Along for the Ride(102)

‘What?’

I pulled another black dress out, this one with a pleated skirt, then shoved it back. ‘You keep saying that, how it’s not simple. So tell me what it is, then.’

I could feel his surprise, tangible, which I guess shouldn’t have been that shocking itself. He was used to me chalking up whatever decisions he made to a peculiar kind of logic, all his own. It excused so much: it excused everything. He was a writer, he was moody, he was selfish. He needed his sleep, he needed his space, he needed his time. If he’d kept himself apart from the rest of the world, these things would have been just quirky annoyances, nothing more. But that was just the thing. He did involve other people. He reached out, drew them close. He made children with them, who then also could not separate themselves, whether they were babies or almost adults. You couldn’t just pick and choose at will when someone depended on you, or loved you. It wasn’t like a light switch, easy to shut on or off. If you were in, you were in. Out, you were out. To me, it didn’t seem complicated at all. In fact, it was the simplest thing in the world.

‘See,’ my dad said now, ‘this is what I meant when I said you were angry. You’ve heard Heidi talking, and you’ve only gotten one side of the story.’

‘That’s not why I’m upset with you,’ I told him, pushing more dresses aside. There was something so satisfying in the sound of the hangers clacking, all those colors blurring past. Pink, blue, red, orange, yellow. Each one like a shell, a skin, a different way to be, even if only for a day.

‘Then what is it?’ he asked.

Black, green, black, polka dot. ‘It’s just,’ I said, ‘you have the opportunity for a second chance here.’

‘A second chance,’ he repeated.

‘Yeah,’ I said. Short-sleeved, long-sleeved, narrow skirt, full. ‘But you won’t even take it. You’d rather just quit.’

He was quiet, the only sound the hangers sliding. I was almost to the end now, the choices narrowing to few, then fewer still. ‘Is that what you think?’ he said slowly. ‘That I’m quitting on you?’

‘Not on me,’ I said.

‘On who, then?’

And then, suddenly, there it was. A simple black dress with tiny beads hanging from the skirt, matching those along the neckline. A dancing dress, a flapper dress. The perfect dress, the one I’d been looking for all along. And as I stared at it, I found something else as well. The answer to his question, and the reason, I realized suddenly, why this summer had brought so much of this to the surface.

‘Isby,’ I told him.

When I said her name, I saw her face. Squawking, cooing, wailing, drooling. Sleeping, wakeful, fussy, content. The first day I’d seen her, asleep in Heidi’s arms, and how she’d been only seconds ago, her eyes following me as I left the room. All these little parts of her, just the very beginning of who she would and could be. It was early yet. She had everything ahead of her, and more than anything, I hoped that she wouldn’t need a lot of second chances. That maybe, unlike so many of us, she’d find a way to get it right the first time.

‘Isby?’ my dad repeated. ‘You mean the baby?’

‘That’s what I call her,’ I told him. ‘That’s who she is to me.’

He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, ‘Auden, I love Thisbe. I’d do anything in the world for her, or for you. You have to know that.’

This was what my mother had said, too, only moments earlier, and I’d chosen to believe her. So why was this so much harder? Because my mom had come to me. Traveled all this way, taken that risk, retraced some, if not all, of her steps to get us back to a place where we could, hopefully, forge a new path together. My dad was still in the same spot, and as always, he wanted me to come to him. Like I’d done at the beginning of the summer, in this house, and at home as well. Always crossing that distance, crossing town, accommodating, making excuses.

‘If that’s true,’ I said to him, ‘then prove it.’

He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, ‘How am I supposed to do that?’

Sometimes, you get things right the first time. Others, the second. But the third time, they say, is the charm. Standing there, a quitter myself, I figured I’d never know if I didn’t get back on that bike, one last time. So instead of replying, I pulled the black beaded dress from the closet, draping it across the bed. ‘You figure it out,’ I told him. ‘There’s something I have to do.’

I’d planned to drive. In fact, I’d had my keys in hand as I ran out the door, the black dress swishing around my knees. But then, I saw the bike, sitting right against the steps where I left it, and the next thing I knew, I was climbing on. I raised up on the pedals, tried to remember everything Maggie had taught me over the last few weeks, and then pushed off before I could change my mind.

It was weird, but as I started down the front walk – wobbling slightly, but upright at least so far – all I could think of was my mom. When I’d hung up the phone moments earlier, I’d pulled on the dress and found my flip-flops and bag, figuring I’d put Isby in the stroller and take her with me. But as I started to strap her in, hurriedly explaining myself to my mom, the baby started to fuss. Then cry. Then scream.

‘Oh, no,’ I said as her face flooded with color. I knew the signs of a full-out fit when I saw one. ‘This is not good.’