Rex was dreaming of Rosie when he woke up to the sound of Willow in the hallways saying shh. And as he turned over in bed, he heard Asher reply with a familiar “sowwwyyy” even louder than Willow’s shh had been. Rex rubbed his eyes and looked at the clock next to the bed. It was far too early for his children to be awake.
He rolled out of bed and peered over the balcony to find his children walking out of his house with their backpacks on. He could tell by the way they pressed through the door that they weren’t going to school. So Rex tied his sneakers and followed quietly behind them. Quietly and slowly fifty yards behind them. Quietly and slowly as the sun came up and the morning dew evaporated. Quietly and slowly and wondering with every step where his children were walking to at this time of the morning. And even though Rex did not know where his children would lead him, he felt assured the journey would help him understand them.
Rex remained perplexed when they ended up at the bus station and Willow stepped up to the ticketing window with a pile of cash in her hand. But when Willow said, “Two tickets for New York City, please,” in her tiny, little voice, Rex knew exactly what had happened.
He thought of the locket. He thought of the address engraved on the back of it. He thought of tying it around those grape Pixy Stix. Those sugar-filled tubes that were really meant to say “I love you.” The thing he never said to his daughter. The thing he had withheld from his daughter for so long that she thought they were from Rosie. Even after her death.
And it made so much sense now that his daughter thought they were from her mother. The person who did say “I love you” all the time. With her words and her gifts and every teeny, tiny action. The person who gushed with the most manic form of it all the time. All the time until she didn’t at all.
And at that moment, it was all understood. It was heartbreaking but it was understood. Rex knew they needed to complete this journey on their own. He knew they needed to get to that apartment themselves. Explore this fantasy, this need, all on their own. But he needed to ensure they could do it safely. And once they did, he could be there for them. Like the father, the man, he wanted to be.
Rex sprinted home and straight into his office, where he checked the bus arrival times into Manhattan. He called up Roy and explained what had happened.
“Can you have someone meet them at the bus stop to guide them into a taxi?” Rex asked his friend anxiously. “I need to be at the apartment when they get there. I need them to get there...and think they did it on their own. Can you find someone?”
Roy, the dependable friend he always was, agreed. He would ask his friend Sasha who worked nearby. He would make sure his children got to that apartment. Rex knew that Roy would never make a promise he couldn’t keep.
It was all Rex needed to hear before hanging up the phone and packing a bag for himself, and then Asher and Willow. He packed pants and shirts and sweaters. Action figures and superhero T-shirts for Asher’s. Even purple leggings and black shirts for Willow.
He stopped in his office and there it was, the picture of Rosie he kept next to his computer screen. She was standing on the brink of the ocean with a paisley dress on. She was lifting the bottom of the dress so it wouldn’t get wet, but the ocean spray was getting to her anyway. She was laughing and bright in her oversize sunglasses. It was a different time. A happier time. For both of them. When Willow and Asher were just a twinkle in their eyes. When love was flowing all around them. Rex turned the picture frame over and opened the back, where he had kept Rosie’s note that was found in her room.
My Willow. My Asher. And also my Rex.
I love you oodles and oodles and noodle poodles.
I am sorry for all of it.
—Mom
The note that Rosie left was so carefully written in purple cursive.
Rex thought of that first time he saw that lively rounded handwriting on the card from Blooms Flower Shop. To the first time he felt the hate and love of all time washing over him. To the first time he felt all of those things simultaneously seeping into him and cleansing him. He brought the note to his chest and then to his lips. And then, with a tear in his eye, he placed it back into the frame.
The Rosie that left this note would stay here. In a past life. Hidden behind the Rosie in that picture. Hidden behind the Rosie with sunglasses and laughter and printed dresses and sandy toes. This beautiful, effervescent Rosie hiding the Rosie with pills and pain and suffering. It was how it was all along and how it would continue to be now. It was the Rosie he needed to see there in that picture and in his mind. The Rosie Willow and Asher needed to see too. In their lives and in their memories.
But before he walked out of the house, Rex paused to look at Rosie’s photo again. The longer he looked at that photo of Rosie, so happy, so alive, the more that note behind it dissolved into insignificance.
It was nice to have a rare moment of calm, a rare moment of happiness, in the midst of all this chaos of the last few months. Chaos with Rosie. And then without Rosie. And with Willow. And now without Willow.
And, finally, Rex exhaled.
And then got into his car and drove as fast as he could to 299 East 82nd Street.