Darling Rose Gold(7)
“He looks like you,” I say, glancing at my daughter.
She nods a second time, staring at the baby with such intensity, I know she’s not listening to me. I’d recognize that lovesick gaze anywhere: she is head over heels for her son.
I focus on Adam, who watches me with curious hazel eyes. He sticks his tongue out again, then puts a few fingers in his mouth. All infants resemble tiny, wrinkled grandpas, but on Adam, the arrangement works. He’s a cute baby. Lord knows the Wattses aren’t lookers, so it won’t be long before the ugly stick comes after him. For now, he is precious and adorable and everything I’ve hoped for in a grandson. I sigh.
“It feels like just yesterday you were visiting me here with that growing belly,” I say, handing him to Rose Gold. “Oh, darling, he’s perfect.”
She nods and nestles him back into his car seat. “I think so too. He almost slept through the night once.” She tucks a blanket around his body and under his chin—our miniature mummy. He smiles up at us, dimples forming in his chubby cheeks. We both beam back, awed.
Rose Gold turns to me. “Should we go?”
I nod. We both reach for the driver’s door. I realize my mistake and shuffle to the passenger’s side. I bought this van when Rose Gold was a toddler. I have never sat in the passenger seat.
Inside, Rose Gold removes her sweatshirt, revealing a ratty white T-shirt underneath. She appears already to have lost some weight. I debate saying as much, knowing most mothers would be overjoyed to hear such a thing—I’ve been trying to lose my baby weight for twenty-three years—but stop myself. Comments on weight loss have never been a compliment in Rose Gold’s book.
She is small behind the wheel. A vehicle of this size is meant for a meaty driver, someone like me. Still, she handles the van with ease, pulling out of the parking spot and pointing it back down the long road. She grips the wheel, hands at ten and two, knuckles turning white. I wonder when she got her driver’s license. I never gave her permission. I imagine wrenching the steering wheel away from my daughter, sending the van careening off the road.
We all have little musings like this: what if I screamed in the middle of the meeting? What if I grabbed his face and kissed him? What if I put the knife into his back instead of the utensil drawer? Of course we don’t act on them. That’s what separates the sane from the not: knowing madness is an option but declining to choose it.
I notice the silence has carried on a beat too long. “Thank you for coming to get me.”
Rose Gold nods. “How does it feel to be out?”
I dwell on the question. “Scary. Unsettling. For the most part, fantastic.”
“I bet.” She chews her lip. “So now what? Do you have to do community service or go to therapy or anything?”
Yeah, like I’m going to serve the community that threw me in prison. Throughout Rose Gold’s childhood, I was an exemplary neighbor, cleaning trash off our highways and playing bingo with our elderly. If I want therapy, it has to be on my own dime. I don’t have that kind of money in the first place, and if I did, I certainly wouldn’t use it to have some quack list all my deficiencies. One of my fellow inmates—a former shrink—gave me some free advice.
She suggested I make a list of goals for my return to society, said keeping busy would leave me less time for getting into trouble. I didn’t bother telling her how busy I was during the months leading up to my arrest.
I came up with the following list:
Find somewhere to live. My town house went into foreclosure after I went to prison.
Find a job. I can’t work in a hospital anymore, but I have a promising lead with an old friend from prison. When Wanda got out, she started a nonprofit that helps female former convicts get back on their feet. Ex-prisoners run the company, Free 2.0. (What about the women who’ve been in and out of prison a dozen times? I asked. Would she call it Free 13.0 for them? “Patty,” Wanda had drawled, “your mind is both your biggest asset and your biggest drawback.” People tend to describe my personality via backhanded compliments.) Last time she wrote, she mentioned something about manning a hotline remotely.
Fix things with Rose Gold. When my daughter began visiting me a year ago, she was angry and wanted answers. Step by step, I’ve been winning her back. Soon things will return to how they used to be.
Convince my friends and neighbors I’m innocent.
Denial is as good a strategy as any. The word suggests obliviousness, a refusal to see the truth. But there’s a mighty big difference between someone who won’t see the truth and someone who won’t tell it. People are much more inclined to forgive you if you act like you didn’t know any better. Let them call me oblivious. Let them think I don’t know right from wrong. Beats the alternative.
I glance at Rose Gold. I have one shot to get this right.
“First, I need a place to stay,” I say, feigning nonchalance.
She doesn’t react, keeps checking on Adam in the rearview mirror.
I was hoping she’d offer so I didn’t have to ask. Maybe I’ve overestimated her renewed loyalty to me. I look out the window. We’re on the highway now, nothing but cornfields for miles in any direction. They built this prison where Jesus left his sandals. I keep my voice casual.