After dinner at their father’s, Willow and Asher met in the den to play their favorite game: Lava Floor. It was the only game in Willow and Asher’s repertoire that was more fun at Dad’s. Because the den at Dad’s was full of so many surfaces to jump onto once the floor turned to lava. It was full of big leather couches and thick wooden tables and velvety ottomans. All were perfectly sized for far leaps and smooth landings. Willow moved the ivory-and-ebony chessboard that her father left out on the coffee table as a not-so-subtle attempt to get his children to play something more worthwhile than Lava Floor. And then she hopped up on the couch and poised herself for a leap. And even though Willow’s unreliable legs made her pretty bad at Lava Floor, Willow liked watching her brother jump from surface to surface while his silky blond hair flopped all around.
And also, it couldn’t be discounted that she thoroughly enjoyed hopping all around the same couch she was asked to sit on earlier that day with folded hands as her father introduced another one of his girlfriends who ended up staying for dinner. This one had boring blond hair and ate teeny tiny bites at a time. Her shirt was too stiff and her hair was too straight and her pocketbook looked too perfect on her shoulder. Willow liked the idea of jumping wildly up and down on the same surface that lady sat on with a straight back and forced smile.
Willow looked over at Asher, who was squatted down on the end table across the room with his knees bent, elbows tucked by his side and eyes full of determination.
Willow laughed at the intensity of this stance. “Ash, do you have to poop or something?”
And Asher laughed right back. Quickly and loudly. Until they were both interrupted by Rex’s booming voice.
“Hey! You two! Is that Lava Floor?”
Willow knew that her father could always tell when fun was about to be had because his jaw would tighten and his shoulders would press upward. And even if he was three rooms away in his office, undoubtedly reading from his stack of notes and tapping his ballpoint pen, Willow could feel the pulsing tension radiate.
“No shoes on the couch!”
Willow and Asher met eyes, shrugged sneakily and threw off their shoes as if they had never been on and giggled quietly.
And then Asher made his first leap toward the couch a couple feet away. His feet flew into the air, and then sank down into the leather cushion.
“Yeah!” Willow shouted instinctively, and threw her arms in the air to celebrate the first triumph of the game.
Then their father’s voice boomed again.
“Can we keep the noise down, please?”
Willow turned to Asher to shrug again, but he was back in his squatted position, prepared for his second leap to the ottoman next to the fireplace mantel. It was a far leap that Willow had only seen Asher complete once before. And he had tied his blankie around his neck like a cape in order to do it.
Asher pulled his arms back and jumped up again. His straight, blond bowl cut flapped around as he moved through the air. His feet reached the ottoman, but his upper body was off balance. He swung his arms around like windmills before grabbing onto the mantel of the fireplace for support. His hands slid across the top of the dark wood, knocking her father’s favorite vase off balance. It teetered one way, and then the other, and then rolled along the mantel and dripped over the edge. Willow braced herself for a shattered vase but instead, it dropped delicately into the cushioned embrace of the ottoman.
Asher’s eyes widened as far as they could go, and he put both of his little hands over his O-shaped mouth.
And suddenly, Rex was standing right next to Asher, arms folded across his chest and his crooked bottom teeth thrust out.
“What did I say?”
Rex picked up the vase from the ottoman, gripped onto it tightly in anger and slammed it down on the mantel. Rex slammed the vase down so hard that it shattered. It shattered into little flecks of pink and blue and green and clear. And all of those little flecks scattered all across the dark wood floor. They spread under the couch and table and the ottoman.
It got so quiet as the clicking of glass hitting floor trailed off into stillness. Eye of the storm stillness.
And then Rex’s storm came.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! Go to your rooms!” Rex shouted as he thrust his pointer finger in the direction of the staircase. “Now!”
A deep red drop of blood fell from his finger as Willow and Asher stood stunned.
“I said, now!”
And then Willow and Asher scurried upstairs without returning the chessboard to its place on the coffee table or refluffing the pillows or picking up their shoes. They were on the cusp of the giggles. They wanted to laugh so hard at the irony of the event. Of Dad’s favorite vase in pieces by his own doing.
But Willow also felt the sadness of having a father who loathed the sight of shoes on the couch so deeply, so thoroughly, that blood was spilled. Even if it was just a drop. Willow entered her room and sat down on her bed with the weight of her father’s anger pressing heavily on her shoulders and her heart.
* * *
The next words Willow and Asher heard from their father were, “My office for ‘The Box,’ please.” Willow dropped her shoulders and shuffled into the office alongside her brother.
“The Box” was the culmination of Rex’s week collecting misplaced items from around the house—toys, sweatshirts, books, sneakers—and placing them in a blue milk crate. And when the week was over on Sunday night, Rex would dangle each individual object above his head and announce the name of its shameful owner.
“Sock with holes in it. Asher.”
“Purple crayon. Willow.”
“Silly Putty with comic imprint?”
Asher reached his hand out excitedly, not really understanding the purpose of the ritual.
“Look. This is the one whewe Calvin and Hobbes make a snowman,” he explained excitedly. And then he gloated when Rex returned it into his possession.
Rex ignored the non sequitur and got back to business.
“Batman mask. Asher.”
“Hulk action figure. Asher.”
And this continued until the crate was clear. And once it was, Willow and Asher could finally escape Rex’s office and move on to the nighttime checklist.
Toys Away
Homework Finished—Are you forgetting anything?
Laundry in the Basket
Shower—Armpits included
Floss Teeth—Top AND bottom! Molars too!
15 Minutes of Reading—More is OK!
Tuck In
And when it was complete, Rex would slide his hand through the door frame, flipping the light switch into the off position, and then saying, “Night.”
As Willow drifted into sleep, she thought about what it would look like if she created a nighttime checklist for her father. It wouldn’t say tell Willow and Asher about the things they left around the house or to count backward from sixty as they brush their teeth to make sure they aren’t missing any spots. It would only have one thing on it:
Kiss Willow and Asher good-night.
* * *
Willow barely realized that she had fallen asleep when a loud, booming thunder and the knocking of rain woke her up. And when her eyes burst open, her heart was beating furiously and her bladder was pulsing. Her thoughts carouseled around in her mind.
Don’t go. Don’t go. Please don’t go. No accidents. Don’t go. Please don’t go.
Willow closed her eyelids as tightly as she could and put her pointer fingers deep into her ears. But her pointer fingers were no match for rain that sounded like thousands of pebbles had been dumped onto the roof of her room. When a crack of lightning and second explosion of thunder shook her entire body to its core, Willow instinctively leaped out of bed and ran to her father’s room. He would be able to protect her. Calm her.
Willow walked quickly down the long hallway to her dad’s room with panic fluttering inside her and her fingers still in her ears. She gently pushed the door open, trying not to wake her father as harshly as the thunder had woken her up.
“Dad,” Willow whispered, walking toward his bed.
“Dad.”
“Dad.”
“Willow?” Rex said with a raspy voice and his eyes still closed. “What’s going on?”
“The storm,” Willow confessed.
No response.
“I’m scared.”
“Willow, it’s the middle of the night. We’re inside. Go back to sleep.”
But the wind was still howling and the rain was still slapping against the windows. And her heart was still racing and her bladder was still pulsing and she was too scared to go to the bathroom alone. Being inside didn’t make any of it better.
Willow stood in her father’s dark bedroom, Keith Haring T-shirt down to her knees, shivering with fear. Willow couldn’t bring herself to leave just yet. She watched her father’s shadow rolling over in bed, turning his back to her. She stared at the empty space next to him in bed, wishing she could jump in there. Wishing she could jump in there for a hug and then a back tickle. She stared at that space so hard. She wanted to be in that space so badly.
And then that space moved.
And a second shadow appeared.
The shadow of a woman. A stiff, thin woman with long straight hair strewn across the pillow. Willow was sure it was the same woman she had seen before.
Willow’s right knee buckled as she turned around and walked back to her room. A single tear formed in her chest, and then made its way slowly into her eye and down her cheek.
When Willow woke up, her entire bed was wet and everything smelled like urine.