But what surprises me is that James remembers.
I nod. “Yes,” I say. “That was the year Mia wanted a dog.” A Tibetan mastiff, to be exact, a loyal guard dog with an abundance of thick, shedding fur that ordinarily weighed well over a hundred pounds. There would be no dog. James made that clear. Not that birthday; not ever. Mia replied with tears and hysterics and James, who typically would have ignored the rant, spent a fortune on a plush Tibetan mastiff, which had to be special ordered from a toy store in New York City.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so happy,” he says, recalling the way little Mia’s arms wrapped around that 36-inch stuffed animal, her hands like a padlock at the other end, and I begin to understand: he’s worried. For the first time, James is worried about our child.
“She still has that dog,” I remind him. “Upstairs. In her room,” I say, and he says that he knows.
“I can still see her,” he admits. “I can still see the elation when I came into the room with that dog, tucked behind my back.”
“She loved it,” I say, and with that, he walks to his office and solemnly closes the door.
I forgot altogether to buy Halloween candy for the neighborhood kids. The doorbell rings all night and, stupidly hoping to see my in-laws on the other side, I throw it open every time. Initially I’m the crazy lady passing out change from a piggy bank, but by the end of the night I’m slicing the birthday cake and giving it away. Parents who don’t know give me dirty looks, and those who do examine me with pity.
“Any news?” asks a neighbor, Rosemary Southerland, who trick-or-treats with tiny grandchildren, too small to ring the doorbell alone.
“No news,” I say, with tears in my eyes.
“We’re praying for you,” she offers, helping Winnie the Pooh and Tigger down the front step.
“Thank you” is what I say, but what I’m thinking is Fat lot of good it’s doing.
Colin
Before
I say she can go outside. It’s the first time I let her out alone. “Stay where I can see you,” I say. I’m covering the windows in plastic sheeting in preparation for winter. I’ve been at it all day. Yesterday I caulked all the windows and doors. The day before, insulated the pipes. She asked why I was doing it, and I looked at her like she was stupid. “So they don’t burst,” I said. It’s not like I want to stay here for the winter. But until I figure out a better option, it’s not like we’ve got a choice.
She pauses before the door. She holds the sketch pad in her grasp. “You’re not coming?”
“You’re a big girl,” I say.
She lets herself outside and sits about halfway down the stairs. I watch out the window. She better not press her luck.
It snowed last night, just a little. The ground is covered with brown pine needles and mushrooms, but soon they will die. Patches of ice form on the lake. Nothing substantial. It will all melt by noon. A sign that winter will arrive soon.
She dusts the step free of snow, sits down and spreads the sketch pad across her lap. Yesterday we came out together and sat beside the lake. I caught trout while she drew a dozen or so trees with raggedy lines protruding through the earth.
I don’t know how long I watch her through the window. It isn’t so much that I think she’s gonna run away—she knows better than that by now—but I watch her anyway. I watch the way her skin becomes red from the cold. The way her hair blows around in the breeze. She tucks it behind an ear, hoping to contain it, but it doesn’t work. Not all things like to be contained. I watch her hands move across the page. Quickly. Easily. With a pencil and paper she is the same way I feel with a gun: in charge, in control. It’s the only time she’s sure of anything about herself. It’s that assurance that keeps me at the window, on guard but also hypnotized. I imagine her face, what I can’t see when her back is in my direction. She’s not so hard on the eyes.
I open the door and step outside. It slams shut and she startles, turning to see what the hell I want. On the paper before her, there’s a lake, the ripples gliding across the surface on the gusty day. There’s a handful of geese perched on a gauzy patch of ice.
She tries to pretend I’m not there, but I know, my presence makes it hard for her to do anything but breathe.
“Where’d you learn to do that?” I ask. I look at the exterior doors and windows, searching for leaks.
“Do what?” she asks. She sets her hands on top of the picture, so I can’t see.
I stop what I’m doing. “Ice-skate,” I snap sarcastically. “What the hell do you think?”
“I taught myself,” she says.
“Just for the hell of it?”
“I guess.”
“Why?”