Four Years Ago
Although it was Rex who first vocalized the desire, the need, for the divorce, Rex was crushed when Rosie moved out of their home. His heart broke when he watched her toss her dresses into a cardboard box labeled “clothes.” Even though she did it without folding them. And Rex’s heart broke when Rosie sprinkled her paintbrushes into that same box. It broke when he watched her butt swaying as she pushed that cardboard box into the back seat of her bizarre blue car. It broke when he watched that car drive away, and Rosie waved out the window with her left knee peeking out.
And it broke all over again when he turned around to his home that had now become just a house. It broke when he realized that without Rosie’s paintings, he was left with bare walls. And that without Rosie’s record collection, he was left with a quiet home. And that without Rosie, he was less.
It was almost as if Rosie took all of Rex’s good with her when she moved out of their house. Because all this time, without Rex knowing it, Rosie had been on one end of a seesaw holding down a boulder. She was sitting there, thus enabling Rex to soar. But when Rosie got up off that seesaw, Rex hit the ground so hard. He hit the ground so hard he didn’t know if he would be able to get back up.
Rex called his old friend Roy as he sat at the foot of his now-empty bed. “Remember how I told you Rosie would be trouble?” he said. “I think I’m the one in trouble now.”
And Rex was right because without Rosie, Rex hardened. His shoulders pushed up toward his ears. His eyebrows furrowed and his upper lip crinkled. His bottom teeth twisted and his jaw jutted out. He chewed his Bubblicious gum so hard that his temples flared.
All this heartbreak, all this loss, all this sadness, all this anger began oozing out of him as he writhed around on the ground. On the ground and in pain without Rosie. It oozed out of him and enveloped him in a dark and stormy cloud.
Anyone, everyone, could see it from a mile away. Especially Willow.
But Rex knew of nothing better than to sink into the parenting books and proven coping mechanisms. “Be big and strong,” the books told him. Big and strong he could do. Always. “Your children will be feeling a loss of control and structure,” he read. “You need to restore structure for them, even if artificially,” the book said. And Rex complied.
The next morning when he woke up, Rex taped a to-do list of morning activities on his daughter’s and then his son’s doors. It included teeth brushing and face washing. Made beds and folded pajamas. Brushed hair and tidy outfits. Things all children could do. Rex stared at the space on the page at the bottom of the list. “Family Breakfast,” he added. He stared for another moment before reversing his pencil and erasing the word family. But the grooves in the page were still there. Staring right back at him.
Rex promptly retraced the indents with the tip of his pencil. They were still a family. Rex, Willow and Asher. A family. One part of one family. And a family of their own.
* * *
While Rex struggled after the separation, Rosie flourished. Because without having to sit on that seesaw, holding that boulder for her husband, Rosie felt free again. And the instant Rosie drove down the driveway and past the boring white fence Rex loved, and out of the quiet neighborhood he chose, Rosie felt empowered to take control of her life. To re-create a world she loved. Re-create a love where she could love. To re-create a world wherein she could love herself. And Willow. And Asher. Even if it were here in the quiet suburbs of Virginia.
She tossed all of the pill bottles she had sneakily acquired through the years into a drawer in the depths of her closet and wiggled her way out of Vicodin’s grip immediately.
The simultaneous release from her husband, that house and those white pills enabled Rosie to breathe again. So fully. So deeply. So happily.
Rex had inadvertently deprived Rosie of oxygen for so long. Rex wanted to live a life with rules. And a lot of them. He wanted bedtimes and classic books and the television off. He had read every parenting book in the library while Rosie was pregnant, and this was what they told him his children needed. Structure, regimen, consistency. And Rosie let Rex do all of these things while she silently disagreed.
She kept quiet in her belief that there wasn’t any one thing all children needed. She had trusted Rex and his parenting books enough to keep quiet about her belief that each child, each person, was different and, accordingly, needed different love. So Rosie just silently prepared to be a mother who would listen to and act upon individual quirks and preferences. She had done this so naturally with all people. But she would do it with particular kindness and attention for her children. She wanted them to have fun and feel free. To be themselves and be happy. And she wanted to be fun and free with them. She wanted to be herself and be happy with them. She wanted to be coloring and singing and making a mess. She wanted to be watching movies and listening to records. She wanted to be playing dress-up and putting on makeup. Yes, she wanted to be herself. With her children next to her. She wanted all of them soaking each other up all the time. She wanted all of them filling each other with love. So much real, specific, nuanced love. And she was manic with life and energy when she walked her children into her new cottage with ivy growing up the side and peeling wallpaper on every wall. She was so happy, and so reenergized.
She gushed with it. And she was so excited to swaddle her children with it.
So when her children came to see her new home for the first time, she filled the house with sugary snacks and Prince albums. And she allowed all those things to flow and flow indefinitely in her home. She allowed her children to see and do everything in that home. She showed them all of the things she loved. Elton John and Fleetwood Mac. Blazing Saddles and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Allowed them to sing and dance and feel free. She gave them glitter and face paint and makeup and clothes to dress up in. To feel silly in.
She hugged them and kissed them at every chance she got. She gave them so much love. So much of the most Rosie kind of love.
When Rosie noticed that her children’s bodies had become exhausted with fun, she invited them into her bed to love and hug and kiss them some more as they fell asleep. That night, there in Rosie’s bed, all twisted up and happy with her children, it occurred to Rosie that her divorce from Rex was the best thing that ever happened to her. She was herself again. Dancing, singing, laughing, making art and, most importantly, loving her children again. Loving them wholly. In her heart and in her head. In her bones. She could feel it moving through her. And after many years without any of that, she was so happy to have it back.
But as Rosie’s eyelids fell heavy and she drifted off to sleep, she wondered if these feelings could endure. Because even Rosie knew that she was still just a ballerina pirouetting across the stage. Everyone loved to see her dance. But when she got offstage, her feet were covered in blisters. And no matter how much Rosie loved to dance, those blisters hurt. They hurt so much she might eventually have to stop dancing.