baby girl needs a pick-me-up. I struggle to call her attention to it. If only there was a hit song with the chorus open the bag at the back of your mom’s closet.
Nothing I do draws her in, but once the clothes are gone, Eve notices it in the corner. The rectangular outline inside sparks her curiosity. Her train of thought makes me laugh: Oh my God … it’s like in the movies when old people have secrets stashed in a forgotten shoe box. Eve thinks she’s going to unzip the duffle and uncover my dirty laundry. Instead, she finds the Tory Burch flats she’s been pining for since November. I’d planned to give them as a Christmas gift, but she threw a teenage fit over waiting a month. One month. For two-hundred-dollar shoes a sixteen-year-old has no business owning. Her display of entitlement made me uneasy, so I decided it’d be a good lesson to hold out until her birthday.
Eve squeals the way she did a decade ago when Cinderella strolled by during our first trip to Disney. For a tenth of a second she indulges the self-absorbed teenager she has every right to be. The sight of it leaves me giddy. Yes, I need to solve the escalating tension between Eve and Brady by putting a buffer between them, but I also need to bring moments of peace.
It takes four trips to get my things upstairs and several hours to unpack. When the work is done, Eve puts on my favorite springtime pink polo and pulls her hair back with one of my old silver clips. She looks in the mirror. Tears gather. She watches them fill her eyelids and overflow, imagining it’s me she’s looking at. Our resemblance will be a curse for her now, an inescapable reminder.
Wearing my outfit comes with an urge to play house. She heads for the kitchen and, donning my yellow rubber gloves, starts in on the dishes. There aren’t many, but she’s acting a part, so she takes time scrubbing each one, ignoring the efficiency of the dishwasher. I’m horrified to realize this is how Eve pictures my days. No urgency, no goals, just a series of tasks to scroll through on autopilot like an indentured servant. There’s no room in Eve’s version of my life for personal pride, which explains why she hasn’t questioned my intent that night.
Brady enters the kitchen as Eve absently swirls a sponge around a stubborn ring at the bottom of a coffee mug, her back to the doorway. He gasps. It isn’t only my clothes; it’s the way Eve stands with her weight to the right, her left foot barely touching the tile. He blinks twice before processing it isn’t me. They’re kryptonite to each other right now; what helps one hurts the other. Remembering me at my best is cathartic for Eve and hell for Brady.
Eve senses a person behind her and drops the mug in the sink, startled. “S-sorry,” Brady stutters, still shaken by the mirage. He continues his course to the fridge.
“Did you see?” Eve asks. “I emptied Mom’s closet.”
He stops mid-step. Brady worked most of the day, as he does most Saturdays, and hadn’t yet noticed. Eve senses his irritation. “I mean, I figured, what do you need with a bunch of women’s clothes? And we’re the same size. Well, not in dress pants, but when do I ever wear dress pants? So, I moved it all upstairs. That’s okay, right?”
“It’s fine,” Brady manages, wishing he meant it.
There’s nothing more to say. Subject change, I encourage.
“Did you see the info on Exeter?” Eve asks.
Did she receive my suggestion or change subjects on her own? I can’t tell.
“Yeah.” He flipped through the folder at work to check how much it cost. I tried to sway his decision, but got nowhere. Brady was too busy assigning an honorable justification for why boarding school makes sense—it’s what she wants; she’ll have more supervision; I travel all the time. The menacing truth is that, for Brady, Eve leaving would be a relief. Without even asking the distance of the school from our house, he gives his answer. “If that’s what you want, go ahead and apply.”
Wonderful: my life’s work compromised after fifteen seconds of deliberation.
Boarding school is for the von Trapp family pre-Maria. Eve needs unconditional love staring at her twenty-four hours a day, massaging her stubbornness. Without attention, her sarcasm will turn to cynicism, her independence to isolation, her grief to depression. She’s too young to process the complexities and nuances of the world, but she’s astute enough to think about them and puerile enough to assume she understands—a dangerous combination. Everyone expects Eve to mourn dramatically like the teenager she is, but Eve mourns intellectually, trying to understand why it happened and what it means and how to move on. She needs to stop picking a fight with the future when there’s plenty to mend in the present. Who will help her with that in the middle-of-nowhere New Hampshire?