Rise: How a House Built a Family(4)

I stuck to the script. “Maybe you should change jobs. Get your mind on something new.” I waved like he had, out at the nothingness of the field and the forest beyond, where the only things giving us a sideways look were the mosquitoes brave enough to look away from the diving bats.

“Dammit!” He threw his head back. “Dammmmm-it!” He stretched out the word, loud and long like a song to the stars. “A regular day job is not for me. Never was. Jobs like that were for my father.”

He struck his index finger against my chest three times, and focused on it for several heartbeats, eyes narrowed. “You should try those pills again. Maybe the nausea was from something else. Have you seen Shane’s wife? Her tits grew at least a cup.” He held his hands inches in front of me, air-massaging imaginary breasts as though the proper fertilizer would make them sprout like healthy eggplants.

“I’ll try again,” I said, pretending I hadn’t flushed the pink pills he’d ordered from Chest Success to save me from my chest fail. The package included a complimentary bottle of pheromone spray, boasting a woman who didn’t need the breast pills or more than a quarter yard of fabric for any outfit in her closet. She was probably born with no body hair, and her feet were no doubt size six. “Why don’t we get some sleep? I’m leading a software meeting in the morning. I have to be on top of my game.” I stood, smiling even though he wasn’t, then walked around him to the door with my hand out behind me, hoping, wishing, praying that he would take it and follow me inside.

He took the hand and used it as a pivot point, a handle, a lever, to swing me into the wall. It was siding here, just under the porch, and that was better than the brick on the rest of the house, I told myself, twisting so my hip would hit with the next swing. It was a habit I’d developed when I was pregnant. Whenever you’re slammed into a wall, protect your belly, protect the baby. There was no baby now, and my belly would have bruised less than my hip would, but those habits, the old ones, they die hard.





–3–

Rise

Sticks and Stones

Mom called me determined, or a Taurus, but Grandma said straight up, “You mean as stubborn as a jackass.” Even when I was three and pretending not to understand them, I knew exactly what they meant, and I knew they were right.

That stubborn streak remained strong with each bad relationship. I believed that I could fix it, that I could wait out the bad times and talk some sense into everyone. Of course, I also made secret plans to get away, saving money in my tampon box under the instructions for use, but the fact that my cash would fit unnoticed in my tampon box showed my level of dedication.

I stuck with most of these relationships a lot longer than I should have for a million small reasons that all felt big at the time. I’m stubborn enough to want to see something all the way through, and I believe hard work can fix things when they’re broken. My mom’s strong religious beliefs were another powerful reason I stayed even when it seemed unlikely I would come out alive. Stay and pray, she would say. Because divorce under the wrong circumstances was a sure path to damnation. Larger and more important than all of those reasons, I stayed because of a little old liar called fear.

My kids and I had spent years walking on our tiptoes, which was great for calf development but not so great for posture because of the way we had to duck our heads to avoid sharp, flying words. The bad moments had outweighed the good, but optimism had been pressing her heavy thumb hard on the scale. I would always be an optimist, but I had finally learned to recognize her in the mirror—the twelve-step process had begun. When I found myself alone and in a flattened, hopeless position that must be what addicts call the bottom, I finally believed that there was a top.

Matt and I divorced, and I believed that was a big enough step for the kids and me to rebuild our damaged family. But months later, Hope, the oldest at seventeen, still slept on the floor next to her door, listening. She had seen the most, and she felt the most protective of me and the younger kids. If anyone could prove the stereotype of an oldest child, it was Hope. Her long, dark hair and tiny nose made her a stunning beauty, model-perfect if she could add ten or twelve inches to her five-foot-two frame, but on the inside she had those extra inches and then some. Hope was an organized, calculating, determined force of nature. And somewhere along the line she had become a very angry force, too. Was that one of the twelve steps? Or maybe I was thinking of grief, not recovery. Then again, we were probably navigating the steps of a dozen different traumas at once, in which case, all emotions were justified. Even though Hope’s anger threw out stinging words at times, I preferred them to silence.

Fifteen-year-old Drew carried a shotgun shell in his pocket and a chip on his shoulder, but lacked the confidence to use either one effectively. He was the silent one, so much like me it hurt. I could see the things boiling under his surface, though I knew that no one else could. He was almost six feet tall, thin, with loose brown curls that he had kept short until recently. He was devilishly handsome, but lacked the self-assurance to use that superpower. I thought of him as my Mini-Me, but the optimism was weaker in his blood. It was a worrisome combination, the silence without the little voice to cheer him up. I needed a way past his well-structured walls, and I didn’t have much time to find it.

Jada and Roman were young enough to pretend they were unaffected, even though Jada’s sixth-grade poetry notebook was too full of sunshine and rainbows, too optimistic, when the truth was muddy and shadowed. My elf girl might be the most difficult to heal. I’d passed optimism to her full force, like a congenital disease.