I head up the stairs. There are twenty-one floors between the roof and me. I could take the elevator, but I feel like I need this walk upward. I assume that, despite my father’s crazy talk, the engineers of this building calculated that it won’t fall down today. I assume it’s strong enough to hold me, even with the weight of my burdens and regrets.
I feel this deep need to push against gravity, against my father’s sick and twisted ideas about how the world works, about how life works.
So I walk up and up and up.
*
I return to my apartment a few hours later and find my father’s gone. I find my mom on the balcony, alone with a glass of wine. I open the sliding door. “Can I join you?”
She nods.
“Did you talk to him?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“It is over. I will not allow him to lie to us anymore.”
I sit down next to her. “Really?”
“Yes,” she says, taking a sip from her glass. “Really. I got the cancer removed from my neck. Now I will remove your father from my life. He is another kind of cancer.”
I sit back in my chair. “What about Mila?”
“She will see him when he is in town. But he will not stay here.”
“Oh.”
“You can see him, too, if you want.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Okay.” She nods. “But he will pay for your college. He’s promised me that.”
I take a deep breath, try to hold back the tears. “What college? Dad was right. No one’s going to accept me, not after what I did.”
She puts down her glass. “You will get in somewhere. Plus, there are many options, many routes toward many different futures.”
“I don’t think so, Mama.” I think about Virgo’s texts to Sammie. “That picture has me doomed.”
“Viviana, no.” She reaches her arm around my shoulders. “You are so very young. Your life has only just begun. Don’t let your mistakes define you.”
I want to believe her. I want to so much.
The tears start to come. The tears and the nausea and the dizziness.
The city below us sways and swirls.
“I don’t know, Mama—”
“Come here, honey.” She pulls me toward her. I rest my head against her chest. The tears come fast, but I don’t try to hold them back. “It’s okay. You can cry. Let it out.”
So I do.
I cry until I’m nearly out of breath. My mother rubs my back. She doesn’t tell me to calm down or stop crying or anything. She just lets me be.
Finally, when I feel like I’ve run dry, I lift my head. “Are you getting a divorce, then?”
My mom looks at me. “Viviana, there is no divorce.”
“What? Why not?”
“Oh, honey. Don’t you get it? We were never married.”
“Oh, Mama. I didn’t realize.”
She goes on to explain that it will be a clean break, one that won’t require lawyers or courts or papers signed and certified. He will just be gone. He will just disappear. “I had hoped that you would never find out. I’m so sorry, Viviana. There are so many things I would have done differently if I could have.”
I shake my head. “Don’t let your mistakes define you.”
She strokes my hair. “You make me very proud, Viviana. Thank you for pushing me. Thank you for believing in me.”
She reaches out for a hug, and I hold her in close. I feel like this is the first time we’ve ever really talked to each other. I feel like I never want to let go.
“I want to go to therapy,” I whisper. “I need to talk about all of this with someone.”
“Yes,” she says, sitting back. “He will pay for that, too, at least until I am finished with school. And then I will take care of it all myself.”
“I have all the money from my job.”
“No. That’s your money. If he doesn’t come up with the money, I’ll find a way to pay for it as long as you need it.”
“Thank you, Mama.”
“No, Viviana.” My mom reaches her hands out to mine. “Thank you.”
College Essay Tip
Offer a specific, authentic experience from your life. Provide details from your life so that the colleges can get to know you as an individual.
Viviana Rabinovich-Lowe
Common Application
FINAL DRAFT
Prompt: Mainly, colleges want to see that, while you’ve made mistakes in your life, you have grown from these mistakes and will use the lessons to function as a mature college student. Write about a mistake you’ve made and the lessons you’ve learned as a result.
I’m on the cusp. And it’s so scary. I’m about to leave high school, enter the world of college and everything that comes after. I will be expected to “function as a mature college student.” The question is: Considering the mistakes that I’ve made, can I do it?