Three Months Ago
Nothing special had happened the day that Rosie decided that she wanted to start over. But she made a decision that she wanted to be the old Rosie. The old Rosie with Willow and Asher next to her.
And she made a plan for doing it that did not include this house or Rex or anything in Virginia. A plan that would take her back to that apartment in Manhattan where she was once so happy. Where she felt love in Rex’s arms. Where she felt love with Willow in her belly. Where she envisioned what her family would look like. Where she hung that locket on the wall and expected to be that happy forever.
Rosie was so excited about her thought, so resolute in making it real, that she drove straight to Robert Kansas Elementary School to share it with her daughter. To tell Willow all about the new life they would have. Rosie would finally use that key to 299 East 82nd Street. The one that Rex left on her bedside table years ago. That key Rex left beside her in her saddest moment. That key that promised happier times again once she had the courage to start over.
But when Rosie saw her daughter’s wobbly legs running toward her through the backyard of the school, Rosie’s insides churned and her resolve broke. She knew the old Rosie was gone. She knew she could never make it back to 299 East 82nd Street no matter how much she wanted to. She knew it even as she once again led Willow up into the branches of that willow tree and told her daughter she would take her with her to that apartment. She couldn’t stop her words from flowing out of her body and into Willow. She couldn’t stop wanting it to be true. Willing it and saying it and saying it and willing it. She wished everything she said would just stay there up in that tree with her daughter. That she could keep Willow and those words hidden by the cold leaves.
Rosie knew that her fantasy was irresponsible. And she knew that sharing her fantasy with her young daughter was even more irresponsible. But she ached for the Rosie in that fantasy. She ached for it in her blood. In her marrow. And saying it out loud breathed life into it. Infused it with attainability. But the whole fantasy was just that, a fantasy. No matter how terribly irresponsible it was to say those things to her daughter, it still warmed her heart to share them with Willow in that tree.
It still warmed her heart when her daughter believed in it. When her daughter believed in her. When her daughter wanted to go with her. When her daughter listened to her and hugged her and told her she loved being up there with her mother.
Rosie knew she shouldn’t have said those things, but she wanted another chance at effervescence. She wanted another chance at immortality. And even if her spirit might not be recovered in this world, it could still be celebrated by Willow somehow, somewhere.
But by the time Rosie got back home a couple hours later, her fantasy turned into guilt. And that guilt turned into another three white pills sliding down her throat even though there was only another hour until she had to pick up her children from school at the end of their day. And once the Vicodin was coursing through her blood, her fuzzy mind couldn’t stop her from driving all the way up onto the curb of Robert Kansas Elementary School.
She knew it was all so bad. She knew she was spinning out of control.
The next day, while she waited quietly at home before picking her kids up from Rex’s house, Rosie promised herself that she would never again drive high. Especially if her children were in the car. And she promised herself that she would never parent while she was high. And she pulled herself off the couch and marched upstairs with the intention of flushing every last white pill down the toilet.
She opened the top drawer in her closet, twisted the cap off the translucent orange tube and dumped a handful of pills into her palm. She balled her fist so tightly, so intently around them, and walked into her bathroom toward the toilet. She balled her hands so tightly in her hatred of those little white pills. Her hatred of the damage they had caused her. To the damage they had caused her marriage and her husband. The damage they had already caused her children.
But on the way, she caught herself in the mirror and looked straight into her own eyes. Straight into her tired, vacant eyes.
And then she watched those tired vacant eyes fill up with tears as she dropped four white pills into her mouth. She fell into her bed and let the tingly high overtake her arms, and then her legs, and then her fingertips, and then her eyelids. And then she stood up, pulled her feet across the carpet of her bedroom and then across the wood flooring of the staircase, and then the asphalt of the driveway, and got into her car.
* * *
Even though she was stoned.
Even though she promised herself she wouldn’t do this.
Even though she wished none of this was happening.
Rosie drove to Rex’s house to pick up her children.
* * *
Rex had already made sure that Willow and Asher had packed everything they needed for their mother’s house when Rosie pulled into his driveway and honked the horn twice.
“Be good for Mom,” Rex said as he let his children out the front door, all the while quietly hoping that their mom was going to be good for them.
Rex expected Rosie to give him the coy wave from the front seat she always did. He expected her to tip her oversize sunglasses down onto the tip of her nose and say, “Hey, Rex.” He expected her to get out of the car and hug her children. He expected her to get her red lipstick all over their cheeks when she kissed them hello. He expected her to take their bags and toss them casually into the trunk and drive away with Prince vibrating through the speakers.
As Willow and Asher maneuvered themselves into the back of Rosie’s car, Rex’s insides twisted and his face started tingling. Something wasn’t right here. Something wasn’t right with Rosie.
He watched Willow tug the heavy door twice before she was able to get it to close. And then Rosie began to drive away. And as she did, one tire rolled onto the cobblestone edging that lined the driveway before the car swerved back onto the pavement.
Rex knew exactly what it meant when he saw his ex-wife’s car moving like that. He knew how Rosie talked, and walked, and sounded, and drove when she was high on those little white pills. And this was it. This was exactly it.
Rex’s chest tightened and he lost his breath. His ears got hot and his fingers tingled. His jaw tensed and his spine straightened. The divorce had already brought so much anger, so much sadness into Rex’s body. But the sight of Rosie driving stoned with his children in the car filled him with a fiery rage. It burned through his whole entire being.
He would do anything to keep his children from drowning in Rosie’s wake. From suffering one more ounce. He would do anything at all. Anything at all to save them.
And for Rex, anything at all meant brute force. Of body and soul and will.