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.’
‘She doesn’t like the stroller?’ asked my mom, who was standing behind me.
‘Usually she loves it. I don’t know what the problem is.’ I bent down, adjusting the straps, but Isby just yelled louder, now kicking her feet for emphasis. I glanced up at my mom. ‘I better just stay here. She’s really unhappy.’
‘Nonsense.’ She gestured for me to move aside, then leaned over, undoing the straps and lifting Isby up. ‘I’ll watch her. You go have fun.’
I did not mean for my expression to be so doubtful. Or shocked. But apparently it was, because she said, ‘Auden. I raised two children. I can be trusted with a newborn for an hour.’
‘Of course you can,’ I said quickly. ‘I just… I hate to leave you with her when she’s like this.’
‘She’s not like anything,’ my mom said, pulling the baby closer to her and patting her back. Weirdly enough, before, when Isby had been googly and cheerful, it was clear she was uncomfortable, but now, amid the screaming, she looked completely at ease. ‘She’s just giving me a piece of her mind.’
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ I said, raising my voice to be heard above the din.
‘Absolutely. Go.’ She put the baby over her shoulder, still patting. ‘That’s right, that’s right,’ she said, over the shrieking. ‘Tell me everything you have to say.’
I just stood there, watching as she started to pace the kitchen floor, rocking Isby in her arms. As she walked, she fell into a rhythm: step, pat, step, pat. The baby, over her shoulder, looked at me, her face still red, mouth open. But as the space increased between us, she began to quiet down. And down. And down, until all I could hear was my mother’s footsteps. And then something else.
‘Shh, shh,’ she was saying. ‘Everything’s all right.’
Her voice was low. Soft. And with these last words, suddenly familiar in a way it had not been ever before. That voice I thought I’d imagined or conjured: it was her, all along. Not a dream, or a mantra, but a memory. A real one.
Everything’s all right, I thought now, as I bumped over the curb and onto the street. There was no traffic in the neighborhood, and I thought of all those mornings with Maggie, feeling her hand on the back of my seat, her footsteps slapping the pavement as she raced to keep up before giving me one last push – Go! – and I was on my own.
I just kept riding, shooting under streetlights and past mailboxes, the tires whizzing against the pavement. As I turned out of the neighborhood, I had the road to myself, all the way to the single stoplight where it ended at the beach.
It was the light I focused on, solid green, up ahead of me, as I pedaled faster, the fastest yet, my hair blowing back, the spokes of the tires humming. I’d never gone so fast before, and it occurred to me that I should probably be scared, but I wasn’t. On the other side of the light I could see the ocean, big and dark and vast, and I pictured myself hitting the sand and just keeping going, over the dunes and into the waves, the current the only thing strong enough to stop me. I was so immersed in this image, which was amazingly clear in my head, that I didn’t see two things until I was right up on them: the banged-up Toyota truck sitting at the stoplight, and the curb right across from it.